TrapCast Express, it's Monday, January 10th, 2022.
This podcast episode number 147 continues the discussion of the fallout from the Responsa
ad Dubia, responses to questions that the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship
released on December 18th, which restrict the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass
even further.
So, if you haven't yet listened to the first two installments of the series, episodes 145
and 146, it is recommended that you do so first so you get the full picture.
But now, let's go ahead with today's episode.
Turning once again to the infamous document issued on December 18th, 2021, the Responsa
ad Dubia.
The Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, Archlaemon Arthur Roche, quotes Pope
Francis, speaking to a liturgical conference on August 24th, 2017, saying that, quote,
we can affirm with certainty and with magisterial authority that the liturgical reform is irreversible,
unquote.
By including this quote, it's clear that the intent is to, quote,
to underscore once again that the new Mass is definitive and not going anywhere, and
that all of these concessions to the traditional Latin Mass communities over all these years
had only one purpose, and that is to accompany those stragglers who were having a hard time
accepting the Novus Ordo liturgical revolution.
In other words, the plan is and has been that everyone in the Roman Rite of the Vatican
to church will ultimately be assisting at the new Mass.
And those who've been resisting that to a greater or lesser extent are being gradually
reined in until they either submit or will be solemnly cut off.
In other words, this is basically the 1980s all over again.
And this is a battle the modernists in Rome are going to win against the Semitrats, because
the Semitrats continue to reign.
Recognize them as the lawful Catholic authorities.
The Semitrats themselves are giving the modernists their trump card, and then they're in shock
when the modernists play it.
Well, what did you think they were going to do with it?
Francis doesn't care about resistance.
He doesn't care about being resisted, because for as long as they recognize him as Pope,
he wins.
He wins necessarily because the Catholic Church is set up that way.
God himself gave the Church a Pope as the principle of unity and as the final arbiter
over all things pertaining to faith, worship, and governance, guaranteeing that even though
the Pope may not always choose the most prudent course of action in a given situation or make
the most perfect decisions, nonetheless, it will always be the Pope.
Be perfectly safe for your soul to follow the Pope, so much so that God requires your
submission to the Pope as a matter of eternal salvation.
Why do you think God set the Church up that way?
To torture us?
To give us a stumbling block to salvation?
No, but just the opposite.
No, but just the opposite, because clinging to the Pope and his religion is a matter of life and death.
Why?
Well, you haven't lost the faith.
You have lost the faith.
magisterium would be for us the guarantee that we're on the right track, that we're in communion
with him, Jesus Christ, our blessed Lord. It is by being in communion with the visible head of
the church that you are assured of being in communion with the invisible head. By being
in communion with the vicar of Christ, you are guaranteed to be in communion with Christ himself.
That is how God set it up. And that's why Pope Leo XIII could say in his address of February 20th,
1903, quote, by God's commandment, salvation is to be found nowhere but in the church.
The strong and effective instrument of salvation is none other than the Roman pontificate,
unquote. And that's why the question of the pope is so important, and not just a matter of
opinion. That's why it's so important to know that Jorge Bergoglio is not the pope, or Joseph
Ratzinger for that matter. There is currently no pope reigning, as far as we know, and there hasn't
been since Pius XII died in 1958. That is an utter disaster for the Catholic Church. It is an utter
catastrophe for souls.
But an even greater calamity is the new church of the Second Vatican Council that was introduced
by John XXIII, built by Paul VI, varnished by John Paul II, polished by Benedict XVI, and that is now
being revealed for what it truly is by Francis, who is tearing away the pretty facade to reveal
what's really underneath.
The great apostasy in all its hideousness.
And of course, the traditional Latin mass people in the new church, the semi-trads,
surely not all of them, but definitely the majority, want nothing to do with this monstrous
new church of ecumenism, interreligious dialogue, Masonic fraternity, climate change, and migrant
worship, not to mention Pachamama.
Traditional Latin mass, for as long as it was widely available, thanks to Benedict XVI's
Summorum Pontificum, acted as a mask covering the ugly reality of the new church.
And now that mask is being taken away, and the people cannot stand it because deep down they do
not believe in this new church, which is represented by the Novus Ordo Mise, the new mass of Paul the
Seventh.
They believe in the church before Vatican II, which is represented by the traditional,
also called Tridentine, mass.
So Francis made a devilishly clever move with Traditiones Custodes, the decree issued on
July 18th of last year, gradually phasing out the traditional Latin mass, because now
he has his traditionalists trapped.
If they accept his liturgy...
If they accept his liturgical directives, they will be gradually returning to the Novus
Ordo.
If they reject them, they are only proving the need for them to have been issued to begin
with.
Because remember, the very things that Francis complained about in Traditiones Custodes, that
many of the traditional mass goers aren't really accepting Vatican II or the new mass,
that they're disobedient, that they have their own little groups, and so on.
All of that, they are now confirming to be true.
And to substantiate that, all you need to do is look at the reactions of the gatekeepers,
the de facto leaders of these semi-traditionalists.
There's a whole list of links to initial reactions from these people that you can find
at Novus Ordo Watch.
The post is called Dreary Christmas.
Semi-trats excoriate Francis.
Over new Latin mass restrictions.
And it was published on our blog on December 21st.
And I'll put a link to that in the brief description for this podcast episode.
So you can just click on that.
Also, I've compiled a few fun soundbites here from some of the more well-known self-appointed
recognize and resist pundits in the English-speaking world.
They weren't hard to find, since as soon as the Responsa Adubia were released, they were
released on December 18th, they all had plenty to say about it on YouTube.
They quickly rose to the occasion to tell the world what faithful Catholics ought to
think about these new Vatican guidelines and how they are to respond to them.
Because, of course, they get to define what constitutes the proper reaction of a faithful
Catholic, right?
And wouldn't you know it?
Somehow, it's not.
Loyal submission.
Loyal submission to the man they insist is the Pope.
Amazing, isn't it?
All right.
So let's go ahead now and listen to some reactions here.
The first one is from Brian McCall, editor-in-chief of Catholic Family News, in the video entitled
Livestream Q&A on Today's Further Attack on the Traditional Liturgy, published on YouTube
on December 18th.
After giving his own assessment of the new document,
McCall reacts to comments submitted by people in the live chat, and one of those commenters
said that the Vatican document is evil, and another said that it is satanic.
Brian McCall agreed with both of these comments.
This is at 10 minutes and 7 seconds into the video.
Yeah, Lisby, this is evil.
That's really the only way to describe it.
I think you're right.
Satanic?
That's another way to describe it?
Absolutely.
So there we go.
Brian McCall believes that the apostolic see of the Holy Roman Catholic Church can issue
satanic liturgical guidelines.
Got it.
Never mind that Pope Pius XII taught that the Catholic Church is spotless in her sacraments.
That's the exact words he used in the encyclical Mystici Corporis, paragraph 66.
Yeah.
So don't blame it.
On the human element now.
Okay, the sacred liturgy isn't the Church's human element.
That's her divine element.
In fact, the Council of Trent issued the following dogmatic pronouncement, quote,
If anyone says that the ceremonies, vestments, and outward signs which the Catholic Church uses
in the celebration of Masses are incentives to impiety rather than the services of piety,
let him be anathema, unquote.
You can find that in Denzinger, number 954.
So I'd say calling them satanic qualifies as saying they're incentives to impiety.
No?
All right.
Next, let's briefly go to Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, who appeared on Raymond Arroyo's show,
The World Over, on December 16th, two days before the responsa were actually issued.
That's because they knew the...
The breakdown on the traditional Mass was looming.
And so in that show, they anticipated that.
And Kwasniewski had a rather cryptic message for his not-so-holy father.
First of all, we need to keep praying for the Holy Father and the bishops,
because they will incur a lot of wrath and a lot of disunity and a lot of pain and anguish
if they actually go through with this.
Okay.
Hey, maybe we'll just leave it at that.
Now, the most emotional reaction came from Michael Matt, editor of The Remnant.
He blew not just one gasket, but I'd say a whole gasket factory.
I had never before heard him yell as much and as loudly as he did in the video published on December 19th,
entitled The Intolerant Pope, Francis Cancel's Faithful Catholics.
Let's listen to a few clips here.
And we'll begin...
Remember, what we're talking about here, this is one of the things that bothers them so much, these modernists.
We're talking about families.
We are talking about young families.
We're talking about people with seven, eight, nine, ten kids right before Christmas.
This is all they've ever known.
They're not in open rebellion against the modernists and Second Vatican Council.
They pay no attention to that.
They're just trying to serve their souls, save their souls.
They're just trying to raise their kids in the faith, the vast majority.
We're talking about...
Thousands of young children.
We're talking about young families that Francis is calling dissenters and sowers of disunity.
Okay, so here he's making the case that most of the people who are affected by Tradiciones Custodes
aren't really rebelling against anything.
They're not trying to be at odds with the new church.
They're not against, you know, Vatican II and all the...
They're just kind of Catholic and that's that.
So, in other words, he's saying they're...
Not like The Remnant or Catholic Family News or Rarate Caeli or the Fatima Center or, you know.
Because all those organizations and publications are in rebellion against modernist Rome.
That's why they exist.
And ironically, Michael Matt himself proves it in that very video.
Here's some more.
These people wrecked the liturgy, wrecked the Roman...
Rite, which goes back to apostolic times.
The Anglici, they've given us all these options, messing with it, destroying it,
until we have this bastardized version of the Roman Rite now called the Novus Ordo Missae, right?
They're the ones who wrecked it.
They're the ones.
And now they're accusing us, the little people, the people in the pews,
the people trying to raise their kids.
They're accusing us of the crimes of subversion.
We're not going along with the wreck-a-vation.
We're going along with the mass, with the destruction of the faith of our fathers.
Look around you.
Mass apostasy.
Even Pope John Paul II called it the silent apostasy.
What is Francis talking about?
We're supposed to loyally adhere to that wreck, to that mess, to that shipwreck
that they made out of the Catholic Church?
And if we don't, we're guilty?
We're the ones who are guilty of subversion?
Okay.
So he's admitting that...
He's admitting that he is rebelling.
He just says that the rebellion is legitimate and necessary.
All right.
Here's more.
This guy Francis, I'm sorry.
He is the chaplain of the New World Order.
It is Christmastime, and he's at war with children,
with young priests,
with the whole orders of young nuns.
What for?
What is he doing, this man?
How can you defend this anymore?
All righty.
And next, Matt steps things up a bit
and tries to recruit Novus Ordo bishops to join him in his rebellion.
Diabolical disorientation has been going on for a long time.
I think there are a lot of bishops who are now beginning to say,
wait, something's gone really wrong.
Your Excellencies, I hope and pray, that includes you,
we are literally praying every night for you.
We will stand with you if it comes down where you have to make a stand
to what's happening in the Vatican.
You will have no more loyal defenders than us,
than the traditional Catholics,
but you must, Your Excellencies,
you must lead now.
You must resist.
You cannot go along with this.
Thank you.
And next up, it gets really funny.
Michael Matt declares that
loyal submission to the teachings, laws, and liturgical rubrics
issued by the Apostolic See
is a Protestant caricature of Catholicism
that,
thankfully, thanks to Jorge Bergoglio,
we no longer have to worry about.
But the thing that stood in our way
was this mistaken notion
that the Pope must be worshipped.
Everything he says and does is of the Holy Ghost.
This is absolute nonsense, worse than nonsense.
It's the caricature that Protestants fashioned some 500 years ago.
That Catholics worship the Pope.
That the Pope is basically Christ, not the vicar of Christ,
but he is Christ.
You've got to worship everything he says and does.
That is Martin Luther's caricature of the papacy.
But now, that's gone.
Thank you very much, Francis.
It's over.
Actually, the only caricature here
is that of Michael Matt.
He just caricatured
submission to the Roman Pontiff
as worship of the Pope.
And then he has the nerve to say
long-lived tradition,
when, of course, it is tradition
that requires submission to the Roman Pontiff.
The papalatry is dead.
Long-lived tradition.
Now, before we get to the next soundbite,
keep in mind that in his letter to bishops
accompanying Tradiziones Custodes,
published also on July 16th, 2021,
Francis wrote, quote,
A final reason for my decision is this.
Ever more plain in the words and attitudes of many
is the close connection between the choice of celebrations
according to the Pope.
And the choice of celebrations according to the Pope.
And the choice of celebrations according to the liturgical books
prior to Vatican Council II,
and the rejection of the Church and her institutions
in the name of what is called the true Church, unquote.
Now, listen to these words of Michael Matt.
And Francis is 85.
And his church is aging rapidly.
It's collapsing.
But the true Church, the Church that you represent,
the Church that you love as traditional Catholics,
is just getting started.
It's just getting ready to fight.
Yeah, huh?
See, that's exactly what Francis means.
And that is exactly why he's taking away their traditional mass.
And whereas when I was a kid,
there was just a tiny little remnant of traditional Catholics,
today there are millions of us,
millions,
who will go back underground,
will go into the woods,
will go into the catacombs,
we will do whatever it takes
until these modernist hippies
are gone.
Millions.
Boy, we sure have come a long way from...
They're not in open rebellion
against the modernists and Second Vatican Council.
They pay no attention to that.
All right.
And to conclude, some more fireworks.
In the spirit of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre,
priest of the Society of St. Pius X,
call out the Vatican right now!
Call them out!
Today!
Don't waste another moment!
Call them out!
Tell the world what they're doing.
Tell the world what Archbishop Lefebvre told the world,
that they are creating a new and diabolical religion.
The church will survive.
The priesthood will survive.
But we need to stand up, stand together,
and fight what's going on.
All right.
So I think it's pretty clear that Michael Matt is very passionate
about what he's saying,
but just what he is saying isn't all that clear.
I, at least, was not able to detect any kind of coherent theology.
You can watch the whole video for yourself on YouTube.
Again, it's entitled,
The Intolerant Pope, Francis Cancel's Faithful Catholics,
released on December 19th of last year.
The bottom line here is this.
Since the release of the Vatican,
all those semi-trade pundits weighed in
to give their exceptionally irrelevant and non-binding opinion on it all.
I'm sorry, but if Francis is Pope,
then these people and their views are irrelevant
and definitely not binding on anyone.
See, this is what absolutely blows my mind.
That people who call themselves traditional Catholics
and think they are clinging,
to the Catholic faith of the ages,
would essentially reject a Vatican decree
issued with the authority of the person they firmly believe
as the Roman pontiff,
that they would reject such a document
and instead turn to talking heads like Brian McCall,
Michael Matt, Peter Kwasniewski,
Taylor Marshall, or Eric Sammons, for example,
to receive guidance on what to think and do
about the Vatican decision.
It is insane.
If Francis is the Roman pontiff,
then the Roman pontiff has spoken.
The supreme judge of all the faithful
has rendered a decision on what is to be done
and what is not to be done liturgically.
So the Pope makes a decision about the sacred liturgy
and you disregard that
and instead go by what Brian McCall says?
This is mind-blowing insanity.
On July 18th,
1870,
the First Vatican Council declared infallibly,
quote,
since the Roman pontiff is at the head of the universal church
by the divine right of apostolic primacy,
we teach and declare also
that he is the supreme judge of the faithful
and that in all cases pertaining to ecclesiastical examination,
recourse can be had to his judgment.
Moreover,
that the judgment of the apostolic seeker,
he whose authority is not surpassed,
is to be disclaimed by no one,
nor is anyone permitted to pass judgment on its judgment.
Therefore,
they stray from the straight path of truth
who affirm that it is permitted to appeal
from the judgments of the Roman pontiffs
to an ecumenical council
as to an authority higher than the Roman pontiff, unquote.
On January 21st, 1878,
Pope Pius IX wrote in his apostolic letter,
Didicimus,
to the president of the Italian Catholic Youth Council,
that in following all the orders and directives
of the apostolic see,
one cannot be deceived or betrayed.
On June 17th, 1885,
Pope Leo XIII wrote to the Archbishop of Paris
that, quote,
it is to give proof of a submission
which is far from sincere,
to set up some kind of a council,
of opposition between one pontiff and another.
Those who, faced with two differing directives,
reject the present one to hold to the past
are not giving proof of obedience
to the authority which has the right and duty to guide them.
And in some ways,
they resemble those who, on receiving a condemnation,
would wish to appeal to a future council
or to a pope who is better informed, unquote.
That is the standard principle
of the Roman Catholic Church.
The Roman Catholic Church is the only Catholic Church
that has the right and duty to submit
to the authority of the Roman Pontiff
and the duty of submission to that authority
on the part of all Catholics.
Notice that the notion of infallibility
doesn't even come up.
This is not about infallibility.
It's about authority.
And following this authority
in matters of faith and morals,
in matters of the sacred liturgy
and universal church discipline,
is always,
is always safe
because that is how God instituted
the papacy in his church.
This makes perfect sense.
What is the alternative scenario anyway?
That the pope promulgates liturgical laws
and then the bishops, priests, and laity
decide whether they agree?
If that's how it is,
what do we need a pope for?
It's amazing how many people
say they are traditional Catholics
and yet they don't go
by traditional Catholic doctrine.
What did Pope Pius XII say about this?
Well, in his 1947 encyclical Mediator Dei,
he wrote this,
quote,
The sovereign pontiff alone
enjoys the right to recognize
and establish any practice
touching the worship of God
to introduce and approve new rites
as also to modify those
he judges to require modification.
Bishops, for their part,
have the right and duty carefully
to watch over the exact observance
of the prescriptions of the sacred canons
respecting divine worship.
Private individuals, therefore,
even though they be clerics,
may not be left to decide for themselves
in these holy and venerable matters
involving, as they do,
the religious life of Christian society
along with the exercise
of the priesthood of Jesus Christ
and worship of God.
Concerned as they are,
with the honor due to the Blessed Trinity,
the Word Incarnate,
and His Auguste Mother,
and the other saints,
and with the salvation of souls as well.
For the same reason,
no private person has any authority
to regulate external practices of this kind
which are intimately bound up
with church discipline
and with the order, unity, and concord
of the mystical body
and frequently even with the integrity
of Catholic faith itself.
Unquote.
Again, that's Pope Pius XII, Mediator Dei,
and it's paragraph number 58.
Now, the Semitrads will say,
but we can't go along with Francis' decree
because it destroys the Catholic Mass
and gives us the noble sort of worship service instead.
Yep, that's right, it does.
If you were to follow Francis faithfully,
you would end up a modernist,
like him.
That's how you know he's not the Pope.
Guys, this isn't that difficult.
The way God set up the Holy Catholic Church
is he instituted her with a hierarchy
and gave her an infallible, visible head,
the Roman Pontiff, the Pope.
And to this papal office,
he gave sufficient protections
such that the Pope would always be
the living criterion and guarantee
of sound doctrine, salutary discipline,
and sacred worship.
He fortified the Supreme Pontificate
so that it could not be compromised
by the human element,
that it would not falter
even in the face of human sin and weakness.
And so we have infallible certitude
that Francis is not the Roman Pontiff.
Per Catholic dogma, he cannot be.
And recognizing that is a first
and necessary step to a solution
to the conundrum.
Resistance does not solve anything
because it makes each individual Catholic
the arbiter and final authority
over what ought to be done in the Church
and makes the papacy meaningless,
useless, and dangerous.
Now, I know some will say that,
ha, Sedevacantism makes each individual Catholic
the arbiter and final authority
over who is Pope.
But the reality is, folks,
we're just drawing the necessary conclusion
that follows from Catholic doctrine.
And we have every right to do that
precisely because Catholic doctrine is true,
not just in theory, but also in practice.
The 19th century Spanish priest,
Father Felix Sarda y Salvani,
wrote in his Vatican,
endorsed book,
Liberalism is a Sin,
Chapter 32,
quote,
of what use would be the rule of faith and morals
if in every particular case
the faithful could not of themselves
make the immediate application?
Unquote.
Just as we did when Tradiciones Custodes
was released on July 16th of last year,
so too what we're witnessing now
is the turmoil
that results when people embrace
an impossible, absurd scenario.
Francis and the papacy
simply do not go together
because the papacy has real meaning.
It is not just a word or a label
that you can slap on someone
with no consequences.
The papacy is the supreme office
of teacher, governor, and sanctifier
in the Catholic Church,
that was instituted
by our Lord Jesus Christ himself
as the perpetual guarantee
of sound doctrine,
salutary discipline,
and sacred worship.
Tradiciones Custodes
and the Responsa a Dubia
are the result of accepting
an open enemy of the Catholic religion
as Pope.
If you accept an open modernist as Pope,
don't complain
if he does modernist things.
This is the false
recognize-and-resist theology
coming home to roost.
The Semitraves may not realize it now,
but God is actually doing them
a great favor here
because he's practically forcing them
to see how absurd
their position really is.
So, in a nutshell,
here's the deal.
If Francis is Pope,
then you have the divine guarantee
that Tradiciones Custodes
is not evil
and the new Mass
will not lead you
into spiritual ruin.
If, on the other hand,
Tradiciones Custodes is evil
and the new Mass does lead people
into spiritual ruin,
then Francis cannot be the Pope.
Within the framework
of sound Catholic theology,
those are the only two options
from which you can choose.
And now, for heaven's sake,
choose the right one.
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