“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

The Beauty of Motherhood
The Life of Archbishop
Lefebvre’s Mother
Interview with a Traditional
Catholic Mother Today

January - February 2014

Motherhood
“The Cana marriage is the only occasion in Sacred
Scripture where Mary, the Mother of Jesus, is
mentioned before Him. It is very likely that it was
one of her relatives who was being married, and
possible that she was present at the wedding
before Him....The lesson of Cana is that Mary
intercedes to gain us what we need, without our
always knowing our needs. Neither the wine
steward nor the diners knew that the wine was
failing; therefore, they could not ask for help. In
like manner, if we do not know what our soul
needs, how can we put such needs in our prayers?
Often we do not know what is vital to our lives...”
—Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Photograph: Window, Marriage at Cana, Notre-Dame, Paris

Letter
from the
Publisher
Last year, we dedicated an entire issue of The Angelus to fathers in an effort
to help them in their divinely ordained role to lead their families to heaven. Of
course, the father is only one half of the equation; what could any father do without the heart of the home, his wife and mother of his children? It is thus fitting
that we also dedicate the same attention to helping mothers.
Some of you may be familiar with the story of St. Pius X and his mother. After
being consecrated a bishop in Italy, Giuseppe Sarto was on a visit to his family.
He showed his mother his new episcopal ring, to which she is said to have replied:
“As beautiful as it is, remember you would not have it without my own wedding
ring.” Archbishop Lefebvre is another example of a great person who credited his
mother for setting such a good example in the home.
The duty, then, is great, and the stakes high. In most cases, the mother
spends the majority of time with the children, at least until a certain age. The
influence is thus a reality, whether for good or ill.
Yet what a model mothers have! Our Lady is always there, not just as an historical figure, but ready to help mothers just as much today as ever. The practice
of praying the daily Rosary thus has a unique relevance for mothers.
We hope that some of the material here helps you fulfill the special work God
has given to you.

Fr. Arnaud Rostand
Publisher

January - February 2014
Volume XXXVII, Number 1
Publisher
Fr. Arnaud Rostand
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Contents
Letter from the Publisher

4

Theme: Motherhood
– A Model of Motherhood
– The Feminine Mystique Critiqued
– The Role of the Mother in the Modern World

6
10
15

Faith and Morals
– Liturgy: Roman Liturgy in the Light of the East
– Doctrine: Can God Be Named?

22
26

Spirituality
– Spirituality: Padre Pio…a Priest

33

Christian Culture
– History: The Inquisition Defended
– Lives of the Saints: St. Rita of Cascia, Saint of the Impossible
– Family Life: A Mother’s Spiritual Love

43
50
54

– Questions and Answers

58

(inc. Canada and Mexico)

“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

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under the patronage of St. Pius X and Mary,
Queen of Angels. Publication office is located at
PO Box 217, St. Marys, KS 66536.
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©2014 BY ANGELUS PRESS. OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE
PRIESTLY SOCIETY OF SAINT PIUS X FOR THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

– Church and World
– Theological Studies
– Letters to the Editor
– The Last Word

64
79
84
87

Theme Motherhood

A Model of
Motherhood
Gabrielle Lefebvre-Watine, Mother of Archbishop Lefebvre

by Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, SSPX

If it is true that “the soul of a priest is
formed on his mother’s lap,” then seeking to
know Gabrielle Watine will help us understand
Archbishop Lefebvre more fully. Gabrielle Watine
was born in Roubaix on July 4, 1880, the fourth
of seven children of a textile manufacturer’s
family in the north of France. Gabrielle Watine
clearly inherited her mother’s energetic spirit and
learned Christian piety from her good example.
She accompanied her mother on visits to working
families and the poor under the aegis of the St.
Vincent de Paul Society; seeing the weeping
sores and pale faces of the anemic was a valuable
experience.
At boarding school she showed “a balanced
temperament, smiling energy, a pleasant manner,
modesty and gentleness.” Her personality came
out in the discussions of ideas in which she
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January - February 2014

participated energetically, never wanting to give
way out of weakness.
When she had finished her education, Gabrielle
was uncertain about her future. Should she
become a nun? After much prayer and reflection,
and having discussed the matter with her
spiritual director, she decided she should marry.
She was married on April 16, 1902, to René
Lefebvre, a young manufacturer of Tourcoing.

Mother of a Large Family
Convinced that the future of a Catholic
homeland depends on fruitful Christian
marriages, the Lefebvre-Watines wanted to
surround themselves with many children: After
René, who was to become a missionary, came

Jeanne, a future nun of Mary Reparatrix; and
Marcel, born November 29, 1905. Then came
Bernadette, a future missionary Sister and then
co-foundress of the Congregation of the Sisters of
the Society of St. Pius X; and Christiane, a future
Carmelite. After “the five eldest,” all of whom
would answer God’s call to the religious life, were
born Joseph and Michael, who carried on the
family name, and Marie-Thérèse, born in 1925.

Action and Contemplation
Mrs. Lefebvre was both profoundly spiritual
and, in spite of her duties as a mother, an
extremely apostolic woman. Her apostolic
activities were not her activities as a mother, but
as a Catholic woman. Her apostolic spirit had
a good influence on her children; this influence
was her own as a mother. But in themselves, her
apostolic activities could have been an obstacle
to her dedication to the family. But the good Lord
had His plan and she followed the judgment of
her spiritual director, who encouraged her in the
direction of her apostolic zeal. Marcel inherited
all these traits. She was a qualified Red Cross
nurse and devoted one and a half days a week to
the care of the sick in a clinic, seeking out the
tasks which others preferred to avoid. She and her
husband were also members of the St. Vincent de
Paul Society and visited the poor, but her most
important apostolate was with the Franciscan
Tertiaries. Under the guidance of Mrs. Lefebvre,
who became president of the chapter in Tourcoing,
the number of Third Order “sisters” reached eight
hundred. The novice mistresses were chosen by
her, and they had their own private retreats.
Directed by her spiritual director, Father
Huré, a Montfortian priest, she practised
penance. Among her personal effects now
preserved at the International Seminary of St.
Pius X at Ecône, Switzerland, are her hair shirt
and a spiked iron chain she wore around her
waist. But soon, after the privations and trials
of the war years, Mrs. Lefebvre contracted
Pott’s disease, or spinal tuberculosis, from her
imprisonment by the Germans in the basement
of city hall, where she had been confined for

The future Mrs. Lefebvre in a picture taken in 1902

her patriotic resistance. For a year and a half
she had to stay lying down, encased in a corset
of plaster of Paris, sleepless, tortured, a living
example of Jesus crucified. Marcel would say
later on: “We understood what suffering is. We
five older children were really marked by it. Our
vocation to the religious life originated then.”

Spiritual Life
Father Huré had taught Gabrielle how
to do mental prayer. She meditated and did
spiritual reading. She was courageous and
magnanimous, and practised mortification and
self-sacrifice. In 1917, she took a vow always to
do the more perfect thing (which she renewed
at each confession). She lived by faith, referring
everything to God and His holy will, and the most
abiding characteristic of her soul was gratitude
to Divine Providence.
7

Theme Motherhood
The Educator
She was an excellent educator. Her husband
set high standards for his children, but tended to
be excessively severe in his demands. She, on the
other hand, was more balanced; she preferred to
guide the family by establishing an atmosphere
of trust that never crushed the children’s
spontaneity, but stimulated their generosity by
good example. To one of her daughters who had
committed a slight fault, she made this tactful
Lefebvre Family in 1923

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January - February 2014

remark: “I say, my dear, in that you may not have
been at your best...”

The Sanctuary of the Home
The Lefebvres’ home was a sanctuary with its
own liturgy, in which the Blessed Sacrament held
the central place. While Father went to Mass with
the maid Louise at 6:15 a.m. and served for the
Dean, Mother woke the children, made the sign

of the cross on their foreheads, and made sure
they made their morning offering. Then she went
to Mass at 7 a.m. with the children who were old
enough to walk—they did not need to be asked
twice to go. When they were older, they went
to Mass at boarding school. Every evening, the
family prayers led by the father gave them the
opportunity to put right any disagreements that
might have occurred during the day, and to unite
their hearts in God’s love. The children never went
to bed without receiving their parents’ blessing.

Ascension and Consummation
Gabrielle had the joy of seeing her children,
one after the other, find the path prepared for
them by divine providence. She corresponded
often with her three missionaries in Africa, and
her letters remain a source of spiritual guidance.
The ascension of her soul to God was
consummated during her final illness, an
intestinal obstruction or perhaps cancer. She was
hospitalized on July 7, 1938, and on the 11th was
given Extreme Unction. She admitted: “I could
not have imagined that it was possible to suffer
like this.” On the 12th she received Communion
and made a large sign of the cross to bless from
afar her five eldest children who could not be
there. Then she said to her three youngest: “I
am not St. Theresa of the Child Jesus, but I will
obtain for you whatever you ask me.” And then
turning towards her husband: “You too, René,”
she said. That morning she had said to her
brother Felix: “You know, I am going to heaven.”
And when he looked at her speechless, she added:
“I am called to Paradise.” In the evening around
5 p.m., she gave her last piece of advice to her
children: “Put the good Lord above everything
on earth.” After the prayers for the dying recited
by the family, she had “this amazing look on her
face as if she were seeing something impossible
to describe and towards which she felt drawn,
because she seemed to be trying to prop herself
up in bed,” and then she breathed her last.
Convinced of the holiness of their mother,
the Lefebvre children did not hesitate to invoke
her intercession. Fr. Le Crom’s study of the soul
of Mrs. Lefebvre (Rev. Le Crom, The Life of
Gabrielle Lefebvre: The Mother of Archbishop
Lefebvre, Kansas City: Angelus Press, 1994)
reveals her continual renouncement and constant
union with God in thanksgiving—a mark that
shows that the fundamental gift of wisdom has
been active.
Adapted from Marcel Lefebvre: The Biography, tr. Brian Sudlow (Kansas City:
Angelus Press, 2004), pp. 5, 6, 7-8, 106-7.
Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais is one of the four bishops consecrated by
Archbishop Lefebvre in 1988. He is the author of Marcel Lefebvre, the definitive
biography of the archbishop. He resides at Our Lady Immaculate Priory in
Chicago, IL.

9

Theme Motherhood

Feminism at Fifty

The Feminine
Mystique
Critiqued
by Fr. Jonathan Loop, SSPX

10

1

The Feminine Mystique,
20th Anniversary edition
(New York: Dell Publ. Co.,
1983) p. 356.

2

“Honoring Our Founders”
from National Organization
of Women website: http://
www.now.org/history/
founders.html. Accessed on
23 December 2013. Friedan
would also contribute to
the founding of the National
Association for the Repeal
of Abortion Laws in 1969,
especially by encouraging
the organization to promote
a policy of permitting
abortion “at the discretion
of the mother,” as opposed
to allowing it merely in
more limited cases of rape,
incest, etc.

The Angelus

January - February 2014

Twenty thirteen marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of The
Feminine Mystique,1 a passionate attack by a woman named Betty
Friedan on the traditional role of women as wives and mothers. In it, she
claims that the majority of women embraced these responsibilities because
it was what was expected of them by society, despite the fact that it left them
unfulfilled. According to Mrs. Friedan, an unthinking attitude prevailed
among both men and women, both high and low society, which viewed
women as incapable of any worthwhile contribution to civic life. For her
part, she believed that to be a mere “housewife” rendered one somehow less
than a human being, and she recommended that women strive to take their
place in the world outside the home, especially by seeking higher education.
Three years after the publication of her influential work, she would be
elected the first president of the National Organization of Women, helping
to draft its first mission statement, which begins: “The purpose of NOW
is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream
of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities
thereof in truly equal partnership with men.”2 Given the enormous influence
of her work—both in print and in the political arena—it is appropriate to

3

Feminine Mystique, p. 47.

examine her principal arguments to see what is at the basis of the harsh
attack against motherhood in our day.

“The Happy Housewife Heroine”
To simplify, we may identify two basic levels of Mrs. Friedan’s arguments.
She begins by addressing some of the particular attitudes towards women
which dominated American society in the 1950s before moving to a more
profound and philosophical attack of the traditional institution of marriage.
Her first tactic may be seen in one of the early chapters of her work, where
she conducts an analysis of the content of women’s magazines for the
previous 20 years and argues that she finds in them a gradually growing
presentation of what she calls “the happy housewife heroine.” In other words,
these magazines (such as McCall’s, Ladies Home Journal, and Redbook)
tended to propose as models women who sacrificed their own personal
ambitions in order to be the perfect wife and mother. She writes: “The end
of the road is togetherness, where the woman has no independent self...;
she exists only for and through her husband and children.”3 This was, in the
mind of Mrs. Friedan, a marked and lamentable departure from the literature
available in the same magazines in the late 1930s and early 1940s, which

11

Theme Motherhood
4

Ibid., p. 65.

5

Ibid., p. 44.

6

Casti Connubii, para. 27.

7

Feminine Mystique, p. 68.

8

Feminine Mystique, p. 310.

were more likely to praise women who sought fulfillment in endeavors
unrelated to matrimony.
Mrs. Friedan also points out that in many cases the heroines of such
stories or articles tended to glory in their lack of personal opinions about
any subjects other than their ability to please their husbands. She argues
that at least one publication went so far as to “assume frankly that women
are brainless, fluffy creatures.”4 In this regard, she states that the women
depicted in the women’s magazines became progressively younger—not
so much in age as in maturity. “They seem to get younger all the time—in
looks and in a childlike kind of dependence.”5 The reason for this is that they
“have no vision of the future, except to have a baby.” In other words, she
claims that the model wife as presented in the popular culture of the day has
the maturity of an eight-year-old who likes to play with dolls. Interestingly
enough, on the surface her words sound remarkably similar to a comment of
Pope Pius XI in Casti Connubii: “Nor does [subjection] imply that the wife
should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to
whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of
their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs.”6 Wives
are not children and ought not to be treated as such. Evidently, the similarity
remains on the surface, as may be seen by the fact that the context of this
papal citation is the wholehearted endorsement of the subjection of wives
to their husbands and, as we shall see, their subordination to the common
good of the family. Mrs. Friedan would have dismissed this as a half-hearted
attempt to treat women as unique persons while still denying them the
substance of individuality.
Indeed, her attacks against the division of labor in traditional marriage—
namely, that it denies women any personal ambitions and tends to prevent
them from coming of age—rest on deeper foundations. This becomes
evident at the conclusion of the chapter we have been discussing, where
she asks: “Why, with the removal of all the...barriers that kept women from
being man’s equal, a person in her own right, an individual free to develop
her own potential, why would she accept this new image which insists she
is not a person but a ‘woman,’ by definition barred from the freedom of
human existence and a voice in human destiny?”7 Her contempt for a vision
of womanhood tied to the majestic reality of conferring new life—both
physical and moral—originates in her understanding of human freedom and
self-realization (i.e., the development of one’s potential).

The Courage to Be an Individual?
This becomes clear in a later chapter of the book titled “The Forfeited
Self.” There she posits that: “Thinkers in many fields...postulate some
positive growth tendency within the organism...which drives it to fuller
development, to self-realization.”8 She explains: “This ‘will to power’...as it
is called...is the individual affirming his existence and his potentialities as
a being in his own right; it is the ‘courage to be an individual.’ ” Despite the
technical jargon which she employs, the basic idea is quite simple: in order to
12

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January - February 2014

9

St. John 8:32.

10

Feminine Mystique, p. 312.

11

Ephesians 3:14.

12

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus
Spake Zarathustra, Third
Part: “Old & New Tables,”
section 12.

prove that one exists, one must sharply distinguish oneself from everything
that surrounds oneself. One can only do this by indulging in self-expression,
by being “creative,” and unleashing one’s hidden talents. This vision stands in
stark contrast to that of Catholicism, which takes for granted that we exist
and which argues that our goal in life is to conform ourselves to a reality
which exists independently from us and is superior to us. As our Lord Jesus
Christ stated: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”9
These two opposing viewpoints may be made more intelligible if we
consider their application to the field of painting and sculpture. Our Lord’s
understanding of man’s perfection may be illustrated by the art of someone
like Giotto or Raphael. These artists viewed their art as successful inasmuch
as it faithfully reproduced reality. Mrs. Friedan’s understanding of human
worth may be compared to the work of Jackson Pollock or any other
purveyor of modern art. Such art is deemed successful not in spite of the fact
that it is unintelligible to anyone but the artist, but precisely for that reason.
For such art is meant to be an expression of that person’s individuality,
something which by its nature is incommunicable.

A Woman Must Be Free
To return to women, Friedan argues that to see them as being merely
wives and mothers is to deprive them on a very deep level from the capability
of expressing themselves and, as a result, of affirming their personal
existence. They would exist only in relation to another and therefore cease
to exist in their own right. In order to “become what she can be,” a woman
must be free to abandon the four walls of her home and do whatever she
pleases without reference to her husband and children. This is one reason
why Friedan was such an avid supporter of abortion at the discretion of the
woman—i.e., on demand. For she must be free to choose whether or not she
wants to accept the burdens of child-rearing and to express her individuality
in this manner.
Mrs. Friedan is, in effect, applying the principles of the philosophical
system of existentialism to women and marriage. As her use of the expression “will to power” implies, she owes not a little to one of the fathers of
modern existentialism, Friedrich Nietzsche. Among other things, she shares
with him a fascination for the future. Indeed, she identifies as the peculiarly
human trait: “the ability to transcend the present and to act in light of
the possible, the mysterious capacity to shape the future.”10 This attitude
contains a deep if implicit rejection of the past, which means a repudiation
of one’s forebears. In other words, one disavows one’s forefathers and,
ultimately, God, “from whom all Fatherhood is named on heaven and on
earth.”11 This is made clear in Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra: “Exiles
shall ye be from all fatherlands and forefather-lands! Your children’s land
shall ye love: let this love be your new nobility.”12 The worst of all fatherlands,
in Nietzsche’s mind, the one from which men ought especially to become
voluntary exiles, is Christianity, as he makes clear earlier in the same
section: “[Do not count it an honor]...that a Spirit called Holy, led your
13

Theme Motherhood
13

Feminine Mystique, p. 42.

14

Casti Connubii, para. 103.

Fr. Jonathan Loop was born and
raised an Episcopalian. He attended
college at the University of Dallas,
where he received the grace to
convert through the intermediary of
several of his fellow students, some
of whom later went on to become
religious with the Dominicans of
Fanjeaux. After graduating with
a bachelor’s degree in political
philosophy, he enrolled in St.
Thomas Aquinas Seminary, where
he was ordained in June 2011.

14

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January - February 2014

forefathers into promised lands, which I do not praise: for where the worst of
all trees grew—the cross—in that land there is nothing to praise!”
While it would be a stretch to claim that Mrs. Friedan had these lines
before her mind when she criticized the traditional role of women as wives
and mothers, she was undoubtedly influenced by Nietzsche’s spirit. This
becomes evident when she implicitly repudiates the comparison of the
housewife to the Blessed Virgin Mary: “And the American housewife is
reminded that Catholic countries of the Middle Ages ‘elevated the gentle
and inconspicuous Mary into the Queen of Heaven and built their loveliest
cathedrals to Notre Dame.’ ”13 In other words, the Catholic ideal of women
imitating the hidden virtues of the Blessed Virgin Mary serves only to trap
women in the self-effacing world of housewifery. Thus, Our Lady as a model
must be cast aside so as to permit a more free woman to come to the fore.

Mrs. Friedan’s attack on motherhood as outlined above has had a
powerful and deep influence on contemporary American society. We
traditional Catholics would be lying to ourselves if we believe we have
remained unaffected by such a woman’s arguments. Certainly, we reject
the more obvious points in her program, such as abortion and birth control,
but we tend to think like her when it comes to our attitudes concerning the
relative importance of such things as women’s dress, education, dating, and
employment outside the home. To counter the deeply nihilistic thinking
inherent in modern feminism requires more than that traditional Catholic
women wear dresses on Sundays and have as many children as God allows.
Rather, it requires a deep recognition of the order God wills as made
known to us by the Church and a willingness to submit to it, as Pope Pius
XI makes clear in Casti Connubii: “It is necessary that a filial and humble
obedience towards the Church should be combined with devotedness to
God and the desire of submitting to Him.”14 We are called not merely to avoid
what the Church declares to be sinful, but to understand and to embrace
generously what she proclaims we must do: to respect the hierarchy in
marriage and the subsequent division of labor within the home. This requires, of course, that we study what the Church and the popes (such as Pius
XII) have taught regarding the marital state. Only in this manner shall we
have the tools to defend the traditional roles of men and women in the family
against the attacks of thinkers like Friedan and their unthinking followers
in our own day. Although on the 50th anniversary of the Feminine Mystique
her ideas appear triumphant, we can work in our families to ensure both that
they do not reign in our homes and that this date represents a high water
mark for her influence.

The Role of
the Mother in
the Modern
World
Interview with a traditional Catholic mother

The Angelus: Can you give us a brief
introduction to your family and background?
Mother: I was raised in a pagan background,
marrying at a young age, and converting to
Catholicism a year after our marriage. Coming
from a family in which there was abuse,
alcoholism, as well as infidelity, I knew that I
wanted something different for my own family.
I went into marriage with never a question in
my mind that it was for life, despite that lack of
example when I was growing up.
The Angelus: Has your family always been
Catholic, traditional or otherwise?
Mother: We came to Tradition after some
time. However, we were always Catholic, truly
endeavoring to live a Catholic life. Before
1989, we attended the Novus Ordo Mass, never

liking the changes, and consequently doing a
bit of church hopping—hoping to find the most
conservative Mass available. It took a major
problem in our own family to make my husband
and I ask ourselves what we were doing wrong.
We had always tried to live our faith, taught our
children their catechism, yet there was a division
between us as parents and our older children.
My mother-in-law was reading one of Archbishop
Lefebvre’s books and told us about the SSPX. It
took an Ignatian retreat to unite us. My daughter
told us that up to that point they had never heard
anyone tell them what we had told them about the
Faith, not until they attended the retreat.
The Angelus: What is your ideal or vision of
raising a truly Catholic family?
Mother: We are the parents of a large
15

Theme Motherhood
family, accepting the children as God sent
them. The Church teaches us that not only are
we to have the children, but also that we are
responsible for their education... Instructing them
in their Faith, taking care of their daily needs,
making sure they are well-formed spiritually,
academically and otherwise... Loving them. It
is important to see and understand each child
as an individual with their own needs and
temperament.
The Angelus: What were the biggest
challenges you faced raising a family in the
modern world?
Mother: The biggest challenge we faced
while raising our children was that at that point
there was not any support from anyone that we
were doing the right thing. The priests, sisters,
family, friends—no one agreed with the number
of children we had and with the values we were
trying to instill in our children. We didn’t know
any other large families until we came to the
SSPX. The temptation for me was to question if
we were really doing what we should. Could we
really take proper care of such a large family?
Surely we couldn’t give our children everything
they needed. One priest told me I wasn’t expected
to be a martyr. Today we have the SSPX and
other families to support one another.
The Angelus: Do you think it’s easier or
harder to raise a family now than when you did?
Why or why not?
Mother: In one sense it’s easier now as
we have priests to help us, other families to
associate with, good Catholic schools, and so
many other things offered by the SSPX. There are
great books to read on how to raise one’s family.
However, I would say that one of the biggest
challenges faced by families today is the modern
technology that brings the world into one’s home.
Technology can be used for good, but there is
deadly harm in it as well. It is a real struggle to
use it properly without compromises in allowing
the spirit of the world to permeate the sanctuary
of one’s home.
The Angelus: What qualities did you look for
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January - February 2014

in your husband that you would recommend to
young ladies today?
Mother: Firstly, does the young man live his
Faith? What importance does he place on it?
Does he pray and study his Faith? Does he have a
steady job as well as having some money saved?
What do other people think of the young man?
How does he treat his mother?
The Angelus: What can you say about the joys
and challenges of a large family?
Mother: God has blessed us with many
children. Raising them, one of the challenges
we faced was knowing how to direct each child
with their various temperaments and difficulties.
Another one was having enough money to take
care of our large family. The work load of having
a lot of children is tremendous. At times the
cooking, cleaning, changing diapers, etc., never
seemed to end. There was no time for oneself at
all. However, there were also many joys. Also,
because there were so many of us, we were
able to accomplish many things that a smaller
family would not have found possible. Today,
my children are not only my children, they are
my friends, always happy to call and come home
whenever they can. We are closer than ever,
knowing, understanding, and supporting each
other in the crosses that life brings.
The Angelus: Were there Catholic schools
available for your children? If not, did you
homeschool? What advice can you give mothers
regarding education?
Mother: There were not any Catholic schools
available, so our children attended public school.
We had five graduate from this system and then
we began to homeschool a few of the younger
children. As I saw how quickly they learned,
we decided to continue on that road. A couple
of years later, we took the rest of the children
out of public school. From that point on, we
homeschooled each year for about twenty years.
Homeschooling is difficult as it requires even
more time and energy from the mother. In such
a situation, it is essential to have a schedule
and to see the importance of making the home
education a truly good education. It can be

difficult to hold to high standards and to not slip
into mediocrity of learning simply because it
is easier to deal with. Although homeschooling
sometimes is the only option—as it was in our
case—it does have many negatives, even in the
best circumstances. If a good Catholic school
is available, take advantage of it! But remember
that a good education begins at home even with
a good school—basic etiquette, catechism,
discipline, order in everyday life.
The Angelus: What was the relationship like
between you and your husband, especially in the
raising of your children? What advice would you
give along these lines?
Mother: We always supported one another,

particularly in front of the children. Our
disagreements were private. It is very important
that the parents are united.
The Angelus: How did you and your husband
handle the discipline of the children?
Mother: When the children were little, a swat
from Mom or Dad sometimes was needed. Many
times a snap of the fingers and a look from Mom
was enough. For the little ones, sitting on the
time-out chair was a good punishment. Some of
our children have since told us that they hated
having to stand in the corner more than any other
punishment. As the children grew older, writing
a paragraph on an assigned subject worked very
well since it meant the offender had to think
about his misdeed by the subject assigned. For

Celebration of Mothers’ Day at Christ the King Priory, Brussels, Belgium: After the High Mass the parish offers flowers to the mothers of all ages.

17

Theme Motherhood
certain offenses when the children were older,
I simply told them they would have to see their
father when he arrived home from work that
day. He would speak to them and assign a just
punishment, perhaps some extra work or the
removal of some privilege.

The Angelus: What do your children think is
your strongest point as a mother?
Mother: I asked one of my sons for help with
this question. His reply, “It’s your unselfish giving
of yourself... Oh, and your pie and breadmaking
skills too!” (with a grin).

The Angelus: Can you describe the spiritual
life of the family? Did you pray the daily
Rosary or have any devotions which you would
recommend?
Mother: The spiritual life of my husband was
what attracted me to the Catholic Faith at the
beginning of our marriage. I would watch him
say his morning and evening prayers, his daily
Rosary... His example of prayer made me desire
to have what he had. Prayer was very much a
part of our life from the very beginning. Besides
our daily Rosary as a family, we would help the
children with morning and evening prayers. In
addition, we celebrated the liturgical life of the
Church. Such things as earning straws for the
Baby Jesus during Advent, choosing an Advent
person to try to be extra charitable to without
them knowing, dressing up as saints for All
Saints’ Day with a party at home, making May
altars and having processions in honor of Our
Lady, doing the Stations of the Cross each Friday
of Lent, having a special gift for each one to
celebrate the Feast of St. Nicholas, having special
meals to celebrate big feasts, etc.—all these
things brought the Faith to life for our children. It
is important to instill in one’s children the joy the
Catholic Faith brings to one’s soul. The Church
offers a wealth of things for us to take advantage
of!

The Angelus: How would you define the role
of a mother to her children?
Mother: The older I get, the more I see the
importance of a good mother. A mother has the
responsibility of training the children the most. It
first starts with the giving of herself. It is, many
times, a thankless job, particularly when the
children are young. I would say a mother’s role is
crucial especially in the following areas: that a
mother loves her children without spoiling them,
that she teaches them their Faith, that she makes
sure there is order in the home, and that she trains
her children to give of themselves (which begins
with one’s own example more than anything).

The Angelus: What was home life like for
you with your husband away during the work day
and a house full of children? Are there any tips or
tricks?
Mother: BUSY! Many days seemed very long,
but I was so busy there was little free time. And
when there was spare time, I learned many things
to fill in those times. Tips? A schedule is of the
utmost importance as naps and bedtimes give
you times to do things you can’t otherwise fit in.
They also serve to refresh you.
18

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The Angelus: What did you direct your
children to do for recreation? Sports, games, TV?
Mother: With so many siblings, our children
were each other’s best friends. For recreation
they played sports together: volleyball, keep
away, kickball, cops and robbers, sledding in the
winter, etc. They went on bike rides and hikes
together and with their father. We sang together
and played board games and cards. Musical
instruments (especially piano) were a big part of
their lives. The boys were into woodworking and
the girls had artistic pursuits in other areas. Our
children also loved to read—almost too much!
We set a limit to all of these things since there
were, of course, duties to be done as well. The
children were all expected to help with dishes,
meals, cleaning, garden work, taking care of
the animals, etc. They had a set work time each
day, followed by recreation time. They learned
that time was not just their time to spend as
they wished. We did have a TV in our younger
years, but it only went on if Dad turned it on. The
children never asked. DVDs were very limited
and television even more so.
The Angelus: Did you ever have trouble with

black sheep among your children? For instance,
someone who refused to go to Mass on Sunday?
What advice can you give for others in similar
situations?
Mother: There was a time before we came to
Tradition when we could see our family was not
united. When our older children became a serious
bad example to the younger ones, we asked them
to move out and get their own apartment. If they
couldn’t abide by the house rules, it was time to
move out. I encourage others in similar situations
to have patience and charity and to pray very
much for their children. Once the problem has
been addressed, it is better not to continually
bring it up. This simply serves to turn the child
away. Patience and charity in whatever possible
is the best route.
The Angelus: Did you try primarily to
preserve your children from the world or prepare
them for it? Or both?
Mother: We endeavored to keep the world
out of our home, especially when our children
were young. We did travel to other places and
visit other good families. I think we could have
prepared them better for stepping out into the
world. It is important, yet difficult, to prepare
them properly. On one hand, one can’t expose
them too much, but nor can one completely
isolate them from what they must eventually face.
The Angelus: Did you impose any codes
regarding dress, behavior, and speech?
Mother: From the time our children were very
little, we formed them with the idea of dressing
modestly and in a feminine manner, teaching
and explaining why one should dress this way.
Our older daughters wore slacks around the
house in the beginning, but as they grew up and
we came to Tradition, they understood why one
shouldn’t do so. We never had any struggles with
our children on this issue. Being careful not to
project the worldly view of what is fashionable
and “normal” and thus desirable (via television,
magazines, etc.)—protected our daughters from
forming ideas that they must dress a certain way
in order to fit in. Their formation in this area
was not imposed upon by the worldliness of the
examples set before most young people today.

The behavior and speech were worked on
little by little as they grew up. We had certain
standards of course, but many times lessons
were taught by incidents that occurred. Training
of children is a slow process. Perseverance and
consistency are the keys.
The Angelus: How would you define a
successful mother?
Mother: A successful mother is someone who
has a love for souls and is able to transmit that
love of souls to her children... Someone who
inspires in her children the giving of themselves
and inspires a love of their Faith.
The Angelus: What are the consolations of
being a mother?
Mother: A big consolation in being a mother is
the love and appreciation that is given in return
by the children as they grow. In a large family
especially, one is never lonely. Even though our
children live all over the world now, we are as
close as ever in heart and soul. I also hear from
them regularly and they come home to visit as
often as they possibly can.
The Angelus: How did you foster vocations in
the home?
Mother: A number of things come to mind
as crucially important. Firstly, live your Faith
within the home. It impacts every aspect of one’s
life, and the children must be impregnated with
this idea. Secondly, always support the religious
and do not speak against them. It is so important
to instill in one’s children an attachment to the
Faith itself. The emphasis should not be on the
instruments God uses, but on the beauty and joy
of Catholicism and on how to fully live a Catholic
life. Thirdly, encourage sacrifice in your children,
a giving of themselves...a love for souls. Fourthly,
speak of religious vocations to them, expose
them to the beautiful lives of the saints. As they
grow older, help them to understand that their
first question for themselves is whether God is
calling them to a religious vocation. Help your
children to understand the purpose of courtship
and discourage dating until your children are
mature and ready for marriage!
19

Berthe Petit was a humble Franciscan
tertiary, a victim soul, and an apostle of
devotion to the Sorrowful and Immaculate
Heart of Mary. She was born on January
23, 1870, in Enghien, Belgium, and died in
1943. She had been privileged with visions
of both Our Lord and the Blessed Virgin
Mary since the age of four. These are the
words that were spoken to her by the Holy
Infant as he traced a cross on her forehead
while she knelt in front of the tabernacle:
“You will always suffer, but I am with you.”
During the month of February 1915, Our
Lord said the following words to Berthe: “It is through the
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of My Mother that I will
triumph, because having co-operated in the redemption of
souls, this Heart has the right to share a similar co-operation
in the manifestations of My justice and of My love. My Mother
is noble in everything, but she is especially so in her wounded
Heart, transfixed by the wound of mine.”
Cardinal Mercier, in the middle of World War I, wrote the
following in a pastoral letter on March 7, 1915, after his return
to Belgium from Rome: “Our Holy Father the Pope asks that
the mothers and widows now in mourning would stand on
Good Friday with the Mother of Jesus, at the foot of the Cross,
and unite their sacrifice with the bloody sacrifices of the
Redemption....On Good Friday we shall consecrate ourselves
to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.” On Good
Friday he consecrated his diocese and his country to the
Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.
The same year, Cardinal Bourne, Archbishop of Westminster
and Primate of England, gave thanks to God for the victories
obtained on the Marne and on the Yser and wrote: “It has ever
been the practice of the children of the Catholic Church to
beg in all their cares and anxieties the help and intercession
of her who was privileged to stand by her Divine Son dying
on the Cross, and we desire today to exhort you, dear
Reverend Fathers and dear children in Jesus Christ, to place
all your prayers and supplications under the protection of
the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Jesus Christ
Our Lord might, had He so willed, have dissociated His holy
Mother from the sorrows and awful sadness of His Passion
and Death. Such was not His Will. Having bestowed upon her
by His owns free choice, in view of her Divine Motherhood,
that complete immunity from original sin, which we name
her Immaculate Conception, He willed to ask her acceptance
of the fullest share in His sufferings for our redemption that
it was possible for any creature to receive. That acceptance
she gave freely, unhesitatingly, and in fullest measure, for our
sake; and thereby merited from her Divine Son a place and
power of intercession that belongs to her alone.”
Photo: Pieta , Priory in Bonn, Germany

Faith and Morals

Roman
Liturgy
in the Light
of the East
by Gabriel S. Sanchez

Reflecting on his Parisian childhood in
the 1930s, the late Russian Orthodox émigré
theologian Fr. Alexander Schmemann recalled
how, on the way to class, he would slip into
the Roman Catholic Church of St. Charles of
Monceau “for two or three minutes, and always
in this huge dark church at one of the altars a
silent Mass was being said.” For Schmemann
“this never-changing Mass” is “the presence
in this world of something absolutely and
totally Other” which “illumines everything in
one way or another, everything is related to
it.” Decades later, upon returning from his trip
as an official observer at the Second Vatican
Council, Father Schmemann confessed to the
New York Times that the event provided him the
opportunity “to thank God [he] was Orthodox.”
Though Schmemann could not have foreseen in
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January - February 2014

November 1963 what was to happen to “the neverchanging Mass” in the wake of Vatican II, these
were his thoughts upon watching Pope John Paul
II serve Mass at Yankee Stadium in New York in
1979:

Presence of the Eternal
“In 1965, I watched the service performed
by Pope Paul VI in the same Yankee Stadium,
and despite everything it was the presence, the
appearance on earth of the eternal, the superearthly, whereas yesterday I had the feeling
that the main thing was the message. And the
message is again and again: peace and justice,
human family, social work. An opportunity
was given, a fantastic chance to tell millions of

millions people about God, to reveal to them
that more than anything else they need God, but
here, on the contrary, the whole goal it seemed
consisted in proving that the Church can also
speak the jargon of the United Nations.”
Schmemann, despite his lifelong fidelity to
the Orthodox Church, was no anti-Catholic bigot
looking for cheap opportunities to engage in
polemical triumphalism against the “Latin West.”
As an outsider looking in who also possessed a
deep love for liturgy, he saw, just as many still
see, a disturbing degradation of contemporary
Roman worship which, at the experiential level
at least, leaves Catholicism unpalatable to many
Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Orthodox
Church, perhaps more than any other extant
Christian confession, places a premium on not
just the ancientness of liturgical rites, but their
beauty and transcendent expressiveness as well.
It should come as no surprise that Alexei II, the
late Patriarch of Moscow, publicly welcomed
Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum
in 2007 while, more recently, Metropolitan
Hilarion Alfeyev, a leading prelate of the Russian
Orthodox Church and accomplished scholar,
called on Catholics and Orthodox to examine
the common roots of their respective liturgical
traditions, particularly with respect to ancient
Christian chant. Without trying to downplay the
serious doctrinal differences between Catholics
and Orthodox, let me suggest that the project
of restoring the traditional Roman liturgy—a
project which will no doubt bear great spiritual
fruit for the Catholic faithful—represents an
important step forward in reuniting Christendom.
And while this restoration should proceed on the
principles of austerity, elegance, and moderation
which once made the Roman liturgy great, there
is much that traditional Catholics can learn from
Orthodoxy’s liturgical ethos to inspire them in
this noble cause.

Reduced Liturgical Life
Outside of a handful of parishes, the liturgical
experience of most traditional Catholics is
exclusively centered on the Holy Sacrifice of the

Mass with the possibility of Benediction once a
month. Eucharistic adoration, the Rosary, and
perhaps a public novena represent the remaining
elements of public worship. Though certainly
laudable and spiritually beneficial, these acts of
devotion are detached from the liturgical cycle;
they neither directly enhance nor reaffirm the
meaning of a given Sunday or feast day. Now
compare this situation with what can commonly
be found in many Orthodox parishes which
follow Russo-Slavic liturgical praxis. On Saturday
evenings, and the eves of great feasts, the office
known as Great Vespers is served in which the
faithful are immersed in psalms, hymns, and
Scriptural readings that direct their minds
toward the Divine Liturgy—the Eastern name
for the Mass—which will be served the next
morning. In larger parishes it is not uncommon
for Vespers to be the first part of what is known
as the All-Night Vigil, a highly ornate service that
also includes Matins and First Hour (Prime) and
can last up to three hours. Prior to the next day’s
Divine Liturgy, the Third (Terce) and Sixth (Sext)
hours are recited and, immediately following, a
small service of prayers in thanksgiving for Holy
Communion is offered. Since there is no official
order for “low Divine Liturgy” in the Orthodox
tradition, the entire service is intoned and sung.
The result of these efforts, which sometimes
places great demands on clergy, choir, and laity
alike, is the sanctification of time for the greater
glory of God.
Even in the traditional Catholic milieu the holy
hours of the Divine Office remain in a state of
neglect. Though this is not the place to plumb the
depths of Western ecclesiastical history, it is an
undisputed fact that the revolutionary incursions
against the Church in Europe during the 18th and
19th centuries, along with the influence of Jesuit
architectural models and active missionary work,
brought about the banishment of the Roman
Breviary from parish choir and its confinement
to silent reading by the priest between hearing
confessions. Still, as late as the 1960s it was not
uncommon for many Catholic parishes to at least
recite Vespers on Sunday evening. Many hand
Missals, including the 1962 edition published by
Angelus Press, include the necessary Latin
23

Faith and Morals
and English texts for not only Sunday and festal
Vespers, but Compline as well. Regrettably, if
the laity have access to these services at all, it is
largely by way of private recitation without the
musical and active elements which render these
offices authentically liturgical. Since the liturgical
revolution in the Church, however, Catholics
faithful to traditional liturgy have at times had to
make great sacrifices just to attend a low Mass
according to the vetus ordo; the idea of having
“more” was simply not in circulation during the
decades-long struggle to survive.

Restore Liturgical Culture
Today, thankfully, the situation is improving
for many Catholics who remain steadfastly
attached to the Tridentine Mass even if their
overall numbers remain small in comparison
to the rest of the Church. This should not be a
discouragement, however. Outside of certain
“Mother Countries” like Greece, Romania, and
Russia, the Orthodox Church has only a minority
presence with relatively small parishes, and
yet it has not abandoned the importance of an
opulent liturgical cycle. Restoring the Catholic
Church’s liturgical culture, that is, sanctifying
the time through the rich heritage of Rome,
is not a matter of numbers exclusively; it is a
matter of further dedicating our talents to God,
and it can be undertaken in increments. Even
parish communities without a full-time priest
can, through the efforts of its members, hold a
simple public recitation of Vespers each Sunday
with an eye to steadily incorporating the chants
contained in the Liber Usualis. During special
parish events, such as a conference or mission,
why not set aside time to recite a little hour
such as Prime or Sext? The point here is not to
dispense with devotional exercises such as the
Rosary, but rather to make sure that such acts of
pious worship are fit within the larger framework
of the public prayer of the Church.
None of these efforts should be undertaken
solely to impress the Orthodox, mind you. But as
Catholics faithful to the Great Commission, we
should not ignore that we are called to witness to
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January - February 2014

our separated brethren of the East (especially if
they are living in the West!). Writing as a former
Orthodox Christian who was brought up in the
Eastern Catholic Byzantine Rite, I can say that
the fight for liturgical tradition in the Roman
Catholic Church was one of the catalysts which
brought me and my family onto the Barque of St.
Peter in 2011. We are not alone. The Anglophone
Orthodox world contains a significant number
of members attached to Western liturgical forms
but who, for quite understandable reasons, have
long felt alienated from the Roman Church’s
liturgical anarchy. Similarly, many Protestants
who are debating whether to swim the Tiber or
the Bosporus will note their desire for a reverent
liturgy as one of decision points they use (often
to the Catholic Church’s detriment). Should we,
Catholics of the West, lose them to the East out of
liturgical neglect? Heaven forbid.
When St. Pius X set out to “restore all things
in Christ” during his time on the Papal Throne,
he did so with an eye firmly fixed on the liturgy.
In addition to reintroducing Gregorian Chant and
making necessary reforms to the breviary, Pius
X looked east by confirming the establishment
of a Russian Catholic Church which was
commanded to retain in full Russia’s historical
liturgical rites. Liturgy, in the heart and mind of
this great pontiff, was not a mere ornament and
certainly not an option; it opened men’s hearts
and minds to experience of the Kingdom of God,
culminating in receiving Holy Communion—“the
shortest and safest way to Heaven.” On this I
suspect that the Orthodox would agree.

Gabriel Sanchez is an attorney and independent researcher living in Grand
Rapids, Michigan, with his wife and four children.

High Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery, Silver City, New Mexico

Faith and Morals

Can God
Be Named?
by Fr. Albert, O.P.

St. Pius X identified two fundamental doctrines at the base of modernism:
agnosticism and immanentism, the second being a consequence of the first.
Agnosticism teaches that we cannot know God, nor make any positive
statements about Him, which leads to the second doctrine, immanentism,
according to which the dogmatic statements we make about God, since they
cannot apply to Him, simply describe the ideas and sentiments we have in
our hearts about Him.

Positive Statements about God
St. Thomas addresses head-on this crucial problem of the possibility
of making positive statements about God in Question 13 of the Prima
Pars of his Summa where he treats of the names of God. This question
logically follows Question 12 on the knowledge we have of God for, he says,
“everything is named by us according to our knowledge of it.” Thus, since we
cannot know God’s essence in this life here below, the names we give Him
do not express His essence, but rather they reflect the knowledge we have of
26

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January - February 2014

1

“For sensible creatures are
effects of God that are not
adequate to the power of
their cause” (I, q. 12, a. 12).

2

Similarly, to another
objection that says that
since we cannot know
God’s essence in this life,
the names we give Him
don’t apply to His substance
he responds: “We cannot
know the essence of God
in this life, as He really is
in Himself; but we know
Him accordingly as He
is represented in the
perfections of creatures;
and thus the names imposed
by us signify Him in that
manner.”

3

Cajetan explains: “For
we know God by these
perfections [in creatures]
not in just any way, but
according to the manner
in which they exist in
creatures; thus we know
God by His effects in
such a way that the
manner of existence of
the effects overflows
proportionately into our
manner of conceiving these
perfections.”

Him through His creatures. These creatures come from God and so they tell
us something about Him (since He could not give them what they have unless
it existed in Him beforehand so that He could give it), but they do not tell us
everything because He infinitely surpasses them.1 St. Thomas writes:
“Since our intellect knows God from creatures, it knows Him as far as
creatures represent Him. Now…every creature represents Him, and is like
Him so far as it possesses some perfection: yet it represents Him not as
something of the same species or genus, but as the excelling principle of
whose form the effects fall short, although they derive some kind of likeness
thereto….Therefore the aforesaid names signify the divine substance, but in an
imperfect manner, even as creatures represent it imperfectly” (I, q. 13, a. 2).
To an objection that quotes St. John Damascene, who says that the names
we give God do not signify what He is, St. Thomas responds: “Damascene says
that these names do not signify what God is, forasmuch as by none of these
names is perfectly expressed what He is; but each one signifies Him in an
imperfect manner, even as creatures represent Him imperfectly”2 (ibid., ad 1).
This strict correspondence between the signification of the names of God
and the manner by which creatures represent Him leads to a very important
distinction that must be made between the perfection signified by these
names and the mode or manner by which they signify it. For the perfections
in creatures truly exist in God (otherwise He could not give them), but they
exist in Him in a more eminent way than in creatures. Thus the names also
which we give to God truly express His perfections but in a way that falls far
short of the way they exist in God.3

Distinctions to Be Made
This distinction between the perfection signified by a name and the mode
by which it signifies it makes it possible to respond to the objection of the
agnostics who say that since the names of God come from creatures they
cannot be applied to Him properly, but only metaphorically, as when, for
example, David says : “God is my rock.” St. Thomas responds:
“There are some names which signify these perfections flowing from God
to creatures in such a way that the imperfect way in which creatures receive
the divine perfection is part of the very signification of the name itself, as
“rock” signifies a material being, and names of this kind can be applied to
God only in a metaphorical sense. Other names, however, express these
perfections absolutely, without any such mode of participation being part
of their signification, as the words “being,” “good,” “living,” and the like, and
such names can be applied to God properly” (I, q. 13, a. 3, ad 1).
So if the imperfect created mode of existence of a perfection enters into
the name given to God, this name cannot be applied to Him properly, for this
mode belongs to creatures, not to God. For example, God cannot be said
properly to be a rock, because the name “rock” includes the imperfection of
being material. If, however, the name expresses simply the perfection itself
absolutely, without including the mode of its existence in creatures, the name
can be applied properly to God. Thus when we say: “God is wise,” the name
27

Faith and Morals

4

28

St. Thomas adds, however,
that although the word
“wisdom” properly refers
to something in God, it
does not mean exactly the
same thing as it means in
creatures, and yet neither
does it mean something
totally different: it rather
expresses a concept that
is “analogical,” that is, a
concept that applies both
to God and creatures
according to a proportion
that is similar. In the same
way we speak of sensation
and intellection as both
being “knowledge” and
yet the term “knowledge”
doesn’t mean the same thing
in both cases. Nevertheless
because the proportion
between intellection and
its object is similar to
the proportion between
sensation and its object,
we call both “knowledge,”
and this term refers to
something real, namely this
similarity of proportion.

5

That is, one created word;
the Divine Word, however,
can and does.

6

Cajetan, in his typically
concise manner, succinctly
sums this up: “Just as what
is utterly and simply the
same thing is represented
by many perfections in real
being, so it is in intentional
being; that is to say, by many
concepts.” “Intentional
being” is precisely the
object of logic: it is the
existence things have in our
minds, as opposed to their
existence in reality (“in
rerum natura”).

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January - February 2014

“wise” properly refers to something real in God, even though the name comes
from creatures, because it merely expresses the perfection itself and not its
mode of existence in creatures. This perfection “wisdom” does not exist in
God in the same way as it does in creatures (for in them it is a quality of the
intelligence while in God it is identified to His essence) but it really exists in
Him.4

Logic in the Philosophical Sense
Using the same principle of the correlation between the names of God and
the perfections in creatures, St. Thomas responds to the question of whether
all the names we give to God are synonyms, that is, do they, in fact, all really
mean the same thing. It would appear that they do because what we name
“wisdom” in God is, in fact, His essence, and what we name “justice” in God
is also His essence, and the same thing goes for all the terms we apply to
God. They all are identified to God’s essence and so don’t refer to anything
distinct in God, and so it seems that they must be synonymous.
The response to this question (as to a lot of others) involves doing a little
bit of logic—not logic in the sense of analyzing arguments (which is only a
small part of logic and the least important), but in the philosophical sense
of the term, which designates the study of the concepts of our mind in their
relations to the reality they express. It is a difficult science, but absolutely
necessary because of the complexity of the mode of human understanding
which is incapable of seizing reality immediately as it is in itself but must
break it up into particles, as it were, and put it back together again without,
however, ceasing to be objective. It is only in this way that we will be able to
answer the problem posed at the beginning about the positive statements we
make about God.
As we have seen, the meanings of the words we use to name God are
concepts of the intellect which are proportioned to the perfections in
creatures. These perfections, however, although multiple and varied, are
so many reflections of something that is one and absolutely simple, namely
their cause, which is God, who is represented in a multiple, varied way by
these diverse perfections of creatures. In the same way, then, the names of
God, like the creatures they come from, are multiple and varied, even though
they all express, imperfectly, one thing: God. They are multiple and varied
precisely because they are imperfect: one single word cannot express all the
perfection of God,5 just as one creature cannot exhaust His infinite power
and represent it, and so just as there are many creatures, there are many
names of God.6
Thus even though all these names (like “wisdom” and “justice”) refer to
the same thing, they are not synonyms because they do not mean the same
thing. St. Thomas explains: “Synonymous terms are those which signify one
thing under one aspect; for words which signify different aspects of one
thing, do not signify primarily and absolutely one thing; because the term
only signifies the thing through the medium of the intellectual concept, as
was said above” (I, q. 13, a. 4 ad 1).

7

Cajetan again explains:
“What corresponds in
reality to the many concepts
one has of some thing, of
God, for example? To these
concepts corresponds one
thing that is imitable or
representable in many ways:
to their multiplicity however
does not correspond a
multiplicity in the thing
that is their object, but
its eminence, by which it
contains united in itself
what is apprehended as
multiple by another.”

In other words, even though the terms we apply to God all signify,
ultimately, the same thing (since “wisdom” and “justice” in God are the same
thing), their signification is not the same, and so they are not synonyms.
Words don’t refer immediately to things but to concepts through which the
thing is known: so even if the thing they refer to is the same, the words are
different, and not synonyms, if the concepts they refer to are different. The
human mind is too weak to seize immediately the whole reality of things in
one concept, even created things, and so much less can it seize the whole
reality of God in one concept.7

8

In the Sed contra of this
same article, St. Thomas
gives the argument of
authority against this false
doctrine: “What is of faith
cannot be false. But some
affirmative propositions are
of faith; as that God is Three
and One; and that He is
omnipotent. Therefore true
affirmative propositions can
be formed about God.”

True Affirmations
All of this permits us to understand how we can make positive statements
about God which truly affirm something about Him, even though He is, in
Himself, ineffable. Again, a little logic is necessary to explain this precisely.
What happens, in fact, when we make a positive statement is that we
affirm the unity in reality of two separate concepts in our mind. Let us
take the example of the proposition: “This tree is green.” The tree and the
color green in reality are one sole thing, but my mind knows this one thing
according to two different aspects: its essence (tree) and one of its qualities
(the color green) and then by the proposition reunites the two.
To the diversity of the concepts, explains St. Thomas, corresponds the
multiplicity of the predicate and the subject; the mind signifies their identity
in the thing, however, by the proposition itself which unites them.
And he goes on to apply this to God, giving the coup de grâce to the
agnostic fallacy which, under the pretext that here below we cannot know
God as He is in Himself, claims that we cannot make any true affirmations
about Him at all.8
“God, as considered in Himself, is altogether one and simple, yet our
intellect knows Him by different concepts because it cannot see Him as He
is in Himself. Nevertheless, although it understands Him under different
concepts, it knows that one and the same simple thing corresponds to all
its concepts. Therefore the intellect represents this mental plurality by the
plurality of the predicate and the subject, but represents the unity by their
composition” (I, q. 13, a. 12).
Fr. Albert, O.P., ordained in 1994, is presently superior of a newly founded Dominican community in
Belgium under the authority of Bishop de Galarreta.

29

Prayer to the Star of the Sea

O Mary, Star of the Sea, see me here, kneeling down
before thy throne of grace, where so many lovers of
thy motherly heart have already received the greatest
favors: where thou obtainest consolation for the sad,
help for the poor, health for the sick, forgiveness for the
sinners.
O dear Mother, I now come to thee with the greatest
confidence. The many miracles which have happened
here thanks to thy intercession, fill me, poor sinner,
with great hope that thou, Mother of Mercy, wilt
also hear my prayer. Yes, I beseech and pray thee, O
sweetest Mother, O amiable Star of the Sea, do not let
me go away from here without being heard. Thou canst
help me, for thou art the mightiest after God. Thou art
willing to help me because thou art full of love for all
thy children.
Remember, O merciful mother, that never was it heard
that anyone who fled to thy protection with confidence
was left unaided by thee. Should I then be the first
unhappy man whom thou lettest go unheard? No, no, O
good Mother; in this holy spot, thou wilt, through thy
almighty intercession, obtain for me help in my distress
and consolation in my sufferings. Amen.
Sanctuary of Our Lady, Star of the Sea,
Maastricht, Netherlands

362 pp. – Gold-embossed leatherette cover – Sewn binding – Rounded corners – Gilt edges – Ribbon– STK# 8555 – $24.95

Mother Love
Purchase this book for yourself, or for the Catholic mothers you know. It contains almost everything a mother needs to nurture and grow her spiritual life, so
that through her sanctification she may sanctify her husband and family, so that
she may truly become the heart of the home. Contains:
-

Morning and Evening Prayers for Mothers

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Devotions for the Holy Rosary

-

Points of Doctrine a Christian Mother Should Teach to Her Children

-

Prayers at Mass

-

The “Ten Commandments” of Christian Education

-

Devotions for Confession and Communion

-

Devotions for the Poor Souls, and for the Way of the Cross

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Prayers for the Various Special Necessities of a Christian Mother

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Prayers to Some of the Special Patrons of Christian Mothers

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Indulgenced Prayers

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A short book of instructions for Christian Mothers on the Christian Training of Children

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Retreat Manual and
Family Prayer Book
Originally written to accompany the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, this prayer
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Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

Padre Pio…
a Priest
by Fr. Michael Fortin, SSPX

It is truly amazing to recall that there have
only been two priests in all of history who have
ever borne the stigmata—our Lord Jesus Christ
and Padre Pio. It is true that others have had
in a visible manner the wounds and sufferings
of the crucified High Priest, most notably the
patron saints of Italy, St. Francis of Assisi and St.
Catherine of Siena, but they were not priests.
Padre Pio died in 1968, only forty-six years
ago, three years after the closing of the Second
Vatican Council. What does it all mean? Why in
the workings of Divine Providence are we given
in the 20th century the only stigmatized priest?
“The true Padre Pio we find in the celebration
of the Mass and in the ministry of the confessional, that is, in those moments that most qualify
the priesthood…the folly of the secularization
of the priest has reduced the priest to the

humiliating position of having to rediscover his
true identity and dignity! The priest, despite all
the changes in society, is and must remain a man
of prayer, of profound interior life, a man of God,
the sacrificial lamb, the dispenser of grace, and
the minister of the Eucharist…” (Msgr. Antonio
del Gaudio).
There are deep problems in the Church,
countless souls in the world are abandoning
their harbor of salvation, countless priests and
religious in various nations have abandoned their
Master’s calling, scandal after scandal of priests
in the newspapers.
But there is only one Priest, our Lord Jesus
Christ. Any other priest only participates in the
one Priesthood of Christ; thus a priest may truly
be called “Another Christ” through and only
through this true participation received at his
33

Spirituality
ordination. By the will of Jesus Christ, priests
are made to be the instruments of salvation.
Therefore without good and holy priests, souls
are lost. The crisis today is a crisis of the loss of
souls, thus it is a crisis of the priesthood, for they
go hand in hand by the will of God.
The answer to this crisis lies in the figure of
Padre Pio, a simple yet holy priest, a true figure
and instrument of Jesus Christ. Padre Pio is the
great merciful gift of the Good God given to us.
His person marked with the wounds of Jesus
Christ Crucified and his life of holiness proclaim
boldly that the priest is “Another Christ,” called
to offer the same sacrifice of Christ upon the
altar, called to forgive sins, called to teach the
Catholic faith and morals without compromise,
called to save precious souls. Padre Pio is the
awakening grace for our time, to all priests and to
all the faithful, that a return must be made to the
sacredness of the priesthood, the sacredness of
the Sacraments, and especially to the sacredness
of the august and holy Sacrifice of the Mass for
the glory of the Blessed Trinity and the salvation
of souls.

Of Noble Lineage
Padre Pio was born one Francesco Forgione
on the 25th of May, 1887, in Pietrelcina, Italy. This
territory of his ancestors was home to the ancient
and tough race known as the Samnites. For
nearly half a century, they fought fiercely against
the invading powerful Roman legions up until 321
B.C. when the Romans accepted their terms. But
strangely, this same freedom-loving people were
the first in Italy to surrender to the sweet yoke of
Christianity in A.D. 40.
Padre Pio was baptized Francesco (after the
famed saint of Assisi who will ever be known for
his poverty and reception of the stigmata). His
parents, Orazio Forgione and Maria Giuseppa,
had five children. They both possessed a deep
Christian faith, simplicity and honesty. The
Forgione family was poor, they had to work hard
in the fields to harvest their daily sustenance. Yet,
regardless of the amount of work to be done, the
family went to Mass each morning and prayed
34

The Angelus

January - February 2014

the Rosary each evening. In their devotion to
Our Lady of Mount Carmel, the family would
abstain from meat on Wednesdays, Fridays, and
Saturdays. Although Orazio and Maria were
illiterate, these good parents knew by heart
the great Scriptural accounts and taught their
children the same.
Orazio Forgione would travel to America a
number of times to earn wages to support his
family, but especially more significantly to pay for
the education of Francesco, for the parents knew
that something was supernaturally special with
him.

Victim for Sin
Padre Pio’s mother relates that her little
boy would tell her that he saw and spoke with
Jesus, Mary and his Guardian Angel; he simply
assumed that all could do so! Yet, in the mystery
of Redemption, our heavenly Father seeks out
chosen souls “to fill up those thing that are
wanting of the sufferings of Christ” (St. Paul).
At the age of five, Francesco already wished
to dedicate his whole life to God, and he knew
well that this meant sacrifice. His mother would
scold her little one for finding him sleeping on
the stone floor and using a stone as a pillow! At
the age of six, he will suffer constant and grave
stomach problems. At the age of ten, he will have
typhoid fever. At seventeen, he will suffer from
terrible migraines, insomnia and fits of vomiting.
Although he will live to eighty-one years of
age, his health will continue to be racked with
hernias, tumors and arthritis.

Joy in Suffering
One day, when Padre Pio was asked why
he joined the Capuchin order (a branch of the
Franciscans), he smiled wide and replied, “I
always liked bearded religious!” Only the one
housed on the rock of Christ would be able to
keep peace and even joy in such sufferings. It
was Padre Pio’s will to suffer, as it was his joy to
follow his beloved Master’s will for him.

As a religious, he was given the name “Pius”
or “Pio” (after St. Pius V, whom we know as the
perpetual patron of the Mass of all time). The
same year, the beloved Giuseppe Sarto will
assume the name “Pius X” (later to be canonized
by Pius XII).
In 1907, Pio will make his solemn profession,
forever obedient, chaste, poor and suffering like
Christ.

and fro. Unbearable demonic screams were
heard from his cell. However, Pio would relate
to his spiritual director, Padre Agostino, that he
remained patient in these trials, knowing that our
Lord Jesus Christ, our Lady, his guardian angel
and St. Francis were with him and helped him
always.

“And the Tempter Coming…”
Like Christ in the desert, the demonic prince
of this world in rage will attempt to hinder the
path of redemptive sanctity. Satan would appear
to Pio in the form of his spiritual director telling
him to diminish his overzealous life of penance.
Pio, sensing something amiss, ordered him to say
“Praise be to Jesus Christ”; the angel of darkness
then vanished leaving a horrid smell of sulphur.
Still the devil returned in various figures to tempt
his chastity, but to no avail. Then he came again
as an angel of light, masquerading as our Lord or
our Lady. Fed up with their lack of success with
this holy friar, the devils appeared in monstrous
forms, pounding, tearing and throwing Pio to

35

Spirituality
Sacerdos in Æternum
In 1910, he was ordained priest. “How could
I sleep, with my heart bursting with joy?” “O
Jesus, my Victim and my Love! In the joy of these
renewed raptures make of me an altar for Thy
Holy Cross, a golden chalice for Thy Blood…”
With these words (relayed to his spiritual
director) burning in his heart, no one was ever
seen to offer Mass as Padre Pio. Several times
he would be lost in ecstasy before the Holy
Eucharist, to the extent that his superior would
order the server to ring the bell, and Padre Pio
would then have the signified command of his
superior to return to the performance of Mass. In
perfect obedience, Padre Pio did so.
The approaching World War I would hasten
the death of the grief-stricken Holy Father Pius
X. His successor to the papal throne, Benedict
XV, begged Christians to pray to end this “suicide
of Europe.” Padre Pio would take this request of
the Pope to heart…to hands…and to feet. He will
offer himself to God as a victim to end the war.
World War I will end in November 1918, the same
year in which Padre Pio will receive the stigmata
until death. According to the closest intimate
sources of Padre Pio, our Lord permitted the end
of World War I through the prayers and sufferings
of this chosen victim, and the price he had to pay
was the stigmata which he bore for fifty years
(Antonio Socci, Il Segreto di Padre Pio, pp.
85-95).
In August 1918, Padre Pio is bestowed
transverberation (from Latin meaning “wounded
across”). The mystical doctor St. John of the
Cross explains: “The soul being inflamed with
the love of God is interiorly attacked by a Seraph,
who pierces it through with a fiery dart. This
leaves the soul wounded, which causes it to
suffer from the overflowing of divine love.”

“My God, my God, why
hast thou forsaken me?”
A physical wound now appears in the side of
Padre Pio. He relates to his director: “I feel in the
depths of my soul a wound that is always open
and which causes me continual agony.” He is
36

The Angelus

January - February 2014

thrown into deep darkness of soul: “I do not see
any hope except in prayers of other people.…The
hand of God is heavy upon me.”
Eight years previous, Padre Pio had already
received the wounds and pains of our afflicted
Lord. But in an indescribable and unbearable
humiliation, he begged our Lord to withdraw not
the suffering, but the visibility of the stigmata.
Our Lord does answer his request.
However, after the August transverberation,
on September 20, 1918, while making his
thanksgiving after Communion in the choir loft
before an image of Jesus Crucified, five luminous
rays from the five wounds of Christ will penetrate
his hands, feet and side. This time, the visible
stigmata will remain for fifty years until his
death. Padre Pio swooned in pain and joy; he fell
to the floor and bled profusely. Brother Nicola
found him thus, and he ran to notify the superior.
Padre Pio opens his heart to his superior and
also to his spiritual director: “On the morning of
the 20th of last month, in the choir, after I had
celebrated Mass I yielded to a drowsiness similar
to a sweet sleep.…I saw before me a mysterious
person similar to the one I had seen on the
evening of August 5. The only difference was
that his hands and feet and side were dripping
blood. This sight terrified me, and what I felt at
that moment is indescribable. I thought I should
have died if the Lord had not intervened and
strengthened my heart, which was about to burst
out of my chest. The vision disappeared, and I
became aware that my hands, feet and side were
dripping blood. Imagine the agony I experienced
and continue to experience almost every day. The
heart wound bleeds continually, especially from
Thursday evening until Saturday. Dear Father,
I am dying of pain because of the wounds and
the resulting embarrassment I feel deep in my
soul. I am afraid I shall bleed to death if the Lord
does not hear my heartfelt supplication to relieve
me of this condition. Will Jesus, who is so good,
grant me this grace? Will he at least free me from
the embarrassment caused by these outward
signs? I will raise my voice and will not stop
imploring him until in his mercy he takes away,
not the wounds or the pain, which is impossible
since I wish to be inebriated with pain, but

these outward signs which cause me such
embarrassment and unbearable humiliation.…
The pain was so intense that I began to feel as if I
were dying on the cross.”

To Test the Spirits
The general superior of the Capuchins ordered
him photographed and thoroughly examined by
medical professionals. This is in a certain sense
normal protocol of the Church, to test the spirits,
that is, to see that this is truly from God, not from
the devil or from deception.
Dr. Romanelli (a renowned Italian doctor at
that time) relayed his report after fifteen months
of examining him: “I have not found a clinical
symptom that could authorize me to classify
those wounds…the environment is conducive to
infection, yet the wounds do not fester, show no
complications and do not heal.” This conclusion
of the wounds will hold true for the next fifty
years up to the end.
Also, a Dr. Festa reports on his findings after
lengthy investigative examinations: “The wounds
scab in the progressive drying of the blood that
flows slowly from the wound.…I would state
under oath that when the scab falls one may look
through the wounds and see in all details an
object on the other side.”

“A Saint in Rotondo!”
Padre Pio’s mother receives word of her son’s
stigmata; she ran across the field to her husband
crying out, “Our son is a saint!” And indeed, these
words spread like wildfire not only across Italy
and Europe, but even across the seas. Thousands
began pouring into the town of San Giovanni
Rotondo to kiss the pierced hands, to confess to
the one who could read hearts, but especially to
assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass celebrated
by “another Christ” with the visible wounds of
the great High Priest and Victim.

“One of His Own”
However, many are far from being convinced
of this mystical figure causing such a continental
stir. Perhaps most surprisingly, a certain Father
Gamelli, of the Franciscan Order and presumed
expert in experimental psychology, will flaunt
his reputation and pronounce in 1924 that “Padre
Pio is a fake!” This “expert” will state that “the
phenomenon of the wounds is caused by selfhysteria causing the nervous system to produce
the wounds, which are continuously up-kept with
perhaps carbolic acid.” Padre Pio was further
accused therein by Father Gamelli of breaking
the vows of poverty, obedience and even chastity.
Padre Pio’s self-defense was only silence,
leaving all in the hands of the Good God. A
sure sign of his maintained inner peace was a
mysterious emanating scent of lilies and roses
which came from his wounds. So many have
testified to this, and even when very far in
distance from their beloved Padre.
Even with such adverse publications being
made, still the crowds could not be blocked on
their path to Rotondo. Tickets had to be issued
for confession, police had to be called in to keep
order amongst the thousands of pilgrims.

Papal Favor and Disfavor
Pope Benedict XV (the pope of WWI) believed
earnestly in the sanctity of this stigmatist.
However, the papal successor, Pius XI, will be
“badly informed” on this issue, and thus proclaim
an absolute prohibition on this renowned friar to
publicly celebrate Mass, to hear confessions or
his wounds ever to be seen.
The soul of Padre Pio gleamed with the
sentiments: “The glory of this world hath always
sadness for companion, but not the glory that
comes from the testimony of a good conscience.”
He was happily now able for a time to live the
monastic life without hindrance. Although so
fragile in health and suffering immensely, he
would perfectly follow the rules of the house
as the other friars, in community prayers, meal
times and even recreations. The only difference
being his diet—with such ailing stomach
37
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106 pp. – Softcover – STK# 8598 – $11.95

The Nature, Dignity
and Mission of Woman
“Who shall find a valiant woman?
Far and from the uttermost coasts
is the price of her.” —Prov. 31:10

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Please visit our website to see our entire selection of books and music.

problems his digestion was limited to soft
vegetables.
His obedience to the pontifical order of never
showing his wounds would carry him to the point
of refusing any type of anesthetic for a laborious
operation to remove a hernia, lest the doctor
examine his wounds out of curiosity. The doctor
later admitted that he indeed would have done
so. Only two tears ran down the cheeks of Padre
Pio at the cutting of the hernial sac; he prayed,
“Jesus, forgive me if I do not know how to suffer
as I should.”
After some days of recovery, he could return to
his life’s calling to offer the Holy Sacrifice to the
One “who gives joy to [his] youth.”
Pius XI eventually orders the Holy See to
reverse the ban on Padre Pio a few years before
the great Pius XII is seated on the papal throne.
Pius XII will greatly encourage devotees to go to
Padre Pio. However, his successor John XXIII,
who will open the Second Vatican Council, will
see the Rotondo friar as an “immense deception.”

“The Foolishness of God”
The conversions, miracles, prophecies and
even bilocations of Padre Pio are too numerous
to relate, but let us see just a few.
Alberto del Fante was a well-known lawyer
and journalist who wrote against the Church and
of the “foolishness of Padre Pio.” This atheist and
Freemason went to Rotondo to feed his adverse
articles. Padre Pio will oblige this visitor with
a few words, words which will open Alberto’s
heart to grace. Alberto will move to Rotondo
and attend Mass each day, which will nourish his
writings rather in ardent defense of the Church
and also of the simple friar who was foolish in the
eyes of the worldling.

The Prodigal Son
Cesare Festa of Genoa, also a well-known
attorney and high degree Freemason, travels to
Rotondo out of curiosity. The eyes and voice of
the friar sternly home in on this strayed sheep…

“What, you here?! You, who are a Freemason! What
is your intention?” Cesare does not back down: “To
fight against the Church!” The two apparent foes
have locked eyes and wills of opposition. Padre
Pio approaches and takes the unsuspecting hand
into his own wounded one, and gently speaks the
parable of the prodigal son. Cesare is struck down
with deep contrition and kneels to confess to the
instrument of his Conqueror. Cesare will then
travel to Lourdes in gratitude to the Immaculate
Conception for his release from Satan. But Satan
will not let go so easily. The Freemasons are
furious on receiving word of Cesare’s recent
change of heart. The secret lodge of brotherhood
orders him to present himself. About the same
time, Cesare mysteriously receives another letter
of command from his new holy and strong ally
Padre Pio: “Never be ashamed of Christ or of His
doctrine.” In his renewed and now godly courage,
Cesare arrives at the once familiar Lodge of dark
secret as a meek lamb ready for slaughter yet
also as a lion of valiant Christian honor. To the
wolves, he speaks only of his loyalty now to Christ
and then presents his renouncement to any and
to all of his past Masonic ties. Cesare moves to
Rotondo, becomes a Third Order Franciscan and
an inseparable adherent to the Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass.
Italia Betti was a professor in Bologna and
also a fanatical Communist who could be
seen jumping on her motorcycle to rush to
revolutionary clashes to fight and even to kill.
She becomes very ill with no hope of recovery.
Her little sister innocently dares to tell her to go
and visit the famous Padre Pio. Feeling no other
option but despair, Italia decides to go. Her frozen
heart of evil cannot withstand the love of Christ
found in Padre Pio. She receives the sacraments,
makes a public abjuration of her errors and
moves to Rotondo, becoming also an admirable
Third Order Franciscan. At her death, her
spiritual father had her laid to rest right next to
the grave of his mother, Maria Giuseppa Forgione.

Magdalen
We cannot fail to mention the extraordinary
39

Spirituality
conversion of fallen-away Catholic Louise
Vairo of England. Society reveled in this figure
of wealth and scandalous lifestyle. A friend of
Louise’s called upon her after a tour of Italy; he
talks of nothing else but of the holy friar with
the stigmata in Rotondo. Spontaneous Louise
books luxurious travel to go and see this wonder
of Europe. Once in Rotondo, she is very tired but
can find no available room in any establishments
whatsoever. She is miserable, she drags her
way up the broken-stone path to the Church of
Our Lady of Grace. Her soul is suddenly further
plunged in deepest depression, grief and sorrow.
This famous society lady cannot contain herself;
she floods the walls of the church with her
anguished sobs. The compassion of Padre Pio
is drawn to this Magdalen. “Calm yourself, my
lady…the mercy of God is infinite. Jesus died on
the cross for sinners. Go get food and rest, come
back at 3 p.m.” The grievous sins of Louise are so
multiplied that she does not even know how to
begin her confession of repentance. She does not
have to; her confessor lists all her sins to her…
all, except one, one which she remembers and is
very ashamed of. Two voices speak in the soul of
Louise, one telling her she must confess this sin
or her confession is sacrilegious, the other saying
that if it was necessary then Padre Pio would
certainly have mentioned this sin also. She listens
to the first voice; her confessor tells her, “At
last, I was waiting for this.” He readily absolves
and restores the life of God in this precious
soul. Louise will remain in Rotondo the rest of
her days; few will recognize anymore this once
famed person now seen walking barefoot up the
broken-stone path to Our Lady of Grace in wind
and sleet, her feet bleeding, making reparation
for herself but especially for her son, who took
the same path of her previous life. Indeed, God
cannot resist the tears of a mother; her son
returns to the grace of God after miraculously
having his life saved while fighting in the war.

Bilocation
Many suffering from demonic possession would
be sent to Padre Pio as last resort for deliverance
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from the devil. Padre Pio in turn would send
them to the House of Loreto (the home of the
Holy Family of Nazareth which was miraculously
carried by angels to Loreto, Italy). Padre Pio
himself would be carried by the angels to Loreto
to perform the exorcism, while all the time never
departing his monastery in Rotondo!
American bomber pilots during WWII were
ordered to bomb the region of Pietrelcina, as
at that time Italy was allied with Axis-power
Germany. But they received order from a higher
command to change bombing course in the figure
of a bearded, stern friar blocking their path in
the sky. After victory was gained over occupied
Italy, the pilots had opportunity to join the crowds
going to San Giovanni. There in the church
they could not believe their eyes when coming
again face to face with the figure of that fierce
commander in the sky they could never forget!

Pious Love for the Poor
Pius XI one day asked his confidant, Don
Orione, if he ever had gone and seen Padre Pio.
Don Orione responded at once: “Holy Father…I
see him praying at the crypt of Pius X!” The Pope
then said, “If you say that, then I believe.” This
attestation of his confidant will lead Pius XI to
reverse the ban on Padre Pio. It is noteworthy to
add here that Padre Pio had a special devotion
to Pius X. He will say that “this one is the most
lovable of all the popes since the time of St. Peter.”
Padre Pio will rejoice greatly at the canonization
of this gentle warrior who rigorously fought
against modernism. Padre Pio and St. Pius X
indeed seemed as kindred souls in their humility,
simplicity and great love for the poor.
In his solicitude for the poor and suffering,
from 1940 to 1956 Padre Pio will personally
direct (as Pius XII wished) the magnificent
raising of the “Home for the Relief of Suffering.”
This Pietrelcina hospital project will have the
best of facilities and a top medical staff to receive
our Lord found in the poor, sick and suffering.
Even the UN cannot resist this friar’s call to
compassion; they will send over $325,000 to
assist the project.

“Lord, That I May See!”
One of the most famous cures attributed to
the instrumentality of Padre Pio is the case of
Gemma di Giorgi. This little girl was born blind
with no pupils in her eyes. Her grandma will
take her little one on a voyage to Rotondo to
seek a miracle. But already on the voyage little
Gemma said that she sees ships on the water. The
grandmother paid no attention. In Rotondo she
directed Gemma to go to confession to Padre Pio
and not to forget under any circumstance to ask
him to cure her. The little girl begs forgiveness
for her sins but completely forgets to beg for a
cure. The grandma could not believe how absentminded Gemma could possibly be, and after such
a long journey, after so many days of waiting
for a confession time! Padre Pio will approach
and take her by surprise: “Why do you doubt the
little one? she already sees!” Truly the pupil-less
vision of Gemma will dumbfound not only the
grandmother, but the medical profession at large.

Padre Pio would not forget his thousands of
spiritual sons and daughters throughout the
world. He would keep contact especially through
the medium of his and their guardian angels. The
guardian Brother of Padre Pio relates that he was
at times taken aback with the abruptness of his
charge: “Don’t you see how busy I am now, with
all of them coming to and fro!”
The same guardian Brother relates that once
he questioned Padre Pio about whether or not he
ever desired to go to Lourdes: “It is not necessary;
I see our Lady every night.” This explained why
he would always clean and groom himself not in
the mornings, but in the evenings.

“Go Away!”
The population of San Giovanni continues to
swell with so many wanting to remain close to
this man of God. Not all, however, found a gentle
friar in the confessional. Those who came

Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza (Home for Relief of the Suffering) is a private hospital in San Giovanni Rotondo, founded by Saint Pio of Pietrelcina.

41

Spirituality
without examining their conscience or without
sorrow for their sins found the confessional
screen door slammed shut on them. Often
these same ones would later receive the grace
toward proper dispositions and return to find the
paternity of our Lord.

Spirituality
The whole life of this priest centered on the
Eucharistic Spotless Lamb. This was the source
of his profound spirituality and his meek words
of counsel:
“Walk with simplicity in the way of the Lord
and do not torment your spirit…; learn to hate
your faults, but with calm.”
“Pray, hope and do not worry.”
“Weekly confession, daily Communion,
spiritual reading, examination of conscience,
meditation…there we find God.”
“God fills the soul that empties itself of all
else.”
“Prayer opens the heart of God.”
“To fail against charity is to wound God in the
pupil of His eye!”

Death and Canonization
On September 23, 1968, with the words “Jesus
and Mary” repeating in faint sound, Padre Pio
whispers at 2:30 a.m., “Maria!” before passing
from this world. All traces of the stigmata will
disappear.
After the investigation process and miracles
after his death confirmed, Padre Pio is beatified
in May 1999. He is later canonized in June 2002.
Over 800,000 pilgrims will file to his displayed
body to pray.

Crucified. He will petition Pope Paul VI to be
dispensed from having to celebrate the New
Mass. To his death, the life of his priesthood
would not change, as he knew his priesthood
was not his own—it belonged from the beginning
to Christ alone, whose ways are unchangeable.
Padre Pio became “Saint” due to this, and only
this true spirit of Jesus the High Priest will
reverse the flood tide of apostasy, scandal and
indifference of individuals, families and nations.
Our Lady of Grace and Sorrow, pray for us
sinners.

I Think of Padre Pio
In a world where evil presses all around
And mental health and sanity all but routs,
I think of Padre Pio, in whom is found
A refuge for my faith where die all doubts.
In a Church where priests are shaken, one by one,
Grow dim, and lose their supernatural light,
I think of Padre Pio, who like a sun
Scatters all darkness of the priestly night.
And when I cannot see a forward way,
And lose all heart, and come close to despair,
I think of Padre Pio, through whom, I say,
’Tis Christ that does my wounded soul repair.
(Authorship of poem unknown)
References
Capuchin Monastery of Our Lady of Grace. The Voice of Padre Pio. San Giovanni
Rotondo, Italy, 1971-present.
Parente, Pascal P., S.T.D. Padre Pio: A City on a Mountain. Washington, D.C.:
Catholic University of America, 1958.
Socci, Antonio. Il Segreto di Padre Pio, 3rd edition. Rizzoli, 2010.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Pio of Pietrelcina. http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Pio_of_Pietrelcina.

Say the New Mass? Never!
“For he testifieth: Thou art a priest forever
according to the order of Melchisedech.” In the
1960s, when clerics and religious worldwide were
applauding the new spirit within the Church
embracing the world, Padre Pio preferred rather
to keep his inseparable embrace of Jesus Christ
42

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January - February 2014

Fr. Michael Fortin was born in Montreal, Quebec, and raised
in Virginia. After studying aeronautics he worked in various
fields before entering St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, Winona,
in 2002. Ordained to the Sacred Priesthood in 2009, his first
assignment was to New Zealand for a little less than three
years. He is currently principal of Our Lady of Victories School
in Manila, Philippines.

The
Inquisition
Defended
by Dr. Gyula Mago

1

Karl Keating, Catholicism
and Fundamentalism
(Ignatius Press, 1988), pp.
290, 295.

Protestants always vilified the Inquisition. The secular press perfected
the art of outlandish exaggerations and distortions oozing malice against
the Inquisition. The Novus Ordo wants Catholics to be embarrassed about
it, to wish that it never happened1 and not to lift a finger to defend it. Yet the
information to defend the Inquisition is available in Catholic sources such
as Characters of the Inquisition (1940) by William T. Walsh, and in recent
secular books under the label “historical revision of the Inquisition” such as
The Spanish Inquisition: An Historical Revision (1997) by Henry Kamen.
Here we briefly explain the Inquisition and rectify the gross exaggerations of
previous centuries concerning some of the facts, for instance, the number of
people executed and the use of torture.
The Inquisition was an extraordinary ecclesiastical tribunal for combating
or suppressing heresy. The word inquisition merely means inquiry.

Heresy, a Private Woe
Why is heresy so important? A human being is a composite of body and
soul. The body lives a few decades and then falls into dust. The soul, on
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Christian Culture

2

Diane Moczar, Seven Lies
about Catholic History
(TAN Books, 2010), p. 87.

the other hand, lives forever, either in perfect happiness in heaven, or in
eternal perdition, which is the greatest misfortune imaginable. So the fate of
the soul is much more important than the fate of the body. Since the Catholic
religion is capable of leading one to heaven, and heresy will lead to eternal
perdition, the Catholic faith must be protected from heresies, and heresies
must be prevented from freely influencing Catholic people.
The Catholic Church has always combatted heresy, but for the first eleven
hundred years of the history of the Church the battle was almost entirely
spiritual. Merely holding heretical views means killing one’s own soul. It
is its own punishment. For this, there was no temporal punishment, only a
spiritual one called excommunication. The material equivalent of holding
heretical views is suicide, which is its own punishment in the realm of
matter.

When Heresy Becomes Public Peril
But in the Middle Ages new heresies appeared, not only anti-Catholic,
but also anti-social, anarchistic, and in the highest degree aggressive. Such
heresy held by an individual threatened not only the salvation of that single
individual, it threatened others, it threatened society. Such heretics would
not be content with freedom to exercise their own faith, but were even intent
on the destruction of Catholicism.
Promulgating or militantly spreading heresy means killing the souls of
other people. The material equivalent of promulgating or militantly spreading
heresy is mass murder, which was always punished with death. The response
to these new and militant heresies was also new and as yet unprecedented; it
often involved temporal punishment and it was called the Inquisition.

A Court of Justice
The Inquisition was a court of justice, administered usually by the
Dominicans because they were the most competent theologians. They heard
evidence, examined witnesses and passed sentence. So they operated much
like a modern day court. The duties of the office of the inquisitor consisted,
first, in examining whether any person was a heretic or not; and, then, in
attempting to reconcile those convicted of heresy to the Church.2
The aim of the Inquisition was always the conversion of the heretic, not
his extermination. There are examples of medieval inquisitors taking long
periods of time to explain to an accused man exactly where his error lay,
attempting to get him to reject it. The inquisitor was to bring back the lost
sheep, and if he did not succeed in doing so he had failed his main objective.
If the accused admitted his guilt, renounced his heresy and returned to the
Church, forgiveness was granted and a penance was imposed. Finally, the
inquisitor had to pronounce a sentence against the criminal. Prisoners to be
executed were handed over to the State.
Possible sentences ranged from fines, making a pilgrimage, flogging,
confiscation of property, and undergoing a period of imprisonment (in a
prison, at home, in a monastery or hospital) all the way to life imprisonment
44

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and execution. The tribunal had its own prisons. Only obstinate heretics and
the relapsed were turned over to the secular arm to be burned at the stake.
The death penalty was pronounced on someone only when the public welfare
demanded it.

Three Major Phases
It is usual to distinguish three major phases of the Inquisition (in most
countries of Europe they never went into effect).
- The Medieval (or French) Inquisition (1184–16th century) was mainly
directed against the Albigensian attack in the south of France.
- The Spanish Inquisition (1479-1820). Unlike the other two Inquisitions,
which were ecclesiastical, this one was the operation of the Spanish kings:
making sure that Catholic Spain survive.
- The Roman Inquisition of the Congregation of the Holy Office (1542-1966).
This Inquisition was the most benign of the three, initially directed against
Protestantism in Italy.
When people were accused of heresy, they often came voluntarily before
the Inquisition and asked to be cleared of the false charges. The vast
majority of people who came before the Inquisition were cleared of the
charges, including St. Teresa of Avila and St. Ignatius of Loyola. For those
cleared, the Inquisition provided a shield against calumny.
For example, St. Ignatius of Loyola had to appear twice before the Spanish
Inquisition. The first was occasioned by the somewhat unusual behavior of
some noble ladies whom St. Ignatius had converted to the devout life. They
had gone on a pilgrimage without means of support, to the surprise and
annoyance of their relatives, who blamed St. Ignatius for it. The second was
occasioned by the public preaching of St. Ignatius and his followers while as
yet laymen and students, which offended the authorities at the University of
Salamanca. The Spanish authorities had some reason for being suspicious
of unlicensed lay preachers and self-appointed religious guides during the
great revolt called the Reformation. Both brief imprisonments ended with
acquittal.

Use of Roman Law
The Inquisition used a legal system unfamiliar to the English-speaking
world. English common law uses an adversarial system in which the judge
is a neutral umpire between prosecution and defense. By contrast, in most
continental legal systems, derived from Roman law (which was revived in
the 11th century and strongly influenced the Inquisition) the judge actively
participates in ferreting out the truth.
Torture was allowed by Roman law. The Church was reluctant to use
torture, and used it only to extract a confession or obtain information,
45

Christian Culture
3

William Thomas Walsh,
Characters of the Inquisition (1940; reprint, TAN,
n.d.), p. 169.

4

Ibid., p. 56.

5

Ibid, p. 174.

6

Henry Kamen, The Spanish
Inquisition: An Historical
Revision (Weidenfield and
Nicholson, 1997), p. 203.

7

Walsh, Characters of the
Inquisition, p. 284.

never as a form of punishment as used by secular courts. Torture was only
used infrequently, as a last resort, and only when there was strong evidence
that the defendant was lying. The consent of the local bishop was required
for torture.
The rack or strappado were used. Later Torquemada introduced the
“water cure” as a more humane alternative.3 Walsh thinks that torture under
Torquemada was no worse than that used by American police in the 1930s
(The Wanderer, February 15, 1996).
When torture was used, it could not last more than fifteen minutes and
could never be used twice on the same person. Weak and old persons and
pregnant women were not to be tortured. For torture to be used, a doctor
had to be present, and at his command it had to be stopped. Efforts were
made to make sure that an innocent man did not declare himself guilty. Any
confession made following or during torture had to be freely repeated the
next day without torture or it was considered invalid.
Since torture is often the only way to obtain certain information from
prisoners, it does not go away; it is used even in our days by many countries,
including the U.S.A.

The Method of Execution
In those days, burning at the stake was a common method of execution
for serious crimes. Being burnt alive was the most serious punishment. But
often the convict was strangled first, then the dead body was burned.
The Catholic Inquisition was not alone in burning heretics. Elizabeth
I burned heretics, as did her successor James I, as did virtually every
Protestant government in Europe until the middle of the 18th century.
Michael Servetus was burned in Geneva in 1553 by order of Calvin. Burning
was discontinued in Europe in the 18th century. Muslim countries still use it
even today.

Number of People Executed
According to the estimate made by most responsible sources, the number
of people executed was two to five percent of those convicted of heresy.
“Bernard Gui, Inquisitor of Toulouse between 1307 and 1323, pronounced
930 sentences during this period, out of which 42 led to executions.”4 In the
Spanish Inquisition, under the reign of Queen Isabel (1474-1504) 2,000 people
were executed out of about 100,000 prisoners.5 “During the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries fewer than three people a year were executed by the
Inquisition in the whole of the Spanish monarchy from Sicily to Peru.”6
So the numbers were not in the millions, but only in the thousands.
“All the evils that the Inquisition sought to repress, and did in great
measure repress, have returned to the modern world, grown great and
ravening, to feed upon our children.”7
Dr. Gyula Mago was born in 1938 in Hungary and brought up Catholic. He lived there under Communist rule for 20 years.
He obtained his Ph.D. from Cambridge University, England, in 1970 and was Professor of Computer Science until 1999 at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He now lives in retirement and attends Holy Mass at the Society chapel in Wake
Forest, North Carolina.

46

The Angelus

January - February 2014

108 pp. – Softcover – STK# 8601 – $9.95

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Ceremony of the Taking of the Cassock, St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, Winona, MN, February 2, 2014

Christian Culture

St. Rita
of Cascia
Saint of the Impossible

by Fr. Anibal Götte

Why do we call St. Rita the patron saint of
impossible causes? St. Rita is traditionally known
as the patron saint of impossible causes and an
advocate in desperate cases.
If we take a look at her life, every step of the
way she is driven by the desire to reach her own
“impossibility”: to consecrate herself to God in
the religious life. We say “impossibility” because
all the events through the years are going to push
her farther away from her never-forgotten holy
intention, a crown she will finally be able to reach
when all seemed opposed to her vocation.
Throughout the life of St. Rita, we witness the
mysterious designs of God’s will; a succession of
“impossible” events that bring her—contrary to
all human expectation—ever closer to Our Lord.
We see her confidence in God and the desire to
surrender herself completely to His holy will
triumph in the most difficult circumstances.
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St. Rita’s Conception
The first “impossible” episode in her life is her
conception. We read in Sacred Scripture several
stories of barren women, advanced in years,
who, after many prayers, gave birth to persons
distinguished by the sanctity of their lives and
the mission entrusted to them. Such is the case of
Samuel, St. John the Baptist, and, as affirmed by
Tradition, our Blessed Mother herself.
Antonio Lotti and Amata Ferri married late
in life, and years went by without the blessing of
children. The venerable wife was turning grey,
and the hopes of becoming a mother were fading,
although she never ceased to pray to God.
Our Lord intended with this long trial to make
her worthy of receiving a precious gift. Amata’s
prayers were heard, and, after twelve years,
an angel communicated to her in a dream that

she was to have an only child, whom he called
Margarita. Margarita will be known in history by
the nickname used by her parents: Rita.
From early childhood, Rita was attracted to
virtue and had a strong desire to offer herself to
God in the religious life. As mentioned, that will
be the main ”impossibility” in the life of this saint.
Her example teaches us to always trust God if we
truly want to do His will. Before accepting her as a
religious, Our Lord wished to test Rita by difficult
trials in order to purify her. The first of these trials
will be the great obstacle opposed to her vocation:
a marriage full of sufferings, which she endured
with the most admirable patience.

Conversion of Her Husband
At that time in Cascia, there were many
confrontations and social tensions, especially

political struggles. There were two main parties
in Cascia that were mortal enemies: the Guelphs
and Ghibellines. These social tensions ended
frequently in bloody confrontations, exacerbated
by successive retaliations legitimized by law. The
Mancini and the Cicci families were the most
influential Ghibellines. They were united for
political reasons, but hated each other because of
their greed for power.
As they saw the end of their lives approaching,
Rita’s parents were afraid to leave her behind
facing alone the dangers of a corrupted world,
and they resolved to protect her by means of an
arranged marriage. Through Divine Providence,
Paolo Mancini was chosen. He was the son of
Fernando Mancini, an officer in the Collegiacone
castle, belonging to the wealthy family of the
Ghibellines. Paolo was well known for his
quarrelsome and brutal character.
On the other hand, Rita was born to a family
51

Christian Culture
of the so-called “peacemakers of Christ” who
intervened to reconcile the disputing factions, so
the families could live in peace without fear of
vengeance.
Rita and Paolo had twin boys: Giangiacomo
Antonio and Paolo Maria. During the eighteen
years of marriage, Rita patiently put up with the
roughness and violence of her husband, never
giving him the least motive for displeasure. It
cost her many tears and sorrows to convert
her husband’s soul. To soften his heart, she
continuously offered to God prayers and
supplications and engaged in fasting and works
of mercy.
Heaven heard her ardent prayers; the
supernatural means triumphed over the heart
of her husband; the “impossible” was achieved.
Paolo repented of his old crimes, abandoned the
party of his family, and went to work in a flour
mill with his wife and children.
His past fits of rage, however, had made him
many enemies among his fellow countrymen, who
now considered him a traitor. He was persecuted
for several years, and was eventually murdered in
an ambush.
Rita suffered this painful loss with Christian
heroism. She mourned bitterly for her husband,
but had the courage to forgive his assassins. She
tried to encourage her sons to forget the murder
of their father, to prevent them from avenging
his death upon reaching adulthood. Rita also
made them promise that they would never seek
revenge; however, her advice and supplications
fell on deaf ears. With each passing day, the
desire for revenge grew in the hearts of her sons.
At this time, Rita gave proof of true motherly
love: she fell on her knees and, with eyes filled
with tears, she asked God to take her children
before the horrible crime they were planning
could take place. Our Lord listened to His
servant’s request, and soon her sorrow increased
with the death of her two sons.

Jesus Christ’s Peacemaker
After suffering the death of her husband
and two children, Rita set out to pursue peace
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January - February 2014

between the families of her husband and his
murderers. Instead of appreciating her efforts,
her relatives were indignant and scandalized at
her attitude, which they considered abnormal.
During these difficulties, Rita spent long
periods of time in prayer begging God for the
peace and fortitude she needed. She also spent
a great part of the day tending to the sick and
needy in the hospitals of the Augustinian Sisters.
Immersed in these activities, and free from all
ties to this world, the desire to offer herself
entirely to God in the religious life returned to
her stronger than ever.
Through Rita’s forgiveness, life of prayer, and
charity towards the assassins of her husband, the
reconciliation of both families was achieved.

A New Attempt to
Enter the Convent
The reconciliation having been accomplished,
Rita knocked on the doors of the convent of
the Augustinian Sisters in Roccaporena. Either
because the convent could not take women who
had been previously married, or because of the
fear over potential trouble with the assassins,
Rita was rejected. She prayed constantly to
the Holy Ghost for guidance to know God’s
will. Without success, she attempted a second
and even a third time to request admittance to
the convent. That life-long desire, which now
seemed possible upon the death of her husband
and children, becomes a new “impossibility”
for Rita. She did not despair, but accepted with
resignation God’s will. It is at that point that the
most significant miracle in her life took place.
One night, she heard a voice inviting her to the
monastery. Rita saw St. John the Baptist going to
Schioppo, a high cliff in Roccaporena. There, she
was abandoned for a brief period of time, to grasp
the height of the peak, the sublimity of religious
perfection, and the horror of falling. While there,
she was consoled by St. John the Baptist, who
arrived in the company of St. Augustine and St.
Nicholas of Tolentino. These three saints took
her and, in an unfathomable way, placed her in
the convent, and then disappeared. The next

morning, the nuns found Rita in the cloister and
did not know how she had gotten there, since
all the doors were locked. With simplicity, Rita
told them what had happened, and by Divine
disposition the Chapter accepted her as a
religious.
Her childhood desire, that “impossible”
goal from which any other person would have
despaired, became a reality for our saint. In 1417,
at the age of 36, Rita was accepted as a religious
in the convent of the Augustinian Sisters of
Roccaporena.
She was a religious for 40 years. Constant in
prayer, she occupied herself in the contemplation
of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. She was
rewarded for this devotion with the well-known
miracle of the thorn of Christ’s crown on her
forehead, a stigmata that caused her terrible
sufferings till her death. The miracle of the
stigmata took place in 1442, when Rita was sixty
years old.
Rita spent the rest of her life in solitary prayer
and penance; her wound gave off a foul smell that
impelled her to keep herself from the community
so as to not offend the sisters. She spent the last
four years of her life bed-ridden due to a grave
illness that caused her a great deal of suffering;
this she bore with patience, to the edification of
the other sisters in the convent.
The miracle that confirmed her as the patron
for hopeless cases took place on her deathbed.
In the harshest part of the winter, when all was
covered in snow, a relative of Rita came to visit
her. Upon her departure, she asked Rita if she
would like something from home. The saint
replied she would like a rose and two figs from
her grove. The good woman smiled, thinking Rita
was delirious on account of her illness. When she
reached home, she saw on one side of the grove,
among the thorns, which were dried and covered
in snow, a very beautiful rose, and over the fig
tree, two very ripe figs. These she took to Rita.
On May 22, 1457, when she was 76 years old,
our Saint surrendered her beautiful soul to God.
Her death was crowned by one last miracle.
Upon leaving this world, the church bells rang by
themselves, giving her sisters in the convent the
certitude that Rita was entering heaven.

The life of this saint fills us with trust in the
Divine Providence. How many things God has
prepared to draw us near Him! Let us go to St.
Rita to ask for what seems “impossible” to us,
without despairing from attaining God’s help.
Although at times we may not understand, He
will give us the graces we need for our salvation.

A translation of “¿Por qué Santa Rita de Cascia es llamada la santa de las causas
imposibles?” by Fr. Aníbal Götte in Iesus Christus, No. 143, July-September,
2013.

53

Christian Culture

A Mother’s
Spiritual
Love
by Michael J. Rayes

I wanted my son to learn more responsibility
so I tasked him with regularly watering all
the house plants. But I forgot to have him
adjust his watering schedule once the weather
cooled and the newly purchased plants were
more established. One of the plants, a majestic
indoor palm, drowned in its own water. It was
suffocated by that which should have been lifegiving nourishment.
In 1951, a wise nun wrote an article about
mothers who suffocate vocations (“Mothers
of Saints” in Motherhood and Family, the
fourth volume of the Integrity series published
by Angelus Press). That which should be lifegiving—motherhood—can become the death
of a young adult’s development. Like water or
sunlight, Catholic motherhood is ultimately a
balance of the right amount of mothering at the
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right time. What is the one thing you need as a
mother to maintain this balance throughout all
your children’s years and into their adulthood?

The Motivating Factor
What is needed is love. With real, deep, abiding
love, a woman has the motivation to endure all
sorts of hardship. This love is received and given
back through the sacramental rites of the Church,
the mother’s private prayer life, and her spiritual
relationship with her husband’s soul. It is also
received and given back as natural affectionate
love with her husband. When either spiritual love
or affectionate love is missing, a modern woman
usually lacks sufficient motivation to endure the
toils of family life.

St. Paul wrote in I Corinthians 13 that love
is patient, kind, and a host of other attributes.
Let’s also remember that love is fragile. Human
love can become easily damaged and even
broken. Spiritual love doesn’t fare much better.
A woman may have the serenity of knowing she
is emotionally connected with her husband and
she is right with God. In just a few days, she
might go from serenity, to doubt, to loneliness, to
despairing of love from either her husband or her
God. Sometimes this descent happens in one day.
Strength is needed. Once the foundations
of love are built, you may notice that if you
experience doubt, those moments are not so
pervasive as before, or at least take a lot longer to
develop. Maintain a regular prayer life, frequent
the sacraments, and spend consistent quality time
with your husband. The recurrence of deliberate
actions to build your spiritual and even natural
love will bear fruit. Have confidence in this!
There comes a time when you simply have to
let go of any doubts and instead accept that love
always is, because God always is. What if you
and your husband simply knew that you would
both love each other forever, here on earth as
married partners and for eternity as intimate
spiritual friends? True love for each other, and
for God, is an assent of the will and thus does
not rely on emotion, wealth, health, beauty, or
any other temporal attribute, even though we
may comprehend the presence of love by noticing
those attributes.
Similarly, what if you could rest in the intuitive
knowledge that you will always love each of your
children, regardless of their behavior?
What I am advocating in this article is
motherhood motivated by a serene confidence in
unconditional love: Love of and from God, love
of the spouses, and love for the children. This
maternal love is of necessity a spiritual love.
The suffocating type of parenting mentioned
at the beginning of this article, I believe, may be
a result of not enough trust in God and in one’s
husband. As the children grow, the mother’s
role becomes less hands-on and more cognitive
and advisory. Yet, mothers must still surrender
control over their children’s lives. The adolescent
and young adult years are perhaps the most

challenging for mothers because those years
require the most amount of letting go. But when
considered under the light of spiritual love, a
maternal heart can make the transition much
easier. The function and duties change; the
spirituality rooted in unconditional love does not.

Consequences of Parenting
Catholics have a saying: “How does this look
in the light of eternity?” Mothers motivated by
spiritual love would go even further and ask,
“How does this look in the light of my children?”
All her actions, her decisions, will put her
children first.
The motivated Catholic mother sacrifices for
her children and submits her will to that of her
husband and thus to God. This chronic, daily
sacrifice of the feminine will is a stumbling block
for worldly women. The motivated Catholic mother
constantly gives of herself and considers her
family first. The worldly mother thinks of herself
first, even to the point of unnaturally or even
murderously suppressing the birth of children.
Once children are grown, parents will
experience the spiritual results of their parenting
over the years. If the parenting was rooted more
in the selfishness of the parents, the result is
both spiritual and behavioral problems from their
grown children. These problems will occupy
the parents’ minds and their waning energy
as they age. However, if parents are motivated
by spiritual love as the children grow up, the
natural stuff tends to take care of itself. You will
find a way. Your question will be the same for
your smiling baby, your dynamic toddler, your
energetic school-age son, your brooding teen, or
your struggling collegiate: How do I help my child
get to heaven?

Spiritual Love in the Household
When considering your spiritual love in
actual practice, remember that it takes shape
by a life of consistent practice of the Faith.
Children growing up in a household filled
55

Christian Culture
with spiritual love have plenty of opportunity to
use sacramentals at home and to frequent the
sacraments at their church. A few weekends ago,
my school-age daughter asked my permission
to go to confession. I told her that she never
needs my permission to go to confession, to
pray, or to go to Holy Communion, but to instead
follow the advice of the confessor. She seemed
to genuinely marvel at this idea. But it taught
her a lesson: Her faith must be her own. It is not
simply an extension of her parents’ faith. And
her love-relationship with her Divine Savior is so
important, her parents must not get in the way.
Others outside your family will notice your
love of God manifested in devotion to your
children and your husband. You are a positive
example in the marketplace when other women
see an authentically Catholic mother: Modest
clothes, a few kids, and hopefully a quietly smiling
confidence in managing the kids, at least most
of the time. The Catholic mother is thus a living
contradiction; a difficult challenge to the worldly
woman. You are what she has permanently
terminated. Just by showing up, the Catholic
mother generates strange comments from other
women. One comment my wife frequently heard
was, “Oh, I stopped at two kids. I’m done!”
This worldly astonishment alarms some
Catholic mothers. But be at peace. It is a sign that
you are on the right path. St. Louis Gonzaga once
advised, “There is no sign more certain that one
is of the number of the elect than, while leading
a Christian life, to be the subject of sufferings,
desolations, and trials.” For a motivated, loving
Catholic mother, this may take the form of
judgmental comments from extended relatives,
puzzled stares from strangers, and sometimes
more odious sufferings. Offer it all up to Jesus
and Mary. They are the inspiration for your
motherhood.

Balancing Children
and Husband
The Catholic mother cannot forget that she
was a wife first. The particular temptation of
well-intentioned people is to become so saturated
in our duties that we forget other areas of life.
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Fathers might become workaholics. Mothers
might become supermoms. This can fracture
the marriage. You might spend a considerable
amount of time with your children, but you must
make time each week with your husband. In the
spiritual life, our Eucharistic Lord exhorts us to
visit Him in the tabernacle. In your marriage, you
may also find that you need to actually schedule
time together as spouses to re-connect.
We kneel to receive Holy Communion to show
our submissive posture and the fact that we are
receiving. This is compliance. This is submission.
This is a gift granted unto us. We need to succumb in all docility to the Real, transcendent
Presence of God Himself. In your motherhood,
there is also a need to succumb in all docility to
the will of God. Holy Communion ties your family
together as a union of loving persons.
The Blessed Virgin Mary is not only your
intercessor and queen, she is a model of
motherhood. She constantly submitted to the
will of God, which included the death of her Son.
As a watered houseplant needs plenty of time to
become dry so it can thrive, Mary also knew in
her Immaculate Heart that she had to let her Son
go. Her reward is seeing her triune God face-toface in heaven. The same eternity awaits your
maternal heart.

Michael J. Rayes holds master’s degrees in professional
counseling and business administration, and a B.A. in
education. He and his wife are lifelong Catholics with seven
children. Rayes is the author of 28 Days to Better Behavior
and Bank Robbery!, a mystery for both children and adults
(published by Rafka Press). His articles have appeared in
Latin Mass Magazine and others.

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Apostolic Delegate, Superior General of the Holy Ghost Fathers, the Conciliar period, and, finally,
his great work of Catholic Tradition—the Society of St. Pius X. Drawing heavily on new interviews
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Questions and Answers

by Fr. Peter Scott, SSPX

Does an adult who receives
baptism insincerely receive
a valid sacrament?
The question of the necessary disposition in
receiving a sacrament is entirely different for an
infant than it is for an adult. An infant cannot
place an obstacle to either the reception or the
grace of the sacrament of baptism, for he is not
capable of having an intention one way or the
other. The sacrament is administered in virtue
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of the intention of the Church, represented by
the godparents, and consequently it is always
received validly and fruitfully.
However, the same is not the case for adults.
The reception of a sacrament requires that
the adult (unless he is insane or mentally
incompetent) act as a human person, with
sufficient knowledge and will as to act freely.
Hence for all sacraments except the Holy
Eucharist (because it is previously consecrated),
there must be some intention of receiving the
sacrament. However, the intention required

for validity and fruitfulness varies from one
sacrament to another. This is explained by Father
Prümmer (Man. Th. Mor., Vol. III, §87), quoting
the condemnation of Pope Innocent III of the
proposition that sacraments administered to
those who are unwilling are valid.
The insincerity in an adult receiving Baptism
can be understood in two ways, depending upon
two different kinds of defect of intention. The
first kind of defect of intention takes place when
a person submits unwillingly or hypocritically to
the ceremony of baptism, without any intention of
receiving it. In such a case it is manifestly invalid,
since the minimum intention of receiving baptism
validly is the implicit habitual intention that is
contained in the effort to live a Christian life.
Nobody who is interested in living a Catholic life,
even if not in the state of grace, nor truly contrite
for his sins, is invalidly baptized due to lack of
intention. This kind of insincerity is a rare thing,
and is summarized by St. Thomas Aquinas: “If in
an adult the intention of receiving the sacrament
of baptism is absent, then he must be re-baptized.
However, if this is not obvious, then he is to be
baptized with the formula ‘if you are not baptized,
I…’ ” (III, Q. 68, Art. 7, ad 2).
However, there is a much more frequent kind
of insincerity and defect of intention. It takes
place when the adult has at least habitually the
intention of receiving the sacrament, but does not
ensure that he has the necessary dispositions for
fruitful reception of the sacrament. In such cases,
the sacrament of baptism is received validly
but without fruit. It is the case when a person
receives baptism without having the Faith, or
without having at least imperfect contrition for
his sins, or without having confidence in the
merits of Christ’s passion to save him from his
sins.
This is what St. Thomas Aquinas describes in
the above mentioned article: “Through baptism
a person dies to the old life of sin and begins
a certain newness of life…and so just as it is
required, in the person who has free will, that he
have the will of repenting for the old life in order
that he die to it, so likewise is required the will
by which the newness of life is intended, of which
the principle is the reception of the sacrament.

And so the will of intention of receiving the
sacrament is required on the part of the baptized
person.”
The sacrament received insincerely in this case
exists when the adult does not have the intention
of receiving grace from it. Consequently, it
does not give sanctifying grace, and is received
sacrilegiously, adding to the burden of the adult’s
sins. However, in such a case it is not to be
repeated. Rather the adult is to repent of the sin
of sacrilege, make acts of faith, true contrition
and hope, and the sacrament will revivify. Since
the sacramental character is already on the
soul, the correction of the defective disposition
results in sanctifying grace and the graces of the
sacrament flowing onto the soul. The insincere
adult convert must therefore regret his sin, do
penance, confess the sins of the sacrilege and
turn his heart to God. These insincere baptisms
are most frequently the case of non-Catholics
receiving baptism so as to marry a Catholic. The
priest’s responsibility is to ensure that it is a true
and not an insincere conversion.

May one pray to have
someone else’s painful disease
transferred to oneself?
The love of the Cross is an integral and
essential part of our Catholic life, as our Divine
Savior Himself stated, “If any man will come after
me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross
daily, and follow me” (Lk. 9:23) and as St. Paul
also teaches: “God forbid that I should glory, save
in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom
the world is crucified to me and I to the world”
(Gal. 6:14). It is also true that physical suffering
is one of the most difficult of crosses to bear
59

Questions and Answers
without resentment and with love. Theoretically,
also, it would be a great act of charity to ask for
another’s suffering to be transferred to oneself in
order to relieve the other person.
However, there is a huge difference between
embracing the sufferings that God in His
goodness deigns to send us and actually and
positively willing that such sufferings should
come upon us. It is the difference between
the second and third degrees of humility, as
described by St. Ignatius in his book of Spiritual
Exercises. The second degree of humility is
that of indifference, namely the acceptation and
embracing of whatever the Good Lord sends
us, whether it be sickness or health, poverty or
riches, etc. “I neither desire nor am I inclined
to….” The third degree is entirely heroic, and
consists in actually choosing or desiring poverty
or suffering or insults rather than the contrary
“whenever the praise and glory of the Divine
Majesty would be equally served, in order to
imitate and be in reality more like Christ, our
Lord…” (ibid.).
However, it must be acknowledged that such
a desire and such a prayer is the will of God only
when it is the fruit of a soul that has attained
to perfection. This is what Father A. Tanquerey
has to say in his treatise entitled The Spiritual
Life: “The desire and love of suffering…is the
degree proper to perfect souls and especially to
apostolic souls, to religious, priests and devout
men and women. Such was the disposition that
animated Our Blessed Lord when He offered
Himself as victim at His entrance into this
world.…Out of love for Him and in order to
become more like Him, perfect souls enter into
the same sentiments” (§1091).
In any other soul, however, such a prayer or
desire could be a form of self-deception, and even
a temptation of the devil to ultimately produce
discouragement. Father Tanquerey continues
to ask himself if it is appropriate for a soul to
formally ask God for extraordinary sufferings,
as in the prayer to take somebody else’s disease
upon oneself. Here is his answer: “No doubt
some of the Saints have done so and in our day
there are still generous souls who are moved
to do likewise. However, generally speaking,
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such requests cannot be prudently counseled.
They may easily lead to illusions and are often
the outcome of some ill-considered impulse of
generosity which has its origin in presumption.…
Therefrom issue violent temptations to
discouragement and even to complaints against
God’s Providence.…Hence we must not take
it upon ourselves to ask for extraordinary
sufferings or trials….If one feels oneself drawn
thereto, one must take counsel with a judicious
director of souls and do nothing without his
approval” (ibid., §1092). There lies the answer to
the question: one ought only to pray such a prayer
after having discerned that it is the will of God
because one is called to perfection and one’s
spiritual director is in full agreement.

Does God answer the
prayers of sinners?
This question is asked and answered by St.
Thomas Aquinas in the Summa Theologica, II-II,
Q. 83, Art. 16.
As always, St. Thomas makes the necessary
distinctions. There are some occasions in
which the sinner is certain to have his prayers
answered, and other occasions when he is not.
The difference for the sinner is that his prayers
have no merit attached to them. However, this
does not mean that they have nothing pertaining
to godliness, which he does not yet possess.
Despite the absence of merit, he is certain to have
his prayers answered when he asks for something
pertaining to godliness. St. Thomas points out
that God always answers such prayers, not out of
justice, but out of pure mercy, provided that his
prayers fulfill the four conditions laid down by
Our Lord for infallible certitude that our prayers
will be answered (ibid., Art. 15, ad 2).

These are, firstly, that he ask for something on
behalf of himself. The reason for this is that when
we pray for another, we cannot be sure about
his disposition of soul, and consequently he may
place an obstacle that prevents the prayer from
being infallibly answered for himself. The second
condition is that he ask for things necessary for
salvation, for these are the things that pertain to
godliness, and which we know with certitude are
the will of God. When anyone asks for temporal
benefits, he cannot be infallibly certain that his
prayer will be answered. The third condition is
that the sinner beg piously, that is with reverence,
and the fourth that he do so with perseverance.
However, there is nothing to stop a sinner
praying for intentions and in a way that does
not fulfill all four conditions. God can and
frequently does answer such prayers if they be
according to His holy will. If the sinner prays
for things that are supernaturally good, such as
the conversion of another person, he may very
well be heard, and St. Thomas Aquinas gives the
reason: “Though his prayer is not meritorious,
it can be impetrative, because merit depends
on justice, whereas impetration rests on grace”
(ibid., ad 2). He also points out that godliness is
not just in the sanctity of the person who prays,
but that the sinner’s prayer “may be godly in
so far as he asks for something pertaining to
godliness.” This would be the case if the sinner
prays for others not to fall into the same vice as
he has committed. In such a case the sinner’s
prayer is much more likely to be heard than if he
is asking for purely temporal things that have no
relationship with godliness.
Consequently, it is certainly better to ask
for and depend upon the prayers of just and
holy men, and their prayers are more likely to
move God to compassion on our sufferings and
difficulties. However, the prayers of sinners are
not to be despised either, since God Himself
does not despise them, but welcomes them, nor
are they always an abomination, that is to say,
hypocrisy. Far from it. God, who alone knows the
secrets of hearts, knows how every conversion
and return to grace is preceded by the prayers of
sinners, which prayers are not always at first for
themselves. It is consequently too simplistic and

incomplete to say that God does not answer the
prayers of sinners, nor does it take into account
the complexity of human life and the workings of
grace in our rebellious souls.
A good illustration of this is given in St.
Augustine’s conversion, as related in his
Confessions. “In the first dawning of my youth,”
he says, “I had begged of Thee chastity, but by
halves, miserable wretch that I am; and I said,
Give me chastity, but not yet awhile.” This prayer
lacked the piety necessary, but was eventually
answered, when years later it was followed up by
another, and most efficacious prayer: “How long,
O Lord? Wilt thou be angry for ever? Remember
not my past iniquities!” This bitter and true
contrition of heart obtained the grace to read the
Scripture with insight and to convert.

61

Pange Lingua

Praise the Savior now and ever;
Praise Him, all beneath the skies;
Self denying, suffering, dying,
On the cross a sacrifice.
Victory gaining, life obtaining,
Now in glory He doth rise!
Our work faileth, Christ’s availeth;
He is all our righteousness.
He, our Savior, has forever
Set us free from dire distress.
Through His merit we inherit
Light and peace and happiness.
Sin’s bonds severed, we’re delivered;
Christ has crushed the serpent’s head.
Death no longer is the stronger;
Hell itself is captive led.
Christ has risen from death’s prison;
O’er the tomb He light has shed.
For His favor, praise forever
Unto God the Father sing.
Praise the Savior, praise Him ever,
Son of God, our Lord and King.
Praise the Spirit; through Christ’s merit
He doth us salvation bring.

Church and World
“Motus in Fine Velocior”— Things Speed Up at the End
By Roberto de Mattei

February 11, 2013, is a date that will go down
in history. On that day, Benedict XVI announced
to an assembly of stunned cardinals that he had
decided to renounce the pontificate. This news was
received “like a lightning bolt from a clear sky,” in
the words reported by the Dean of the College of
Cardinals, Angelo Sodano, and a photograph of a
lightning bolt that struck St. Peter’s Basilica that
very day went around the world.
Abdication

The abdication took place on February 28,
but Benedict XVI had previously made known
his intention of remaining in the Vatican as pope
emeritus, an unprecedented step that was even
more surprising than his renunciation of the
pontificate. In the month that passed between
his announcement and the conclave that opened
March 12, the election of the new pope was in
preparation, even if it seemed unexpected to the
world. What was thought even more surprising
than the identity of the man elected, Argentinean
Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was the unprecedented
name he chose, Francis, almost as if he wished
to represent something unique in its kind. His
first address was remarkable for following his
colloquial “good evening” by presenting himself
as “bishop of Rome,” a title that belongs to the
pope, but only after the titles of Vicar of Christ
and Successor of St. Peter, the foundations of the
sovereign pontificate.
The photograph of the two popes praying
together on March 23 in Castelgandolfo, presenting
the image of an unheard-of pontifical ‘diarchy,’
added to the confusion of those days. But that was
merely the beginning. Next came the interview
on board the plane returning from Rio de Janeiro,
July 28, 2013, with the words, “Who am I to judge?”
which would be used to justify any transgression.
Other interviews with Pope Francis followed, with
the editor of Civiltà Cattolica in September and
with the founder of La Repubblica in October, and
their impact in the media was greater than that of
his first encyclical Lumen Fidei. It was said that
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these interviews were not acts of the magisterium,
but everything that has happened since in the
Church has stemmed from them; their character
was magisterial de facto, if not in principle.
Confrontation

The confusion has peaked1 with the
confrontation between the (future) cardinal
Gerhard Ludwig Müller, Prefect of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
and the Cardinal Archbishop of Tegucigalpa
Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, co-ordinator of
the counsellors for the reforms of Pope Francis.
According to Maradiaga, traditional doctrine is
not enough to provide “answers for the world of
today.” It is maintained, but there are “pastoral
challenges” adapted to the times to which
we cannot respond with “authoritarianism
and moralism” because that is not “the New
Evangelization.”
After Cardinal Maradiaga’s statements came
the results of the survey on pastoral challenges
relating to the family, launched by the Pope for
the Synod of Bishops of October 5-19. The SIR
(Service of Religious Information) has released
a summary of the first European results. The
bishops of Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg
and Germany feel that the Catholic Faith is too
rigid and does not meet the requirements of the
faithful. The Church should accept premarital
cohabitation, recognize homosexual marriages
and civil partnerships, allow birth control and
contraception, bless the remarriages of the
divorced, and allow the remarried divorced to
receive the sacraments. If this is the road to take,
it is correct to call it a road to schism and heresy,
because it means denying the natural and divine
law which not only upholds the indissolubility of
marriage but also prohibits sexual acts outside
of it, especially acts against nature. The Church
receives all those who repent of their mistakes
and their sins and intend to leave the morally
disordered situation in which they live, but it can
in no way legitimize a sinful state. It would be
nonsensical to claim that the change only applies
to pastoral practice and not to doctrine. If doctrine

is not related to pastoral practice, it follows that
practice becomes doctrine, as it unfortunately has
become ever since the Second Vatican Council.
New Answers

Must the Church give new answers “for the
world of today”? The great reformers in Church
history, such as St. Peter Damian and Pope St.
Gregory VII did not behave in this way. If they
had, simony and nepotism among the clergy
would have been legitimized in the 11th century,
so as not to let the Church fall out of step with the
reality of the times; whereas on the contrary, they
denounced these wounds in the Church with fiery
words and worked to reform morals and restore
the true doctrine.
It is the intransigent and uncompromising spirit
of the saints that is dramatically lacking today.
There is an urgent need for an acies ordinata,
an army in battle array armed with the weapons
of the Gospel, announcing the words of life to
the dying modern world, rather than embracing
its corpse. Between the Council of Trent and
the French Revolution, the Jesuits were for the
Church such a company of combatants. Today all
the religious orders have fallen into decadence,
and if one of them appears rich in promise,
it is inexplicably suppressed. The case of the
Franciscans of the Immaculate, which came out
in July, presents an obvious contradiction between
Pope Francis’s incessant calls for mercy and the

iron hand with which Commissioner Fidenzio
Volpi was instructed to annihilate one of today’s
few flourishing religious institutions.
The paradox does not stop there. Never has the
Church renounced one of its divine attributes,
that of justice, as it has in this first year of Pope
Francis’s pontificate, to present itself to the world
as merciful and benevolent; yet never before this
year has it been the object of such violent attacks
from the world to which it has outstretched its
hand.
Events are flying by more and more swiftly. The
Latin phrase “motus in fine velocior” is commonly
used to express the increasing pace of time at the
end of an era. The proliferation of events shortens
the time, which in itself does not exist outside of
the things that happen. Aristotle tells us that time
is the measure of motion (Physics, IV, 219 b). We
define it more precisely as the duration of things
that move. God is eternal precisely because He is
immutable: all motion has its cause in Him, but
nothing in Him moves. The farther we retreat from
God, the greater the chaos produced by change.
Acceleration in Time
February 11th marked the beginning of an
acceleration in time, the consequence of a
movement that has become vertiginous. We live in
an historic hour which is not necessarily the end
of time, but certainly the twilight of a civilization
and the end of an era in the life of the Church.

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Church and World
If at the end of this era the Catholic clergy and
laity do not carry out their full responsibilities,
what the visionary of Fatima saw will certainly
come to pass: “And we saw in an immense light
that is God (something similar to how people
appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it) a
Bishop dressed in white (we had the impression
that it was the Holy Father). Other Bishops,
Priests, men and women Religious going up a
steep mountain, at the top of which there was a
big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree
with the bark; before reaching there the Holy
Father passed through a big city half in ruins,
and half trembling with halting step, afflicted
with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of
the corpses he met on his way; having reached
the top of the mountain, on his knees at the
foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group
of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him,
and in the same way there died one after another
the other Bishops, Priests, men and women
Religious, and various lay people of different
ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the
Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal
aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered
up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled
the souls that were making their way to God.”
This dramatic vision of May 13th should
be more than enough to incite us to prayer,
meditation and action. The city is already in ruins
and the enemy soldiers are at the gates. Whoever

loves the Church will defend it, to hasten the
triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
(Source: Correspondance européenne – DICI,
No. 291, February 28, 2014)
1

Roberto de Mattei alludes to the interview Cardinal Maradiaga
gave on January 20, 2014, to German newspaper Kölner Stadt
Anzeiger, part of which is reproduced here, translated from the
transcript published in the Kölner Stadt Anzeiger.
Maradiaga: I asked the Pope, “Why yet another synod on the family?
We had that 1980, and we have the beautiful teaching of Pope
John Paul II’s Exhortation Familiaris Consortio in 1983.”
KStA: How did Francis respond?
Maradiaga: That was 30 years ago. Today, the family of that time no
longer exists for most people. And it’s true: we have divorces;
we have blended families, single-parent families, phenomena
such as surrogacy and childless marriages, not to mention the
same-sex partnerships. In 1980 none of this was anticipated.
The world of today needs answers. And it is not enough to say,
“We have the traditional doctrine.” Of course, the traditional
teaching will subsist. But these pastoral challenges require
answers for the world of today. And they cannot come from
authoritarianism and moralism. That would not be the “New
Evangelization”–no, no!
KStA: Your confrere, soon-to-be Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller,
apparently thinks more highly of the authority of the Church, as
prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
[Laughter] Maradiaga: So I have read, yes. And I thought, “Okay,
maybe you’re right, but maybe not.” I mean, I understand: He is
German–yes, I have to say, on top of that a professor, a German
professor of theology. In his mind there is only right or wrong;
that’s it. But I say, “The world, my brother, the world is not like
that. You should be a little flexible when you hear other voices,
so that you do not just listen and say no, here is the wall.” So,
I believe he will get there, he will learn to understand other
views. But now he’s still just at the beginning, he’s just listening
to his senior staff.

The New Lists of Grievances
A strange questionnaire on the family, to which
anyone can answer freely whatever he wants, whatever he feels, perhaps what he believes…concerning the indissolubility of marriage, contraception,
homosexuality… The answers to these questionnaires are supposed to help the cardinals understand better the “pastoral challenges of the family
in the context of evangelization,” at the Synod that
is to be held next October.
For the last several weeks, these answers have
been diffused in the press and online by certain
Bishops’ conferences that wish to show the world,
but especially Rome, that Catholic doctrine and

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the practice of Catholics are not on the same
page. It is already being suggested that in order to
reduce this difference, we need only reduce moral
demands…
If we continue thus, the answers to this worldwide survey will soon be presented as the lists of
grievances that the laymen place in the hands of
their representatives, the cardinals, for a Synod
seen as the States-General of “the family in the
context of evangelization.” Then shall we be able to
repeat with Cardinal Suenens, speaking of Vatican
II: “It is 1789 in the Church!”
—Fr. Alain Lorans

Switzerland and Germany: Answers to the Survey on the Family
In Switzerland, the official results of the
consultation on the Catholic Church’s pastoral
teachings on marriage, the family and life as
a couple were presented on February 4, 2014,
in Bern, by the Swiss Bishops’ Conference
(CES). Pope Francis desired this consultation in
preparation for the extraordinary synod on the
family that is to be held in Rome from October
5-19, 2014. (See DICI, No. 284, Nov. 8, 2013, and
DICI, No. 289, Jan. 31, 2014.)
The results of this consultation—which de
facto was in the form of a survey of the faithful—
reveals that out of the 25,000 answers received, 90
percent of Swiss Catholics wish the Church would
recognize and bless remarried divorcee couples,
and about 60 percent are favorable to the Church
recognizing and blessing homosexual couples.
Arnd Bünker, director of the Swiss Institute
of Pastoral Sociology (SPI), who collected and
evaluated the answers, also pointed out that
there exists a “dramatic discord of which we have
long been aware” between the Church’s doctrine
and the faithful on questions of contraception:
forbidding artificial methods of contraception is
far from the practice and ideas of the majority.
In answer, far from recalling Catholic doctrine
and morals, Bishop Markus Büchel, bishop of
Saint-Gall and president of the CES, declared that
the hierarchy of the Church can no longer continue
to deliver its message in a way “that no longer
reaches man.” While he says that the Church’s
teaching should not be submitted to “a cheap
majority opinion,” the Swiss prelate considers
that this teaching needs to be renewed in the light
of values and ideals that correspond to people’s
real life.—Which means in other words: adapt
the moral teaching of the Church to the “values”
that are accepted today; the press agency Apic
resumes it in these words: “For a doctrine that
corresponds to people’s reality.” The revealed
doctrine no longer transforms sinful reality; it
must be reduced to the level of this reality.
In Germany, the permanent committee of the
Bishops’ Conference presented the press with the
results of this consultation-survey on February
3, in Bonn. The bishops pointed out that there

exists among the German Catholics a “general
impression that the Church behaves mercilessly
towards remarried divorcees.” In consequence,
they ask for a “pastoral teaching that respects
the decision of the individual’s conscience” and a
merciful attitude towards failure, “which would
also allow readmission to the sacraments.”
Catholics consider that the sexual morality
advocated by the Catholic Church is “far from
the real life” of believers as of non-believers. The
bishops admitted that “when they don’t reject them
altogether,” the faithful adhere very little to the
Church’s affirmations, be it on sexual intercourse

Lucetta Scaraffia, editorial writer for L’Osservatore Romano

before marriage, homosexuality, remarried
divorcees or contraception.
As far as contraception goes, the bishops
remarked a “great difference” between the official
doctrine and what the faithful think of it. The
encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968) is refused
by a vast majority of Catholics. They call it
“incomprehensible” and make no effort to put it
into practice. But as far as abortion goes, most
Catholics share the teaching of the Church.
As for the legal status of homosexuals, a
majority of those surveyed consider it “necessary
in justice” to recognize these life communities
legally and to respect homosexuals. However, the
idea of making the legal institution of marriage
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Church and World
available to same sex unions is “mostly rejected”
by Catholics.
The answers from 27 German dioceses and
about 20 Catholic associations and institutions
reveal—as in Switzerland—the necessity of
finding new ways to transmit the Catholic Church’s
moral teaching. And in order to ensure that these
answers and the solutions they suggest will be
internationally diffused, the German bishops are
going to publish a report on the German Bishops’
Conference website, in English and Italian.—The
Rhine is still flowing into the Tiber.
In Austria, the bishops received over 34,000
answers to the questionnaire, and results are
mostly along the same lines as in Germany and
Switzerland. A large percentage points out that
the Church does not take seriously enough the
reality of failed marriages and families. For this
reason, a vast majority of Catholics ask that
remarried divorcees be once again allowed access
to confession and communion. This majority
also rejects the Church’s position on artificial
contraception.
At the Vatican, Lucetta Scaraffia, editorial
writer for L’Osservatore Romano, rejoiced in
the February 4 edition over this world-wide
consultation on the pastoral teaching on the
family. She noted the “remarkable vitality” (sic)
of the Church revealed by the answers that reach
the Vatican. She considers that “the opposition
between the hierarchy and the faithful” has made
room for a “passionate will to understand better,
to come up with an idea and test it peacefully.”
According to her, Catholics “want to feel involved
in an institution that is ready to understand,
welcome, and forgive, rather than to judge, set
up obstacles and mark boundaries between what
we ought to do and what we live on a daily basis.”
Is this dialoguing irenism the result of an
unconscious intelligence, of a “useful idiot”? But
for whose ends?
Lucetta Scaraffia mentioned France and the
“heavy initiatives on the legislative level to revise
the status of the family and filiation.” She esteems
that “the opposition between the two conflicting
parties” has made room for “a free discussion.”
“The more it is freed from the mortgage of
politics,” she wrote, “the freer and the more
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January - February 2014

interesting the discussion will become; and it will
attract other people who had withdrawn from it
out of fear of the direction the debate was taking.”
—This journalist for L’Osservatore Romano
wishes for a “free and interesting discussion”
on homosexual marriage, medically assisted
procreation and surrogate mothers for anyone…
The French protestors who have been fighting to
save the family for months now will appreciate
that!
Comment: We have already noted how this
kind of opinion poll “will help to dilute the dogma
a little further into a pastoral plan that is more
dependent on sociology than on theology” (see
DICI, No. 284, Nov. 8, 2013).
We must also note that the results of these
consultations are highly questionable. What are
25,000 questionnaires compared to some three
million Swiss Catholics? This questionnaire on the
family, open to all, has no statistical method and
we cannot help wondering whether progressive
groups have taken the opportunity to promote
their ideas.
St. Pius X denounced the use of democratic
methods as typical of the modernist system. He
wrote in Pascendi Dominici Gregis in 1907:
“For we are living in an age (say the modernists)
when the sense of liberty has reached its highest
development. In the civil order the public
conscience has introduced popular government.
Now there is in man only one conscience, just as
there is only one life. It is for the ecclesiastical
authority, therefore, to adopt a democratic
form, unless it wishes to provoke and foment an
intestine conflict in the consciences of mankind.
The penalty of refusal is disaster. For it is madness
to think that the sentiment of liberty, as it now
obtains, can recede. Were it forcibly pent up and
held in bonds, the more terrible would be its
outburst, sweeping away at once both Church
and religion. Such is the situation in the minds of
the Modernists, and their one great anxiety is, in
consequence, to find a way of conciliation between
the authority of the Church and the liberty of the
believers” (No. 25).
(Sources: Apic/ Imedia/ OR – DICI, No. 290, Feb.
14, 2014)

The Vatican City State Celebrated Its 85th Birthday

The smallest State in the world, the Vatican City
State, was born of the Lateran Accords, signed on
February 11, 1929, by Cardinal Pietro Gasparri,
Secretary of State, and by Prime Minister Benito
Mussolini on behalf of Pius XI (1922-1939) and
King Victor-Emmanuel III respectively. Ratified
on June 7, 1929, these pacts had put an end to the
“Roman question” started by the capture of Rome
by Piedmontese troops on September 20, 1870,
and the annexation of the city to the Kingdom of
Italy, thereby pitting the Vatican against the Italian
State from 1870 on. These accords also meant the
disappearance of the Papal States.
The 1929 Accords created a sovereign entity on
44 hectares [109 acres], which makes the central
government of the Catholic Church, the Holy See,
a subject of international public law. They also
allow for its independence from any established
authority in the world. The Pope resides in Vatican
City, where some organizations of the Holy See are
headquartered. Head of State of the Vatican, he
delegates his duties of representing the Vatican in
international relations, for diplomatic relations and
for the conclusion of treaties, to the Secretariat of
State of the Holy See.
The nine departments of the Vatican City State
are responsible, respectively, for the finances
of the State, general services, security services
and civil defense, health-related matters, the
famous Vatican Museums, technical services,
telecommunications, economic services, and
finally the pontifical villas. The Astronomical
Observatory of the Vatican is an autonomous
organization.
The Vatican State has its own yellow-and-white
flag with the tiara and the keys on the white field, a
hymn—the Papal March by Charles Gounod (18181893), license plates, postal service and money.
In 2012, the Vatican City State numbered a little

more than 500 citizens, among them the pope, the
cardinals residing in Rome and at the Vatican,
the diplomats of the Holy See residing abroad,
as well as the men of the Pontifical Swiss Guard.
But only 240 of these citizens live within the City
itself. Conversely, some 250 persons who do not
have Vatican citizenship reside at the Vatican, so
that the total number of residents in Vatican City is
almost 500.
L’Osservatore Romano emphasized that the
anniversary of the signing of the Lateran Accords
between the Holy See and Italy, on February 11,
1929, coincides with the [thirtieth] anniversary
of the conclusion of the Villa Madama Accord on
February 18, 1984, which somewhat modified one
of the protocols making up the Lateran Accords,
the Concordat.
Jean Gaudemet, professor emeritus of the
University of Paris II, explains the nature of and
the reason for this important change: “The Lateran
Treaty still made the Catholic religion the only
State religion. This notion disappeared with the
1984 Accord.” In effect, he continues, “the doctrine
to which the 1984 Accord subscribes…is also that
of the conciliar Constitution on the Church in the
Modern World (Gaudium et Spes, 1965).” The new
arrangements differ from the system of the 1929
Concordat on numerous points; more particularly
“the political power is no longer the creator of a
freedom that it guarantees. It acknowledges the
freedom that the Church claims by virtue of her
mission. For it is in order to exercise her pastoral
mission, and no longer for the exercise of a
power, even a spiritual one, that the Church enjoys
full freedom. This is new vocabulary, but most
importantly a new concept of the Church’s role in
the world, inspired by the ecclesiology of Vatican
II” (Annuaire français de droit international 30
[1984], 212).
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Church and World
“We Must Be Men of Principle”
SSPX U.S. District, Feb. 27, 2014.—This letter from Fr. Karl Stehlin explains how we must be men of
principle according to the proper Catholic sense.
Recently, Father Jean, a priest of the traditional Capuchin community in Morgon, France, gave a
sermon in which he expressed the opinion that the SSPX is “going soft on Modernism” for having sought
a practical agreement with Rome. In response to this false accusation, Fr. Karl Stehlin (the superior
of the SSPX’s Eastern European Autonomous House), felt compelled to write to him and the Capuchin
community at large, in order to explain five important Catholic principles that he has learned over the
years as a Society priest.
We are grateful to Father Stehlin for allowing us to publish a translation of his letter, which dovetails
perfectly with two other recent articles concerning the principles that govern the SSPX: “What Comes
First: Obedience or Fidelity?” and “A Question of Principles: SSPX vs. FSSP.” The footnotes in Father’s
letter were added by sspx.org.

Warsaw, February 6, 2014
To Rev. Fr. Antoine, Rev. Fr. Jean, and the whole
Community of Reverend Capuchin Fathers1

70

gather together the main principles (I found five)
and place them before my conscience in order
to examine whether I strive to put them into
practice. Allow me to expose them to you, not in
hierarchical order, but as they come to mind.

Reverend Father Jean,

First Principle: The Good of Obedience

I just received your sermon from the Third
Sunday after the Epiphany, and I must tell you
that it deeply moved me. It reminded me of those
days when I had the honor of receiving you into
the Militia Immaculatae [M.I.], and of your visit
to Poland to participate in our great pilgrimage
to Czestochowa. What is more, you know how
attached I am to you Capuchin Fathers, especially
since it is through you that the M.I. spread in
France, forming knights of the Immaculate willing
to work for the conversion of souls. Finally, what
a joy it has been for me to see Polish postulants
enter your monastery and the convent of the Poor
Clares.
All this to say that I read your sermon with the
utmost attention, all the more so since you Fathers
rarely speak “ad extra.”
How right you are to insist that we must be
men of principle, and that our principles must
be inflexible, with no possible compromise. I
admit that I have been thinking about this very
point for a long time, and wishing to be a man
of principle after the example of a Cardinal Pie
and an Archbishop Lefebvre, I have tried to

Reading your words as a son of St. Francis and
of our beloved St. Maximilian Kolbe, I thought
first of all of how much the latter insisted on
supernatural obedience. You know his famous
texts and you know better than I that for St.
Maximilian, the only sure mark of the voice of
the Immaculate is the voice of one’s superiors.
This saint practiced this obedience to the point
of heroism, and that is the profound reason for
his influence and the success of the Immaculate.
I have always admired the Capuchin Fathers for
being champions of the practice of this great
principle. And St. Maximilian (and St. Thomas
before him) tells again that only if superiors ask of
us something immoral or against the Faith must
we respect the greater obedience towards God and
therefore refuse to obey His human instruments.
Thanks to this principle, which is the essence of
obedience, we have chosen the superior obedience
towards God over obedience to His instruments
who ask us to do or accept things against Faith
and morals.
But if I am in front of a legitimate superior (see
the second principle), I owe him total obedience,
through which I accomplish the will of the

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January - February 2014

Immaculate in perfect safety. And St. Maximilian
insists that this obedience is thus supernatural
because of our love for God and our submission to
Him.
I admit that it is sometimes hard. And I can
still hear Fr. Antoine saying during a retreat, “You
have to hold on tight” to persevere on the path
of obedience. And I am so happy and grateful to
my superiors who not only have never asked of
me (nor of anyone I know) anything bad, but on
the contrary: how many times have their orders
saved me, although at the time I didn’t understand,
and I thought that humanly speaking such order
seemed to make little sense. But the principle

principle of authority in se, which alone can
save us from the Protestant free inquiry. All of
Tradition holds together through this principle,
without which everything would fall apart, for
the duty to refuse the ordinary authority in
order to safeguard the Faith implies the duty to
submit to the authority of extraordinary supplied
jurisdiction.
Tradition has survived because Providence
provided this supplied jurisdiction through the
founding of the SSPX to which were attached
friendly communities.3
The minute we reject this authority, we endorse
terrible consequences: Without it there is no

is formal: As long as there is no act, order, or
demand against faith and morals, complete and
total obedience! How I wish the sons of St. Francis
and of St. Maximilian Kolbe would remind us of
this principle that is the source of all sanctity and
apostolic fecundity. All of us priests ordained in
Tradition made a solemn promise at the moment of
our priestly ordination, and in the light of this, how
painful it is to read the declaration of the priests
that call themselves “the Resistance.”2

unity. Look at the 20 sedevacantist sects, look
at “the Resistance” after less than two years: no
principle of unity except that of fighting against
the SSPX. Among them there are already a good
number of formal sedevacantists,4 one preaches
that today a priest has to be a bit of an anarchist,
etc. Look at your sermon and your tract:5 it is your
interpretation, it is your point of view, and you
have no way of giving any other credit to your text
besides the arguments you offer.
You quote the bishops of the Society, criticizing
them for each having a different point of view
on the situation. Look at your own beautiful

Second Principle: Authority

Another principle linked to the first is the

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Church and World
monastery: perhaps one priest has another
vision of things, and yet another comes to a
sedevacantist conclusion. And then what will
become of the Father Guardian?6 For in the name
of safeguarding the Faith, all the Fathers will
“put their priesthood at the faithful’s disposition”
and do what they want.
Please, Father, by refusing legitimate authority
one destroys one’s own authority.
At this point I would like to draw your
attention to Bishop Williamson. You know well
that we have been trying for years to prepare
the conversion of a good number of Protestant
pastors. Well, their testimony is interesting.
They say that in reading Bishop Williamson’s
Kyrie Eleison,7 they are strangely reminded
of the “prophets of the 19th century” in the
Lutheran Church who shared their apocalyptic
interpretations, always with the conclusion that
the world is going to end and it is all over. All
there is left to do is wait for the last day. Each one
believed he held the true Gospel according to the
principle: objectivity is me!
Third Principle: One Must Not Use Bad Means for a
Good End

You see, Father, once in my life I went around
this principle, and if it hadn’t been for the
intervention of Providence through my superiors’
firm hand, I would have fallen never again to
get back up. Ever since that experience I have
a profound horror of anything that violates this
principle.
However, seeing the procedures of the socalled Resistance, I cannot help being deeply
shocked by the constant violation of this
principle, especially because of the Internet,
which spreads these things throughout the whole
world, most of them to people who have no way
to check the truth of what they are told.
But the worst of all bad means is to spread
“half-truths,” to present the probable as certain,
to judge important things without knowing
the circumstances and all the facts. Seeing
the declaration of the confused priests that
you esteem so highly brings tears to my eyes.
I personally know the real story of about half
of those who signed, the real reasons for their
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criticism and departure. I do not know a single
one of whom I can sincerely say: It is only in
order to safeguard the whole Faith. And with
these facts before my eyes, I have the right to
ask that the slogan “to safeguard the Faith” not
be used as a means to avenge themselves, justify
themselves, or show that they were right.
I also know of Fr. Chazal’s correspondence
with his confrere concerning the situation in
Asia; I know Fr. Pfluger’s conference in Flavigny8
and what the great media of the Resistance
made of it. It is always the same thing as in the
text of the declaration: tendentious or distorted
presentations (e.g., calling the confidential text
drawn up for discussion on April 15, 2012,9 a
“declaration”; presenting this text as the actual
position of the superiors of the Society of St. Pius
X, while ignoring the decision of the General
Chapter). I know well that you do not do this, but
I deplore the credit you grant to these people.
Fourth Principle: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam10

We come now to the principle of principles that
you evoke: “Everything here below is ordained
to the glory of God,” and you would surely have
nothing against adding “and the salvation of
souls—Salus animarum suprema lex.”11
You see, this great principle directs my
whole missionary life and certainly that of
all my confreres. I wish every second, every
thought, word and action of my life to be entirely
directed to this and nothing else. I beg this of the
Immaculate every day. How I wish for all souls to
be inflamed by this principle and live by it.
So it is all the more painful for me that in the
name of this principle the Resistance puts all
the superiors of the Society on trial. I will come
back to this point later; allow me just to finish my
presentation of the principles first.
Fifth Principle: Filius Ecclesiae

This principle makes me understand that I
am a son who has a mother, thanks to whom
I have received everything from God. Every
ordination begins with the words: “Postulat
Sancta Mater Ecclesia.”12 This principle tells me
to love the Church as Christ loved her. However
there is only one visible Church founded upon

the Apostles. She is a great mystery, for she is at
once divine and human, holy and composed of
members who are almost all sinners. Meditating
on St. Teresa of Avila, I Am a Daughter of the
Church (title of a book by Fr. Eugene, O.C.D.), Fr.
Emmanuel, Dom Grea, Cardinal Billot, Cardinal
Journet, The Church of the Word Incarnate, St.
Maximilian Kolbe, I have realized with terror
that my mother became an abstraction, a fiction,
and when I think of her present representatives
on earth, an object of horror. I loved the Faith,
the sacraments, the holy treasures of the Church,
but I was no longer interested in the Church
herself. In thinking “the Church,” I thought only
“the conciliar Church” with all its aberrations
and abominations. It was as if there were two
Churches for me: the traditional Church (our
little traditional world) and the conciliar Church,
which de facto no longer existed for me. But there
is only one Church, Spouse of Christ, Mystical
Body of Our Lord. As you mentioned Our Lady at
the foot of the Cross at the end of your sermon, I
thought about how she accepted as her children
all these horrible people that we are and all those
who continue to crucify Our Lord.
But reading the authors listed above made
me understand that I must love my Mother
the Church, who is in the most terrible agony,
bleeding from all sides. I understood that
Providence has given me the remarkable grace
of discovering the sacrosanct treasures hidden
within this Mother, but almost inaccessible to
the faithful. And I understood that my vocation
is to approach the members of the Church, my
brothers, in order to transmit to them what I
have received, to reach out to the sick and dying
members, and even those who are dead in order
to bring them “the oil and the olive,” and thus
to help my Mother that she may bleed a little
less, that she may heal a little, for the more she
heals, the more she will draw souls in order to
save them. But if I do not do this, if I sit on my
treasures and receive only the small number of
healthy members, then I abandon my Mother to
whom I owe my priesthood and from whom I
have received everything in the order of grace.
Applying this principle to our situation,
I understood Archbishop Lefebvre’s line of

conduct after the consecration of the bishops,
as well as the 2006 decision. As you say, and as
Fr. Pivert’s book13 shows, it was the only way for
us to keep the deposit that they were trying at
any cost to make us ruin through compromise
and alterations. That was the service rendered
to the Church, and the strict application of this
principle. And then I understood the Superior
General’s line of conduct and the 2012 decision
as the same service being rendered to the Church
and the strict application of this same principle:
for Providence used the circumstances so that
we, sons of the Church, members of the religious
orders of the Church, might once again do
good for our Mother, agonizing in her members,
beginning with the head. In fact, thanks to the
papal decisions,14 thanks to the discussions with
Rome and a certain “thawing out,” some of the
deeply buried treasures have resurfaced to the
great benefit of many souls. And that lasted up
until the very moment when Rome once again
demanded compromise and alteration. At that
moment, the application of the principle required
us to withdraw again and wait for better times.
At this point, please allow me to consider your
interpretation of the great principle: the principle
is the integral safeguard of the Faith and the
freedom to propagate it, thus fulfilling the order
to evangelize. The principle is the obligation to
do everything possible for the salvation of souls.
Therefore also to proclaim freely the only saving
truth which is to denounce errors.
The principle is not the means by which we
put the principle into practice. For the means can
change. As you said yourself after the example
of Archbishop Lefebvre: before the consecration
of the bishops, after the consecration of the
bishops. So by this very fact you recognize that
the Archbishop considered that the means of
application could change. However, the means
depend on the circumstances in which we live,
and Archbishop Lefebvre could not foresee these
circumstances, just as he could not foresee the
Internet and the iPad. After the consecrations the
circumstances were unbridled ecumenism, 2 plus
2 was anything but 4, so it was clear that there
was no way for Tradition to make itself heard
in Rome. With Benedict XVI the situation also
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Church and World
changed; 2 plus 2 was once again 4, but also 5
and 6. From a logical point of view, this is worse
because the principle of non-contradiction is
abandoned, but God, who can raise up sons of
Abraham from stones, clearly drew good from
this situation, that the voice of Tradition might
once again resound in the Church. With Pope
Francis, yet another situation, perhaps the worst
yet, etc.
Now, who has the right to decide on the means
best suited to obtain the end? The authority!
There are the five principles that I submit for
your reflection, and I thank my superiors with all
my heart for the Society of St. Pius X that allows
and helps me to practice them without hindrance.
Allow me again to speak of my small experience, which I believe you have always held in
esteem:
Through numerous retreats, pilgrimages,
days of recollection, our publications and public
conferences, we apply the GREAT PRINCIPLE
to the letter. I don’t know if anywhere else in
the world there are as many public conferences
whose goal is to defend our Faith and denounce
error. The result is an ever growing number
of faithful (especially youth) solidly anchored
in the Faith of all times and acting against the
modernist errors.
Thanks to the foundation of the traditional
M.I. almost half of our faithful (about 1,000) form
themselves after the principles and ideals of St.
Maximilian: the desire to obey the Immaculate
by understanding the role of the instruments she
uses to guide us. Upon discovering the betrayal
and infidelity of the official clergy, and at the
same time our fidelity, they cling to Tradition and
live ever more in a supernatural obedience. There
are only two sorts of faithful who stir up trouble
to divide Tradition: the sedevacantists and the
Resistance.
Looking back at the years that have gone by, I
come to a whole new appreciation of the decision
of the SSPX’s superiors, and the facts are there to
confirm it: until 2007, there were very few faithful
in Poland, but after the motu proprio, about 70
Mass centers started celebrating the traditional
Mass, a good number of the priests learning to
say the Mass with our help. Thanks to this event,
74

The Angelus

January - February 2014

Novus Ordo faithful discovered the Mass, and
through it the treasure of Tradition. Often with
the help of these priests they discovered our
traditional literature, and then many of them
participated in our retreats. Our chapels were
even fuller after January 2009, and the number of
faithful in Warsaw grew to 450. The discussions
with Rome also had their echo: I was often
invited to conferences to debate with modernist
priests, I was able to speak in universities, and
everywhere many young Novus Ordo Catholics
came to listen. The voice of Tradition was heard
in public, and our conferences were heard
sometimes by up to 60,000 people through the
Internet. Above all, we came into contact with
many young priests who participate in our
retreats, come to our conferences, discreetly
receive instruction and formation, and thus grow
closer and closer to Tradition.
What a joy for the missionary to be able to
say that in five years the number of faithful who
have returned to Tradition has grown so much
that I do not hesitate to call it a miracle of the
Immaculate.
What is more, I have several times been able
to participate in meetings related to the work of
Father Gruner’s Fatima Crusade. During these
meetings, I have met many bishops and priests of
the official Church. I was very impressed by their
reaction to my conferences and meetings: thirsty
for true doctrine, very open to getting to know
Tradition better, even asking me to come preach
to their priests on retreat. No one has asked
me to make the slightest act of compromise or
ecumenism. But these members of the hierarchy
visibly discover Tradition little by little through
these meetings. You see, Father, none of this
would be possible without the wisdom of the
superiors who do not refuse contact with Rome,
without their discussions and their will to find a
modus vivendi that would perfectly safeguard
the principle but choose with prudence the best
means for applying it.
Whereas applying the principle as you interpret
it (“First, on your knees and fully recognize that
you were wrong, the Pope first, etc., and then we
can talk”) would have made it impossible for the
modernist clergy to approach Tradition in Poland

or through the Fatima Crusade. So in Poland we
would still be about 100 instead of 2,000.
As for “sons of the Church,” well, look at the
application of the principles. What a joy for a
missionary to be able to say: O Immaculate,
thanks to these discussions with Rome, thanks
to the decision of the latest General Chapter, you
have granted that I, your poor instrument, might
make my contribution, that twenty bishops take
a great interest in Tradition; I have been able to
receive four priests into the SSPX in Poland in the
last three years; and about forty priests already
call themselves our friends and are coming ever
closer to Tradition. At least I have been able to
help bandage a few of the terrible wounds that
have torn my Holy Mother the Church. Not only
have I been able to remain faithful to all the
principles, but I have been able to instill them
into thousands of souls.
On the other hand, a priest asks for prayers for
the success of a retreat that he is preaching to the
priests of a diocese, and a religious congregation
whose work has been displaced. At the news of
priests coming back to Tradition, a priest close to
the Resistance asks if they have been re-ordained
sub conditione.
I conclude: Yes, Father, the Resistance really is
ignoring and trampling upon principles one after
another. I take you at your word: “We are still in a
battle of principles. And it is a very important, an
essential battle.”
Please forgive me, Reverend Father, for the
length of this letter, and the many spelling and
grammatical mistakes, but I assure you that these
words come from a heart that holds the Reverend
Capuchin Fathers in the highest esteem. I know
that I am but a poor missionary, the Immaculate’s
miserable broom; all the more reason for me to
beg her to intervene in these painful times and
save us.

1

The Capuchin community at Morgon, France, was founded by Fr.
Eugene de Villeurbanne after the Second Vatican Council. Their
desire to retain the traditional Capuchin life caused them to work
with Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society of St. Pius X.

2

“The Resistance” is a loose collection of priests and laymen who
believe the Society of St. Pius X has become so liberal in recent
years that they have abandoned the original vision of Archbishop
Lefebvre.

3

Father here refers to the dozens of religious houses and
communities that work with the Society: Benedictines, Carmelites,
Dominicans, etc.

4

Sedevacantists are those who believe there is currently not a valid
Pope. The term comes from the Latin term sede vacante, meaning
“the seat being vacant,” referring to the papacy.

5

Fr. Stehlin is responding here not only to the sermon of Fr. Jean,
but to a tract disseminated after the sermon.

6

“Father Guardian” is the title given to the superior in the Capuchin
tradition.

7

Bishop Williamson’s personal newsletter.

8

Fr. Niklaus Pfluger, SSPX, the First Assistant to Bishop Fellay,
recently gave a retreat to some SSPX brothers in France. Some
supposed notes were leaked to the Internet in which Fr. Pfluger
was accused of taking a liberalizing tone towards various subjects.

9

This refers to another leaked document; in the midst of the
discussions between the Congregation of the Doctrine of the
Faith and the SSPX in 2012, several drafts of a possible text were
produced.

10

“To the greater glory of God.” The motto of the Jesuit order.

11

“The salvation of souls is the highest law.”

12

“Holy Mother Church asks...”

13

Fr. François Pivert, a priest of the SSPX, published a controversial
book mainly composed of quotations of Archbishop Lefebvre
related to the Archbishop’s line of conduct towards Rome.

14

Summorum Pontificum in 2007 and the remittance of the socalled excommunications in 2009.

Yours, deeply saddened, in her Sorrowful and
Immaculate Heart,
Fr. Karl Stehlin

75

Mural, Convent of the Precious Blood, Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, Canada

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was the “King of the Jews” being beaten, spit upon,
and insulted by presumably low-level soldiers. The
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taking a symbol of royalty, a crown, and turning it into
something painful and degrading.

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Theological Studies

On the Occasion of the

Week of
Christian Unity
January 18 – 25 2014

by DICI

At the Angelus on January 5, 2014, the Pope
announced that he would carry out “in this coming May, from the 24th to the 26th, if God wills…a
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The chief purpose is
to commemorate the historic encounter between
Paul VI and the Patriarch Athenagoras,” which took
place 50 years ago on January 5, 1964. After detailing the three stages of his visit (Amman, Bethlehem
and Jerusalem), Pope Francis emphasized the
ecumenical aspect of this “pilgrimage of prayer”:
“At the Holy Sepulchre, with Patriarch Bartholomew
of Constantinople, we will celebrate an ecumenical
encounter with representatives of all the Christian
churches of Jerusalem.”1
Once more the Vicar of Christ, on whom rests the
unique foundation of the only Church of Christ, has
chosen the setting of ecumenical prayer for a panChristian meeting with the highest representatives of
Michael Cerularius’s schism.

True Catholic Ecumenism
However, the only unity that the Church recognizes
is the unity of faith, worship and government, by
which all members of the Mystical Body are united
with each other and with their Head, Christ and His
Vicar on earth (see Mt. 16:18, Jn. 21:16-17, Eph. 4:16).
Unfortunately the Eastern schismatics refuse to
recognize the authority of the Pope over the Universal
Church and deny or do not accept several essential
dogmas: the procession of the Holy Ghost, the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, the Marian
dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and of the
Assumption of our Lady body and soul into heaven.
They refuse the teachings of the Magisterium formulated after the seven first ecumenical councils, in
other words ever since the Second Council of Nicaea
in 787. Organized in individual and autonomous
churches, the Orthodox—in reality heterodox—are no
longer united in government at all.
The Catholic Church in its Magisterium has condemned the meetings and initiatives that are not

79

Theological Studies
founded on the unity of faith, by the bond of which
“the disciples of Christ must be united principally.”2
The law of faith is absolute, because without “the
teachings of Christ whole and uncorrupted,” without
“one law of belief and one faith of Christians,”3 there
would be neither unity in the Church, nor true charity.
The Protestant vision according to which the
Church should be divided into distinct and individual
communities, as are the Orthodox, ignores the true
nature of the Church, a supernatural society founded
by God and recognizable by its four marks: One, Holy,
Catholic and Apostolic, as affirmed in the Apostles’
Creed. None of these marks can be separated from
the others: “It follows that the Church, which is
Catholic in truth and in name, must also distinguish
itself by the prerogative of unity, sanctity and apostolic succession.”4
Therefore, “the union of Christians can only be
promoted by promoting the return to the one true
Church of Christ of those who are separated from it,
for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one
true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all,
and which is to remain, according to the will of its
Author, exactly the same as He instituted it.”5 Such is
true Catholic ecumenism.
Ecumenism according to Vatican II
The 1960s saw the rise of a new ecumenism.
Through the Council for Promoting Christian Unity,
founded June 5, 1960, and especially with the Second
Vatican Council, clergymen believed they could
spearhead a broader ecumenical movement where
dialogue took pride of place over a return to the unity
of faith, worship and government. From this moment on, the Church of Christ defined itself more as
a “sacrament of the unity of the human race” and
no longer as a society. It no longer identified strictly
with the Catholic Church in which it was supposed to
“subsist.”6 Worse, it accepted its share of responsibility for the division of Christians, declared that unity
should be achieved and that the Holy Ghost was at
work in the separated communities.7
As is plainly to be seen, the change was essentially
no longer making the law of faith an absolute. For
the preconciliar popes, ignoring it put the Church in
danger of utopianism and ending up with “the neglect
of religion or indifferentism and to modernism, as
they call it. Those, who are unhappily infected with

80

The Angelus

January - February 2014

these errors, hold that dogmatic truth is not absolute
but relative, that is, it agrees with the varying necessities of time and place and with the varying tendencies
of the mind, since it is not contained in immutable
revelation, but is capable of being accommodated to
human life.”8
Ever since Vatican II and its general adaptation to
the needs of the world and the values of modern life—
the famous aggiornamento of John XXIII—the Church
has engaged in dialogue and mutual recognition of
other Christian churches, “our separated brethren,”
as well as of non-Christian religions. In doing so, the
Church relegates the question of faith refused or denied by these groups to the background, losing sight
of the fact that all the truths defined by the Church
are revealed by God, since they are drawn from the divine deposit that He entrusted to the Church. It even
seems to ignore its own nature, since “the mystical
body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical
body, is one (Cor. I:12, 12) compacted and fitly joined
together (Eph. 4:15-16)…”9
Francis: “To journey together is already to be making unity”
On Saturday, January 25, 2014, Pope Francis
presided at Vespers in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside
the Walls, in presence of Metropolitan Gennadios,
representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of
Constantinople and vice-president of the Central
Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC).10
The Anglican archbishop of Canterbury was also
present. In his homily, the Pope explained that the
divisions in the Church must not be seen as a natural
phenomenon—and indeed, causing schisms is the
devil’s work, and it should be mentioned that such
divisions mean leaving the Church of Christ—and that
“our divisions wound Christ’s body, they impair the
witness which we are called to give to him before the
world.” While the Pope rightly recalled that Christ
cannot be divided (see I Cor. 1:13) he did not clarify
that this indivisibility applies not only to the Head of
the Mystical Body, but also to all the united members
of the Body.
On the contrary, the Pope followed in his predecessors’ footsteps, recalling the work of John XXIII and
John Paul II: “In the course of their own lives, both
came to realize the urgency of the cause of unity and,
once elected to the See of Peter, they guided the en-

tire Catholic flock decisively on the paths of ecumenism. Pope John blazed new trails which earlier would
have been almost unthinkable. Pope John Paul held
up ecumenical dialogue as an ordinary and indispensable aspect of the life of each Particular Church.
With them, I think too of Pope Paul VI, another great
promoter of dialogue…”
Intending to take up his predecessors’ heritage,
Pope Francis emphasized that from now on ecumenical dialogue is “an essential dimension of the ministry
of the Bishop of Rome, so that today the Petrine ministry cannot be fully understood without this openness to dialogue with all believers in Christ. We can
say also that the journey of ecumenism has allowed
us to come to a deeper understanding of the ministry
of the Successor of Peter, and we must be confident
that it will continue to do so in the future.”
From now on, along with other Christian denominations, the Pope wants “us all to walk together fraternally on the road to unity.” The path “towards the
re-establishment of full visible unity of all believers in
Christ” requires only one thing: “To journey together
is already to be making unity.” “Unity will not come
about as a miracle at the very end. Rather unity
comes about in journeying, the Holy Ghost brings it
during the journeying.”
So the Vicar of Christ on earth, the visible foundation of the only Church of Christ, has confirmed the
“previously unthinkable” novelty” of modern ecumenism that has so profoundly impacted and changed the
very exercise of the ministry of Peter. Following the
example of his immediate predecessors, Pope Francis
has made ecumenical journeying—“A journey of unity
and love”—and inter-Christian dialogue essential
aspects of his apostolic duty, the Petrine service.
In this journey, the whole and uncorrupted doctrine
of Christ—the Faith—has ceased to be the law of discerning and establishing belonging to the one Spouse
of Christ, now presented at least in fact as divided,
undefined in its contours. If the Faith is mentioned,
it is reduced to “the declaration of the love of God
manifested in Christ, His Son.”11 Faced with what is in
danger of becoming a mere agreement on the lowest
common denominator (everyone recognizes Jesus as
God and Saviour), it is right to remember that unity
does not come from a journey—even for peace and
good understanding between peoples—but rather
from the profession of the same Creed, participa-

tion in the same worship and subjection to the same
government. The unchanging Magisterium of the
Catholic Church is categorical on this topic.
The cause of the change of perspective which has
subverted the order of Christianity and frayed the
proper understanding of the Church’s very nature
resides in the Second Vatican Council document on
ecumenism. Pope Francis quoted it in his homily at
St. Paul Outside the Walls: “Christ the Lord founded
one Church and one Church only. However, many
Christian communities present themselves to people
as the true inheritance of Jesus Christ; all indeed
profess to be followers of the Lord but they differ
in outlook and go their different ways, as if Christ
were divided. Such division openly contradicts the
will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages
the sacred cause of preaching the Gospel to every
creature.”12
Pius XI: The Return of the Dissidents to the One
True Church of Christ
The Catholic Church has always taught that it
was the one and only Church founded by its Divine
Spouse. That the divisions among men, brought
about by Satan and his henchmen, heretics, and
schismatics, have brought about the existence of other communities that assume the title of “Church” is
a sad and painful fact. The solution to these unfortunate separations has always been that echoed by Pius
XI less than a century ago, and it is still valid today:
“So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this
Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take
part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union
of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the
return to the one true Church of Christ of those who
are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it.
“To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is
visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the
will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted
it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse
of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she
ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears
witness: ‘The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to
her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows
but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the
nuptial chamber chastely and modestly.’13 The same
holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceed-

81

Theological Studies
ingly that anyone could believe that ‘this unity in the
Church which arises from a divine foundation, and
which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could
be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary
wills.’14 For since the mystical body of Christ, in the
same manner as His physical body, is one (I Cor.
12:12) compacted and fitly joined together, (Eph. 4:16)
it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited
and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not
united with the body is no member of it, neither is he
in communion with Christ its head (Eph. 5:30; 1:22).
“Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man
can be or remain who does not accept, recognize
and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and
his legitimate successors. Did not the ancestors of
those who are now entangled in the errors of Photius
and the reformers obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief
shepherd of souls? Alas their children left the home
of their fathers, but it did not fall to the ground and
perish for ever, for it was supported by God. Let them
therefore return to their common Father, who, forgetting the insults previously heaped on the Apostolic
See, will receive them in the most loving fashion. For
if, as they continually state, they long to be united
with Us and ours, why do they not hasten to enter
the Church, ‘the Mother and mistress of all Christ’s
faithful’?15
“Let them hear Lactantius crying out: ‘The Catholic
Church is alone in keeping the true worship. This is
the fount of truth, this the house of Faith, this the
temple of God: if any man enter not here, or if any
man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope
of life and salvation. Let none delude himself with
obstinate wrangling. For life and salvation are here
concerned, which will be lost and entirely destroyed,
unless their interests are carefully and assiduously
kept in mind.’16
“Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh
to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter
and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated
by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is ‘the
root and womb whence the Church of God springs,’17
not with the intention and the hope that ‘the Church
of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth’ (I
Tim. 2:15) will cast aside the integrity of the faith and
tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they
themselves submit to its teaching and government.”18

82

The Angelus

January - February 2014

(Source: ACIM – DICI, No. 289, Jan. 31, 2014)

1

L’Osservatore Romano, translated from the French edition, Jan. 9,
2014, p. 6.

2

Pius XI, Encyclical Mortalium Animos, Jan. 6, 1928.

3

Ibid.

4

Letter Apostolicae Sedis from the Holy Office to the Bishops of
England, Sept. 16, 1864 (DS 2888).

5

Mortalium Animos.

6

Lumen Gentium, Nov. 21, 1964.

7

Decree Unitatis Redintegratio, Nov. 21, 1964.

8

Mortalium Animos.

9

Ibid.

10

The WCC was established in 1948. At the time a monitum of the Holy
Office forbade Catholics from participating (Monitum de mixtis
conuentibus acatholicorum cum catholicis, June 5, 1948, p. 257).
Today the WCC includes the majority of Orthodox communities,
a large number of Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and
Reformed sects, as well as many “United and independent churches”
(Mennonites, Old Catholics, the Remonstrant Brotherhood, etc.).
At the end of 2012, the WCC included “345 member churches” of
which none shared the same faith, the same worship or the same
government.

11

Audience of Pope Francis granted to an ecumenical delegation from
Finland on January 17, 2014, ORLF, January 2014, p. 7. Here is the
full quote: “Our witness must focus on the centre of our faith, on
the declaration of the love of God that is manifested in Christ, His
Son. We find here room to grow in communion and unity together,
promoting spiritual ecumenism, which is born directly from the
commandment of love left by Jesus to his disciples.”

12

Second Vatican Council, decree Unitatis Redintegratio, Nov. 21,
1964.

13

St. Cyprian, Letter 48 ad Cornelium, 3.

14

Ibid.

15

Lateran Council IV, c. 5.

16

Lactantius, Divin. Instit., IV, 30, 11-12.

17

St. Cyprian, Letter 48 ad Cornelium.

18

Mortalium Animos.

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Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor and dear Angelus readers,
Thank you for The Angelus, it truly is the “Best Journal of Catholic
Tradition Available!”
As someone who is new to the SSPX community (I’ve been attending
the Traditional Latin Mass for over 12 years, but it wasn’t until six months
ago that I was able to see how completely justified Archbishop Lefebvre was
in his relations with Rome), I’m continually amazed at how spiritually and
theologically wise Archbishop Lefebvre was, what a treasure-trove we have
in his writings!
I think every family attached to Tradition must make every effort to
buy all of his books (available from angeluspress.org) and read them over,
ponder what is contained therein, discuss it, digest it and pass it on to family,
friends and foe alike...we have been given such a great gift to have arrived
at Tradition...who is to say if we will hold onto this gift if we don’t immerse
ourselves in knowing the rational arguments in favor of Tradition, even in
the face of accusations of being disobedient to the Pope. With that in mind,
I’d like to share some quotes from the chapter on “True and False Obedience”
in Open Letter to Confused Catholics by Archbishop Lefebvre. This book
more than anything else has helped me see clearly through the “smoke
and mirrors” propagated by those who claim the SSPX is disobedient or
schismatic.
“Indiscipline is everywhere in the Church. Committees of priests send
demands to their bishops, bishops disregard pontifical exhortations, even the
recommendations and decisions of the Council are not respected and yet one
never hears uttered the word ‘disobedience,’ except as applied to Catholics
who wish to remain faithful to Tradition and just simply keep the Faith.
“Obedience is a serious matter; to remain united to the Church’s
Magisterium and particularly to the Supreme Pontiff is one of the conditions
of salvation. We are deeply aware of this and nobody is more attached to
the present reigning successor of Peter, or has been more attached to his
predecessors, than we are. I am speaking here of myself and of the many
faithful driven out of the churches, and also of the priests who are obliged
to celebrate Mass in barns as in the French Revolution, and to organize
alternative catechism classes in town and country.
“We are attached to the Pope for as long as he echoes the apostolic
traditions and the teachings of all his predecessors. It is the very definition
of the successor of Peter that he is the keeper of this deposit. Pius IX teaches
us in Pastor Aeternus: ‘The Holy Ghost has not in fact been promised to the
successors of Peter to permit them to proclaim new doctrine according to

His revelations, but to keep strictly and to expound faithfully, with His help,
the revelations transmitted by the Apostles, in other words the Deposit of
Faith.’
“The authority delegated by Our Lord to the Pope, the Bishops and
the priesthood in general is for the service of faith. To make use of law,
institutions and authority to annihilate the Catholic Faith and no longer to
transmit life, is to practise spiritual abortion or contraception.
“This is why we are submissive and ready to accept everything that is in
conformity with our Catholic Faith, as it has been taught for two thousand
years, but we reject everything that is opposed to it.”
“In the Rogation-tide litanies the Church teaches us to say: ‘We beseech
thee, O Lord, maintain in Thy holy religion the Sovereign Pontiff and all the
orders of ecclesiastical hierarchy.’ This means that such a disaster could
very well happen.”
“It is because we judge that our faith is endangered by the post-conciliar
reforms and tendencies, that we have the duty to disobey and keep the
Tradition. Let us add this, that the greatest service we can render to
the Church and to the successor of Peter is to reject the reformed and
liberal Church. Jesus Christ, Son of God made man, is neither liberal nor
reformable.”
“Two religions confront each other; we are in a dramatic situation and
it is impossible to avoid a choice, but the choice is not between obedience
and disobedience. What is suggested to us, what we are expressly invited
to do, what we are persecuted for not doing, is to choose an appearance of
obedience. But even the Holy Father cannot ask us to abandon our faith.
“We therefore choose to keep it and we cannot be mistaken in clinging to
what the Church has taught for two thousand years. The crisis is profound,
cleverly organized and directed, and by this token one can truly believe that
the master mind is not a man but Satan himself. For it is a master-stroke
of Satan to get Catholics to disobey the whole of Tradition in the name of
obedience.”
“St. Paul has warned us: Even if an angel from heaven came to tell you
anything other than what I have taught you, do not listen to him.
“Such is the secret of true obedience.”
Joseph F.
Naples, FL

85

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The
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Dear Readers,
It is no accident that you find an image of Our Lady at the marriage of Cana on the
cover of this issue on Motherhood. Mary, after all, is the model of all mothers.
This stained-glass window depicts Mary pursuing her matronly duties with humble reserve and impressive dignity. Unnoticed by the rest of the wedding party, she effectively
provides for the well-being of all the guests (figuratively all her children). She relieves her
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called her blessed: her husband, and he praised her” (Prov. 31:10-28).
Sincerely yours in Christ,

Father Jürgen Wegner

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