UNEXPECTED BOMBSHELL FROM POPE FRANCIS! COMING FROM POPE FRANCIS, IS THIS A SIGN OF CONVERSION AND COMMON SENSE PREVAILING IN SCHISMATIC TIMES WHICH HIS HOLINESS HAS ACCELERATED HIMSELF, IS IT A SIGN OF THE REPENTENCE ARCHBISHOP VIGANO SEEKS FROM HIS HOLINESS? WHAT DO YOU THINK?

With words of apostacy and hersey coming from high places and from a cardinal, is this pope now alarmed?  This is from Crux:

Francis warns German Catholics they can’t just do their own thing

• Inés San Martín
  Jun 29, 2019
  ROME BUREAU CHIEF
• 

Pope Francis poses with Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich-Freising and his delegation during the pope's general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican April 19, 2917. (Credit: Paul Haring/CNS.)

ROME - As the Catholic Church in Germany prepares to embark on a synodal process motivated in part by a desire to stop a hemorrhage of faithful, Pope Francis has sent them a letter reminding them they don’t walk alone but with the universal Church.

In the missive he also reminds the Germans that a “structural” reform, simply changing to adapt to modern times, is not the solution.

The Church’s raison d’etre, Francis wrote in a letter released by the Vatican Saturday, is that God “so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that all who believe in him may not die, but may have eternal Life.”

This means that the transformation and revitalization sought after by the German Church with a synod called by the bishops’ conference, cannot simply be a “reaction to external data or demands,” including a drop in births and aging communities. Though these are “valid causes,” Francis wrote, seen outside the ecclesial mystery they could stimulate a reactionary attitude.

The pope’s letter to the Catholics of Germany comes three months after Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising announced that the local church was embarking on a “binding synodal process” to tackle what he says are the three key issues arising from the clerical abuse crisis: Priestly celibacy, the Church’s teaching on sexual morality, and a reduction of clerical power.

True transformation, Francis wrote, “demands a pastoral conversion.”

“We are asked for an attitude that, seeking to live and make the gospel transparent, breaks with ‘the gray pragmatism of the daily life of the Church, in which all appears to proceed normally, while in reality faith is wearing down and degenerating into small-mindedness’,” Francis argued, quoting his 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, which in turn was quoting then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, today Pope emeritus Benedict XVI.

Throughout the 7-page letter Francis quotes his German predecessor often. The first time is when he diagnosed the local Church, with the “growing erosion and decay of the faith.”

This deterioration, Francis wrote, is multifaceted and doesn’t have an easy solution. The criterion par excellence, he wrote, guiding the Church and its discernment must be evangelization, since this is its “essential mission.”

Believing that solutions are purely structural, Francis argued, is “one of the first great temptations at the ecclesial level.”

“Without having the Gospel as its soul,” Francis wrote, a well-organized and even modernized ecclesial body could become a “gaseous” Christianity that has no evangelical zeal.

“Each time the ecclesial community tries to leave its problems alone and focuses exclusively on its forces or its methods, its intelligence, its will or prestige, it ends up increasing and perpetuating the evils it was trying to solve,” Francis said.

No matter how challenging the scenario, the pontiff insisted, it cannot make the Church lose sight of the fact that its mission is not based on forecasts and calculations, ecclesial and political and economic surveys, or pastoral plans.

In the end, he writes, it all comes down to God’s love for his children.

His love “allows us to raise our heads and start again, with a tenderness that never disappoints us and that can always give us back joy,” Francis writes. “Let us not flee from the resurrection of Jesus, never declare ourselves dead, no matter what happens.”

The ecclesial community, he continues, needs to ask what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church today, recognizing the signs of the times, which does not mean to simply adapt to the spirit of the times without questioning.

Evangelization, Francis argued, is a conversion of love to the one “who loved us first,” it’s to help Christ’s passion to touch the “multiple passions and situations” where Christ continues to suffer due to sin and inequity. Among the examples of situations that make Christ suffer today, the pontiff listed modern slavery, xenophobic discourses and a culture based on indifference and individualism.

Speaking about the synodal path the German Church is about to embark on, Francis said it has to be rooted in the Holy Spirit and that it has to be a “walking together” of the entire Church, involving the laity, the religious, the clergy and the bishops.

“The synodal perspective does not cancel the antagonisms or perplexities, nor the conflicts are subordinated to syncretistic resolutions of ‘good consensus’ or resulting from the elaboration of censuses or surveys on this or that topic,” he said, urging the Germans to instead pray, do penance and participate in eucharistic adorations.

These three attitudes, he said, are “true spiritual medicines” that allow those who live them to experience what it is to be a Christian who knows he is blessed and a member of the Church of the Beatitudes.

Lastly, the Argentine pontiff also reminded the German Church that the local Church walks alongside the universal Church, and if they are separated from it they become weak and die, hence the need to keep communion alive.

Quoting one of his own country’s most famous authors, Martin Fierro, the pope wrote: “May brothers be united, because that is the first law; may they have true unity, at whatever time, because if among them they fight, those from outside will devour them.”

In this case, he said “those from outside” are one: “the father of lies and division,” the Devil, who “pushing us to look for an alleged good or an answer to a specific situation, ends up fragmenting the body of the holy faithful People of God.”
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WE MUST READ BETWEEN THE LINES TO UNDERSTAND THE EMERITUS GRAVE CONCERNS BUT THE HOPE HE OFFERS IN ITS MIDST

Benedict XVI: The Church’s unity is stronger than internal conflicts

Courtney Grogan/CNA
28 June, 2019
(Getty)

In a new interview, Benedict says 'The Pope is one, it is Francis'

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said in an article published Friday that the unity of the Church has always prevailed over internal struggles and affirmed that there is currently only one pope.

“The Pope is one, it is Francis,” Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said in an interview with an Italian magazine published by Corriere Della Sera June 28.

“The unity of the Church has always been in danger, for centuries,” Benedict said. “It has been for all its history. Wars, internal conflicts, centrifugal forces, threats of schisms.”

“In the end the awareness that the Church is and must remain united has always prevailed. Its unity has always been stronger than internal struggles and wars,” the pope emeritus explained.

Italian journalist Massimo Franco interviewed Benedict XVI in the Vatican gardens on the feast of Corpus Cristi June 23, but only published a few direct quotes in his five-page magazine article about the meeting.

Franco claimed that “when the history of these secret years” of Pope Emeritus Benedict will be written, “it will not be possible to disregard the highly reserved cardinals and bishops who have come to his door looking for reassurances, and expressing their criticisms and their perplexity towards the current pontificate.”

Concerns which the Italian journalist implied were met with answers that emphasized the importance of Church unity, noting “Benedict’s obsession with the unity of the Church … is more acute than ever.”

In February 2013 Benedict shocked the world with a Latin-language announcement of his resignation. He cited his advanced age and his lack of strength as unsuitable to the exercise of his office. Benedict XVI was the first Roman Pontiff to resign from office in almost 600 years.

Benedict has led a life of prayer after the election of Pope Francis, occasionally consulting with and meeting with his successor.

“Italy has always been a beautiful country, but a bit chaotic,” Benedict said softly and slowly, according to Franco, who noted that 92 year-old former pontiff showed “an enviable speed of thought.”

June 29 will mark the 68th ordination anniversary of Pope Benedict, then Joseph Ratzinger, to the priesthood. The pope emeritus plans to spend the summer peacefully with the usual visit of his brother Georg and few private meetings with guests for breakfast or lunch, according to ACI Stampa.

SECULARISM IS DOING TO OUR CHURCH BUILDINGS WHAT COMMUNISM DID TO CHURCH BUILDINGS

When I was pastor of the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Augusta in the 1990’s we had a sister parish in Tbilisi in the Republic of Georgia once a part of the former Soviet Union.

Sts. Peter and Paul was the only Latin Rite Catholic Church in all of the Soviet Union outside of Moscow that was not closed by the communists. The cathedral in Tbilisi was closed and turned into a gym.

When I was there around 1998, the Cathedral had been returned to the Catholic Church and was being restored as the Cathedral. The kids in the neighborhood were perplexed that their gymnasium was being turned into a church. They had no idea that it was being returned to its original use!

And thus this story in the National Chismatic Reporter caught by eye:

In St. Louis, former houses of worship are retooled to meet city's needs

Jun 29, 2019

by Bill Motchan, Religion News Service

RNS-Adaptive-Reuse1-060619 crop.jpg

ST. LOUIS — St. Liborius Roman Catholic Church in Old North St. Louis, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was once called the "Cathedral of the North Side." More recently, the massive structure has been appreciated on social media as "the sickest, gnarliest place ever. "

Bought a decade ago by four civic-minded St. Louis residents, St. Liborius is undergoing a transformation into a community arts center, but while the partners prepare to restore the German Gothic church, its nearly block-long nave has been turned into SK8 Liborius, a skateboarding park beloved by the local skater crowd for its challenging 12-foot ramp.

OBSERVATIONS OF THE EF MASS FROM THE PEW

The last time I participated in the 1962 Roman Missal celebrated ad orientem was around 1966 when the 1965 Roman Missal was implemented in my parish in Augusta and facing the people. I would have been about 12 years old.

Yesterday, the Feast of the Sacred Heart with the 1962 Roman Missal celebrated by Fr.Patrick May in our St. Anne’s Martha and Mary Chapel was the first time I sat in the congregation and participated. Yes, I’ve celebrated the EF Mass as a priest since 2007 but never attended since that time as a “lay person.”

By the way, our Martha and Mary Chapel was built by Henry Ford in the 1930’s as a Protestant Chapel and he named it after his mother and mother-in-law, Martha and Mary, both of whom I presume were named after the saints, but which “Mary?” He and his family worshiped there also.  Our diocese acquired the chapel in the mid 1950’s to be St. Anne’s Mission. We became a parish in the 1970’s with a full time pastor. We didn’t have more than 80 or so families until the 1990’s when Richmond Hill began to grow. Today we have a new church that accommodates 1,200 people and the parish will double in size in the next ten years.

But I digress. Here are my observations of the EF Mass from the pew:

1. It has transcendence, reverence, mystery and awe now lacking in the Ordinary Form. What it has is strong rubrics, precision of ceremony, wonderful choreography and no nonsense. It does not rely upon the priest to carry it, meaning the priest’s looks, personality or creativity, what I would call liturgical nonsense.

2. It is contemplative almost to a fault for the laity. It is like attending Adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament. It allows for the laity to zone out or be swept up into the mystery. For some so accustomed to the Ordinary Form’s busyness, the contemplative, adoration like nature of the EF Mass is disconcerting.

3. Quite frankly, I like the vernacular Mass because it makes the Mass accessible to the mind. A little Latin goes a long way for me. The first Sunday that some vernacular was allowed in the Mass when I was 12 years old was a wonderful experience for me and it made sense to have it in my mind! I see no reason why the changing parts of the Mass could could be allowed to be in the vernacular and maintain the fixed parts in Latin. This would enhance actual participation in the EF Mass.

4. Kneeling for Holy Communion is a no-brained to maintain reverence. When I knelt with others on either side of me and then waited for the priest (and our Lord) to process to me, which is really what I would call the Communion Procession—( the priest processing with Holy Communion to the communicant) I felt community with those on either side of me, that we were together at the altar railing. And receiving on the tongue and without saying a word, not even amen, made it an awesome moment of sacred silence! And I could wait brief moments after receiving to contemplate what Jesus just initiated in coming to me and the others around me in this intimate spiritual exercise.

5. This was a low Mass. I was in the choir loft and could watch the congregation. It was not clear to the congregation when to stand, sit or kneel. The majority knelt for the majority of the Mass including the Scripture readings. I’d like clearer rubrics for the Low Mass more in line with the High Mass. Stand when the priest arrives, kneel for the PATFOTA, stand for Gloria and Collect. Sit for the Epistle and Gradual, stand for Gospel, sit for homily. Stand for Credo, sit for offertory, stand for Secret, kneel of Sanctus, stand for Pater Noster, kneel afterward, stand for Post Communion Prayer, kneel for blessing, stand for Last Gospel and Recessional.

Finally, I love the Ordinary Form Mass celebrated by the book, with care and reverence. The improvements that local bishops should always allow should be ad orientem and kneeling for Holy Communion. In fact these two things should be encouraged and if bishops were encouraging these two things could revolutionize the celebration of the OF Mass as a spiritual treasure trove. 

NEWLY ORDAINED FATHER PATRICK MAY ORDAINED JUNE 1, CRLEBRATES HIS FIRST EF LOW MASS FOR THE FEAST OF THE MOST SACRED HEART OF JESUS AT SAINT ANNE’S MARTHA SND MARY CHAPEL

GERMAN DUBIA CARDINAL CALLS OUT MORE APOSTACY AND HERESY!

Dear Lord! When will it all end?

A Critique of the Instrumentum Laborisfor the Amazon Synod

By Cardinal Walter Brandmüller

June 27, 2019

Introduction

It is truly astonishing that, contrary to previous assemblies, the upcoming Synod of Bishops will deal exclusively with a region of the earth whose population is just half that of Mexico City, that is to say, 4 million. This is also a cause of suspicion concerning the true intentions which are to be implemented in a clandestine fashion. But one has to ask especially about the understanding of religion, of Christianity, and of the Church, which is the basis of the recently published Instrumentum Laboris. This shall be examined with the help of individual elements from the text.

Why a Synod on this region?

One has to ask in principle why a Synod of Bishops should deal with topics, which – as is now the case with ¾ of the Instrumentum Laboris – have, at the most, very little to do with the Gospels and the Church. Obviously, the Synod of Bishops with this document makes an aggressive intrusion into the purely worldly affairs of the state and society of Brazil. What do ecology, economy, and politics have to do with the mandate and mission of the Church?

And more importantly: what professional expertise authorizes an ecclesial Synod of Bishops to make statements in these fields?

Should the Synod of Bishops truly do this, this would be a stepping over boundaries and a clericalist presumption, which the state authorities would then have to reject.

On Natural Religions and Inculturation

Furthermore, throughout the whole Instrumentum Laboris can be found a very positive assessment of natural religions, to include indigenous healing practices and the like; yes, even mythical-religious practices and forms of cults. In the context of the call for harmony with nature, there is talk about the dialogue with the spirits (no. 75).

It is not only the ideal of the “noble savage” as presented by Rousseau and the Enlightenment that is being contrasted with the decadent European. The line of thought in the Instrumentum goes further, up to the turn to the 20th century, ending in a pantheistic idolatry of nature. Hermann Claudius (1913) created the hymn of the Socialist Worker's Movement, “When we walk side by side...,” a stanza of which reads: “Birches' green and the green of seeds, how the old Mother Earth extends her full hands, with a pleading gesture, that man may become her own...” It is remarkable that this text was later copied into the songbook of the Hitler Youth, probably because it corresponded to the National-Socialist blood-and-soil myth. The ideological proximity with the Instrumentum is remarkable. The anti-rational rejection of the “western” culture which stresses the importance of reason is characteristic of the Instrumentum Laboris, which speaks in no. 44 of “Mother Earth” and of the “cry of the earth and of the peoples” (no. 101) respectively.

Accordingly, the territory – that is to say, the forests of the Amazon region – is declared to be a locus theologicus, a special source of Divine Revelation. There are places of an epiphany where the planet's reserves of life and wisdom show themselves, which speak of God (no. 19). The anti-rational rejection of the “western” culture that stresses the importance of reason is characteristic of the Instrumentum Laboris.  Meanwhile, the subsequent regression from Logos to Mythos is being raised to a criterion of that which the Instrumentum Laboris calls the inculturation of the Church. The result is a natural religion with a Christian masquerade.

The notion of inculturation is perverted in the document, since it proposes the opposite of what the International Theological Commission had presented in 1988 and of what the Second Vatican Council's Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity, Ad Gentes, taught.

On the Abolishment of Celibacy and the Introduction of a Female Priesthood

It is impossible to conceal that the “synod” intends especially to help implement two most cherished projects that heretofore have never been implemented: namely, the abolishment of celibacy and the introduction of a female priesthood – starting first with female deacons. In any event, it is about “accepting the role, the leadership of the woman inside the Church” (129a3). In a similar manner, there now “open up new spaces for the creation of new ministries, as this historic moment calls for it. It is time to listen to the voice of the Amazon region...” (no. 43).

But here the fact is omitted that, lastly, John Paul II also stated with highest magisterial authority that it is not in the power of the Church to administer the Sacrament of Holy Orders to women. Indeed, in two thousand years, the Church has never administered the Sacrament of Holy Orders to a woman. The demand which stands in direct opposition to this fact shows that the word “Church” is now being used purely as a sociological term on the part of the authors of the Instrumentum Laboris, thus implicitly denying the sacramental-hierarchical character of the Church. 

On Denying the Sacramental-Hierarchical Character of the Church

In a similar manner – though expressed in passing – no. 127 contains a direct attack on the hierarchical-sacramental constitution of the Church, when it is being asked whether it would not be opportune “to reconsider the notion that the exercise of jurisdiction (power of government) must be linked in all areas (sacramental, judicial, administrative) and in a permanent way to the Sacrament of Holy Orders." (no. 127) From such an erroneious view stems (in no. 129) the call for the creation of new offices which correspond to the needs of the Amazonian peoples. 

The liturgy, the cult, however, is the field in which the ideology of a falsely understood inculturation finds its expression in an especially spectacular manner. Here, certain forms of the natural religions are positively adopted. The Instrumentum Laboris does not hold back from demanding that the “poor and simple peoples” may express “their (!) faith with the help of pictures, symbols, traditions, rites, and other sacraments” (!!) (no. 126e).

This certainly does not correspond to the precepts of the Constitution “Sacrosanctum Concilium,” nor to the ones of the Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity, Ad Gentes, and it shows a purely horizontal understanding of liturgy.

Conclusion

Summa summarum: The Instrumentum Laboris burdens the Synod of Bishops, and finally the Pope, with a grave breach with the depositum fidei, which in its consequence means the self-destruction of the Church or the change of the Corpus Christi mysticum into a secular NGO with an ecological-social-psychological mandate. 

After these observations, of course there are questions: is there to be found, especially with regard to the sacramental-hierarchical structure of the Church, a decisive breach with the Apostolic Tradition as it is constitutive for the Church, or do the authors rather have a notion of the development of doctrine which is theologically presented in order to justify these above-mentioned breaches?

This seems to be indeed the case. We are witnessing a new form of the classical Modernism of the early  20th century. At the time, starting with a decisively evolutionary approach, one presented the idea that, in accord with the continuous higher development of man, are found also higher levels of consciousness and of culture, whereby it can turn out that that which had been false yesterday, can be true today. This evolutionary dynamic then applies to religion, as well, that is to say, to the religious consciousness with its manifestations in doctrine and in cult – of course also in morality.

However, the understanding of the development of dogma presupposed to this view is sharply opposed to the genuine Catholic understanding. The latter understands development of dogma and of Church, not as a change, but, rather, as an organic development of the subject which remains true to its own identity.

That is what the two Vatican Councils teach us in their Constitutions “Dei Filius,” “Lumen Gentium,” and “Dei Verbum.”

It is to be stated now with insistence that the Instrumentum Laboris contradicts the binding teaching of the Church in decisive points and thus has to be qualified as heretical.

Inasmuch as even the fact of Divine Revelation is here being questioned, or misunderstood, one also now has to speak, additionally, of apostasy. 

This is even more justified in light of the fact that the Instrumentum Laboris uses a purely immanentist notion of religion and that it considers religion as the result and form of expression of man's own spiritual self-experience. The use of Christian words and notions cannot conceal that these are being merely used as empty words, despite their original meaning.

The Instrumentum Laboris for the Amazon Synod constitutes an attack on the foundations of the Faith,  and in a way that has not heretofore been thought possible. Thus it must be rejected with all decisiveness.

Translated by LifeSiteNews' Maike Hickson

TWO RECENT PHOTOS OF POPE BENEDICT AND ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN

Pope Benedict looks remarkably well, considering. A penny for his actual thoughts about what his abdication has wrought and why the Good Lord has allowed him to witness the aftermath in this life.

Finally, the sad legal saga of where Archbishop Sheen’s mortal remains will be interred has been settled. He is moving From New York City to Peoria!

A POWERFUL ARTICLE IN WHICH I AGREE WITH THIS PRIEST/PASTOR 99%!

Yes, this priest hits the nail on the head. But you have to be his age, my age and older to know what we lost after Vatican II or what others dismissed for us.

All the stupid things that we did, we were told by uber authoritarian clerics and religious that Vatican II told us to do it.

What? The loss of the transcendent, standing for Holy Communion, Communion in the hand, the abandonment of Latin, new songs that focused on us and not the transcendent God, casualness, low Christology and the horizontal gone bizerk. All of this is what Vatican II wanted.

REALLY? NO! NO! NO!

And now there is a a resurgence of the very things that have led to the sorry state of the Church today and in the highest elements of the hierarchy. It is enough to make one sick and in need of the Sacraments of Penance and the Anointing of the Sick!

Why Are Catholics Leaving the Faith? This Brave Priest Reveals the Dangerous Culprit

By Fr. Bill Peckman - June 24, 2019 and copies from ChurchPop:
 
I have seen more than a few articles as of late as to why our last three generations have been leaving the Catholic faith en masse.

There are many cognizant points.

As a pastor of 22 years, a member of one of those generations that departed, and a person who did leave as young man into agnosticism, I have my own theories based on my own experiences and what I have seen and read from others.

The first culprit is that we forgot the transcendent.

Check that…we actively excoriated it from our identity. This happened in several ways.
First, we tamed God. We made Him into our image. We turned him into a kindly and ineffectual therapist whose chief job is to enable our every behavior and pat us on the back for rebelling against Him.
 
With such a tamed God, there was no need to focus on Him. The concept of personal sin went away and became social sin or societal sin. With this move, confession went to the wayside and was replaced with a morphed view of social justice.

This gave us the liberty to complain about corporate sin and smugly distance ourselves from it. The tamed God was always on our side to the point where His being around at all was little more than a security blanket; something to be outgrown.

But God was not the only thing we tamed. We tame the devil and the demonic.

They became fodder for occult parlor games, slasher films, and as a poster boy for secular humanism. When we tamed him, there was no need to be any more afraid of him that we are of carnival rides.
Taming God and the devil lead us to largely dismiss them.

Along with God and the devil went their corresponding courts: The Blessed Mother, the saints, the rosary and rest of the devotional life was dropped as was any sense of the demonic and sacramentals used to fight them.

Spiritual warfare was dismissed and replaced with ‘be nice.’

Dismissing God’s transcendence made it easy. We simply snapped our intellectual fingers and poofed them out of existence. In reality, what we actually did is let down our guard, dropped our armaments, and dismissed our help. We left generations open to being run over with very little resistance.

We dismissed the transcendent in two ways: liturgy and education.

In liturgy, the focus of Mass went from God to humanity. We came to affirm ourselves and not worship God. We went for what was comfortable and unchallenging.

In fact, things were so unchallenging that Mass itself became a dreary exercise in self-affirmation. If you want to lose people, especially men, then this is the correct route to take.

The more we experimented with the Mass, changed the Mass, gutted the challenge from preaching into therapeutic moralism, filled it with songs about us, the more and more people wandered out.
Pair this now with the emptying of the transcendent in education
.
Catholic identity was not only seen as old fashioned, but as detrimental to education. The Land o’ Lakes declaration shooed Catholic identity away as if it were a pesky fly. This seeped into the catechetical materials used on ages of children.

We shifted away from a transcendent God who has expectations of us as His people to a doddering old fool of a God who enabled our whims because He had no real preference to morality.
Morality became subjective
.
Want to use birth control? Cool. Want to cohabitate? No problem! Want to reduce you body to carnal playground to be used as a toy? Sure! The list goes on and on.

Without the transcendent, religion is reduced to “feeling good.”

Sure enough, Catholic priests and nuns started dabbling in eastern religions and eastern mysticism. They encouraged others to do the same. Why? Because the human heart needs a sense of transcendence.

If we take it from God, we will have to appropriate it for ourselves. We made God irrelevant in that pursuit. This was the seedbed from which the popular ‘spiritual but not religious ‘ mantra used by the ‘nones’ came.

For three generations, we made God irrelevant.

This seeped into our homes. This is where things became fatal. The first generation raised on this watered-down nonsense became parents who learned well the lessons taught. If happiness was already guaranteed from God without our effort, then we could focus on happiness in the world.

After a few generations, the eternal happiness was overwhelmed by the temporal.

The primary way religion was taught was by absence. Children, like their parents, became comfortable with pursuing the temporal exclusively.

Mass, prayer, and religious formation became theological roadkill on the highway to hell. However, as I said before, the heart need the transcendent.

So, what happens?

The temporal starts to take on a transcendent quality. The pursuit of wealth, pleasure, power, and honor became the focus. The temporal got treated with the devotion once given to the transcendent, and the transcendent got treated with the laissez faire attitude of the temporal.

Why is it parents will consistently choose sports, dance, leisure, and multitude of things to worship and religious formation?

That was what they were taught to do! We made God irrelevant and these things filled that gap. It is why parents get hostile when approached with this: it is like we changed the rules on them.

Catholic schools then became reduced to private schools with statuary. We became comfortable with that. Catholic identity was no more important in the parish school than it was in the university.

Land O Lakes weaseled its way down to the elementary level. Religion classes were seen as the most optional of the curriculum, prayer as entirely to be sacrificed for more important endeavors, and Mass as bothersome to the more important aspects of the schedule.

Religion itself was taught as if morality and faith were subject to personal likes and dislikes. The students see this, and when this is paired with parents already readily sacrificing Sunday Mass and other Church related things, we almost beg them to drop away.

In losing our transcendence, we also lost our relevance. No wonder we have a shortage of priests! Who wants to give their life, not marry, and serve in such a faith?

Again, though, the human heart needs transcendence.

If we truly want to get our lost generations back, it will be by reversing this trend towards the temporal as being the be all/end all of our lives. This will have to happen in our liturgy and education first.

We need to remember that without a transcendent God, the Church is irrelevant!

The world very much believes this and for too long we have acted as if they were correct. We must reclaim our birthright by remembering who our God is and what He expects.

This will be a long road. It will be a shock to the system. It starts with us admitting we messed up. We have to own our mistakes, do an appropriate mea culpa, and reverse course. We must understand that in trying to tame God and the devil, we left ourselves open for ruin.

Can there be any wonder that we have experienced the depravity in and outside of the Church in the last century?

The sexual scandals are a symptom of the disease, but not the disease itself. Sexual scandals can only grow in swampish landscape of a loss of transcendence (how can you molest children and seminarians and cover it up and still believe in a transcendent God?).

To drain this swamp takes more than protocols to deal with where the swamp water is; you have to see where the water is coming from and stem the source.

Our Masses, families, parishes, and schools must truly reflect reality.

There most definitely is a transcendent God. He does have expectations of us. While He does indeed love us uniquely, we too must love Him as well. The road to relevance, a road we lost decades ago, can only be regained by restoring the transcendent.

Our foray into a sappy Catholic human-centered fraternal order has given us the identity of a cheap greeting card. We can and must remember who we really are called to be.

SAVANNAH'S NOTORIOUS PERVERTED DEFROCKED PRIEST DIES IN PRISON: THE ONLY APPROPRIATE CHANT FOR HIM IS THE DIES IRAE, DAY OF WRATH! PRAY FOR HIS MANY VICTIMS AND THEIR ONGOING HEALING.

DIES irae, dies illa, solvet saeculum in favilla, teste David cum Sibylla.	THAT day of wrath, that dreadful day, shall heaven and earth in ashes lay, as David and the Sybil say.
Quantus tremor est futurus, quando iudex est venturus, cuncta stricte discussurus!	What horror must invade the mind when the approaching Judge shall find and sift the deeds of all mankind!
Tuba mirum spargens sonum per sepulcra regionum, coget omnes ante thronum.	The mighty trumpet's wondrous tone shall rend each tomb's sepulchral stone and summon all before the Throne.
Mors stupebit et natura, cum resurget creatura, iudicanti responsura.	Now death and nature with surprise behold the trembling sinners rise to meet the Judge's searching eyes.
Liber scriptus proferetur, in quo totum continetur, unde mundus iudicetur.	Then shall with universal dread the Book of Consciences be read to judge the lives of all the dead.
Iudex ergo cum sedebit, quidquid latet apparebit: nil inultum remanebit.	For now before the Judge severe all hidden things must plain appear; no crime can pass unpunished here.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? quem patronum rogaturus? cum vix iustus sit securus.	O what shall I, so guilty plead? and who for me will intercede? when even Saints shall comfort need?
Rex tremendae maiestatis, qui salvandos salvas gratis, salva me, fons pietatis.	O King of dreadful majesty! grace and mercy You grant free; as Fount of Kindness, save me!
Recordare Iesu pie, quod sum causa tuae viae: ne me perdas illa die.	Recall, dear Jesus, for my sake you did our suffering nature take then do not now my soul forsake!
Quaerens me, sedisti lassus: redemisti crucem passus: tantus labor non sit cassus.	In weariness You sought for me, and suffering upon the tree! let not in vain such labor be.
Iuste iudex ultionis, donum fac remissionis, ante diem rationis.	O Judge of justice, hear, I pray, for pity take my sins away before the dreadful reckoning day.
Ingemisco, tamquam reus: culpa rubet vultus meus: supplicanti parce Deus.	Your gracious face, O Lord, I seek; deep shame and grief are on my cheek; in sighs and tears my sorrows speak.
Qui Mariam absolvisti, et latronem exaudisti, mihi quoque spem dedisti.	You Who did Mary's guilt unbind, and mercy for the robber find, have filled with hope my anxious mind.
Preces meae non sunt dignae: sed tu bonus fac benigne, ne perenni cremer igne.	How worthless are my prayers I know, yet, Lord forbid that I should go into the fires of endless woe.
Inter oves locum praesta, et ab haedis me sequestra, statuens in parte dextera.	Divorced from the accursed band, o make me with Your sheep to stand, as child of grace, at Your right Hand.
Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis. voca me cum benedictis.	When the doomed can no more flee from the fires of misery with the chosen call me.
Oro supplex et acclinis, cor contritum quasi cinis: gere curam mei finis.	Before You, humbled, Lord, I lie, my heart like ashes, crushed and dry, assist me when I die.
Lacrimosa dies illa, qua resurget ex favilla. iudicandus homo reus: huic ergo parce Deus.	Full of tears and full of dread is that day that wakes the dead, calling all, with solemn blast to be judged for all their past.
Pie Iesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Amen.	Lord, have mercy, Jesus blest, grant them all Your Light and Rest. Amen.

DID YOUR PARISH HAVE A CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION OF SOME KIND?

The adult server with the incense donated the beautiful canopy to the parish. It is imported from Poland.

We processed in the Church only to Pange Lingua. It took place after the Post Communion Prayer. We went down the center aisle and to the right, down the side aisle, across the front up the other side aisle and then back to the altar by the center aisle.

Once back to the altar, we celebrated Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament!

Several commented that it was AWESOME!

PROPHET OR TROUBLEMAKER? WHY NOT JUST BE POSITIVE?

Why does Pope Francis keep him as the neutered Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship.

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Cardinal Sarah: “We must rebuild the cathedral … We do not need to invent a new Church”

“As a bishop,” said Cardinal Robert Sarah at a May 25th conference in Paris, “it is my duty to warn the West: behold the flames of barbarism threaten you!”

June 21, 2019 Cardinal Robert Sarah Essay, Features 25Print

Robert Cardinal Sarah speaking at Église Saint François-Xavier in Paris, May 25, 2019. (Image: François Xavier/Cardinal Sarah)

Editor’s note: The following Conference was given by H.E Robert Cardinal Sarah at Église Saint François-Xavier in Paris, May 25, 2019, just hours after he visited the Cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris. 

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Allow me first of all to thank Monseigneur Michel Aupetit, Archbishop of Paris, and the curé of Saint François-Xavier parish, Fr. Lefèvre-Pontalis, for their fraternal welcome.

I have come to present my latest book: The Day is Far Spent. In this book, I analyze the profound crisis of the West, a crisis of faith, a crisis of the Church, of the priesthood, of identity, a crisis of the meaning of man and human life. I discuss this spiritual collapse and all its consequences.

This evening I would like to repeat these convictions I hold so deeply, by putting them into the perspective of a moving visit I made yesterday. Just hours ago I was at the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris. As I entered the gutted church, and contemplated its ruined vaults, I could not help but see in it a symbol of the situation of Western civilization and of the Church in Europe.

It is a sad fact: today the Church seems to be engulfed in flames on all sides. We see her ravaged by a conflagration much more destructive than the one that razed the cathedral of Notre-Dame. What is this fire? We must have the courage to name it, because “to name things wrongly is to add to the misfortune of the world.”

This blaze, this conflagration raging in particular through the Church in Europe, is a case of intellectual, doctrinal, and moral confusion. It is our cowardly refusal to proclaim the truth about God and man and to defend and transmit the moral and ethical values of the Christian tradition. It is our loss of faith and the spirit of faith, a losing sight of the objectivity of faith and thus a loss of the knowledge of God. As John Paul II wrote in Evangelium Vitae: