I WOULD NOT CALL THIS AN EMBARRASSMENT, BUT PECULIAR…

 Silerium non possum doesn’t like it. May be too critical. But could you imagine Pius XII, John XXIII or Paul VI entering St. Peter’s dressed like this? 

View Facebook video HERE.

Silerium non possum (digital translation of Italian):

Vatican City — An image that surprised, displaced and, for many, left a sense of discomfort. Pope Francis arrived today at St. Peter's Basilica in a wheelchair, with his body wrapped in a woolen blanket, without wearing the white talare, but simply black pants. The pale face, the tired breath, the tired look: the Pontiff seems visibly exhausted, still convalescent after a bilateral pneumonia that forced him to be hospitalized in recent days. The visit, they report, is due to the Pope's desire to visit St. Pius X and Benedict XV. "In recent years he has never made these prayers, how strange" comments a canon of St. Peter's Basilica.

"He can't breathe on his own," confessed a cleric from Casa Santa Marta. "For the visit of the English royals the oxygen was taken away for a short time, only for the photo, which was artfully studied because now there is the terror of your criticism".

The management of the Pope's public image - as already pointed out several times on these pages - is today entrusted to a small group of characters "romanacci da cicchetto and osteria". It is not even the case, here, to reopen the embarrassing chapter of the Dicastery for Communication, which has long represented one of the most opaque pages of this pontificate. The reference is rather to those who today, concretely, deal with the "body of the Pope", his public exposure, his outings, his image, in fact. In recent weeks, the Pontiff has appeared in public in conditions of obvious fragility, exposed, almost exhibited, as a symbol to be shown. To do so are some of the "wist collaborators" who surround him today, figures who have remained on the margins of the scene for years and who are now looking for a space that until now they have not had. Last Sunday, in St. Peter's Square, the Pope was taken outside without even a coat, despite the cold. Today, wrapped in a wool blanket, he was led to the Vatican Basilica between disorder, improvisation and a visibly neglected environment. The dirt that reigns in the Basilica led by the Franciscan Mauro Gambetti, already reported several times by faithful and visitors, have made the scene even more embarrassing.

I THINK THESE ABERRATIONS ARE MORE COMMON THAN I WANT TO THINK! YET TRADITIONALISTS GET SINGLED OUT FOR RIGID DISCIPLINE AND MARGINALIZATION!

Watch this video from Facebook and weep! This priest should be disciplined by his Bishop and sent to counseling to address his grotesque immaturity!

WATCH THE FACEBOOK VIDEO HERE!

THE JOY OF EASTER SUNDAY AT SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT CHURCH, BLUFFTON, SC…

Easter Sunday in South Carolina’s Low Country is CRAZY! I help at Saint Gregory’s each Sunday, but not Easter Sunday as I am celebrating two early morning Masses at Holy Family Church on Hilton Head. Easter Sunday there sees an Armageddon of tourists packing the Church and nearby hall!

This is what St. Gregory’s administrator writes in an email about Easter Sunday there:

I have updated the SGG Easter Plan document to reflect this year’s timeline. There are areas that are highlighted in yellow that may need to be addressed—some practice times, coverage for overflow in the PLC, distribution of the Eucharist on the lawn (especially at the 11 am), etc. 
 
As of now, we are expecting and praying for good weather, which means SGG will be very busy Easter Sunday. The KofC are preparing for helping with parking during the 9 am and 11 am Masses; Hispanic Ministry plans to handle parking for the 1 pm; we also have contracted with the State Highway Patrol from 7 am to 1 pm to assist with general traffic direction. We have six troopers on Easter Sunday with two planned at the fire department area and four in the Berkeley Hall/SGG entrance. I have also communicated with the Beaufort County Traffic Engineers and the SC Department of Transportation on making significant adjustments to the lights to help us with traffic flow. Please note that Sunday, April 20 is also the last full day of The Heritage on Hilton Head Island—so there WILL BE traffic!
 
Deacon Denny plans to coordinate with the deacons on coverage, especially in the PLC and for additional coverage at Masses (or on the lawn to help with Communion, because the 11 am tends to have a large crowd).
 
The large screen will be on the lawn for the 9 am and 11 am—with the 1 pm also as a possibility!
 
If you would communicate with your ministries (ushers, greeters, etc.), that would be appreciated—and any staff who are present for any of the Masses can be expected to be “called into action” to assist with chairs, passing baskets, etc. 
 
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me or coordinate with your team. It will be a flurry of activity here in the next few days so get your rest and be ready to go!
 
Have a blessed rest of your week…

YES VIRGINIA, THIS IS A NOVUS ORDO MASS….

 This is Saint Anne’s Richmond Hill, original church in 2020:

You can watch this Mass as a Facebook video for the Third Week of Lent, March 18, 2020 HERE.

THE ORGANIC REDEVELOPMENT OF ALTAR RAILINGS AND THEIR USE

The National Catholic Register has an article on the restoration and use of altar railings and spotlights my former parish of Saint Anne’s Church in Richmond Hill, Georgia in a very good article. Press the title for the full article:

Communion Rails Return as Churches Embrace Beauty and Reverence

A growing number of Catholic parishes in the U.S. are restoring altar rails, renewing reverence and transforming the faithful’s experience of the Holy Eucharist.

When I was there from 2016 through 2022, I began using kneelers to allow people to kneel if they felt called by God to do so. The article says I only had one, but in fact there were two, for the two main lines approaching the altar.

I recommended to my successor, Fr. Dawid Kwiatkowski, that he install an altar railing in the future. I would not have placed the railing on the top level of the sanctuary but expanded the first step leading up to it for the railing to be there. I think it would not have fenced in the spacious sanctuary as much as having it on the top level does. That’s the fly in the ointment for me. But over all it is a great thing to do.

I should also say that I am the first priest in the Diocese of Savannah ever to have removed an altar railing from a historic church in our diocese in 2004 only to have it restored in a new location in 2015. I guess I have always been a modern trend setter! 

This is the blessing of the restored altar railing at St. Joseph Church in Macon, Georgia in 2015:

THIS IS HOW SAINT POPE PAUL VI’S WORSHIP COMMITTEE REFORMED THE LITURGICAL BOOKS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE LATE 1960’S…

 

IN HONOR OF MASTERS’ WEEK, A BLAST FROM THE PAST…

 In honor of Masters’ Week in Augusta, I post a photo of me in the early 1970’s after having crashed through the main gate of the Augusta National (Magnolia Lane) as I drove some friends of my father to the parking lot, got out, took a tour and left and no one knew the difference. THEY LET ME THROUGH ON WASHINGTON ROAD! Even then, that would not have been allowed. I guess my Masters’ green 1970 Chevy Nova confused the guard at the gate as he waved me through!

BEAUTIFUL CHURCH, BUT…

 Why put something not needed in front of the altar to clutter it? It’s gimmickry! And an altar in front of an altar. Only one is needed and the hidden one preferred!

WHAT WAS SAINT POPE PAUL VI'S LITURGY COMMITTEE THINKING? THEY WEREN'T AND WE ARE SADDLED WITH THEIR STUPIDITY...

Let me say that I am not opposed to the organic development of the Liturgy. We would not have the 1962 Roman Missal if not for that organic development. 

As I have written time and time again, Sacrosanctum Concilium gave a very conservative and sober direction to liturgical renewal. The Fathers of Vatican II were not out to destroy the Liturgy but to make the Mass better, without going backwards to the 2nd Century or forward to some unknown century.

So with that said. I want to rant some more about some abysmal aspects of  state of the Modern Version of the Roman Rite Mass.  

I've already ranted about the loss of the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima. What was that worship committee thinking. They weren't!

I've already ranted about the loss of the mandated propers, especially Entrance Chants, of the Roman Missal, so much so the wearing of Rose vestments on Guadete and Laetare Sundays makes no sense in the parishes that substitute something else in place of the official Introits of those Masses. What was that worship committee thinking? They weren't! 

Now to cap off my rants about the Modern Mass idiocy (actually that dang worship committee that wasn't thinking) let me write about the 5th Sunday of Lent and the covering of statues. 

Did your parish cover the crucifix and statues? Does anyone in the Modern Mass know why this is done?

No they don't know why! The reason for this is that that dang worship committee in Rome, not thinking, changed the Gospel reading for the 5th Sunday of Lent, eliminating the Gospel of the TLM's lectionary altogether in order to provide three others. What was that worship committee thinking? They weren't!

The TLM's Gospel for each and every 5th Sunday of Lent, known as Passion Sunday and the beginning of Passiontide, is from John 8:46-59. This is the last sentence of that Gospel and reason for covering the crucifix and statues. This says it all, but only a small minority of TLM Catholics heard this Gospel and thus understand why the crucifix and statues are covered. If this Gospel isn't used, it makes no sense to cover anything!!!!!

"So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple".

 And not reading the TLM's Gospel for Passion Sunday removes the Passiontide designation for the last two weeks of Lent. There is only a remnant of that in the Modern Missal which for daily Mass requires that we begin to use the Passion Prefaces instead of the Lenten ones, but that isn't required on 5th Sunday of Lent in the Modern Mass or for Passion/Palm Sunday. What was that worship committee thinking? They weren't!

I've already ranted about the elimination of so many private/devotional (but prescribed) prayers of the priest in the modern Missal. Oftentimes, the organic development of the Mass that admitted these now deleted prayers were not just for the priests' own piety, but they were of course, but to allow the liturgy be be celebrated in a way that things happening behind the priest could be carried out in the needed time allowed, especially think about the Suscipe after the Lavabo that gives the servers enough time to incense the congregation and return to the places or the Placeat prior to the final blessing that gives the laity a chance to kneel prior to the blessing. It all fits together, but now gone in the Modern Mass. 

 What was that worship committee thinking? They weren't!

 

WHAT IS IT WITH PARISHES THAT CLUTTER THE FRONT OF THE ALTAR!

 This drives me crazy apart from the fact that it is ugly, uninspiring as well as inane! Just my humble opinion…

Guardian Angels, Copley, Ohio

WE HAVE ONE DETERMINED HOLY FATHER

Pope Francis pays a visit to Saint Peter’s Square to be with the sick and suffering.

Press title for NCR’s article and more photos:

Pope Francis makes surprise appearance in St. Peter's Square

It was the first time the pontiff has been seen publicly at the Vatican since Feb. 9

WHAT THE????

 This is St. Brendan’s Church in central Los Angeles. What a great idea. Hide the old high altar with silly looking structures and hide the silly looking cube altar with cacti. What a great idea! NOT!

I am sure this configuration instills wonder, awe and reverence for the Holy Mass and the Blessed Sacrament. NOT!

WHAT IN THE NAME OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY IS WRONG WITH THE VATICAN AND IT’S HOLY YEAR DESCRIMINATION?

 

This Holy Year of 2025 is off to a stunningly bad start with the dying process of Pope Francis, the star attraction, sidelined and made invisible or disappeared by his critical condition.

But apart from that, the Vatican has instituted policies of making money off of tourists who come to see St. Peter’s Basilica. 

Elizabeth Lev writes a stinging commentary on this situation. She is a Catholic historian, living in Rome, who gives tours of historic Catholic sites and shrines in Rome. She teaches seminarians and priests on sabbatical in Rome. I can testify to her knowledge and that her commentary is to be taken seriously as I had  her twice for historical tours in Rome when I was in Rome for two sabbaticals:

The Jubilee: Call to Conversion or Cash Cow?

And yes, there have been many graces already in 2025, but the beacon of the Year of Hope has been dimmed by hasty policy changes at St. Peter’s Basilica.
This is due to what, one presumes, the basilica administrators considered a clever plan to combat Vatican deficits by drawing a line between tourists and “pilgrims,” soaking money from the former while preserving free worship for the latter. Card-carrying Pilgrims continue to access the basilica from the magnificent Via della Conciliazione, but mere “tourists” are routed out of the Piazza San Pietro and lined up along the road leading to the Sant’Anna entrance to Vatican City.
Well-heeled tourists, however, may also skip the line by paying 7 euros for a fast pass into the basilica. Bernini’s colonnade, designed to resemble the open arms of a church for the whole world, ready to welcome one and all, has been turned into a web of barriers to enforce the new system, and while the desperate financial straits of the Holy See are common knowledge, it could be that exploiting the pope’s basilica will turn out to be robbing Paul to pay Peter. After all, the Holy Year is supposed to be about saving time in Purgatory, not saving time in line.
READ THE REST THERE

WHEN DEATH AND ONE’S PERSONAL JUDGEMENT IS A GOOD THING!

 

He needs our prayers. Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord. And let perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace. May his soul and all the souls of the faithful departed rest through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

Breaking: Disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick dies at 94

A CONCLAVE BLESSING? IS THE LONG DYING PROCESS AND ABSENCE OF POPE FRANCIS A BLESSING FOR THE CONCLAVE THAT WILL ELECT THE NEXT POPE? IS IT THE HOLY SPIRIT’S SURPRISE?

Many had worried that if Pope Francis had died suddenly, that the cardinals in the conclave to elect the new pope would not have known each other long enough to make a well-informed decision. 

But Pope Francis’ long dying process has put an end to that. Pre-Conclave discussions are taking place and the cardinals are thinking about who will be the best candidate to be the next pope given all the chaos of the current papacy for the last 12 years. They are making concerted efforts to know one another and the problems caused in the last 12 years. 

And all of this lengthy dying process has taken place within the context of an American Presidential election that has put so much of this pope’s agenda into question, and here I am speaking about His Holiness’ secular agenda as it concerns globalization, the weather and human-made climate change and enabling a political process in the Church to determine future doctrines and a different Church than what the Catholic Church is and has been. 

All of this 1960’s chaos recovered by Pope Francis after the great papacies of St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI has enabled a completely new generation of Catholics, from cardinals to the laity to see how much wisdom there was in the previous two papacies compared to the current one that relishes in the past, specifically the period from 1964 to 1977, the period of St. Pope Paul VI’s papacy of chaos and impotence in the face of the progressive agenda of those who wanted a completely different Church than the one Christ founded.

Because of Pope Francis, a completely new generation knows the chaos and disorientation in the Church caused by the so-called spirit of Vatican II. 

The conclave too, will have to deal with the neo-Gnosticism of the current synodal way of thinking that it is possible to blame God for dogma and doctrinal changes a parliamentary Church procedure initiates in contradiction of doctrines, dogmas and corrections instituted in a clear and unambiguous way by previous papal Magisteriums and Ecumenical Councils. 

And currently, the Italian Church’s synodal process taking place in Rome has been a complete and unmitigated disaster making clear to the conclave cardinals just what a disaster the synodal way is for Italy and the entire Church. Hopefully, they are rereading the late, great Cardinal Pell’s evaluation of Pope Francis’ papacy and they have time to do it!

Blaming the Holy Spirit for every fresh novelty seem to be blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, in my most humble opinion. 

But with that said, I do believe the Holy Spirit has given the cardinals of the next conclave a great gift of time to figure things out before the conclave while we experience Pope Francis’ lengthy dying process. 

ITALY’S SYNODAL WAY, CARRIED OUT IN ROME, IS REDUCED TO BITTERNESS, CHAOS AND RECRIMINATIONS, IN OTHER WORDS A DISASTER, ARE THE CONCLAVE CARDINALS LISTENING? ARE THEY LISTENING TO WHAT THE SYNODAL WAY IS DOING?

This is a mechanical English translation from the original Italian from Silere non possum:

Who wrote the 'Propositions'? The truth behind the document that shook the Second Synodal Assembly in Italy

In his book Faith, Truth, Tolerance, Benedict XVI addressed the theme of the ambiguity of language and the risk that ideologies insinuate themselves into the Church. The Pope warned that, in the name of tolerance and adaptation to the times, one can end up relativizing the truth of the faith, opening the door to secular ideologies in ecclesial discourse. This phenomenon manifests itself in particular when terms such as "dialogue", "opening" and "update" are used vaguely, without a clear reference to Catholic doctrine. A dynamic that was also evident in the four years of synodal journey of the Italian Church.

From March 31 to April 3, 2025, the Second Synodal Assembly was held in the Vatican, with the participation of 1,008 delegates, including 168 bishops (seven cardinals), 252 priests, 34 religious, 17 deacons and 530 lay people. It was an event characterized by strong tension. “Moments of tension have always been part of the synodal journey and, if lived in a constructive way – as happened in this Assembly – they can become spiritual experiences,” said Monsignor Erio Castellucci, trying to sugarcoat the pill. The real crux of the matter, however, is that few have grasped the authentic meaning of this Synod, while many seem to have lost sight of the primary mission of the Church: to announce Jesus Christ and his Gospel.

On March 28, 2025, an online meeting of the National Committee of the Synodal Path took place, and on March 29, 2025, at 4:29 p.m., the Secretariat of the Synodal Path sent an email to the participants of the Second Synodal Assembly, attaching two documents: Propositions and Group Methodology 

When both bishops and lay people noted that the text containing 50 propositions was “excessively synthetic,” a widespread sense of discontent emerged. “Four years’ work has been reduced to nothing,” protested especially the bishops and progressive lay people, who have invested their entire existence in this path.

Already on March 31, the first interventions proved to be highly critical and, during the group work, rather than limiting themselves to proposing simple amendments as requested by the presidency, the request was made to completely rewrite the text. “The amendments were too substantial, they served to bring the document back to what had actually been developed in recent years, but which was completely ignored in the synthesis work”, explain some of those present.

In recent weeks, the Permanent Council of the Italian Episcopal Conference had entrusted S.E.R. Mons. Claudio Giuliodori the task of elaborating a summary of the synodal work. Mons. Giuliodori, current General Ecclesiastical Assistant of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and the Italian Catholic Action, Bishop Emeritus of Macerata-Tolentino-Recanati-Cingoli-Treia and President of the Episcopal Commission for Catholic Education, School and University, was busy condensing the path taken in some propositions, while trying to stem the drift that the Synod has taken. So he chose to summarize and cut. A text that was more than fine.

"At this point I point out and admit some shortcomings in the March process, also due to the fact that the transition from these syntheses to our Assembly had to be contracted within three weeks. In the first days of the month, the Presidency of the Synodal Path read all the contributions and some of the members drafted a first summary text, of 74,000 characters, read in full and discussed on March 11 in the Permanent Episcopal Council; in that meeting it was asked for a drastic reduction, so that the form of Synthetic and targeted Propositions (as per Regulation) could be reached. The diet was probably excessive, having also eliminated all the quotes and reduced the text to 46,000 lines," explained Mons. Castellucci reconstructing the process of recent months.

In the meantime, as expected, some press began to launch sensationalist headlines on "gays and women" to attract clicks, diverting attention from the real problem. Mons. Giuliodori tried to limit the damage, but the error dates back upstream: having granted 530 frustrated lay people the opportunity to transform the Synod into an arena in which personal ambitions and subjective opinions take over the primary mission of the Church, namely the proclamation of the Gospel. It was inevitable that the usual protests would start, just as it was obvious that they would resort to the media to whine and put pressure.

The climate has been particularly tense, so much so that the criticism has annoyed a lot S.E.R. Mons. Claudio Giuliodori, who this morning preferred not to show up. In light of the situation, it has been decided to postpone everything to the meeting of October 24-26, 2025, on the occasion of the Jubilee of the synodal teams, where the text will be voted on (October 25). Although there are those who offer sweetened visions of the situation that has been created in the Paul VI room, the assembly applauded the bishops only when they bowed to the wishes of those who protested. It was not an acclamation of faithful and clerics obedient to their pastors. It would be appropriate to start seeing the world with a bit of realism, instead of living in the world of fairy tales.

Most of the participants today left the classroom with expressions of disappointment, and today's Holy Mass celebration was brought forward by an hour. What is striking is that the only noteworthy moments of this event were the Eucharistic Celebrations celebrated by Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Mons. Rino Fisichella It suggests that these presuli, which are not directly linked to the Catholic Church in Italy, were the only ones to offer significant and interesting ideas.

Consequently, the 80ª General Assembly of the Italian Episcopal Conference will not be held in May, as is tradition, but will slip to November in defiance of the Statutes. The reason? The Church now seems to have chosen to transform itself into a democracy, despite the fact that someone had already warned against this drift years ago, in Rimini.

"We have reiterated that the Church is not composed of guides who ignore the "feeling" of the people (of God), pulling straight as if they were always right - which is unfortunately very widespread today in sovereignist and dictatorial tendencies - but is composed of guides called to discern the presence and action of the Spirit in the People of God, of which they are part," said Mons. Castellucci

Yet, it is necessary to remember that the Church is not even a parliament, where anyone can express his opinion and one remains in a perpetual "listening to the voice of men". The Church needs pastors, faithful to Christ, who make decisions, not in a dictatorial way - a method that, paradoxically, seems to be a prerogative of Pope Francis when he imposes his will in defiance of what the bishops ask - nor according to synodal logic, which claims to transform the voice of a thousand people into an unquestionable dogma for 1 billion and 390 million Catholics. The Church needs to "listen to the voice of God" and our task is not to indulge the careerism or ambitions of individuals but to testify to Jesus Christ and remain faithful to that Church that He has given us.

M.R.C.

Silere non possum

IN PRINCIPLE, NOT OPPOSED TO THIS, BUT…

 

How about a common date in the Latin Rite for the 40th day after Easter, ASCENSION THURSDAY! And a common date for Corpus Christi, which should fall on a Thursday always! And a common date for Epiphany, as always on January 6! And a common celebration of Septuagesima!

Just saying!

Vatican calls for all Christians to set joint date of Easter

---

Finding a common date for Easter has been part of ecumenical endeavors for many years, as the divide between Catholics and Orthodox over the use of different calendars has led to varying dates of the feast.

IT MAKES NO SENSE TO WEAR ROSE COLORED VESTMENTS ON LAETARE/REJOICE SUNDAY IN LENT IF THE PROPER INTROIT IS NOT SUNG OR CHANTED FOR THAT MASS!

 If your priest wore rose colored vestments for Laetare Sunday, did you also hear the proper Entrance Chant, either in Latin or English that starts off with the word Laetare/Rejoice! If you did let me know. If you did not hear Laetare/ Rejoice, why in the Name of God and all that is holy, did your priest wear rose colored vestments?

Rejoice, O Jerusalem; and gather round, all you who love her;
rejoice in gladness, after having been in sorrow; exult and be
replenished with the consolation flowing from her motherly
bosom. I rejoiced when it was said unto me: "Let us go to the
house of the Lord."

THE PRE-VATICAN II CHURCH’S EHTOS OF REVERENCE, GRANDEUR AND MAJESTY AND THEN THEY GOT RID OF THAT WHEN THEY PLACED THAT SILLY LOOKING FREESTANDING ALTAR BELOW THE MAJESTIC, GRAND, AWE-INSPIRING HIGH ALTAR THEY LEFT IN PLACE SO YOU COULD COMPARE THE TWO AND THE DUMBING DOWN OF MAJESTY IN THE MODERN POST-VATICAN II CHURCH

 Look at this Holy Year Mass celebration at a grand basilica in Rome on Laetare Sunday.

Do you even notice the post-Vatican II free-standing altar? You have to look hard to see it as it is swallowed up in a sea of clerics of mercy as the altar is only a step up from where they are sitting in the nave.

The old high altar, mercifully still there, looks much closer as it is much higher and the entire altar is seen as well as the entire corpus of the priest if he were standing at that altar celebrating Mass facing the same direction as everyone else. 

If you want to know why there is such a malaise of awe, wonder, reverence, and majesty in the post Vatican II Church, look at the placement of this post-Vatican II free standing altar. Why would you build such a grand basilica with all the art in it for that silly looking, inconspicuous altar when the old high altar show why that grand basilica was built!

GOOD NEWS FROM THE DIOCESE OF SAINT PETERSBURG WHERE MY BISHOP’S BROTHER IS THE BISHOP…

 

THE STILL LIVING AGING CABAL OF THE TRIUMPHALISM OF THE IMMEDEIATE POST-VATICAN II PERIOD, LACK NOT ONLY COMMON SENSE BUT THE VIRTUE TO FIX WHAT THEY BROKE. HOWEVER, THEY HAVE AN ABUNDANCE OF NOSTALGIA FOR 1964 THROUGH 1977! THEY LOVE THE TRIUMPHALISM OF THAT PERIOD DESPITE THE FAILED EXPERIEMNT OF THEIR PROGRESSIVE AGENDA

Rorate Caeli posts a commentary by Archbishop Hector Aguer which I re-post below. What he says about Argentina can be said of most first world countries including the USA.

Pope Benedict XVI understood very well what Archbishop Aguer points out. Pope Francis, however, still lives in that time when everyone in the hierarchy believed that Vatican II would lead to a new springtime of the Church. But even Saint Pope Paul VI began to realize that this wasn't the case and he knew it only a brief time after the Council. Unfortunately, he grew old, feeble and depressed about so many things in the Church, world and his own life, that he was impotent to change the trajectory of the progressive movement to change the Catholic Church into something she shouldn't be.

Those who are these 1960's progressives are in fact pre-Vatican II Triumphalists. They apply this triumphalism, though, to Vatican II as they interpreted it, in discontinuity with what the Church was in 1962 when Vatican II began.

They are, in reality pre-Vatican II triumphalists and can't admit how wrong they were and still are. It is so sad to say the least.

However, with the papal Conclave soon to begin, maybe sane voices of the Pope Benedict XVI  school of thought will prevail and a new pope will know what went wrong and how to fix it. Common sense about these things will help too! 

From Rorate Caeli:

The Decadence of the Church and the Francis Pontificate - by Archbishop Héctor Agüer

 Archbishop Héctor Agüer

Emeritus of La Plata, Argentina

Buenos Aires, March 25, 2025

Twelve years of Francis' pontificate have just been celebrated. The Vatican reports are always self-congratulatory. 

It is very difficult to cover, in a single appraisal, the reality of the Church, which is vast and with differences between countries -- but from a certain point it is possible to contemplate the surroundings; I can do it, then, from this corner of the far south that is Argentina, a nation that is (or was?) mostly Catholic. As the saying goes, “one button is example enough."

 
       The decadence of the Church is evident. The bishops live up in their own clouds. The seminaries are populated by young people whose number can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There is even one seminary, a hundred years old, in which in this 2025, not a single seminarian entered! Vocations are not showing up. The command of Christ (“make disciples of all nations - pánta ta éthne - to be my disciples”) has yet to be fulfilled. Where are the apostles? The people are bewildered; many of the faithful long for better times.

 I think that two laments of Pope Paul VI are still valid: “We expected - after the Second Vatican Council - a flourishing springtime and a harsh winter came”; “through some crack the smoke of Satan has seeped into the temple of God.” The ecclesial presence in society is closely limited; journalists notice it, because they recognize, with a historical outlook, that, in our country, the Catholic Church has always been something official. We are considered a Catholic country. But baptisms do not exist; the birth rate in Argentina has plummeted: in 2023, with 460,902 births, the lowest figure of the last 50 years has been registered! And marriage no longer exists, now there are just “couples.” The public presence of the Church is non-existent; it only filters in the journalistic order only if it makes political judgments, especially against the government.

The Church must occupy herself with her specific task: to make Christians out of men and women, to imbue their conduct with the commands of Scripture and Tradition, and to lead them to Heaven. The successive crises of the clergy have had a detrimental effect, above all because they increase the alienation of society from the Christian ideal. There is no Christian culture; Catholic universities include a partial theological information, but they do not fulfill their main function, which is to make the Church present in the Argentine society, that is to say, to create a Christian culture. I do not know of Catholic thinkers who stand out, as, for example, Carlos Sacheri; murdered in 1974, as he was leaving Mass, in San Isidro, in front of his wife and seven children, by terrorists of the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP).

 The Statistical Yearbook of the Church has just been published, with figures corresponding to the 2022-2023 biennium. It is revealed in it that the number of bishops has increased: from 5353 in 2022 to 5430 in 2023. At the same time, the number of priests has decreased: at the end of 2023, there were 406,996 priests worldwide, a decrease of 734 compared to 2022. And, in the case of seminarians, the situation is more than worrisome: there has been a sustained drop since 2012; and it has gone from 108,481, in 2022, to 106,495, in 2023. In other words: the number of priests and seminarians is decreasing, while the number of bishops is growing! In Argentina we also have an inflation of these: in the last twelve years the number of auxiliary bishops has multiplied. And there are dioceses in which the number of bishops exceeds or equals the number of seminarians.

       As a Catholic, I believe in the Church and I love her; I want to see her flourish. I pray for her and for the Supreme Pontiff; for the health of his body and, above all, his soul. Sixty years after the closing of Vatican II, it is time to face reality. The “Church on the move,” in search of those who do not know Christ, or have distanced themselves from Him, must not be a “Church on the run” from her own essence and mission.

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT, TLM MASS AT SACRED HEART, SAVANNAH, YOURS TRULY CELEBRANT…

 Not in any particular order: