Fr Ratisbonne

I found the middle reading of the Breviary Office for the Feast of the Manifestatio  of our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, vastly interesting. An entire Lectio devoted to one single convert! And what a sense of exuberant joy in the City of Rome because of that one conversion. "Christiana dogmata edoctus, paucis post diebus, communi Urbis laetitia, sacro baptismate lustratus est." This communal glee must still have been part of Roman chatter when S John Henry Newman was there: the account of it gives a new dimension to the life of our great Patron, and his background.

Neither the event, nor its description in the Breviary Office, give any evidence for Anti-semitism. An anti-semitic mindset, surely, would resent such a conversion. Anti-Semites, surely, would resist having a Jewish banker thrust prominently among them. Anti-semites would resent the speed of his reception (no sense here of long-drawn-out Rites for the Christian Initiation of Adults ... "Well; perhaps next Easter we might ... er ..."). No evidence of reticence about accepting his sacerdotal vocation or his desire to set up, in company with his priestly brother, the religious communities for men and women, dedicated to Our Lady of Sion, and devoted to the Conversion of the Jews. Not a sign of papal disapproval.

So much joy, just for one Jew!! One Jew matters. I have heard it said, of the Holocaust, that perhaps "only" 200,000 Jews were murdered. What a disgusting, truly horrible, obscenity. One Jew matters; in the sight of God, matters infinitely and absolutely.This is the settled teaching of the Church: Anti-semitism has no place in the Catholic Church.

But there is bad news. The website of the Congregation and the Sisters tell us this:

"In accord with the theological thinking of their time, our founders felt that, out of love for their people, they were 'sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel' and called to seek the conversion of the Jews in order to hasten the accomplishment of the promises made to Israel.

"Today, the Church has given new orientations concerning our relations with the Jewish people in  its declaration Nostra Aetate and in other documents that followed. Because of this and in obedience to the directives of the Church, we no longer seek to convert the Jews, but rather a better understanding of the place and role of the people of Israel in salvation history as well as their relationship with the Church."

Readers will know that I am unwilling to discern any formal teaching of error in the formal documents of Vatican II. Indeed, the words I have cited above give a disgracefiully and dishonestly perverted account of the Document they mention.

But there can be no question that the Enemy was at work among significant players and factions in that Council, and has been hard at work ever since. The "Spirit of Vatican II", the "Smoke of Satan", is a Spirit of Apostasy, and a gross deceit upon the People of God.

And what about the physical properties which the Ratisbonne brothers were able settle upn their followers? Misappropriated, now, to purposes which those Founders would have repudiated.

Theft.

Theft, to go with the Idolatry, the Mendacity, the Adultery, so successfully encouraged in the Church of the last half-century.