On the Post-Conciliar Liturgical Revolution
 

PART II

 Kathleen Willet Redle, M.F.A.
 

In my first installment, I referred to the turbulent seas the Church is sailing through today and the prophecies of Anne Catherine Emmerick as well as the vision of Pope Leo XIII. One might ask, with those omens, why would the Barque of Peter continue to sail into treacherous waters? ….

Perhaps the Hierarchy in power would do well to listen Our Lord Himself Who told Fatima's Sister Lucy during August 1931 in Rianjo, Spain, where Sister Lucy was praying for the conversion of Europe, Portugal, Spain, Russia and the world. Our Lord told her:

"Make it known to My ministers that should they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My command, that they will follow him into misfortune. It will never be too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary."
In a published interview with Fr. Fuentes on 16 December 1957, just after confirming that it was, indeed, through Russia that "many nations will disappear from the face of the earth," she said:
"The Devil is in the mood for engaging in a decisive battle against the Blessed Virgin. That which afflicts the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Heart of Jesus is the fall of religious and priestly souls. The Devil knows that religious and priests who fall away from their beautiful vocation drag numerous souls to Hell .… The devil wishes to take possession of consecrated souls. He tries to corrupt them in order to lull to sleep the souls of lay people and thereby lead them to final impenitence."

The Authoritative Testimony of Sr. Lucy and Pope Pius XII

Sister Lucy writes in various letters:

 

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"Diabolical disorientation is invading the world," wrote Sister Lucy.

 
 
"Let people say the Rosary every day, Our Lady has repeated that in all of Her apparitions, as if to fortify us in these times of diabolical disorientation, in order that we not let ourselves be deceived by false doctrines ... Unfortunately, in religious matters, the people for the most part are ignorant and allow themselves to be led wherever they are taken. Hence, the great responsibility of the one who has the duty of leading them ....

"It is a diabolical disorientation that is invading the world, deceiving souls! It is necessary to stand up to 'the devil'" (www.catholicism.org/pages/suppressing.htm).

Then there is Pius XII’s famous linking of the Fatima message to apostasy in the Church, which validates what traditionalist Catholics see as the problems of the Vatican II renovation. While serving as Secretary of State under Pope Pius XI, in 1937 Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli said:
"I am worried by the Blessed Virgin’s messages to Lucy of Fatima. This persistence of Mary about the dangers which menace the Church is a divine warning against the suicide of altering the Faith, in her liturgy, her theology and her soul .… I hear all around me innovators who wish to dismantle the Sacred Chapel, destroy the universal flame of the Church, reject her ornaments and make her feel remorse for her historical past."
Many who have spearheaded this revolution are blinded to what they are doing. Fr. Frederick Faber stated at the London Oratory in 1861:
"We must remember that if all the manifestly good men were on one side and all the manifestly bad men were on the other, there would be no danger of anyone, least of all the elect, being deceived by lying wonders. It is the good men, once good, we must hope good still, who are to do the work of Anti-Christ and so sadly to crucify the Lord afresh .... Bear in mind this feature of the last days, that this deceitfulness arise from good men being on the wrong side." (Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, Dublin: Regina Publications, 1935, p. xi).

The Present Day Teaching of the Vatican juxtaposed with statements of Pius X on Modernism

The New Oxford Review commented on a quote from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine for the past 23 years:

 
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Cardinal Ratzinger calls for democratization and decentralization.

Pope St. Pius X warned against such trends in the Church.

 
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"At the World Synod of Bishops in Rome this past October, the hot topic was collegiality – i.e., decentralization of authority in the Church. In our view, the most memorable words on the topic were spoken by Cardinal Ratzinger: ‘Being at the service of hope means to proclaim God with His human face, with the face of Christ. The world thirsts for knowledge, not for our ecclesial problems, but the fire that Jesus brought to earth.’

“ Ah, but we have so many ecclesial problems!

“Ratzinger continued: ‘This proclamation [of the Gospel] requires the courage of truth and the disposition to suffer for the truth. To enter the Apostolic succession [to become a Bishop] also implies entering this battle for the Gospel …. The problem central to our time is the emptying of the historical figure of Jesus Christ. An impoverished Jesus .… becomes a vain hope …. If the Bishops have the courage to judge and to decide with authority about this battle for the Gospel, the so hoped-for decentralization is automatically achieved."

There are some strong conservative statements, but what of the others? Since when was the Church ever supposed to be decentralized? One must ask what oligarchs are going to make the decentralization? And just how will Pope John Paul II's Ut unum sint be implemented in its calls for a "new way of exercising the Papacy"? We need the authorities to use their God-given centralized ecclesiastical authority to crack down on the bad Prelates who are homosexuals and pedophiles, instead of attacking innocent priests like Fr. Nicholas Gruner and Fr. Haley in the Richmond Diocese who was put on trial by Bishop Thomas Doran (Roman Catholic Faithful) ….

Consider what the great and holy prophet of the 20th century, Pope St. Pius X, said in Pascendi Dominici gregis about the Church:
"Regarding worship, they [the modernists] say, the number of external devotions is to he reduced, and steps must be taken to prevent their further increase, though, indeed, some of the admirers of symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head.

“They cry out that ecclesiastical government requires to be reformed in all its branches, but especially in its disciplinary and dogmatic departments They insist that both outwardly and inwardly it must be brought into harmony with the modern conscience which now wholly tends towards democracy; a share in ecclesiastical government should therefore be given to the lower ranks of the clergy and even to the laity and authority which is too much concentrated should be decentralized ….

“With regard to morals, they adopt the principle of the Americanists, that the active virtues are more important than the passive, and are to be more encouraged in practice. They ask that the clergy should return to their primitive humility and poverty, and that in their ideas and action they should admit the principles of Modernism; and there are some who, gladly listening to the teaching of their Protestant masters, would desire the suppression of the celibacy of the clergy. What is there left in the Church which is not to be reformed by them and according to their principles?"
Now, St. Pius X condemned the very points that the conciliar Popes have embraced; he declared anathema the very decentralization or democratization which Cardinal Ratzinger so enthusiastically pursues.

We are seeing implemented today exactly what Pius X identifies as Modernism in Pascendi. The revolutionaries want a democratic Church with a Papacy utterly decentralized, where the Pope is just a figure head or window dressing like the Queen of England with no real power. This would give the sexual libertarianist agenda free reign as "collegial Bishop synods" pay the feminists and liberal "liturgical experts" to run the show.

It is time to say no! Wake up "people of God!" And say to the Bishops: "No! We will not put up with this anymore!" If we don't, perhaps we deserve what we get, but do we really want to hand this situation on to our children? ….


Feminine Service at the Altar and Inclusive Language

The feminists attempt to destroy by lobbing for inclusive language, liturgical dance (which I will cover in depth in the next installment) and women priests. By their warped insistence on inclusive language, they further corrupt translations of the Bible in the vernacular and feminize the male hierarchy. They are against traditional male and female roles and traditional language, and seek to paganize the Mass.

 

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Girls as lectors and altar servers dominate the sanctuary, where women should not enter.
These innovation have been approved by John Paul II. (Click here)

 
 
These Amazons are feminizing and revolutionizing the Church while the ‘The Church Impotent,’ as Leon J. Podles termed it, is becoming empty of real men. Such feminists such as Rosemary Radford Ruether, Mary Daly, and Monica Hellwig are disdainful of our Blessed Mother's perpetual virginity and hold purity up to ridicule.

This is part of the Hegelian/Marxist dialectic at work again, as the feminist play men against women in practice and theory. This is not Christian and we must refuse to read these inclusive language bibles and lobby for a return to the orthodox practice of no females on the altar during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. We should seek out Churches that not only follow this tradition of male altar servers, but also follow the traditions of the Mass immemorial said in Latin.

Unfortunately, too many modern precedents have been set, for John Paul II allowed altar girls after pressure, that is to say, outright disobedience by his Bishops. But Pope Benedict XIV stated:
"Pope Gelasius in his 9th Letter (chap. 26) to the Bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: 'Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry.' We too have forbidden this practice in the same words ...." (Pope Benedict XIV, Encyclical Al latae Sunt, July 26, 1755, sec. 29).
He called it an evil practice because it leads people to think that women can be priests or that women can be in the sanctuary during Mass, which they should not be. In the Orthodox churches they never let women set foot in the sanctuary during their liturgy. Pagans had women priests, but at no time in the Old Testament or in Christendom were there ever priestesses. Never until the 20th century were female altar servers permitted and sanctioned in the Latin Rite. Women had to cover their heads until the mid 1960's upon entering a Catholic Church, and it would have been a great scandal for a woman to do anything like read or give out Communion.


Lay Persons Are Not Able to Celebrate a Mass

Today many of the laity think that lay people are needed to help the priest "celebrate" the Mass. In fact, the priest is the only priestly sacrificer, not us. He is the only one who can consecrate the bread and wine and touch the Sacred Body and Blood of Christ. Without the priest there is no Eucharist. According to Pius XII the laity assist in the offering with our prayer in a limited sense. The priest does not even need us to be present to offer the sacrifice. We assist him, but we cannot make the sacrifice. We are there to worship, not to confect the Eucharist.

This fact is emphasized by Pius XII in Mediator Dei, sec. 93:
"The unbloody immolation at the words of consecration, when Christ is made pre-sent upon the Altar in the state of a victim, is performed by the priest and by him alone, as the representative of Christ and not as the representative of the faithful. But it is because the priest places the divine victim upon the Altar that he offers it to God the Father as an oblation for the glory of the Blessed Trinity and for the good of the whole Church.

“Now the faithful participate in the oblation, understood in this limited sense, after their own fashion and in a twofold manner, namely, because they not only offer the sacrifice by the hands of the priest, but also, to a certain extent, in union with him. It is by reason of this participation that the offering made by the people is also included in liturgical worship."

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Before the Mass, women in sleeveless dresses bring the sacred objects to the altar preceding the priests and religious, a role that until now was reserved for male servers in ceremonial vestments.

 
 
To have lay people (other than altar boys) and altar girls in the sanctuary is hetero praxis (bad practice) that leads to false belief and foments revolution. This anti-traditional practice confuses people about the male priesthood and the role of the laity at Mass, and leads to anti-clericalism and a blurring of roles.

The effeminization of the priesthood ….. have contributed greatly to the loss of vocations. Many lay lectors and so-called Eucharistic ministers have the mistaken belief that the Mass could not occur without them. Only when we rid ourselves of modern accretions not rooted in tradition will we see the masculinity of the priesthood restored.

Many good priests have complained that they feel out of place with so many lay people crawling all over the sanctuary. He feels no longer like a priest in the order of Melchizedech, but a "Eucharistic technician" soon to be obsolete due to the conspirators’ contempt for the sacrament of Holy Orders. God will not let this happen.


The Solution for the Crisis is to Return to Tradition

In order to offset the current revolution that has so insidiously infiltrated Holy Mother Church in the latter half of the 20th century, we need to return to tradition. As St. Vincent of Lerins said:
"What then should a Catholic do if some portion of the Church detaches itself from communion of the universal Faith? What choice can he make if some new contagion attempts to poison, no longer a small part of the Church, but the whole Church at once? Then his great concern will be to attach himself to antiquity [tradition], which can no longer be led astray by any lying novelty."
We are pilgrims and our primary purpose on this earth is to save our souls and to assist those around us to save theirs so that we can be happy with God in this life and the next. Doing this, we can help those in authority see the positive and attractive reality of tradition. And perhaps, with the grace of God, the scales will fall from their eyes, as it once happened with St. Paul who persecuted the Church before his conversion.

It is time traditional Catholics stop attacking each other like warring tribes. This is counter productive. We can always state a truth without hitting a brother over the head. It is time for traditional Catholics to point out in charity to our "conservative" Catholic brothers why traditional Catholicism protects against hetero praxis and was the practice of the saints and martyrs. The Catholic must always pray for those who persecute us so that they will repent and be saved. Christ calls us to love our enemies enough to pray for them, and to proclaim the truth without compromise even if it costs us our jobs or even our lives. That is the only solution to the crisis we are facing.

In my next installment I will return to the feminist factor and show how pagan practices have slithered their way into the modern liturgy. The snake charmers are none other than some of these Bishops who allow the serpent to wriggle and writhe in the Holy of Holies. Blasphemy at its worst.

PART III