S John Paul II knew, and warned, that the next danger which would befall his long-suffering and blood-soaked native land after the fall of Communism would be secularism and the the temptatations of materialism.
We are told that, this last Sunday, there were interruptions of the Most August Sacrifice of the Mass in Polish churches, engineered by pro-abortionists. After the years in which the Communist regime struggled to do down the Church, a new, brilliantly updated, gang of Christ-hating anti-lifers is now, apparently, alive and well in the land of the Black Virgin. Come back Uncle Jo; all is forgiven!
I wonder if one of these blasphemous protests was in the great basilica of Nowa Hut, the building of which was one of Cardinal Wojtyla's greatest triumphs during his fight against the Stalinist regime.
And this last Sunday was the day ordained by Pius XI for the Latin Church to celebrate Christ the King. Under the witty guidance of the Enemy, the Polish protesters, unconsciously, chose their day of protests with admirable liturgical precision. In the Church's Liturgy, the Vespers Office hymn reads Scelesta turba clamitat/ Regnare Christum nolumus. [The wicked mob keeps on shouting/ We do not wish Christ to be King].
My goodness me, they do indeed keep shouting.
The hymnographer (Fr Vittorio Genovesi, SJ, ob 1967) chose his words well. In a lifetime mostly spent in teaching Augustan poetry, I came to realise that, of the many Latin words for Evil Deeds, scelus is just about as bad as you can get.
And a later stanza in his hymn reads Te ... Leges et artes exprimant. [May the Laws and arts express Thee]. Or rather, that used to be the text.
Few readers will be surprised to know that the phrases I have quoted were eliminated from the Divine Office sponsored by S Paul VI. Good on yer, Saint P! They were very tactless words! They actually related to the real world!!!
Archbishop Lefebvre wrote a rather good book on all this entitled They have uncrowned him. (Angelus Press). When will the cause for his Beatification be introduced?
Dear Father. While there is much that could be said in praise of Msgr Lefebvre his ordaining Bishops against the expressed will of the Pope is inexcusable.
ReplyDeleteAs Saint Augustine said, lo these many years ago, there is never an excuse/reason for schism.
Further, one can not identify a single saint who would have defended what Msgr Lefebvre did and one only has to recall that Trent made a trenchant observation in forbidding vagus Bishops (The SSPX)
Sadly, the Lefebvre schism (Identified as such publicly by Cardinal Ratzinger in this speech to the Chilean Bishops) has annealed.
They are never coming home. Vatican I trailed in its wake the Old Catholic Schism and Vatican Two trailed in its wake the SSPX Schism, it is its own version of Orthodoxy.
Is it true that the latest addition to the Supreme Court of the USA took office on Mrs Hillary Clinton's birthday? It is not only the Devil who has a sense of humour.
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of the Poles who are attacking the churches have been baptized. The day of their First Communion was - in many cases - a huge, expensive celebration with a fancy meal and expensive gifts. A large number of families borrow money for this occasion. For decades polish Catholics have no longer had a sense of the true gravity of the Holy Sacraments. When I was unable to enter into the Sacrament of Marriage (due to inability to accept the whole teaching of the Church), I was mocked - Why can't you be like everyone else and just do what everyone else does? My fear of God would not let me. My respect for Catholics, including my Parents and theirs, would not let me. My nominal Catholic friends mocked the faith, but today they all have beautiful church wedding, Baptism and First Communion photos nicely framed and displayed. Their children are self-righteous supporters (or practitioners) of sodomy and abortion. I can say with certainty that the polish clergy have known all about it for decades. There are Catholics in Poland, and there some Catholic priests in Poland, but they do not have much support from the hierarchy. When polish Catholics were defending our churches last week, our Bishops were either quiet or were ordering the defenders of churches to leave and let the protesters "vent". It is impossible to assume that they actually believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
ReplyDeleteS. Marcelle, ora pro nobis.
ReplyDeleteCertainly within the next 20-40 years I would think that Archbishop Lefebvre's cause will be opened.
ReplyDeleteMany people I know (and none of us attend an SSPX chapel) have been praying for his intercession for some time.
This is the actual sign that somebody should be canonized, i.e. that ordinary lay people have a devotion to the person, even if it is not at all promoted by any one in the hierarchy. This can be easily contrasted with say, Paul VI. I've never met a single Catholic who has a devotion to Pope Paul VI. It seems to me that his cause was entirely a political agenda in action to canonize Vatican II and enshrine the New Mass as infallible.
Indeed, I remember as a student in Rome 40 years ago, the shops around St Peter's selling postcards had, in addition to Pope John Paul II, of course, racks of cards of smiling John XXIII, and patrician and triumphal pictures of Pius X, and even a few of the kindly old face of Leo XIII. But - and I remember being struck by it - none a single one at all of Paul VI.
ReplyDeletePublic devotion.
At the risk of becoming a repetitive bore, I must again also why, given the fashion for canonising recent pope's, why Leo XIII has not been raised to the altars. He seems to me to be eminently worthy of it for his personal holiness (the principal criterion) and for his doctrinal acuity. Compare Francis's latest 43,000-word production with the wonderfully concise Divinum Illud Munus, which is magisterial in every sense of the word.
DeleteYou're right. ABS. St Athanasius didn't do what Archbishop Lefebvre did - he intruded bishops consecrated without papal mandate (or at least approval) into already-occupied sees, which was much "worse". And he was canonised for his trouble.
ReplyDeleteAvB
ABS, c’mon, man. Before the XIX century almost all bishops were not appointed by the Pope, so this whole thing is a post-Revolutionary innovation.The specific canon law provision that the Vatican claimed that Archbishop Lefebvre violated was adopted in 1954 to hinder the appointment of bishops by the Chinese Patriotic Church, seems no longer in effect now, and in any case, as the Archbishop’s defenders have pointed out, there are conditions even to that laetae sententiae excommunication that applied to Lefebvre and served to defeat the penalty. Contra to Pete Vere and other canonists, those defenses were specifically subjective, not objective, grave fear and necessity, and no one else can say what was the state of his mind in that regard, even though he was careful to say in his homily that he meant no Schism. Finally, by their fruits you shall know them.
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