Tag Archives: Obedience

Faith

When should you not obey your “superior”?

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

The exaggerated practice of obedience towards human superiors has been used as the most effective weapon of the Devil in modern times. We have only to recall the tens of millions murdered by those who obeyed their superiors in the Third Reich of Germany, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Peoples’ Republic of China, to evidence the fact.

But even in the Church, this moral fault has been the cause of the destruction of the mass, of catechetics, of religious orders, etc..

Now, the same faulty notion of obedience is destroying the actual pastoral activity of the Church.

So I thin a brief Catechism on the moral virtue of obedience is due a review.

Short Catechism on Obedience

Obedience is a moral virtue. That means it is a virtue of the will. That also means that it has two species, or varieties: the natural and the supernatural.

The natural virtue of obedience is acquired through learning. The supernatural virtue of obedience is infused in our soul at Baptism, restored in a good confession.

Obedience as a natural virtue is a species of the virtue of justice. It inclines us to obey our legitimate superiors in things legitimate, promptly, faithfully and exactly.

Obedience as a supernatural virtue is a species of the supernatural virtue of justice. It inclines us to obey our legitimate superiors out of supernatural motives, in things legitimate, promptly, faithfully, exactly and heroically.

As Christians, the model of our obedience is that of the Son of God who descended from Heaven, was incarnate in poverty, waited long in patience, zealously committed Himself to the apostolate when directed, and accepted the ignominy of even the Cross when asked.

The virtue of obedience, whether natural or supernatural, has 3 ways of practicing it. You can be too little obedient, you can be rightly obedient, and you can be too much obedient.

You can sin against obedience by not being obedient, by being too little obedient and by being to much obedient.  Obedience has these 3 opposing sins, because obedience is a virtue directed to action. Just as you can not act, act poorly or overact, so you can sin 3 ways against this virtue.

Now, the proper object of obedience is the command, not the whim, of a superior: a legitimate superior, not anyone who simply claims to be our superior, or whom we think is our superior, but rather one who is legally, lawfully our superior.

You are a mindless robot, if you obey everyone. That is the sin of excessive obedience.  You are an unfaithful subject if you refuse to obey your legitimate superior in something legitimate. A rebel if you refuse to obey him in all things. But you are a just person if you refuse to obey someone who is not your superior or who is commanding that which he has no right to command.

Since obedience is a species of the virtue of justice, it is tempered by justice.  Justice is the virtue which inclines us to render to each what is his own. Thus a superior who is legitimate has a legitimate scope of authority and jurisdiction. That is, there are limits to his authority and to where that authority applies. Only God, as the superior of all, has no limits to His authority or His jurisdiction, except the Goodness of the Divine Nature Itself and the totality of reality.

So before obeying, ask, if the one commanding is commanding.  That is, is he merely expressing a whim or desire, or is he using human language to express an obligation which applies to you.  For human superiors, fulfilling their every wish is usually a vice, unless you hold an office of personal assistance, such as a secretary or Majordomo.

Second, ask if the one commanding is commanding something which is either morally good, or morally neutral, according to all laws, human or divine, natural or positive. This is  because you are never obliged to obey a law of a superior, if it goes contrary to another law you are obliged to keep.  Thus the pope cannot command a Son of Saint Francis to own property. A father cannot command a son to disown him. A teacher cannot command a student to fail a test.  A governor cannot command citizens to rebel.

Third, make sure that what your superior is commanding, he has the authority to command.  There are things your father can command you, but which he has no right to command you, such as those things which only the President of your country can command, or which only the pastor of your parish can command. In such cases it would be a sin to obey even your own father, unless of course he is the President etc..

Fourth, make sure that what your superior is commanding is within his provenance to command.  Thus, the pastor of your parish church can command things regarding his parish, not someone else’s parish. If you happen to find yourself in another parish, and run into your pastor, and he commands you anything at all, you have not obligation to obey, because he is outside his jurisdication. Thus the governor of one province cannot command you as a subject of that province, to do anything in another province.

Fifth, make sure you fulfill the legitimate command of your legitimate superior completely, not in a half measure, nor excessively.  It is wrong to not sweep the kitchen floor when you are under 18 years of age and your father commands it. But it is also wrong, if he commands you then to paint the garage machine blue, that you also paint the house machine blue.

Obedience in the Church

You sin mortally if you obey a man who is not the true pope, because you rob the true pope completely of your duty of obedience.

You sin mortally if you obey a true pope more than God, as God has revealed in Scripture and Tradition, and explained in the perennial magisterium, because in that you rob God of your obedience.

You sin mortally, if you obey your Bishop in things contrary to the laws of the Church or the Faith, or in things contrary to the laws of nature or morality, which include all civil laws which are not contrary to nature or morals or the laws of the Church or of God, because in such obedience to your Bishop you rob the obedience that you owe either god or your other superiors.

Christ our Head and our King

The Church only has one superior. Jesus Christ.  I say, Jesus Christ, rather than God, not because Jesus Christ is not God, but because whereas God commanding many things in the Old Testament, our obedience in the Church is directed to what God commanded in the New Testament, in His Incarnation whereby He took the Name above every other Name: Jesus Christ.

This is why, when Christ commands the Apostles and Bishops and clergy to go into the whole world and make disciples of every nation, they sin mortally to neglect this command or to obey any superior who directs them not to fulfill it.

This Great Mandate, which Christ gave to the Church at the moment He ascended to the Right Hand of His Father in Heaven, is the supreme command.  The Fathers of the Church explain that while this command mentions Baptism explicitly, it includes the celebration of all the other Sacraments implicitly, in the words and teach them to observe all the things which I taught you.

There is no obedience which is true obedience which contravenes the laws of Jesus Christ. We owe them obedience even before obedience to the Pope, to our Bishop, to the pastor of our parish, to the Head of State of our nation, to the governor, to the mayor, to the police, etc..  No one has more authority than Jesus Christ. No command which is contrary to the will of Jesus Christ is legitimate or obligatory for Christians to fulfill.

It follows then, that if Christ commanded the Sacraments, those who think the Sacraments can cause any evil of any kind are godless blasphemers. And those who omit them on account of such blasphemy and disbelief sin mortally, and cannot command such a thing.

Those who refuse to give the Sacraments to the whole local Church are apostates from Jesus Christ, they do the work of the devil, since Christ died to give the Sacraments to the Church, such a refusal is a refusal of the fruits of the Cross, which is diabolic.

We need to pray for the clergy, they are greatly deceived right now and they are doing the will of Satan in closing churches and obeying an antipope and in denying Catholics the Sacraments for no reason at all, but disbelief and a wrong notion of obedience.

Promoting true obedience

In the present crisis, you have every right to deny material support to any Bishop or priest who refuses to obey Jesus Christ and the true Pope. You have the right to tell him that. And you have no obligation to apologize or confess such an approach, because it is true virtue and will merit you eternal life. Finally, if you have donated anything to your local parish, and that parish closes its doors to everyone, you have the right to ask it back, and you have the right to sue them for fraud. If you explain that to your local priest, maybe he will being to obey rightly his human superior and Jesus Christ, and learn how to distinguish how to do so correctly to each.

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CREDITS: The Featured Image is a detail of a photograph by Br. Bugnolo of the statue of Pope Leo XIII above his funerary monument at the Basilica of Saint John Lateran’s, here at Rome. The Pope’s triple tirara is a symbol of his threefold authority as Christ’s vicar over things spiritual and temporal, in this world, and as a temporal ruler in his own right.

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Ecclesiology

In the Catholic Church, there is no enfoeffment of obedience

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

When the world was Catholic and sane, there were no democracies, only monarchies and a few mercantile republics, where only the landed or established could vote. Power was decentralized, and a monarch was not an absolutionist, he had to hearken to the most powerful noble families of his realm and rule out of consensus.

Each noble family held a series of titles which comprises their power base and property. Though estates were owned individually and could be scattered, on account inheritance throughout the realm and beyond.

But the nobles were few, and they could only make their land produce and protect them by entrusting them under contract to local strongmen, noblemen, or ecclesiastical institutions.

This process of entrustment by contract was known as enfeoffment. On a certain day, the one with the temporal jurisdiction over the property, or fief, would hold court and the one who was to receive care of it, or his representative, presented himself. Then placing his hands, palm against palm, within the hands of the lord, he pledged him fealty and service, loyalty and collaboration. The Lord in turn conceded control and all temporal jurisdiction to him by way of a habitual delegation, which lasted until death and in many cases was renewed from generation to generation. Being that many noble families died out, those receiving these lands, or fiefs often became in turn their rightful owners.

This system was called the Feudal System, and in it the loyalty you owed your highest Lord, the Monarch or Prince, was mediated by the loyalty to owed your immediate lord or baron. There was never a question of a conflict, because you obeyed your immediate lord or else. Recourse to the prince was unthinkable, it would be an act of treachery to your own lord, and was countenanced only in the most grave matters when one’s immediate lord was involved in treason.

The Catholic Church, however, is not a feudal society. Our obedience can never be parceled out to other superiors. Our obedience is owned wholly and entirely, totally and continually, perfectly and fully, supremely and utmostly by God alone, in the Person of the Eternal Son, Jesus Christ.

There is thus never a question of betraying a lower superior, such as the pope, the bishop or the local pastor, or religious superior (if you happen to be a monk, nun, etc.). There is never a question because you do not in the absolute sense owe them obedience. You owe them relative obedience, that is, inasmuch as they hold an office from God, confirmed by the Church and rule in accord with the will of God, Canon Law, the Faith, and the common good.

Evil men in the Church do not, however, conceive power and authority in this fashion. They believe that if they have the claim to the office you must obey them more than God Himself. Bergoglio is the perfect example of this kind of tyrant. Bishops and clergy who obey him show that they do not hold the correct notion of obedience either.

This is why they cannot even open the Code of Canon Law and read canon 332 §2 and even begin to see the problem with the Declaratio of Pope Benedict XVI on Feb. 11, 2013.

We must obey God, not men! — Said Saint Peter the Apostle to the High Priests of the Temple shortly after Pentecost. These words have been cited by many sacred authors for millenia. But they are also prophetic for our own day and show us the way which is truly progressive and forward, to God and in the truth.

However, contrary to most moderns, these words do not men that you have a right to private judgement, rather, they mean that we are always obliged to obey God as Christ taught us to and never are obliged to put the claim to obedience from any authority, even one constituted by God, in way of that.

So the next time one of your legitimate superiors in the Church demands you ignore Christ Jesus as your superior and cede to him some kind of feudal obedience, remind him that in Christ’s Kingdom there is no such thing as enfeoffment.

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CREDITS: Count Ramón Berenguer IV receives grants a fief to his vassal the Señor de Perelada (1132).

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Canon Law, Editorials, Faith

Cherry-Picking Canon Law is a mortal sin

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By Br. Alexis Bugnolo

One day, while I lingered at the Convent of Saint Francis of Assisi, at Bagnoregio, in the spring of 2016, one of the Franciscan Fathers invited me to come with him to a Cherry orchard owned by a benefactor of the Convent. The owner said we could pick all the cherries we wanted. And the Conventual Father just loved cherries. I had never picked cherries and wanted to do some work to repay the Friars for their hospitality to me, so I eagerly went along.

In a Cherry Orchard

Cherries, in the province of Viterbo, Italy, grow in masses on the branches of trees which are nearly 20 feet high. So many cherries sprout from each branch that without supports the branches usually break.  But unlike many fruits, picking cherries is difficult, because they are so small and each one ripens at its own pace. So each cherry has to be picked on the basis of a decision to pick it or not. And this has to be accurate, because an unripe cherry can cause great gastric distress after you eat it.

We picked so many cherries, the old Friar was nearly taken to heaven. He was so happy, it reminded him of his youth. Alas, after letting them age a day in the refrigerator, they were found to be not very sweet and too watery. I found them fine and ended up eating too many of them. But Italians are very particular about food quality, and the old priest ate no more than a handful, which was a great disappointment to him.

The Expression, to Cherry-pick…

And thus the colloquial expression, in English, to cherry-pick.  To cherry-pick means to chose what you want and leave the rest. The expression is used to show the mendacity or malignancy in choosing what you want from something which is intended to be taken as a whole.

For example, Protestants cherry-pick scripture to propose to their congregations a Christianity without Bishops, priests and Sacraments. This is because they decide to believe and observe and thus recognize only certain passages from Scripture, not all of them.

Cherry-picking Scripture is a mortal sin, because it presupposes that you are a rebel against the obligation of faith to believe in all of Sacred Scripture as inerrant and equally inspired by God.

Canon Law

Imagine a Church where you only had to observe certain Canon Laws and not others. I can imagine that if I went to any medium or high security prison in the world, and proposed a society where you could chose which laws to keep and which you did not have to keep, that my proposal would win the wild cheers of all the inmates, for obvious reasons.

To cherry-pick a code of law is obviously wrong. But perhaps not so obviously more immoral and evil than breaking the law. Because the one who chooses to break a law does not necessary decide or judge that the law should not be observed, only that what he wants at that moment is more important. But someone who cherry-picks a Code of Law is setting himself up as an authority over the authority of the law itself and rejects in principle that the entire Code and the authority which issued it is his superior, which he must obey.

To cherry-pick Canon Law therefore is a very serious mortal sin of rebellion against the Pope and against Jesus Christ, from Whom the papal munus comes. It is thus diabolic, without any exaggeration.

True or False Pope?

I am continually amazed how many commentators stop by and say, What is wrong with obeying a false pope? Is not obedience what matters? People do not obey Francis because of Francis, but out of obedience to the papacy, no?

If we think we can cherry-pick Canon Law, then it does not matter, because then the Catholic Religion is up for the grab of everyone, everyone can make it into what he wants, and we have a New Gnosticism, where everyone has his own inner guiding secret principles for salvation: while the external visible Church is merely the living space for the wantonness of each. Pope, Antipope, Jesus or the Antichrist, it would all be equally good.

This is why it is absolutely essential to the salvation of each of us and of all of us to get Canon 332 §2 right. Whether you are the Pope or a Cardinal, or a Bishop or a priest, or just a layman, it makes a difference. We cannot pick and chose canons, we have to obey all the Canons of the Church.

What does it matter that Canon Law says we must obey the pope, if we refuse to obey the pope by rejecting Canon 332 § 2, and listen to the Cardinals instead who want to have an authority which Canon Law does not give them, to demand universal acceptance of their unfounded uncanonical opinion?  Is that obedience to the Pope? Does Unam Sanctam no longer matter to Trad Inc.? and if we do not have to submit to Canon Law, why do we have to submit to Pope Francis? — Will someone in Trad inc explain that to me?

And where on earth or in Hell comes the idea that the Holy Spirit does not care about our decisions in this matter, or that He won’t back up the Cardinals and Bishops to do the right thing, if we ask them to in Synod or Council?

This is the spirit which motivated me to write my recent letter to Giovanni Cardinal Battista Re, whom Bergoglio announced as his new Dean of the College of Cardinals. I showed 8 sound canonical reasons why the Declaration of Pope Benedict, which he made 7 years ago, tomorrow, at 11:30 AM Rome time, did not separate him from the Papal Munus, and that therefore Canon Law — which judges everyone and everything — says he is still the pope.

It’s been 7 years, and still those who say Benedict is not the pope anymore do NOT have a canonical argument. They can cite no canon as it reads, and at most grab for a canon and try to make it say the opposite of what it says, as those whom Diane Montanga interviewed last year tried to do.  I am still waiting for Life Site to print a retraction for their lies and misrepresentations. I am still waiting for Trad Inc to denounce Life Site for an article of propaganda and misinformation. I am still waiting for 750 Cardinals and Bishops and priests and 500 students of theology and canon law to get back to me with JUST ONE sound canonical argument that demonstrates Benedict is no longer the pope.

Still waiting…

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CREDITS:  The Featured Image is a collage of images created by Google Image search, under the rubric of “Canon Law”, used here according to a fair use standard for editorial commentary.

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Ecclesiology

Obedience is owed to Faith not Fraud

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

For the sons of Saint Francis, the virtue and practice of obedience is one of the principal fundaments of our religious life. Saint Francis showed us the way by his obedience to Jesus Christ, in undertaking a form of life and apostolate which is perfectly faithful to the Gospels.

It is thus easy for a faithful son of Saint Francis to understand that obedience is owed to God, not to men. Indeed, in his Order, a superior cannot command something contrary to the Gospel or to his Rule. There is a recognized hierarchy of duties.

In the Church, the same is true, though it is often forgotten and frequently obscured by unfaithful Catholics.

The Analogy of the Body

You see, just as a human body is one living thing, which lives by one principle, the immortal soul which vivifies it, and just as this one living body is the host to many other friendly and noxious life forms, at the level of bacteria, viruses and parasites, so the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, is the host of many small Catholic groups and societies, some beneficial and some noxious and parasitical.

Discerning where and in what the true life of the Church is found and learning to distinguish between beneficial groups and parasitical ones, is a must today in a Church in the throws of revolution and apostasy.

And since it is Saint Paul the Apostle who calls the Church, the Body of Christ, we can, in accord with the Apostolic Tradition, work out and discern lesser truths by applying the analogy of faith, with things in the natural world.  Thus, if we reflect on some simple truths of biology, we can derive so simple laws on ecclesiology by analogy.

The Helpful bacteria

The helpful bacteria in the human body is one of the great servants of human life. It breaks down food and waste and sees that it arrives in a form in which the body can use it for nutriment or expel it as excrement.  In the human body, these bacteria are not part of the body, they have their own individual life, but if you killed them all off, in any one human body, the body would also die, since it does not have all the functions necessary to do these activities.

The helpful bacteria can be used as an analogy for the humble faithful Catholic. The analogy is not exact, because the individual Catholic is part of the Mystical Body. But it is accurate in this, that the humble faithful Catholic is exposed to all the nutrition of the body (the Sacraments) and takes that in and breaks it down in his daily life of fidelity, and by fidelity, when he or she encounters error, or sin, or vice or falsehood, by rejecting it and warning others about it, he helps the whole Body expel it as noxious to the Church.

This is true, whether the error is ideological or canonical, whether the vice is personal or in another, whom he helps to overcome sin by counsel or assistance.

The Harmful bacteria

The harmful bacteria is not at the service of the body, it is at the service of itself. It’s only interest is to feed off the body. Its zeal is simply in multiplying itself and feeding more and more. This is the kind of bacteria which makes you sick and throwup.

Analogously, the harmful bacteria in the Mystical Body is the Catholic who is pushing some sort of foreign ideology. He is convinced that that foreign ideology is going to help the Church and he is completely oblivious or does not care, if it makes the Church sick. He is the classic ideologue, who does or does not realize what he is doing is evil and destructive.

The Harmful parasite

There are beneficial parasites. I won’t name them, because knowing something of their existence and location inside and on the skin of the body, makes some people uncomfortable. But here I want to talk about the noxious ones: leeches, tape worms and all those kind which bore into the body and try to remain there for years.

These parasites seem innocent at first. They enter the body usually as eggs or as larvae and as they grow the feed on the body or its food in the digestive track. They avoid being attacked by the immune system by secreting substances against it or by wrapping themselves up in the proteins of the body to disguise themselves.

The harmful parasite is the perfect analogy of the corrupt religious or cleric or of the errant lay apostle, who began doing simple apparently good works, but once he obtained a dominate position, because preaching himself and not Christ.

Obedience is owed to Faith, not to Fraud

Obviously, the cells of the human body owe their obedience only to the body. Their individual genetic code is the same as that found in every other cell and they easily recognize what is friendly from what is foe, in most circumstances.

Analogously, the faithful Catholic is bound to all other faithful Catholics by one same Faith and Baptism. They live as part of the Mystical Body because they are vivified by the one same Spirit, the Holy Ghost.  They recognize friend from foe by the grace of discernment, which is simply the application of revealed truth as the principles of a forensic analysis, that is, as the principles or tools whereby they determine that this or that is catholic or is not catholic, because it agrees or disagrees with what the Church believes and or teaches, in any field, dogma, doctrine, discipline or Canon Law.

Our obedience then is not owed to anyone in the Church unconditionally. We are not even obliged to submit to the pastors of the Church unconditionally. Canon 41 expresses this well: when what they command is contrary to the Gospel, we have the right to refuse it. If what they command damages souls or the Church, we can omit its execution and refer back to them with feedback, if doing so is not throwing a pearl before a swine.

But harmful bacteria and harmful parasites think otherwise. They want you to practice the obedience of the Waffen SS and do whatever you are told and shut up! — And they want you to be so pliant that you would rather damn yourself to hell with Adolf Hitler than actually do something opposed to them. — The only difference here between the parasites and the bacteria is that the parasites are in control and the bacteria run cover for them.

This is why, there is no one in the Church truly, who is in communion with Bergoglio, on account of his pertinacious and manifest heresy. For when the Cardinals asked him questions and he refused to answer, he manifested by that silent refusal what is called canonical pertinacity, and since the questions regarded matters of divine faith, he ipso facto manifested that he lost every office in the Church. — The communion that those who claim to be in communion with him have, therefore, is not Catholic, not supernatural and not ecclesial. It is a conspiracy for a common evil goal or for a collection of evil goals, to break down the Mystical Body and make it serve their own private agendas. Such a claim of communion is a claim to nothing binding on anyone.

The same applies with the Declaratio of Pope Benedict. Those who do not reply to the arguments and proofs that it was invalid according to the norm of Canon Law, after 90 days, by that rejection of Canon Law show pertinacious rebellion against the Apostolic See, and that means they are schismatics, who in virtue of canon 1364 immediately lose all office and position in the Church, all authority to govern and rule.

This is why everyone who is making a buck off claiming that Benedict validly resigned is not going to let go of that faux communion — it is the very principle of their parasitic life. And just as no parasite or harmful bacteria would collaborate with the immune system for its own expelling, so none of these low grade individuals would ever dare call for a Synod to punish the guilty in the Church.

But this is also why you have no obligation to any Cardinal, Bishop or priest who tells you to “recognize” or go along with the usurpation of the papacy and the destruction of the Church, because these men are harmful bacteria and harmful parasites which must be declared to be such by imperfect Synods.

And this is why the true sign of a faithful Catholic in the present crisis is only one: that he calls for a Synod to condemn these heretics, apostates and usurpers, and to hear the facts of the case and consider the laws of the Church which show that Benedict is still the pope.

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CREDITS: The Featured Image is a photo by Br. Bugnolo of the Statue of Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr, which stands in the Basilica of Saint Lawrence, here at Rome.

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News

A Feast to Exorcise all the Enemies of Truth

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by Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Many Catholics forget what today is all about. We do not celebrate a New Year, on January 1st.  Rather, Today, in this year of Our Lord, 2020, we celebrate the 2020th anniversary of the Circumcision of the Lord, the naming of the Child Jesus, the ritual event according to the Mosaic Law which made the Child of Bethlehem a member of God’s Chosen people according to the Torah. For today is the 8th day after the Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and according to the Mosaic Law, the first born male child was to be circumcised and consecrated to the Lord on the 8th day after his birth (Exodus 13:2).

This Feast of today was named properly in the traditional Roman Calendar, as the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord. The revolutionaries after Vatican II, without any authorization of the Council, changed it to the Solemnity of the Mother of God, a thing that served to deny the truths which Catholics celebrated on this day for nearly 2000 years.

But the eternal truth is, that Today in the year 1 B.C.,* the Eternal God of Israel, now incarnate, was circumcised and given the Name revealed by the Archangel Gabriel, to Our Lady (Luke 1:31) and to Saint Joseph (Matthew 1:21): Yeshua, or “Jesus”, in English: a Name which in Hebrew means, “Yahweh saves!”.

This simple act has a profound signification both then and now.

Then, because by it there was fulfilled all the prophecies of the Old Testament, that God Himself would come to save His people (Isaiah 43:11), and that lo, the Angel of the Covenant, the Messiah, would come suddenly into His Temple (Malachi 3:1). This Feast also testifies to the the Virgin Birth of Our Lord from our Lady and thus also to the Virginity of Our Lady, since that Woman so young, so soon after birth, was able to accompany Joseph to the Temple for the ritual (Isaiah 7:14, quoted in Matthew 1:23). And finally, this event foreshadowed in the figure of circumcision, in which blood was shed, that the Messiah would save His people through a blood sacrifice, as foretold by the Prophet Isaiah (cf. Isaiah 42:1–4; Isaiah 49:1–6; Isaiah 50:4–7; and Isaiah 52:13–53:12).

And now, because this Feast shouts out that Jesus Christ is the true Messiah promised Israel and was and is a true Son of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And in this way this Feast contradicts all the lies of the Talmud which say He was not a Jew, but the bastard of a Roman Legionnaire and Mary of Nazareth.

Thus this is a feast for true Evangelization. It goes directly against all the false talk about religious dialogue and ecumenism, terms which now mean something very different from what they meant before the Council.

But the truth I want to emphasize today, is that this wonderful Feast testifies to another amazing historical fact, namely, that God, Who is the Omnipotent Lawgiver of all creation, humbled Himself, not only to become a little babe, but a little babe who observed the Law, and the laws of His age.

In this way, this Feast speaks to our age in a most eloquent way, because the culture being promoted by the enemies of humanity today is the culture of law-breaking. And a lot of Christians are eating it up.

Fake Christians

From the very beginning there have been fake Christians. The ones who were converts from Judaism wanted to keep the Mosaic Law and add Jesus’ teachings on as an appendix. And since the time Saint Paul preached the Gospel of Salvation to the people of Corinth, the Church has been plagued by another kind of fake Christian: the anomian.

These Pharasees and Anomians are two kinds of spiritual extremism and idolatry.

The former wants to put the Law which Moses wrote on the Altar and put God Incarnate on the side of the Sanctuary.

The latter wants God Incarnate merely as a license to do whatever they want. (Anomian comes from the Greek word, ἀνομίαν, meaning “lawless” or “without a law”.)

Both do not worship God, both worship their spiritual preferences.  Both are thus involved in idolatry.

Anomians

Anomianism which was first mentioned as an error among the Greek converts at Corinth, by Saint Paul, consists in holding that the salvation offered in Christ frees us from the need to follow the Mosaic Law and all other laws. Anomians, thus, might be called the first libertarians. They want to be free from any constraint and want to be able to do all the evil they want.

Recognizing how evil this error is, is important today. It is an error which the example of the Child Jesus speaks directly against.  Because God has the right to do whatever He wants. He is bound by no law.  Yet, God when He became a man, did not do whatever He wanted. He did only what God His Father had commanded and that included observing the Mosaic Law.

From the example of the Child Jesus, we can be sure Jesus wants us to observe the laws of His Church. Because, His Church is His immaculate Bride. Thus if He was willing to observe the lesser laws of Moses and the Roman Empire, how much more would He want us, whom He called to imitate Himself, to follow Church law.

All “Benedict is certainly not the pope” Folk are anomians

This is so, so evident. Because Canon Law says to resign the papacy, you need to resign the petrine munus (cf. Canon 332 §2). And Pope Benedict XVI never did any such thing. He never even said he intended to do such a thing. And his personal secretary in 2016 made it clear that he never did or intended to do such a thing.  But the BICNOTpope people do not care in the least what the laws of the Church require or say or mean. It is enough for them that journalists and Cardinals and Bishops, whom the Church teaches are NOT infallible in anything, let alone in knowing historical facts or in interpreting the laws of the Church, say something which is contrary to the Laws of the Church. They are true revolutionaries and Modernists. Truth is relative, it depends on opinion, not the law or Divine Revelation.

And yes, I mean all the BICNOTpope folk, whether they also say, “Pope Francis is leading a needed fundamental change” or whether they say, “Recognize him as Pope, but resist him as a revolutionary”.

That they deny Pope Benedict, the Vicar of Christ, does not mean that all of them are liberals, apostates or heretics. No, some want a Latin Liturgy, orthodoxy in faith and morals. They just think that it is childish to insist on keeping Canon Law; they think a mature Catholic should be above such pettiness.  They may present themselves as Traditionalists, but no Catholic before Vatican II would have even recognized them as faithful Catholics.

Before the Council, until Pope Pius XII changed the laws, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass could not be offered after noon, local time! Saints with great love for the Eucharist, and who were priests, had to forego offering the sacrifice of the Mass, when traveling at sea, when their ship did not stop at a port before noon of each day (Mass was not said on board ships on account of the rocking of the seas).

This shows us that pre-Vatican II Catholics were lovers of the laws of the Church. And they showed it even to the point of omitting the celebration of the Mass for the day, to keep the laws of the Church!

THEY UNDERSTOOD RIGHTLY THAT our OBEDIENCE TO THE LAWS OF THE CHURCH IS MORE IMPORTANT to God THAN our CELEBRATING THE DIVINE SACRIFICE!

In this way they fulfilled what is said in Scripture, that God prefers obedience to ritual sacrifice (Hebrews 10:7 ff.), a scriptural doctrine which Saint Paul recalls to explain the very Incarnation of Our Lord.

The Feast of Circumcision of our Lord

… therefore is a feast which is eminently in need of celebrating. It is a feast for true Catholics and for all the enemies of Bergoglio. It is also a feast for all Catholics in communion with the true Pope, Pope Benedict XVI, because they rightly recognize that we must follow the laws of the Church, even if all others do not, and even if the Pope, as a man, might be confused about them.

May the Holy Name of Jesus be your blessing, your ensign and your glory!

And May the Child of Bethlehem, today, bless us all with the Salvation promised in His Most Holy Name!

__________

* For an explanation of why I say, 1 B.C., see the Article on the date of the Birth of Christ.

Faith

Games which Modernists play at

Editorial

St. Michael the Archangel, the first Saint, on account of his declaration of war against Lucifer
St. Michael the Archangel, the first Saint, on account of his declaration of war against Lucifer

The persecution of Catholics by Modernists has advanced from the days of the Second Vatican Council by means of tricks, games, and deceits which were more sophisticated than the average Bishop, priest, layman or religious could understand, and so most or nearly all Catholics were fooled.

The Modernists have used these tricks to separate good Catholics who recognize the errors which Modernists promote and oppose these errors, from those Catholics who have not yet recognized them or who accept them.

The From Rome blog has spoken of this in particular, as regards centers of formation for priests and religious, previously. But now, it seems needful to address the laity in general.

4 Games Played by Modernists

What does Our Lord Jesus Christ expect of us during a doctrinal crisis in the Church, where heretics control some or a majority of the ecclesiastical structures? Does He want from us blind obedience?

In Creation and the Divine Order of things, a comprehensive theological explanation was given, to explain what true obedience and false obedience are, and there it was demonstrated that it is blind obedience which is the chief tool which Modernists use to turn good Catholics against other Catholics.

But false obedience takes many forms, and these are the tricks and games which Modernists play at.

Let us leave aside, for a moment, the lies and misinformation which are regularly given out by Modernists, since these regards words not appeals to obedience.

The first game is the “Approval Game”:  “You don’t have my approval for that!”, the Modernist says, and the Catholic who does not know his faith, not realizing or recognizing what is Catholic and what is not in practice, takes such a disapproval as the norm or rule for recognizing what is Catholic or not.  —  “Father does not approve of that, therefore it must not be Catholic!” is the mantra which the Modernists most want to hear from the pews.

The second game is the “Normal Game”:  “That is not normally done, the norm is to do such and such!” says the Modernist.  A prime example of this was given today by Michael Voris on Church Militant TV (link to video here).  The Modernist for whom the Faith is the enemy, obviously, will always call normal what is abnormal or not-Catholic, but he uses an authoritative seeming declaration to use obedience to bait-and-switch a Catholic from what is catholic to what is heretical.

The third game is the “Mercy & Rigor Game”:  “You can’t expect people now-a-days to do such things, and by doing them you show yourself to be a rigorist, addicted to paradisaical practices.”  This is a very commonly-played game in liberal parishes or in some liberal countries, such as in Argentina, where in the name of mercy, one sells out the faith lock-stock-and-barrel.

The fourth game is the “Guilt and Re-education Game”:  Modernists, it must be remembered, are experts at emotional or psychological manipulation, since most of them are sexual perverts or moral misfits: they honed this skill in bucking the discipline their parents should have taught them.  They know how to make the good feel guilty for being good, and how to propose the proper re-education of emotions or thoughts necessary to make a good Catholic think and act like a Modernist: they say, “Love is what the Lord want’s from us more than anything else; if it harms charity or sows division, then it is not of God!”  They don’t want you to consider for a moment that love of evil is not charity, or that division from the devil is a work of holiness. Or that the Apostles and Fathers of the Church are unanimous in condemning every novelty as well as the norms and mores of the contemporary age (modernus in Latin means “contemporary”). Whereas, Modernists want the Catholic Church conformed to every aspect of contemporary culture and values, or at least accommodated to them in such wise that one can claim the name of “Catholic” without assenting to the Catholic faith or recognizing any objective moral obligation, as taught in Scripture, Tradition and the perennial Magisterium.

The Church will go down to destruction until Catholics stop playing with Modernists

The first requirement of every Good Catholic, is, as St. John the Apostle exhorts us in his letters, never to commune with heretics, never to seek their company, and not to share in their polluted affairs.

If Catholics continue to play these 4 games with Modernists, they will only succeed in destroying their own virtue, losing God’s grace, and being led to Hell.

They will also dis-empower themselves, because they will end up letting Modernists isolate them from good Catholics, from the saints of our age who recognize what Modernism is and who fight it openly.

Christ Jesus, Who by His august Sacrifice on the Cross, completely conquered this world, gave us the means to conquer every error and deceit in all future ages and to do His Will on Earth:  this victory is chiefly in the Faith, the one true Faith without which no many can be saved, for without faith it is impossible to please God or even to want to please Him.

But for Our Lord, “faith” is always understood in conjunction with the love of God and hope in God which put faith into practice.

And one puts faith into practice chiefly by rejecting every practice which is not approved by Faith, Scripture or Tradition.

Thus, the next time you are doing something which is perfectly Catholic, and a Modernist proposes otherwise, remember that you only remain faithful to Christ by ignoring him, disobeying him, resisting him, and encouraging others to do the same.

In the meantime, for your re-inspiration, a beautiful video about what the Catholic Church was, before the Modernists, should now be without them, and will always be, once good Catholics like yourself rise up against them.

Faith

God’s Will for Catholics in the present Crisis

Creation and the Divine Order of Things:

Truths to Fight against the Errors of our Age

 Listen to Br. Bugnolo give this talk on Audio

INTRODUCTION

If a Catholic historian, moved by and obedient to the Faith, was to take up his pen to write a history of the present age, he could do no better than entitle his book, The Age of open Rebellion against God and the Divine Order of things.

0789204037.interior03On every side we see this rebellion: in the Church against the Rule of the Faith: Tradition and Scripture: where, for example, in Catholics Universities and Pontifically recognized institutions at Rome and around the world, professors openly attack the historical and theological truths contained in the 5 Books of the Bible written by Moses; or in the liturgy, most visibly, where out of some vague necessity of updating everything, the whole Catholic world has been cajoled by the lovers of today who are attempting to reformulate Catholicism in a manner discontinuous with Tradition, without submission to the Divine Majesty’s predetermined course of worship and devotion.

But, moreso, we see this open rebellion against God and the Divine Order of things, outside of the Church: with forms of government which arrogate to themselves the prerogative of God to establish moral laws and order man and his society: which Rebellion was foreseen by the Prophet David when he wrote, They have set their mouths in the heavens, and their tongues dictate to the earth. (Ps. 73:9)

This rebellion against the Divine Order of things was foretold long ago by the beloved Apostle St. John, who in his book of the Apocalypse indicated that after a thousand years of Christ’s reign on earth, the Enemy of Christ would come forth from the abyss to wage war upon His flock.  I like personally to reckon this prophecy in regard to the end of the Age of Constantine, which I mark from the edict of Milan in February of 313 A.D. (which ended persecution of Catholics in the Roman Empire), to the vicious attack upon Pope Boniface VIII on September 7, 1303 A. D. by Sciarra Colonna and the forces of King Philip IV of France, under the command of Guilluame Nogaret, his first minister, at Angni, in Italy.

This attack, which began with the slap of a hand upon the Pope’s face, has morphed exponentially throughout the centuries, up to our own day, when governments now dare to decree the lawfulness of the most horrific abominations as good for man’s liberty.  It is in the frenetic and mad zeal of these modern rebels that is not difficult to hear the rolling thunder of the first rebel’s voice:  Non serviam! — I shall not serve! I shall not submit myself to Christ’s Magisterium.

One could trace the history of this Rebellion, from the slap of Anagni to our own age, more than 666 years later, to recent Supreme Court decisions or to the proposals of Cardinal Kaspar to open the Church to a horrifically false and apostate mercy, but I shall leave that for the historian of ideas and ecclesiastical affairs.  Rather, I wish to serve those of you gathered here today a more meaty dish, a more savory fare, and a more nutritious repast, by recalling and expounding the fundamental truths, upon which all of Creation is founded, including man and the Church, so that you might have in mind, all the more clearly, the knowledge necessary to fight against the errors of our age.  I believe this is apt, because as St. Paul the Apostle reminds us, Our is not a fight against flesh and blood, that is against merely visible powers, our is a fight against the principalities and powers, the workers of iniquity in the air, that is, the fallen angles, who were cast down to our level present of existence, and who go about seeking the ruin of souls.

Angels, as you know, are pure spirits, and when they fight, it is not as the silly and blasphemous shows on television depict them: they have no bodies and use no weapons, they rather go forth into battle with minds filled with thoughts and by striving to plunge their own thoughts into the mind of other angels who think differently, seek to overcome them to their own allegiance or repel them from their stead.

Now, ever since the ancient Deceiver, the Dragon and Satan, was cast out of Heaven by St. Michael and His Angels, the demons have no fights with other Angels that they can win any more, and, thus, are forced by necessity to wage war against the sons of Adam, mere men.

Have no fear, though, little flock, because your Faith is your victory over the world, and not only over the world, but over all the forces of darkness, because if we but assent and attend to all that God has revealed, about Creation and about the Redemption wrought in Christ, we will equip our mind and soul, and thus our bodies too, with the truths necessary to fight against the armies of disorder and against all the men, women, and alas, even children, who have taken sides with them in the hope of destroying the Divine Order of things.  Let us begin, therefore, at the beginning:

To read this entire Essay,on the theological basis upon which true and false obedience is discerned, click here to access the PDF file and continue reading from page 2.