lectionary

Ecclesia Dei is rewarded with abolition for its good work, as Catholic kids are threatened with similar reward - Sunday 6th to Saturday 26th of January

This will probably be one of the last if not the last of the time-period chronicles. There is simply too much happening too fast for me to write effectively about it. I hope to transition to shorter pieces which cover one topic and I have several in the pipeline, but I have to get through some of the time period stuff, so I shall make this brief...

In "Not Just More Scripture, But Different Scripture — Comparing the Old and New Lectionaries ", Peter Kwasniewski mada a point of pointing out that the Novus Ordo Missae doesn't have what the Roman Rite have plus some add-ons, but that there are significant substractions from the lectionary. Things get even more interesting when we analyse what got left out and realise that many of the 'hard' teachings were left out entirely from the Sunday readings, and some entirely over the whole 3-year cycle. He also had an article on non-reasons for preferring the Novus Ordo, which was written as a response to a famous convert priest who had written a piece with purpoted reasons to prefer the Novus Ordo.

The biggest issue for the U.S. domestically was the case of the kids of Covington Catholic High School, who were villified in the media for something they never did , on top of which the diocese joined in on the unjust condemnation, and added threats of expulsion to it without even ever having heard their side of the story. For once, Donald Trump kept his keyboard close to himself, which proved wise because after the storm had blown off and the story found to be false, he could then stand back and point to yet another example of the fake news media.

Before we get too praisy on Trump, we should remember that he is quite adept at producing fake news himself, as evidenced with his attempted coup in Venezuela, in which his vice president spoke to a relative nobody in the Venezuelan parliament, assuring him that the U.S. would recognise him president if he swore himself in, which he promply proceeded to do, followed by prompt U.S. recognition of this rouge politician, with Trump following suit with lies about dictator Maduro this-and-that, with Nicolas Maduro being the duly-elected president. This story has lots of legs left on it so I shall not write much on it today, apart from noting that the major event was triggered on the 23rd of January, and that the story being told in the U.S. - which has suddenly decided to back Trump - is the exact opposite of the truth. This was the major story internationally.

As always, fake news is not limited to the secular media, with neo-Catholic sites never far behind. In Christian groups cautious on U.S. troops leaving Syria, EWTN proceeded to tell us about how worried Syrians are about the U.S. withdrawing from its illegal occupation of Syria, without so much as citing one Syrian  - not even a fake one.

We all know that modern Western nations do not care one bit about children, so it was amusing when the U.K. used , the chldren excuse to introduce a pornography licence of sorts in which we are told that people will have to register with the government in order to view pornography. When governments pretend to care about children, you know it is not about them. If we accept the premise that the government is setting forth, soon you will need read alternative news.

The ever-empty Bergoglio decided to give some parental advice, and his advice was as bad as ever. He informed parents that they should fight, but not in front of the children. I suppose love and honour no seemed too old-fashioned for him.

Much more could be written about U.S. roguery or Bergoglio madness, but I shall conclude with the following...

In a widely-speculated-on move, Bergoglio decided to abolish the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. His stated argument is that the traditional orders have reached a degree of stability which no longer requires that the Ecclesia Dei commission be kept going and that the SSPX wanted to have negotiations directiely with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. This, of course, neglects the fact that the Ecclesia Dei commission was about more than just handling negotiations with the SSPX. It was about preserving and normalising the Tridentine Rite, and issuing clafirications about how the authentic Latin Rite Mass should be celebrated according to the 1962 Missal - including even granting permissions to use other older missals. It saddened me to see the kind of normalism which has become all too common in the Novus Ordo, with people unquestioningly for the most part accepting this pathetic excuse.

It stands to ponder, for example, what will happen to traditional orders or nuns and monks which no longer have Ecclesia Dei protection. Will they be handed over to the wolves at the Congregation for Religious? How about those who wish to switch to authentic Catholicism? Will they find themselves under a Bergoglian commissar who instructs them to use the Novus Ordo, as the Franciscans of the Immaculate were forced to do? We shall soon find out.

This month's Bergoglio victim was the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which was finally de-commissioned on account of its often-laudable work in re-establising authentic Catholicism.

 

When our presumed allies are just as dangerous as our enemies - Sunday 16th to Saturday 22nd of June

The real big news this week were liturgical, with the translation of an article posted by Cardinal Sarah on the 10th anniversary of Summorum Publication. The article itself was published on the anniversary, but its translation was only published this week.

In that article Cardinal Sarah argues that Pope Benedict XVI's mutual enrichment has been perceived in too one-sided a manner and that we should also see how the Novus Ordo can enrich the Tridentine Mass. Supporters of this mentioned the lectionary of the Novus Ordo as one such area, where there is somethign to be learned from the 1960s Mass. One priest writign for the Catholic Herald was quite emphatic in this assertion and when confronted with opposition he doubled down and insisted that there is near unanimity that the new lectionary is better than the age-old one, and that it is only traditionalists who disagree with this. It never occurred to him, perhaps, that it is only traditionalists who matter in this debate, because the "conservative Catholics", as he calls them, have proved themselves to have strentgh which can only be compared with that of boiled spaghetti.

Those pointing out the absurdity of unifying the lectionaries included Joseph Shaw, Gregory DiPippo, Fr. Zuhlsdorf and Fr. Tim Finigan, to name a few whose articles I read. Fr. Tim Finigan, in particular, summed it up well by pointing out that perhaps the problem is that those who make comments on the Tridentine Mass simply lack familiarity with it, and he pointed towards Fr. de Souza as an example of one such person. That may well be the case, but the same can certainly not be said of Cardinal Sarah, the Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship, and a man who, I am quite certain, has celebrated the Roman Rite on quite a few occasions. It is worth pointing out that he is generally considered to be a friend of tradition, and one of the more sane cardinals that we have.

The owner of the DeusExMachina blog saw it rather differently and saw it rather as an attempt by Cardinal Sarah to position himself in the fight for who takes over from Bergoglio. He pointed out that there are now 3 fronts, of which the dubia cardinals are one, then we have Cardinal Müller, who finally seems to have grown a reality-based perspective, and then we have Cardinal Sarah, who is reaching out to the middle ground which is opposed to Bergoglio's perversions, but is not quite willing to accept authentic Catholicism.

With regards to Cardinal Mũller, we had yet more interviews from him and Bergoglio is not painted in a good light, and neither is the Church in Europe generally. Nor should it be. Nonetheless, it is a bit rich coming from him now given he had a whole year to speak out about Amoris Laetitia in clear terms yet failed to do so, when he could have done much good. Now that he has been dismissed, anything coming out from him smells of sour grapes, no matter how truthful it is.

On the political side we had news of a report which came out from the OPCW, which monitors chemical weapons, in effect coming as close as it could to completely absolving the Assad government. It does not come out and say that in a direct manner, but let it be known that any report released by an international body of that sort which falls as far away as it did from the American and Western European positions is basically a confirmation that the EU and the U.S. are lying. Peter Hitchens has, as usual, done good work on this and his articles on this are well worth reading.

Then we had the MAKs airshow in Moscow, in which the MiG-35 made its public debut. One cannot say that the Russians have not done a good job of rebuilding their military infrastructure, and any time the Russians come up with a high-tech weapon it is good for peace. One should also take the time to not that there were very many countries involved in that airshow, and I hope that those who parrot the line that Russia is isolated can take the time to see that it is the EU and the U.S. which are isolating themselves on these issues.

This is no more evident than with the news that Turkey is on the verge of signing a deal with Russia to procure the highly advanced S400 anti-missile system, the best that Russia has to offer. Bear in mind that Turkey is a key NATO member, in fact, the flagship member of NATO apart from the U.S., given its strategic position both geographically and culturally! That Turkey would turn to Russia, the very country against whom NATO  propagates for its very existence, shows that around the world people have come to the realisation that it is better to turn away from the West. This comes not long after The Phillipines under Duterte made similar overtures to Russia, while essentially sabotaging its military alliance with the U.S. and it is also my understanding that even Croatia has purchased military weapons.

We also had the first joint Russian-Chinese naval drill in the Baltics. All the tough anti-Russian propaganda has done, it seems, is to drive Russia and China closer together. Make no mistake about it, this was a message to the West boldy stating "this world is yours to ruin as you please no longer!"

Finally we have more information of just how heinously anti-Catholic Bergoglio really is. Indeed, it wouldn't be a normal week nowadays without more details about how the pope is anti-Catholic. The man is not happy with even Novus Ordo vocations. We can therefore dismiss, as I already had before, any claim from him that he is concerned about a lack of vocations.

Returning to Cardinal Sarah, it is quite obvious to see that as long as a Catholic holds Vatican II as a good thing,...

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