Editorial by Br. Alexis Bugnolo
I am not a doctor of medicine nor a doctor of psychiatry. But I think I can still recognize when I am speaking with a fellow Catholic who is brain dead. And alas, it seems to be a pandemic disorder in the Church today, just as it was in the Holy Land in the days of Christ.
Recall how often in the Gospels, Christ Jesus rebukes His contemporaries, by saying, “Let him who has eyes to see, see”.? Why did He say that so often?
Because to believe in Jesus in 30 A. D., was to be called a heretic and cast out of the Synagogue.
And we know that Jesus had something like 500 disciples in all of the Holy Land. But historians tell us that there were about 1 million Jews living in that land in those days.
That means that 1/20th of 1 percent of all Jews believed in Jesus. Even after Pentecost, only 5 thousand believed. And that was was only 1/2 of 1 percent of all Jews.
Think about that for a minute.
Christ Jesus raised 3 people from the dead, fed 15+ thousand people and healed everyone who asked Him for healing, like the entire town of Capharnum.
Miracles, which caused His Name to be known in all of the Roman Province of Syria, according to Josephus Flavius, the Jewish Historian.
But only 1/20th of 1 percent believed in Him, and when it came to Good Friday, that was barely 5 people, or 1/100th of 1/20th of 1 percent.
But all of those who stood with Our Lord on Calvary, we know were saved and are in Heaven. Even the Centurion and Good Thief made it!
But 99.995% of the Jews who heard Jesus preach in person and work miracles, did not believe in Him. They wanted a King to deliver them from the Romans, not the Son of God to save them from Hell. In other words, they preferred political liberty with eternal damnation, to eternal salvation.
For most of my life I could scarcely understand how hard-hearted and brain-dead the Jews of old were. But since the Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, I have begun to understand it.
The power of the desire to prefer to be accepted by your peers and by the elites who rule the world in your day, is the predominant force for thought-control in 99.995% of people.
But the Jewish people of Old did not have grace. So if Catholics who actually want to know the truth, about who is the true pope or not, are just as few, that means that most Catholics are living in mortal sin and are enemies of God.
When I say, that I have learned to recognize a “brain-dead” Catholic, I am obviously using a metaphor, for spiritually dead. But if I said “spiritually dead”, I would surely be attacked by someone who was “brain-dead”, metaphorically, because speaking the truth is the only thing really offensive left.
I know dozens of traditionalists, priests, bishops and religious, who would prefer to eat lunch with a Jew, than eat lunch with someone who said the truth about Benedict XVI remaining the Pope until death. And that should shock everyone, even the “brain-dead”.
But I do not know of but 2 priests personally and a few Catholics, who would sit down with someone who held that Cardinal Prevost is a heretic and antipope, rather than sit down with a Muslim who believes all Catholics should have their heads cut off.
This is the result of being “brain-dead”. It is a metaphor, in the way I use it, but it’s much worse than being dead.
In fact, since Pope Boniface VIII infallibly taught, in his Bull, Unam Sanctam, that you cannot be saved unless you submit to the TRUE Roman Pontiff, these “brain dead” Catholics are truly reckless, believing that so long as they show obedience to anyone pretending to be the pope, that they are fulfilling this most grave duty.
And only a corpse would be so stupid….
This is why the Saints say, that on the Last Day, God will raise up the Faithful with immortally living and perfect bodies, but the wicked with immortally dead and grotesque bodies, to show, just what kind of life they lived before death, when they could have changed, but refused.
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Thank you for this explanation. People cut ties with me during the scamdemic, because I warned them about the vaccine. I should expect the reaction to this truth to be even more vicious.
Two (of many) topics rarely – if ever – covered in Catholic homilies and sermons I have heard – both in Novus Ordo and Traditional Masses – are the cardinal sin of acedia and the cardinal virtue of fortitude.
Most responses I receive when I raise the topic of validity of papacy indicate:
1. a tendency to acedia – “this is all above my pay grade – we should just follow” Cardinal X / Bishop Y / Fr Z etc and 2. a distinct lack of fortitude – “I just need to attend to my affairs according to my station as a” lay person / parent / student / etc.
When the answer to a question impinges upon one’s paycheck, the answer will not be forthcoming. But any priest who can endure Vatican II is not one who puts the zeal for God above all other things. Those of us who did that were driven out of our orders.
I remember in minor seminary, when they tried to get us to receive the Host in our hands, the priests would deliberately drop the Sacrament on the Floor to lure us into catching Him in our hands, and if we did the latter, they said, “See you have no qualms about touching the Host”, and if we failed to do the latter, they said, “See you do not really believe the Host is Jesus”. Wicked evil men, who will be damned for all eternally, and rightfully so.
I remember in novitiate, my superior commanded me as alter server to give him the wine in the cruet, which I saw was corrupted. He served as deacon and at communion ordered me to receive from the chalice, I refused. And for that I was put on a black list to be harassed for the next three years, where they allowed me in 3 years to study a total of 12 hours, to make me fail my exams, but I passed nearly all of them. They were evil men. And the sad truth is, that a priest who does not care who the pope is, is also an evil man, a very evil man, though he might seem to you only a coward.
As Don Juan of Austria said, at the Battle of Lepanto, “Remember, men, there is no paradise for cowards!”
The vast majority of Catholics I interact with meaningfully are layfolk, not clergy.
I do not consider any clergy to be my “friends” as such and have no close relatives who are clergy.
This does not mean that I don’t interact with clergy at all, or that I am unfriendly toward them (excepting blatant apostates, like the priest in Hong Kong who compared the saving Body and Blood of Jesus Christ favourably to the C19 “vaccine” in his Corpus Christi homily four years ago), or that I don’t pray for them.
Sickening.
I have noticed a gap between your readers experience and your experience which I think this comment above helps to bridge. I personally have never come in contact with such evil in the Church so it is difficult for me to relate. But as a follower and believer in Jesus Christ it is absolutely sickening to hear of such evil from wolves in sheeps clothing.
If it were possible, I would like to ask Dom Prosper Gueranger, the great restorer of Gregorian chant and the Roman liturgy in the 19th century, what he would say to Catholics in our day. Would he say, “keep your head down, let the paychecks keep coming, and mind your own business”? It is outrageous, but honestly that is what most, if not all, of Trad, Inc. would say.
I think you are right. The traditionalist movement has show it self to be like every protestant Church, where the name of the Church means the exact opposite of what they believe in the Church.
Great comment, Claudia!
I was very fortunate to be able to acquire a complete set [15 volumes] of “The Liturgical Year” in mid-2022 and it has become an essential part of my daily studies throughout each successive year.
Abbot Gueranger ‘waxes lyrical’ about many aspects of the sacred liturgy and lives of the saints, but he certainly does not refrain from appropriate critiques where necessary, especially regarding what he often refers to as an ‘effeminacy’ & ‘lukewarmness’ of the laity at the time [mid-late 19th century] as compared with “the Ages of Faith” when the laity willingly participated in many hours of the Divine Office!
Can you imagine what his thoughts would be about Vatican II, and what has happened since that wretched ecumencial council……??!!
“Save the Liturgy, Save the World”
“Say the Black, do the Red.”
[Often quoted by Father Z]
The “Dirty Dozen” reactions I get are:
1/ This is above your pay grade and mine (which you mentioned).
2/ Please remove me from your email list (no justification given, so I don’t).
3/ You do not have the authority to say that (What? I don’t have the authority to speak truth demonstrated by facts? Outrageous. Moreover, that’s an Objective Lie of Naked Assertion which is rampant in our societal communications. A OLNA occurs when a person portrays as objective truth that for which he presents no evidence, and for which there is either no evidence or evidence to the contrary.)
4/ Our clergy say otherwise. Look, Father says Francis/Leo at the Te Igitur of the Mass. (They act like truth is fabricated by authority instead of authority being subject to truth.)
5/ Canon Law is hard to understand. (But they can’t cite that Canon Law, nor what they don’t understand because they’ve never read it. This is another OLNA.)
6/ This is grave matter which is one of the conditions for mortal sin, you know. (It takes 3 conditions for a mortal sin to have been committed, and they know this.)
7/ The fact that the Bishop censured you indicates how serious your action is.
8/ I ask that you don’t present the evidence in my parish (Interesting phrasing. There’s evidence, and it’s apparently so compelling that I should keep quiet.)
9/ You know I’m going to have to remove you. (Go ahead, make my day. I have to stand in the truth.)
10/ The problem is that you have so much influence on people. (Yeah, that’s what the truth is supposed to do, right?)
11/ Who appointed you the official spokesperson for St. XXXX parish?
12/ (Whisper…whisper) You know there’s a man spreading the horrible rumor that Francis isn’t pope! (Rumor? Canon Law and Conclave Law proofs aren’t rumor.)
BAKER’S DOZEN:
13/ Can all the Cardinals and Bishops be wrong. (Yes. Logical fallacy of Argument from Authority.)
LAGNIAPPE:
14/ Your well-formed conscience from Canon Law can be wrong. (Yet another OLNA.)
There’s more, but that gives you the idea. I now have a deeper appreciation of how isolated Our Lord must have felt, and sometimes deeply grieved, in speaking clear, objective truths, yet encountering an insurmountable wall of resistance. But as Mother Theresa said, do it anyway (because it’s the right thing.)
I really doubt anyone could be censured for speaking about this. All the Clergy at Rome know I sustain this position, they all have my address and phone number and email. And not a single one of them has said I am wrong, or has reported me to the Cardinal Vicar, or Secretary of State, because they know what I am saying is the truth, and they are all embarrassed to have gone along with the legal error.
Objectively speaking, agreed, it’s logically doubtful that anyone could be censured. But subjectively it has already happened by a clericalist mindset that considers itself as the truth, instead of subject to right reason as embodied in Canon Law and Conclave Law. They have violated Catechism’s no. 1902 statement that authority does not derive moral legitimacy from itself. But we’re “getting there”, that is, getting them to open their eyes and ears by making an airtight juridical argument that can be ignored but not denied, thanks in large measure to your historical and legal research.
Thanks for reporting the responses you have gotten. Your list helps to deflate the gaslighting. Having read your comments I can almost feel a group hug coming on… Maybe we should start a Gaslighted-share-the-arrows support group where we share our hope, strength, and experience. Here are some of the ‘humdingers” i have received:
–I really think this whole situation will resolve itself…it’s nothing to be concerned about.
— I love you but i think you are heading down a rabbit hole with with him that has no way out.
— He doesn’t accept Vatican II.
— John Paul II is a saint. There is too much conspiracy stuff on his website.
— Too bad your hero isn’t getting more support.
That is interesting. I see similarities between the Trad movement and Protestantism. They think they know it all and seem to have no loyalty to the true Magesterium. I think they like all the confusion and don’t want true clarity because then they would have to give up their grift.
I presented a few obvious facts to a Latin Mass friend and she responded, “Well it doesn’t matter because there’s nothing we can do.”
AKA – don’t confuse me with the truth.
“For most of my life I could scarcely understand how hard-hearted and brain-dead the Jews of old were. But since the Resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, I have begun to understand it.”.
That got a wry grimace from me. You have been writing with exceptional clarity again, much as you did in Autumn / Winter 2022-23 but with a more collaborative engagement with your audience here, which is good to see!
“…they preferred political liberty with eternal damnation, to eternal salvation.”
Well stated.
Or political control, which was my experience.