The Christmas octave clarified, and reverence loses out again, starring your favourite whatever-he-is - Sunday 30th of December 2018 to Saturday 5th of January 2019

As part of my vow to try and be more timely in my weekly reviews - and to have proper weekly reviews - I thought I would release one in record time. I hope, as usual, to be brief, but given that I've been hoping for an end to the Bergoglian plague for over 5 years now with no end in sight, be prepared to learn that my hopes do seem to often end in disappointment! Anyway, here goes...

The year starts with what used to be called "The Feast of the Circumcision", but which was renamed to "The Solemnity of Mary" in the Novus Ordo deforms, on the 1st of January. Fr. John Hunwicke has often written about how this is a return to ancient tradition and not a proper novelty, strictly speaking. I have been willing to accept this notion, even though I have had my doubts, given how all the readings of the Mass have to do with the Circumcision and do not even mention the Blessed Virgin Mary. That is even without going into the question of whether reverting to ancient practice would not fall into the heresy of antiquarianism, given there was no particular need for it.

Well, I need not have worried much because Gregory DiPippo over at the beautiful blog Novus Motus Liturgicus had my back covered. He explained in The Ancient Character of the Feast of the Circumcision first of all how stunning it is that historians who ought to know better manage to get this issue wrong despite all evidence to the contrary. He also explained why the confusion came about, and why the feast is not called "The Feast of the Circumcision" until much later: It seems as though in the early Church there were 2 celebrations which fell on that day - none of which were particularly Marian -, these being the Circumcision and the Presentation.

Here are my first reflections of his piece, as commented on that day:

I am indebted to Gregory DiPippo over at Novus Motus Liturgicus for clearing up a few points of irritation I have had with the whole notion of the Octave of Christmas. It has become fashionable to say that it only acquired the name of circumcision later and that traditionally it was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. This would seem to vindicate at least in part NOChurch practice.

He manages to slay that notion entirely by showing that the most ancient sacramentaries all have reference to the Circumcision and that possibly the only reason it was not called the Feast of the Circumcision is because it might have been united with the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple.

Given what  I know - however inadequate - about the Tridentine Reform, it would have been odd to see them innovating on titles. The explanation given in his piece titled  The Ancient Character of the Feast of the Circumcision does much to bring clarity to this whole issue.

He then followed his initial article with another one titled The Marian Character of the Feast of the Circumcision. That is also well-worth reading.

It often gives me pause to disagree with the good Fr. Hunwicke, but Gregory DiPippo is a very meticulous scholar, and he provides very strong evidence for his assertions - which Fr. Hunwicke does not even attempt to do - so I have no hesitation in following Gregory DiPippo's line on this. Ultimately, whether or not there may have been observance of some Marian feast on this day, the theological significance of Christ's Circumcision is much more necessary to commemorate on that day, especially given that it cannot escape anyone that all of Christmastide is a celebration of the divine motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and we detract nothing from it by not celerbating it on the octave day of Christmas, the day on which Jesus Christ was circumcised.

The Bergoglian apostasy tour continues as do his attempts to try and prove to anyone paying attention that he absolutely abhors anything that Catholics hold sacred. The latest installment in his displays of irreverence was standing and absolutely refusing to kneel in front of the Blessed Sacrament  during Eucharistic Adoration on new year's eve. The man will kneel for all and sundry, but not for God. I commented the following:

The Bergoglio menace - a beast of irreverence - does it again, refusing to kneel in front of the Holy Eucharist. Quite how anybody can claim that Bergoglio is a Catholic of any stripe is beyond my comprehension, because I doubt there are many who have worked harder to prove that point than Bergoglio has.

In fact, I would be willing to wager he is a satanist, a free-mason, a Talmudic Jew, even a Muslim, before I can call him a Catholic, and I can't even wager on him being a  believing protestant because although most such protestants, though they do not believe in reason, natural law or Sacred Tradition, at least they pretend to believe in the Bible, which Bergoglio clearly does not.

I don't know who or what Bergoglio is, but as I have often remarked, if there is a problem with perceiving Bergoglio as an anti-Catholic, the problem is not on the broadacasting side, but on the reception side. He has been broadcasing in high-fidelity audio ever since at least Maundy Thursday of 2013 that he has little regard for the Catholic Faith.

No doubt the Novus Ordites will tell us that standing is the new kneeling,  but anybody using his mind ought to be able to see that Bergoglio is now simply mocking us, and is being very forthright in his atheism. If  you don't believe me, then keep in mind that the Bergoglian Vatican press had written in celebration of the 60-year anniversary of the Cuban revolution. No doubt the same Novus Ordites will tell us that it was a commemoration and not a celebration, pointedly showing us mass examples how the Amenians and the Turkish military jointly commemorate the Armenian genocide, or the joint zionist-Palestinian commemoration of the annexation of Palestine.

It did not take long for him to prove my assertion that the man is anything but a Catholic! In his first general audience of the new year, he once again encouraged apostasy:

How many times do we see the scandal of those people who go to church and stay there all day or go every day and then live hating others or talking badly about people? This is a scandal – it is better not to go to church: better to live as an atheist

Do these seem to be the words of a man who believes that the Holy Mass conveys grace? Nor is it the first time he has encouraged people to be atheists or to stay away from Mass. In 2013 he said much the same thing about people who go to Church on Sunday without thinking they need God's forgiveness; that they had better stay at home. Then probably last year he said more or less the same thing he said this time. Let us also remember that he has said that "communists are the real Christians".

By the way, given that these words come from someone who compares himself to Christ and calls his opponents Satan, or "the great accuser", his criticism rings very hollow and once again shows the utter lack of self-awareness that eludes the man.

Bergoglio is, of course, not alone in his apostasy from the Catholic faith and his embrace of a NOChurch faith with its inception in the 1960s, as exemplified next...

A Jew asks a famous tele-bishop, "I follow the Commandments and I even follow all 600-and-something rules of this-and-that. Am I screwed since I don't accept Jesus?" One will do well to remember that St. Paul spoke specifically about how futile are the works of the Old Testament, as well as its sacrifices, which modern Jews don't even have. However, instead of giving us perhaps ad verbatim, Christ's "I am the way and the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me", what we got was this quite astounding denial of the Gospel by Bishop Robert Barron.

I must admit that I was not particularly keen on watching what he had to say, but unfortunately the video auto-played. It is well-worth listening to because one is left wondering how anybody can squeeze so much drivel into 75 seconds.

There is some truth in what he writes, namely: He prefaces everything by saying Vatican II teaches. I have no idea what Vatican II teaches anymore and truth be told that wretched council has wasted enough of my time so I am not going to waste any more trying to peruse its wordy documents to see if what he says is actually contained somewhere in there, given that most of NOChurch has moved on from Vatican II. Let's face it, Vatican II is pretty much an orphan council: Too Catholic for modernists and far too protestant/free-masonic fro Catholics. It is the council most people wish would be forgotten so that they could either on the one hand go on on destroying the Church, or on the other, get on with the job of rebuilding it.

As to what the Catholic Church actually teaches - as opposed to Vatican II or modernist bishops - I offer the binding and infallibe Athanasian Creed which tells us the following:

WHOEVER wishes to be saved must, above all, keep the Catholic faith.

For unless a person keeps this faith whole and entire, he will undoubtedly be lost forever.

This is what the catholic faith teaches: we worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity.

...

Those who have done good deeds will go into eternal life; those who have done evil will go into the everlasting fire.

This is the catholic faith. Everyone must believe it, firmly and steadfastly; otherwise He cannot be saved. Amen.

You see, none of that "atheists can go to Heaven", or 'follow-your-conscience'. There is no hint of making up the morality of your deeds, but rather the morality of deeds is presented as objective and conformable to only one true standard - that of God alone.

I am glad that Bp. Barron prefaces everything with "Vatican II teaches" because as I have often remarked, Novusordoism is another religion altogether, and is not the Catholic religion. Whatever elements of truth remain in it are Catholic, but you will not become Catholic by adhering to it. So it may be true that Novusordoism teaches that atheists can be saved and all you need to do is follow your conscience, however malformed it might be. The trouble is, the Catholic Church does not teach that., and the Catholic Faith explicitly forbids this line of thought.

There is plenty of bad news to go around in NOChurch but in the interests of brevity I shall skip to 2 non-Church stories.

One has to do with demographics and is titled A Debt Based System Can't Succeed Without Population Growth. The author writes about how the global economy - and in particular in  Western countries - the system is built upon a population growth. I have often made the case myself, that for instance, social welfare is a model of the 1940s which is predicated upon a high birth rate and population growth. In any case, he writes that the central banks will have to get creative because the era of growing consumption seems to be coming towards its end. For instance, investing in a house in the hope that the price will rise is something which only makes sense when you can count on many young people growing up to be able to afford them. In an age in which the elderly are likely to outnumber the young, one must rid oneself of the notion that an investment in real estate will result in wealth appreciation.

Finally, the war brougth to Europe courtesy of NATO and the EU, which is to say, the Ukrainian civil way, just keeps showing the West up for its sheer hypocrisy. In a rather startling revelation, it was revealved that Chechen rebels with links to ISIS and other Jihadis in Syria are now fighting side by side with the Ukrainian army. They both hate Russia, you see, and where killing of Russians or Russian allies can be guaranteed they will fight with anyone, the Islamists, and apparently, the Ukrainians and their NATO backers. Well, we already know that from Syria, so the news that the West will fund Islamists is nothing new. The British press lies all the time, so we would be well-advised not to take anything that appears there at face value. Nonetheless, it should be interesting to follow developments on this front.

This week's Bergoglio victim of the week goes to Eucharistic Adoration. There will no doubt be plenty of other times for kneeling to get the award.