Still Running Off at the Keyboard

OPUS ANGELORUM - DAY OF RECONCILIATION

The Day of Reconciliation took place today.

Due to a prior commitment, I was able to attend only the opening Mass. Unfortunately I was unable to catch the priest's name. Mass was different from the usual Novus Ordo in some ways.

On the positive side:

- Father was very reverent, particularly with the Eucharist.
- There were approximately 100 in attendance. Not a crowd, still more than I had expected. About 20% were men. It's good to see the men in church. Wish there had been more of them, but I'm grateful for those who were there.
- We sang an old and familiar Marian hymn for the recessional song.
- Father prayed for the pope.
- The homily about angels was faithful to the teachings of the Church. The only angel mentioned that is not in Scripture was the angel at Fatima, an apparition that has the approval of the Church.
- The Sanctus was in Latin.


On the negative side:

- Father's Austrian accent made some of what he said unintelligible.
- Mass was chanted. Mass sounds good chanted, but I can't sing, so personally I'm not crazy about it.

Some things I'm still thinking about:

- A vase of roses was placed before the altar immediately before Mass began. Roses, of course, can have many meanings, Rosicrucianism among them.
- Father wore a red vestment with a dove on the back. Isn't that the color worn only for Masses associated with the Holy Spirit such as Pentecost? This was not a Mass of the Holy Spirit.

Some questions about the rubrics:

- Father added a silent Act of Contrition prior to the Penetential Rite itself.
- One reading was about demons and sacrificial meat. Was this coincidentally the proper reading of the day, or is a selected reading acceptable since this was not a Sunday Mass?
- The handshake of peace was omitted. Not that I missed it, mind you!
- The recessional was directly from the alter into the sanctuary as it had been in the Tridentine, and as I have not seen in a NO unless the priest is incapacitated.
- A prayer during or immediately before the Canon included angels and sounded unfamiliar to me.
- Father used water to wash the paten. Is that in the rubrics? Not that there is anything wrong with doing it. Just that I didn't think it was in the rubrics.

On the whole, this event got off to a good start. Wish I could have stayed for at least one talk to see if the positive trend continued or not, but that's life sometimes.

Since this event is supposed to be taking place around my area, I'm keeping an eye out for another one. So far none have turned up, but I'll keep looking.

REV. KEITH CAMPBELL

has answered my questions in his blog, for which I thank him, and of course has generated comments and more questions.

1. What are the seven spirits of God?

2. Do the three bases of the menorah have the same symbolic meaning as the three candlestands in a Masonic Lodge?

3. How does Jesus Christ fit into the Shema Israel?

4. In re your description of the resonators of the power of the ritual, is this what is meant by vibrations?

5. Do you ever actually hear a voice or voices at your liturgy, or is everything that takes place interior?

6. Is the nacham a ritual of Judaism from the Kabbalah or from the time of Christ?

7. Your understanding of the nature of sacraments is actually much better than the understanding a lot of Catholics hold, though it is the same understanding that is taught in our catechism.

8. According to Gershom Scholem, I believe Merkabah mysticism was being taught at the time Christ walked the earth. Kabbalah, however, is from the Middle Ages. The Roman Catholic Church condemned the mysticism borrowed from the Kabbalah.

9. Are ascended masters what Catholics call saints?

10. What is the difference between theurgy and magic?

11. I have downloaded and printed Dr. Keizer's book on Wandering Bishops. In there he refers to C. W. Leadbeater as a saint. I'm sure you know that he had some difficulties with a young boy, or with several young boys, depending upon the source of reference. Yet Dr. Keizer has labeled Leadbeater a saint in the book. While it is true that we have had bad popes, we have not canonized them.

12. Have many Catholics joined the Home Temple Movement? Have former Catholic priests joined the Home Temple Movement?

HUMAN LIFE INTERNATIONAL e-NEWSLETTER

From Fr. Thomas J. Euteneuer:

The Triumph of the Cross

Catholic teaching has always held a subordinate place of honor for Mary in relation to Jesus. She wants it that way. She is not the Savior or the one, unique Mediator. She is the one who traveled with Him that entire sorrowful way and assists all who want to "draw near to Mount Zion and the city of the living God" (Heb 12:22). That's why the Church always keeps two special feast days very closely-related to one another: the twin Feasts of the Triumph of the Cross (Sept 14th) and Our Lady of Sorrows (Sept 15th). The Church makes us see that Mary is one with the Lord in His suffering and leads us to find meaning in our own sorrows by uniting them with His Cross.

Mel Gibson portrayed this so perfectly in his movie The Passion of the Christ. There we see two persons who accompany Jesus the entire length of His Passion when others defect from the moment of trial: one was the Virgin Mary and the other was the devil. From the agony in the Garden to the sorrowful way of the Cross these two were portrayed as walking parallel paths, having opposing but intertwining interests in Jesus' fate and even a profound awareness of each other's presence. Mel's portrayal of the personal struggle of good and evil that surrounded Jesus in the persons of Mary and the devil was truly masterful.

Even if one views Mary's role from a purely human perspective one can certainly understand her presence there: a mother would accompany her son on his way to death. But how do we explain the shadowy presence of the devil along this path, especially when this is not revealed as such in the biblical accounts? That's easy: Mel is showing us that Mary fully participated in the agony of Christ's passion and gained the complete victory, with Him, over the devil.

Mary in this portrayal is the New Eve who crushes the head of the serpent, and she is there at the crucial moment of history to fulfill her role. This cold war between her and the archenemy of the human race is real and dramatic. The devil knows that she is walking the sorrowful way in union with her Son's offering, and so he mocks her with that grotesque caricature of the Mother and Child that was meant to deliberately increase her suffering. He sort of floats through the ranks of the Pharisees during the scourging, gloating, in order to make her skin crawl with evil. He rouses the rabble of opposition to her Son deliberately and causes all of His support to fall away in the time when He needed it most, all to lead Him to His death and her to her worst nightmare of emotional and spiritual anguish. Second only to the agony of the sufferer is the agony of the loved one that looks on but cannot stop the carnage. This was all part of the very deliberate plan to pierce her Immaculate Heart - a prediction that the devil perhaps forgot about.

But there is another important moment that could be easily missed; namely, that the harassment and in-your-face tactics of the devil stopped definitively when the Lord crossed the threshold of Calvary and mounted His Throne. The devil was not found there. It was not that the fiend just neglected to show up; he couldn't show up. The one final, bitter place of sorrow to which Mary followed Jesus faithfully, but where the devil was not permitted to go, was Golgotha, the place where the final crushing blow was dealt to his reign of darkness. Mary was there. Mary was one with the Cross to the bitter end. Mary was reigning with Jesus - in sorrow and in sacrifice - for the salvation of the world.

Sincerely Yours in Christ,

Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
President, Human Life International

REV. KEITH CAMPBELL

Rev. Campbell left a comment down below that he would respond to questions at his blog.

He has already posted the answers to some of the questions asked of him in the comments box. I have lots more. You can cry "Uncle" any time you've had enough, Rev. Campbell.

First let me say that I can certainly understand your frustration with Roman Catholicism. Some Roman Catholics, myself included, have been refugees since Vatican II, traveling from parish to parish increasingly frustrated and confused with all of the flip-flops in doctrine and practice. You chose to leave. I chose to stick it out as long as possible. Different paths, motivated by similar circumstances. It's a tough environment for raising kids. One kid was bad enough. I can't even imagine raising five in this spiritual chaos.

But this is about questions...

1. Other than praying in Hebrew, what do you mean by "Jewish and Kabbalistic elements" that you have added to the liturgy?

2. Is Martinism, and the Home Temple Movement in particular, a Jewish Movement?

3. Do you have a congregation, or do you perform liturgy for just your own family?

4. Since you don't embrace doctrine, how does the Movement develop a moral code, and how do you enforce it?

5. Since you don't wish to be under the jurisdiction of Rome, why are valid orders and valid succession important?

6. Do members of the Movement practice channeling and attempt to evoke spirits?

7. What should those of us on the outside looking in make of the fact that Eugene Vintras is in the Martinist line of succession, since Vintras has had some rather startling accusations lodged against him?

SHE'S BACK

A catalog arrived in the mail yesterday. I didn't request it, and have no idea whose mailing list I'm on, but there it was in my mailbox. Leaflet Missal. Never heard of them, but it's a relatively large catalog, so they must be successful. I was about to toss it, but had second thoughts because the cover looked so 1950. There they are, all those statues of the Blessed Virgin, just like I might have seen them in 1955. Remember when the Blessed Virgin was a mother to us all? Well, if not, she still is, so join the family.

The cover tugged at my heart strings just enough to get me to open the catalog. It was a walk down memory lane. I don't know why this particular catalog so caught my attention. Others have come into my mailbox and not done it. In any case, I was curious enough to look up the company online. I mean, they've got THE Christmas ornament--"Just Say Merry Christmas". Yeah, I can relate to that!!

There is a two-page spread of crucifixes, and only one risen image in the bunch. Oh, this is so 1950! Fifteen years ago I would have been searching for the one crucified corpus in the lot. There are even two sick call crucifixes. Do priests still make sick calls somewhere on the planet Zircon? They sure don't do it here. Partially, I suppose, because people sick enough to need a sick call are tucked away in a hospital or hospice, and not in the front bedroom.

They've also got what I think will be on the top of my Christmas list. I'm guessing though, that I haven't been good enough this year to get it under my tree, and will have to save my pennies till I can buy it for myself. It's here on the website, but that's all I'm going to say. A couple of you may know me well enough to know what it is.

The owner of Leaflet, Terry Nelson, has a blog. There you can read about the downside of setting up the Christmas display in September. Oh yes, I can relate. Having been a full-time crafter for nine years, I remember making Christmas ornaments in July, and hearing complaints in my booth when they went on display in September. Retail has its own set of rules. A person selling stuff who defies them isn't a person selling stuff for very long.

Anyway, if you're looking for a Catholic Christmas gift, check out Leaflet. And, ahh, Merry Christmas!

THE SOCIETY OF ST. JOHN RISES FROM ITS OWN ASHES

in Paraguay. To abuse again? I hope the parents have been warned!

Their statement on the situation in Scranton openly admits their order was dissolved. It has a Kansas P.O. Box at the bottom.

Looks like they decided to keep the tortured eagle. I know, I know...someone is going to tell me the eagle is the symbol of St. John. It looks like it's in pain.

You can't get much more traditionally Catholic than this website. I wonder if the priests who caused all the trouble are still around?

A MEDIUM AT A CATHOLIC SCHOOL ??

New Oxford Review has linked a story from The Times of India about a nun who brought an occult session to her school, Loreto Convent, for 250 girls in Class VIII to XII. The medium, a member of the Chandra Cult, transformed himself into "Jesus". The transformation required writhing on the ground, grunting, growling, and making hissing sounds. A Catholic priest aided sister in bringing this event to the school. Some students fainted and required medical attention.

WASH FOR LIFE

You get a clean car. The pro-life movement gets funds to continue their work. Some kids help to make a difference. It's a nationwide effort. Check the website to see where in your state you can get the grime removed. The event takes place Saturday, Sept. 16.

IT BOGGLES THE MIND - KEN WILBER

An aspect of some branches of Martinism is sex magick.

It would appear from this book that Ken Wilber is at least flirting with such a practice if not actually engaging in it.

Ken Wilber has been involved with Monastic Interreligious Dialogue that sprung from Vatican II. (Scroll down to see the picture in the website.)

According to the interview at that website:

Ken Wilber's early books helped Fr. Thomas Keating clarify his own theory on the human condition, the interior skyscraper and Christian contemplative development. In the 25 years since, Wilber has expanded his theory and founded an institute to further its practical applications in all fields of knowledge. Christianity, the world's contemplative traditions and consciousness studies now have a language and venue to inform not only psychology, but also such fields as education, business, art, politics, leadership, environmental and organizational studies.

Text at the website goes on to list the educational opportunities growing out of interreligious dialogue and sponsored by Ken Wilbur.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

WHEN DID THE CLEVELAND DIOCESE BECOME METHODIST ?

The Methodist Logo

On the website of the Community United Methodist Church

On the Boise State University United Methodist Students website

On the Virginia Conference United Methodist Church website

On the Los Altos United Methodist Church website

On the Cleveland Diocesan Social Action Office website

From THE CENTURY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT by Vinson Synan:

John Wesley, an Anglican priest, experienced his evangelical conversion in a meeting at Aldersgate Street in 1738 where, as he said, "my heart was strangely warmed." This he called his "new birth."

From Wesley, Pentecostals also inherited the idea of a crisis "second blessing" subsequent to salvation. This experience he variously called "entire sanctification," "perfect love," "Christian perfection," or "heart purity." Wesley's colleague John Fletcher was the first to call this a "baptism of the Holy Spirit," an experience that brought spiritual power to the recipient as well as inner cleansing.

In the 19th century, Edward Irving and his friends in London suggested the possibility of a restoration of the gifts of the Spirit in the modern church. (p. 2)

Irvingite priests were part of the Vintrasian Carmelite (Eglise Gnostique Apostolique) Church of Eugene Vintras, as I reported in a blog on Sept. 5 - a church that is described on the Neoluciferian Church website. From my blog:

Returning again to Vintras and the Church of Carmel, the history of the church is contained in Part II of Milko Bogaard's History of the Ecclesia Gnostica. Here you get not only the spiritual aspect of the Vintrasian Church but also the political side.

Here Bogaard claims that Vintras "traveled through the French countryside proclaiming his 'revelation' acquiring many followers, including Roman- and Irvingite Catholic Priests." The Irvingites are precursors of Pentecostalism.

The "heart doctrine" is a Martinist principle as Guy Patton describes in "Sauniere and the Occult":

From [1886] on Papus [Gerard Encausse, a student of the Kabbalah and the Tarot, alchemy and magic, and the writings of Eliphas Levi] becomes the propagator of Christian Mysticism and "the Way of the Heart", which Saint-Martin called the "Inner Way"....with the importance of simplicity and the purification of body, soul and mind in one's spiritual quest. Another text of Papus which reflects the philosophy of the 'Inner Way' is appropriately called 'the Way of the Heart.'

The cross and flame represent Gnostic concepts in Christianity, reflected in Pentecostalism.

Does anyone know whether the Methodist symbol has appeared on a Diocesan organization website prior to the coming of Bishop Lennon?

Are the leaders of the Roman Catholic Church approving a merger of Martinism with Roman Catholicism? Evidence that would seem to contribute to the idea that they are includes:

1. Von Balthasar's foreword to MEDITATIONS ON THE TAROT, a book originally written under the pseudonym of the "Unknown Philosopher", and later credited to Tomberg. Saint-Martin wrote under the same pseudonym.

2. The acceptance of the Charismatic Renewal and its union with Pentecostalism.

3. This Methodist symbol used in a Catholic Diocesan website.

There may be more. In "Sauniere and the Occult" Guy Patton talks about the Sacred Heart movement being "interwoven with the Monarchist movement, [which] had strong links to, and received support from, Occult and Esoteric Societies." According to Patton, the Martinist Order was looking for "the one, undivided Church, faithful to the Tradition of the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church, and possessor and dispenser of the gnosis spoken of by Clement of Alexandria."

These Martinists were centered in both Paris and Lyon. It is out of Lyon, and in the same historical time frame that the Sillon of Marc Sangnier was conceived. Are they related?

Today the Catholic monks of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue are promoting a heart doctrine of their own, with the help of Joan Chittister. That website also advertises a book by Rembert G. Weakland, O.S.B. Weakland represented the most liberal side of Roman Catholicism.

Is the "other gospel" in the Church, the other half of the schism mentioned by Cardinal Gagnon, the Martinist philosophy?

Martinism encompasses spirit contact, an activity specifically forbidden by Catholicism. Patton mentions Spiritualism in the linked essay:

Spiritualism, popular in America, had taken hold in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century and had become a key feature of Martinist ritual. We know that Papus himself held seances for contacting spirits. One can easily see how attractive such activity would have been in a questioning priest. Despite being outlawed by Rome, direct contact with the dead would have held a fascination to those whose lives were dedicated to preparation for the afterlife.

Papus and his involvement in esoteric movements became widely known amongst those with an interest in occultism. In 1905, Papus was summoned to the court of Tsar Nicolas II to hold a "spiritual Seance" at which the spirit of his son Alexander III was raised.

Where have you taken us John Paul II? Where are you taking us Benedict XVI?

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

FROM THE SILLON TO PAX CHRISTI

One of the books I had time to finish during my August hiatus was FREEMASONRY AND THE VATICAN: A STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION by Vicomte Leon De Poncins, translated by Timothy Tindal-Robertson, copyright 1968. The book is interesting, but it was the Appendix that proved more fruitful.

When I left Marc Sangnier yesterday, he had abandoned the Sillon and moved on to other pursuits in the name of peace. He turns up again in 1933 on the history of Pax Christi website in a program called "Pax Christi in Regno Christi: Crusade of Prayer and Campaign for Peace (1945-1950)". There you can read:

For those who resisted against Hitler's Germany - and its deportees - were not only French. There were also many Germans among them, some of whom had participated in the "International Encounters of Bierville", organized for them since 1933 by Marc Sangnier, the founder of Sillon.

There is not much online about this conference. I did find the "6th International Democratic Congress for Peace, Bierville (France), Aug. 1926" in a Swathmore College website.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In the Appendix of De Poncin's book is the tale of "Pax and Poland." It begins:

While not directly related to the subject of this book, the Report on Pax prepared by Cardinal Wyszynski is of such vital interest and seems to be so little known in the English-speaking world that this Appendix, describing the background of the movement and quoting in full the text of the Cardinal's Report on Pax, was drawn up by the translator with the agreement of the author. Moreover it will become clear to the reader that this document is not unrelated to the subject of the book as a whole, since it exposes a very determined attempt by the Soviet secret police to destroy the Church in Poland by seeking to penetrate and subvert it from within, frontal coercion and force having been completely defeated by the faith of the people. We have seen in earlier chapters in the present work how Freemasonry failed to impose itself on the nations by force and how, in consequence, and especially since the Second World War, it has resorted to subversion from within. ...

...it will be useful to give the reader the background to this organisation which was set up in Poland by the Soviet political police, to infiltrate the Church with Communist cells and impregnate it with Marxism. Originally a Polish party, Pax spread throughout the countries of Western Europe and took root principally in France. ... (emphasis mine - ct)

In 1946 [Boleslaw] Piasecki and a number of progressive Catholics set themselves up as a group which published a weekly Today and Tomorrow and talked vaguely about marching with the times and being realistic, by which they meant that any political regime in Poland would have to be acceptable to Moscow. The majority of Catholics viewed these moves with suspicion, and it came as no great surprise when in March 1947 the Polish Primate, the late Cardinal Hlond, stated that Piasecki's daily Universal Voice could not be considered representative of the Catholic community. ...

Cardinal Wyszynski, in a pastoral letter, warned all believers of the activities and aims of Piasecki's Pax and the progressive Catholics whom he described as "traitors to the Catholic Church". On 12th February, 1950, the Cardinal said that they were lacking in Catholic sense and learning, and yet they wanted to teach the bishops; furthermore, he rejected their claim to publish genuine Catholic works while at the same time attacking the Holy See, and he explicitly condemned them for assisting the Communist regime in the destruction of Catholic organisations. ...

Among their other activities, in Novembetr 1952 Piasecki and a number of his more prominent followers announced that they had joined the international Communist peace movement, and Pax sent a delegation to North Vietnam to persuade the large Catholic community there to give the Communist rulers of the country their unreserved collaboration.

At the height of the anti-clerical campaign Piasecki published his own ESSENTIAL PROBLEMS...

This book was placed on the Vatican Index... (pp 201-203)

George Weigel also calls Pax a communist organization that attempted to infiltrate the Church. In WITNESS TO HOPE he wrote:

Wojtyla came to St. Florian's at a time when the communist regime was stepping up its pressure on the Church. In 1947, the communists had formed the "Pax" movement to create a bloc of putatively Catholic opinion subservient to the state. In August 1949, the government issued a decree, allegedly to safeguard freedom of religion, but in fact to tighten its control over the Church. The following year Catholic schools, Catholic Action (a movement for social reform) and other Catholic organizations were declared illegal, and the state took over hundreds of Catholic educational and charitable institutions. (Weigel, p. 94)

The method devised to infiltrate the Church is described this way in De Poncins' book:

The technique is to act as a solvent and form cells of disunity among the faithful, but especially in the ranks of the priests and religious; split the bishops into two blocs, the "integralists" and the "progressives"; use a thousand pretexts to align the priests against their bishops; drive a subtle wedge into the masses by cleverly contrived distinctions between "reactionaries" and "progressives"; never attack the Church directly, but, "only for her own good" attack "her antiquated structure" and "the abuses which disfigure her." If necessary appear to be more Catholic than the Pope; skilfully undermine the Church by attracting into ecclesastical circles groups of "discontented" Catholics, so as to lure the former bit by bit "into the fertile climate of class struggle"; slowly and patiently work for this "adaptation" by introducing new forms into traditional ideas. The ambiguity of certain terms, such as "progressivism" and "integralism", "open" and "closed" attitudes, democracy and socialism, and so on, which have entirely different meanings in France and in Poland, help to create misunderstanding. (p. 209)

Does this sound like what has taken place here in America? How better to divide the faithful into warring camps than to rape their sons and then deny that the rape took place, while treating the victim's family like enemies of the Church? If this was an attempt at divide and conquer, the exposure of the duplicity by the press was an essential ingredient without which the Catholic laity would have remained united to their clergy and their bishops. We are now in a state of seige, opposed to the clergy and bishops as a result of distrust.

Infiltrate, divide, and conquer was Piasecki's plan for doing away with the Church; and the Church was the only thing that stood between him and a communist takeover in Poland. According to the publication "Slowo Powszechne", 2nd May, 1963:

The Encyclical Pacem in Terris was hailed noisily and "with deep satisfaction" as the "official consecration" and "coronation of the efforts" which Piasecki and his group had made for so long. (p. 212)

The author continues:

According to Pax, thanks to Pope John XXIII, the "tridentine era" in the history of the Church seems definitely over and a new epoch is beginning, "more open and more tolerant, ready for compromises". (p. 212)

Why did an encyclical by Pope John XXIII work to promote the ends of the communists in Poland?

The name--Pax--immediately brought to mind Pax Christi. Could it be possible that there is a relationship? I turned to the Pax Christi website where the following can be read:

Pax Christi emphasised the value of international exchanges with foreign students visiting London and with young people staying in its summer hostels. Joint retreats and conferences were held with PAX, an older Catholic peace group, and in 1971 a single Catholic peace movement was created when Pax and Pax Christi merged.

Pax--the Communist organization formed in Poland for the purpose of subverting the Church--merged with the Roman Catholic organization Pax Christi for the purpose of promoting the peace movement. (Pax Christi promotes World Youth Day on this website.) Incredibly the previous Pax Christi website linked features a symbol of the word "Peace" superimposed on a rainbow background. A rainbow flag? The symbol of the homosexual network?

Another Pax Christi website confirms the Pax association:

Pax Christi Warsaw is an associate group of Pax Christi International - a Catholic peace movement established in France in 1945.

The June 1998 Pax Christi International Newsletter NR53 obituary notice for Fr. Bernard Lelande, their international clergy delegate, provides this statement about Fr. Lelande's background:

Father Lalande was born in France on 4 October 1910 into a family where two strands of post First World War Catholicism were represented. His father, a member of Sillon (Furrow) a Christian Democratic organisation, became a local representative for the Parti Democrate Populaire (Popular Democratic Party), whereas his mother was more influenced by the ideas of Mauras, supporting the principles of Catholic nationalism until 1926. However, Fr. Lalande always maintained that the (sic) felt closer to his father's views.

The Sillon is very much involved with the Lay Apostolate Movements as their website indicates, and has re-emerged as a result of Vatican II. The "three broad generations" of the sillon are outlined at the website:

a) The 1848 generation encompassing the progressive teachings of Lamennais, Ozanam, and Lacondaire.

b) The Sillon generation grounded in the non-scholastic new philosophy disseminated through study circles among students and young workers.

c) The specialised Catholic Action generation identified above all with Cardijn and the G8 movements, that use the methodology of "see, judge, act".

Is it possible that Catholic Action morphed into Call to Action? There is some evidence that it may have, but it would take more digging.

The website also notes that Lammenais was excommunicated and Ozanam was marginalised at the end of his life. It was Gaudium et Spes that reinvigorated the Sillon. Do they intend to dispense with clergy or reduce clergy to the level of the laity as they once did according to Pope Pius X's condemnation? The clergy have a less essential role in Pentecostalism which depends primarily on prophecy. Think about it. Once the priesthood is eliminated, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will cease!

"If my request is not heeded, Russia will spread her errors around the world." That's a paraphrase, but you know the source.

Do we have peace now that the consecration is supposed to have been accomplished?

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

ERRORS OF THE SILLON

Two aspects of Gallicanism are sometimes distinguished: royal Gallicanism, which defended the special rights of the French monarch in the French church; and ecclesiastical Gallicanism, which tried to preserve for the French clergy a certain administrative independence from Rome. Gallicanism in both senses received its theoretical formulation during the crisis of the Great Schism through the conciliar theory, which asserted the supremacy of general councils over the pope.
- The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, "Gallicanism"

A legacy of the Age of Enlightenment, the motto "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternity" first appeared during the French Revolution. Although it was often called into question, it finally established itself under the Third Republic. It was written into the 1958 Constitution and is part nowadays of the French national heritage.
- PRESIDENCE DE LA REPUBLIQUE

From the political point of view Pike with many other Anglo-American Scotch Masons interprets all Masonic symbolism in the sense of a systematic struggle against every kind of political and religious "despotism." Hiram, Christ, Molay are regarded only as representatives of "Humanity" the "Apostles of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity"
- The Builder Magazine, August 1919

To sum up, such is the theory, one could say the dream of the Sillon; and that is what its teaching aims at, what it calls the democratic education of the people, that is, raising to its maximum the conscience and civic responsibility of every one, from which will result economic and political Democracy and the reign of JUSTICE, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY.

This brief explanation, Venerable Brethren, will show you clearly how much reason We have to say that the Sillon opposes doctrine to doctrine, that it seeks to build its City on a theory contrary to Catholic truth, and that falsifies the basis and essential notions which regulate social relations in any human society.
Letter of Pope Pius X to the French Archbishops & Bishops (1910)

Marc Sangnier, Founder of the Sillon, was born
in 1873 "into a genuinely devout but liberal Catholic family of the rising "grande bourgeoisie" according to Sillon.net. Founding first the journal "Le Sillon" in cooperation with Paul Renaudin, the movement subsequently took the journal's name for its own in 1899. It's life was short. In 1910 Pope Pius X condemned the movement, issuing the Apostolic Letter "Notre Charge Apostolique" on August 25, as linked above. While it was active the Sillon was a lay led movement of student study circles organized in Paris at the Stanislas College, first consisting of Catholic members, and subsequently developing into an ecumenical movement called the "Greater Sillon" that included members of various religious persuasions.

Some concerns expressed by Pius X in his letter to the French bishops:

- According to them, Man will be a man truly worthy of the name only when he has acquired a strong, enlightened, and independent consciousness, able to do without a master, obeying only himself, and able to assume the most demanding responsibilities without faltering.

- Studies are carried out without a master. ...The study groups are really intellectual pools in which each member is at once both master and stdent.

- ...the social doctrines of the Sillon are erroneous, its spirit is dangerous and its education disastrous. ...What are we to think of a movement so punctilious in its brand of Catholicism that, unless you embrace its cause, you would almost be regarded as an internal enemy of the Church, and you would understand nothing of the Gospel and of Jesus Christ!

- There was a time when the Sillon, as such, was truly Catholic. It recognized but one moral force--Catholicism; and the Sillonists were wont to proclaim that Democracy would have to be Catholic or would not exist at all. A time came when they changed their minds. They left to each one his religion or his philosophy. They ceased to call themselves Catholics and for the formula "Democracy will be Catholic" they substituted "Democracy will not be anti-Catholic," any more than it will be anti-Jewish or anti-Buddhist. This was the time of "the Greater Sillon." For the construction of the Future City they appealed to the workers of all religions and all sects. These were asked but one thing: to share the same social ideal, to respect all creeds, and to bring with them a certain supply of moral force.

Sound familiar? If you have read Masonic philosophy it surely does. If you have read about the Catholic New Ecclesial Communities, it does as well. Study circles were a part of "Renew" in the Roman Catholic Church in the 1980s and 1990s. Those study circles, too, were lay led and teased out their own brand of theology at the circle meetings.

Pius X continues:

Alas! this organization...has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer.

The bolding is mine. Bring to mind our sexual abuse scandal? Add the following to that bolded phrase and think again about the sexual abuse scandal:

The exaltation of their sentiments, the un-discriminating good-will of their hearts, their philosophical mysticism, mixed with a measure of illuminism, have carried them away towards another Gospel which they thought was the true Gospel of Our Savior.

I believe that would be the other gospel I saw in action at Mass yesterday. The Sillon fell into the "horizontal" error:

- ...it is a fashion in some quarters to first put aside the divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to mention only His unlimited clemency. His compassion for all human miseries, and His pressing exhortations to the love of our neighbor and to the brotherhood of men.

Pius demanded that "Priests will have to keep entirely out of the dissident groups."

Sangnier, faithful to the faith he professed, disbanded the Sillon after the decree of Pius X. He did not abandon activism, but rather moved on to other pursuits. According to the Sillon website:

After his death on Pentecost Sunday 1950, his wife Rénée received this remarkable testimony from, Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, the Nuncio of the Holy See in Paris:

"I first heard Marc Sangnier speak at a meeting of Catholic youth in 1903 or 1904. The wonderful charm of his words and soul exhilarated me. The most vibrant memory of my whole young priesthood is of his personality as well as his political and social action.

His noble and frank humility in accepting late in 1910 the admonishment of saintly Pope Pius X - as affectionate and benevolent as it was - was to my mind the true measure of his greatness.

Souls like his with such a capacity to remain faithful and respectful to both the Gospel and the Holy Church are destined for the highest ascents which ensure glory: the glory of Christ who knows how to exalt the humble, even the glory of the present life before his contemporaries and posterity for whom the example of Marc Sangnier will remain as an example and as an encouragement."

Now that Roncalli, later Pope John XXIII, today Blessed John XXIII, has become a candidate for canonisation, it seems appropriate to recall that he himself considered Marc Sangnier as, in effect, a saint.

Beliefs of the Sillon were the beliefs of the Christian Democrats and of Robert Schuman, a Catholic and one of the founders of the European Union. Schuman was a follower of Marc Sangnier, and the Communists were part of this picture according to the journal "Oikonomia":

Since the beginning of the century, French Catholics had largely taken refuge in opposition to the Republic, despite the attempts of Pope Leo XIII at the end of the 19th century towards a “ralliement”. The social Catholics, the disciples of Marc Sangnier (who was condemned by Pius X in 1910) had worked for their reintegration. The condemnation of Maurras in 1926 confirmed instead the orientation of Leo XIII. But Catholics continued to vote en masse for right-wing parties. The slide towards the left was begun by Christians influenced by Emmanuel Mounier and by the movements of Catholic Action and all those who accepted the dialogue with the Communists, and who, like the worker-priests, practised this dialogue every day. When a significant number of Christians began to vote for the Left, the reversal of the majority brought François Mitterand to power as President of the Republic in 1981. This allowed the decline of the Communist party, a necessary element if the Left was to be able to maintain itself in power.

Want more information on the Sillon? Check out The Le Floch Report.

According to Sillon.net the list of those influenced by Marc Sangnier is long. Unfortunately the linked websites are written in French if they aren't broken links.

Sangnier didn't disappear from the religio-political scene after the condemnation of the Sillon by Pope Pius X. According the Sillon.net Biography, in 1912 he

founded La Jeune Republique a new movement which continued the work of the Sillon in the political domain. Other initiatives followed after the war, most notably the International Democratic Peace Congresses during the 1920s.

The peace movement, in other words, was influenced by the left-leaning founder of the condemned Sillon, Marc Sangnier, a man lauded by Pope John XXIII as a near-saint, and a man with Revolutionary French Masonic ideals. Those ideals, it would seem, had their roots in the Gallican Church that rejected the authority of the papacy, the same Gallican church that today promotes Pentecostalism, and Ecumenism with "a Vatican-sonsored series of conferences led by Vinson Synan, David Duplessis, Earl Paulk, and Killian McDonald", the same church that included Satanist Eugene Vintras.

The Paris Occult Revival has come home to roost in the Roman Catholic Charismatic Renewal of the Church from which the Gnostic heresy developed.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

LIFE IN THE PEWS IN CLEVELAND - ST. HILARY PARISH

Their website advertised a Catholic Mass at 11:00.

The parish is listed on the Cleveland Diocesan website so I presume that it is Roman Catholic.

St. Hilary's is located in Fairlawn, Ohio, a suburb of Akron on the west side, usually thought to be the upscale part of town. The assembly dressed in the usual collection of picnic clothes and blue jeans, in spite of the presumed wealth of the parish. The church is round--ah, no, the church is square--well, no the church is oval--no, not exactly--the church is rectangular--not rectangular either. Three are no corners. The back is much wider than the front. Maybe it's fan-shaped??

On the positive side:

- The church was perhaps even more than 3/4 full.

- For a concert, it actually wasn't half bad. The choir sang quite well and the selections were semi-classical with an overtone of Gospel music. It rocked in a formal sort of way. They even had their own hymnal with the parish name on the cover. One of the hymns in it was a Shaker hymn. I've never heard any of them before. The lead vocal had a beautiful voice and could certainly hit the high notes. There were even several men in the choir.

- The assembly was attentive. They seemed to be completely engrossed in what was taking place.

- The master of ceremonies was young, energetic, enthusiastic. He really got into his performance.

- The pews had not only seat cushions but back cushions as well. Soft and cushy, though the bench could have been a couple of inches wider from front to back for maximum comfort.

- I didn't genuflect to the tabernacle that wasn't there.

- Off to the side, left and right, halfway between church back and church front, were statues of St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin with vigil candles to light.

- The holy water font was a baptismal pool with steps into and out of, that took up the center portion of the central aisle. Let's call this neutral--neither positive nor necessarily negative. It just was.

On the negative side--where to begin?

- When we walked in, the choir was singing something or other up there on the stage next to the organ where they took up the bulk of the space. I sat down and started looking for something Catholic, and thinking that we had somehow walked into a Baptist church by mistake. Then I found it, a crucifix with a body on it. This surely must be a Catholic church even though the crucifix was overpowered by the pipes for the organ which are the most obvious feature of the stage area, but if you looked closely you could tease it out of the busy background. I finally located the altar, a small table affair. No one was praying. In fact no one was kneeling. Everyone was sitting there listening to the tunes.

- The concert broke for intermission, and the members of the choir carried on a number of loud and lively conversations until the master of ceremonies, dressed in something that looked like a chasuable with hearts on it formed in a circle, stepped onto the stage and began giving announcements. When he was finished with the announcements he gave kudos to the choir and the assembly applauded. Then he stepped down from the stage, collected the girl altar boys, and processed into the church he was already in, behind a processional cross that was large, wooden, had the center of it carved out so I could see through it, and had no image of Christ on it.

- Once he again stepped up onto the stage, he asked everyone to greet their pewmates.

- Like last week, the kids were called out prior to the readings, but this time it was a little ceremony which includes a number from the choir in the process.

- The homily was about immigration. A letter signed by Archbishop Pilarzyk (Archdiocese of Cincinnati) was read. (As we left my husband remarked that the bishops are promoting breaking the law.)

- Mid-homily a projection screen magically appeared out of the thingy that partially concealed the organ pipes, and a video presentation of the peace and justice ministry at the church, I presume, was shown. The screen magically retracted into the wooden structure when the homily was over.

- Mostly Mass was said according to the rubrics. The master of ceremonies added his own words here and there. Either that, or we now have a fifth Canon of the Mass that I've never heard before. The choir was quite creative in singing the Agnus Dei.

- Communion vessels were all glass. Glass chalices, glass bowl for the hosts. The host that was consecrated reminded me of looking at the moon. You couldn't miss it. Hosts were dumped into several gold bowls right before handing them to the EMs.

- Everyone stood throughout communion. There was a brief moment for thanksgiving afterward. I had no thanksgiving to make since I didn't receive. I didn't receive because I wasn't sure what spirit was invoked at the consecration, and I wasn't taking any chances.

- When the performance was over everyone applauded. It seemed like an entirely appropriate response.

As near as I could tell, at this performance the choir must have been scheduled as the main event, and the wine and bread were the refreshments. The entertainment with the video screen was the intermission.

As we walked to the car, my husband said "You can quote me on this. That was a total waste of time unless you're interested in watching a sacreligious experiment."

Personally I found it a rather interesting parody of a progressive Catholic liturgical service. It had nearly nothing to do with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Last week this parish took in $29,512 in the offertory collection. Their goal is $33,030 per week. Unbelievably they indicated a deficit. Their year to date income (year begins 7/1) is $274,198. With that kind of cash the bishop must love them because it appears to me that they can get away with whatever moves the master of ceremonies as long as the collections are large.

I thought the new young priests were orthodox. Apparently I thought wrong.

Bulletin announcements included "Parish Clustering 101". Bulletin flyers included "Vibrant Parish Life", "St. Hilary Spiritfest", "The Alpha Course St. Hilary Church Fall 2006", and "Parents Night Out".

My husband, who has recently returned to weekly Mass attendance after being driven out by the many changes, announced that this was the last straw. He would no longer attend Mass. Hopefully that is just first reaction and not a firm commitment. He mocked me all the way home for putting a small check into the collection basket.

Cardinal Gagnon said the Church is in schism. This was the other church in our midst.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!