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The New Mass I. Definition of the New Order of Mass When an artist shows his finished painting, he doesn't need to explain what he intended to paint: a group of houses surrounding a church in the pouring rain, and above it a dark sky with a jagged flash of lightning - this is enough to give the impression of a village in a storm. It is impossible to be wrong about this - unless one is blind, or has never seen either a storm or a village. The same is true in the case of the New Mass. A...

To read this encyclical [Mortalium Animos] is to read a point-by-point condemnation of Assisi, and one gets the eerie feeling that Pope Pius XI was prophesying and simultaneously condemning with remarkable accuracy... One supreme pontiff engaged in an act that was explicitly and in all points condemned by a previous supreme pontiff...Pope Pius XI condemned Assisi before it even happened - and why did he condemn it? Because Assisi is one of those events that is "founded... on that false opinion," namely, the false opinion that all religions are "more or less good and praiseworthy, since they all in different...

The Neo-Catholic Dead End! by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. Ph.D. The Wanderer, a periodical that has done some good work over the years chronicling the antics of an American hierarchy almost too contemptible to be worth discussing, is attacking traditionalists again. Many readers will remember the attacks of Stephen Hand two years ago, inanely comparing traditionalists with modernists because both criticize some of the actions of the hierarchy. Chris Ferrara and I responded to each of his articles with essays of our own, and we were gratified to find that quite a few people became traditionalists as a direct result...

Michael Davies sums up the case: Liturgical time bombs in Vatican II: the destruction of the Catholic faith through changes in Catholic worship. By Dom Alcuin Reid In 1996, as part of my research into twentieth century liturgical reform, I wrote to all Fathers of the Second Vatican Council then still living—some five hundred or so bishops throughout the world—in the hope of recording their recollections of the conciliar debate on the Sacred Liturgy, and of obtaining their assessment of the liturgical reforms enacted in the name of the Council. To the second of my questions: "What are your recollections...

Interview with Thomas E. Woods, Jr. EDITOR'S NOTE: In addition to his other endeavors, the well-known Catholic writer Thomas E. Woods, Jr. has authored several books recently, ranging in topics from contemporary Catholicism to American History. His latest work, the recently reviewed The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals and the Progressive Era, discusses the efforts of American Catholics in the early decades of the 20th Century. I asked Dr. Woods to share some of his thoughts on the subject. —PWM Seattle Catholic (SC): The title of this book, The Church Confronts Modernity, identifies both a struggle and its primary participants....

BOOK REVIEW The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholic Intellectuals in the Progressive Era (Thomas E. Woods, Jr. - Columbia University Press) reviewed by Walter M. Hudson As readers of this journal are aware, modernist control on preconciliar history has for decades been seemingly uncontested in Catholic universities and intellectual circles, continuously reinforced in the pages of journals such as Commonweal and America, and rigorously defended by the likes of Garry Wills and former Archbishop Weakland. The "resistance" to this intellectual paradigm has too often relied on a faulty ultramontanism that Newman warned us about over a century ago. But the modernist...

Bishop Fellay’s Interview with The Latin Mass Summary : Someone in the Vatican has referred to Bishop Fellay and his brothers within the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) as “fossils.” Yet, to meet this young bishop, there is nothing about him that seems fossilized. He sits before a small computer reading through research reports, studying data and statistics, and receiving and sending e-mail. Not bad for a fossil! Bishop Bernard Fellay, the Superior General of the SSPX, was born April 12, 1958 in Switzerland. He was ordained a priest in 1982. He was consecrated a bishop by Archbishop Marcel...

Some months ago an article appeared in Free Republic that reported that Pope John Paul had given Holy Communion to Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie Blair, at a private audience. The article stated, or some posters stated--I am still not clear which, and I have not been able to track down the thread--that Mrs. Blair was pro-abortion. The article caused a minor furor. I was outraged at the prospect of the Pope giving a pro-abortion Catholic Holy Communion--and said so at the time. I have since mentioned this in other posts. But it now appears the article...

August 18, 2004 Bush Consolidating Base in Core Republican States Bush makes gains in Republican states, slight inroads in showdown states by Frank Newport PRINCETON, NJ -- George W. Bush has over the last two months consolidated his base vote in core Republican states and made slight inroads in swing states in the process of moving to a somewhat more competitive position against John Kerry. This conclusion is based on a comparison of more than 3,500 interviews (including 3,141 registered voters), conducted in three CNN/USA Today/Gallup polls from mid-July through Aug. 11, with a group of more than 3,000 interviews...

August 16, 2004 Grass roots seen key in 2004 By James G. Lakely THE WASHINGTON TIMES The Bush-Cheney re-election campaign is convinced that it has sufficiently outflanked John Kerry in grass-roots political organization in key battleground states, a tactic that is traditionally the deciding factor for Democrats. The Republicans say that they have worked to organize not only down to the county level, but to the individual voting precinct — a specialty of the Democrats' union-driven get-out-the-vote efforts. As of last week, the Bush team has put campaign chairmen in place in 94 percent of targeted precincts around the country....

Schism or the Syllogism of Truth? Part Five of the Series: The Illicit Episcopal Consecrations of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre Even if we supposed, for the sake of argument, that Archbishop Lefebvre indeed excommunicated himself on June 30, 1988, by performing episcopal consecrations without papal mandate, the accusation that Lefebvre, de Castro Mayer, and the four newly-ordained bishops engaged in a schismatic act is utterly untenable. In this article, I will demonstrate why. What evidence does the neo-catholic side bring up in order to substantiate its claim that Archbishop Lefebvre, Bishop de Castro Mayer, and the four new bishops of June...

Canon Backfire Part Three of the Series: The Illicit Episcopal Consecrations of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre On June 17, 1988, Cardinal Bernardin Gantin, Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, sent a canonical warning to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on account of the imminent consecrations His Grace was about to perform on June 30 without a papal mandate. The canonical warning states: "Since on 15 June 1988 you stated that you intended to ordain four priests to the episcopate without having obtained the mandate of the Supreme Pontiff as required by Canon 1013 of the Code of Canon Law, I myself convey to...

The Illicit Episcopal Consecrations of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre In the first part of this series, I laid down a few general guiding principles of the Church with regards to law, excommunication, and the salvation of souls. I then demonstrated that it is clear that at least until and including June 29, 1988, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre was a member of the Catholic Church, innocent of any charges of schism or excommunication. Now I will come to the much more disputed part, namely, that His Grace did not incur excommunication or start a schism on the day of his episcopal consecrations of...

The Humanism of John Paul II On January 17, 2001, CNS News reported the following: "Pope John Paul II issues Call for Ecological Conversion . . . The world's people need to undergo an 'ecological conversion' to protect the environment and make the earth a place where all life is valued and can grow in harmony, Pope John Paul II said" http://www.creationethics.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=webpage&page_id=81. Yes, that's how far we've come. Pope John Paul II, idly standing by as the Church in the USA has been infiltrated by homosexuals and perverts, calls us to convert ecologically. Pardon my human way of speaking here,...

Compared to the 1992 version, which talked about "medicinal value," [in the 1997 version] we now have "medicinal purpose"; and the "should" has been replaced by a forceful "must." This is to be applauded. The move from "value" to "purpose" is important, as "value," which denotes how something is, is open to the criticism that I gave in the last installment about the 1992 version, whereas "purpose," which denotes what something is for, is no longer open to that criticism. But at least in the English translation, what used to be rendered as "offender" has now become "guilty party," deliberately...

The Catechism and Capital Punishment Mario Derksen There is so much to say about both the 1992 version [of the New Catechism] and the 1997 version that I don't know where to start. Let me, therefore, walk you through the whole thing, beginning with the 1992 version, from the very start, and interject my comments: "2266 Preserving the common good of society required rendering the aggressor unable to inflict harm. For this reason the traditional teaching of the Church has acknowledged as well-founded the right and duty of legitimate public authority to punish malefactors by means of penalties commensurate with...

The Humanism of John Paul II: Humanism and Novelty Once again our topic under discussion is Pope John Paul II's apparent obsession with "human dignity." Already in my series on "Vatican II and the Gospel of Man," I quoted numerous statements made by the current Pope that were confusing at best and outright heretical and dangerous at worst. First, let us look at something the Pope said in his homily on November 24, 1985: "The Council [Vatican II], which has given us a rich ecclesiological doctrine, has organically linked its teaching about the Church with its teaching about man's vocation...

The Razzmatazz of the Post-Conciliar Church Last week we looked at how the post-conciliar church's actions - particularly with regards to the liturgy - have misled the faithful into believing heresy. Today I wish to delve into what I would think is accurately described as post-conciliar "razzmatazz." The word "razzmatazz" is defined as: "1. A flashy action or display intended to bewilder, confuse, or deceive. 2. Ambiguous or evasive language; double talk. 3. Ebullient energy; vim" (Bartleby's American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edition, 2000; from www.bartleby.com). I am going to use it in the sense of definition 2 and, to some...

Vatican II and the Gospel of Man Part Three: An Anthropocentric Church? That Vatican II represents a true revolution in the Church and is thereby unlike every other ecumenical council in the entire history of the Catholic Church, is seen, for instance, by the frequent dictum that so-and-so is "pre-Vatican-II" and book/media titles such as Faithful Revolution (which, by the way, is a video tape set put out by Thomas More publishing, glorifying Vatican II). This attests not only to the fact that Vatican II was a rebellion against Catholic doctrine and discipline, but it also shows just how unique...

Vatican II and the Gospel of Man Part Two: Towards a Deification of Man Last week I introduced some scary evidence that clearly leads one to see how the post-conciliar church is heading towards a humanistic cult which puts man in the place of God. In this installment, I plan to present further data that verify and reinforce this scary thesis. Today we shall take a look at what was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on that fateful day of December 7, 1965, as the so-called "Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World," Gaudium Et Spes. It was...