“GOD has only one natural Son, who is innocence itself, and who is sinless, and yet He has not exempted Him from the law of suffering. A holy bishop, well aware of this truth, having met a man who told him that he had always been honored and financially secure, enjoying good health, surrounded by abundant possessions and a prosperous family: ‘Alas!’ exclaimed this prelate, ‘these are great signs of God’s wrath; let us flee quickly from a house where there seems to be no cross.’ No sooner had he left than God’s wrath fell upon this man and his family, who were crushed beneath the ruins of their home.”
“GOD, God wants you to be in that position, to hold that office, to suffer that illness, to be hidden and degraded in that corner, to be afflicted by that adversity, that contempt, that persecution. Yes, God wants it: that the world reason, that self-love complain: God wants it.
“And He wills it by always proposing our greatest good: He seeks, oh! supply, blessed spirits, our insufficiency to adore the goodness of the Creator; He seeks on every occasion our own benefit with a charity so provident that, if the veil were drawn back, if we were given to penetrate the secrets of divine Providence over us, we would approve without reservation what now gives us so much pain, and we would not make use of our freedom except to choose what happens to us by permission of heaven.
“How could anything else happen? The infinitely perfect Being, from whose eyes nothing is hidden (6), knows what is most advantageous to us, and can also give it to us, since He can do all that He wills (7). He will give it to us, therefore, because He loves us as the apple of His eye (8): He carries us in His bosom as a nurse usually carries the little one (9); consequently, everything that happens to us by His disposition happens for our greater good.”
“WITHOUT any authority, the family would fall into anarchy; if the balance of authority tips too far to the side or in favor of the husband, we will have the enslavement of the woman; if on the contrary it tips to the whims of the woman, the horrors known to paganism will follow.
“It is therefore necessary to seek balance; which, if it can be found in an atmosphere of cold calculation of rights and duties, is instead achieved and practiced when trusting love animates the relationship between both parties. If the one who commands loves, they will never exercise despotic control; if the one who obeys loves, they will never submit with a slave’s spirit.
[…]
“Now, every family is a partnership in life: every well-ordered partnership needs a head; all authority of a head or leader comes from God. Therefore, the family you founded also has a head, invested by God with authority over the one he has given him as a partner to form his first nucleus, and over those who, with the Lord’s blessing, will come to increase and gladden it, like vigorous shoots around the trunk of an olive tree…
“Yes; the authority of the head of the family comes from God, just as the dignity and authority of the first head of the human race came from God to Adam, endowed with all the gifts he was to transmit to his offspring; that is why he was formed first, and Eve afterward; and, as Saint Paul says, Adam was not deceived, but it was the woman who allowed herself to be seduced and transgressed. Eve’s curiosity upon seeing the beautiful fruit of the earthly Paradise, and her conversation with the serpent—how much harm they caused to the first man, to herself, to all her children, and to us! To her, besides multiplying her worries and sorrows, God said that she would be subject to her husband. O Christian wives and mothers! Never give in to the thirst to usurp the center of the family. Your scepter—a scepter of love—must be the one placed in your hands by the Apostle to the Gentiles. The Savior, through the procreation of children, if you continue in faith, in love, and in holiness, with modesty.”
St. Felicitas and her seven sons, martyred under Marcus Aurelius in 165 AD
“IN the persecution at Rome under Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, there were seven brethren, sons of the holy woman Felicity, whom the Prefect Publius first essayed to cajole by kindness, and then to shake by fear, to deny Christ and worship the gods but, by their own bravery and the exhortation of their mother, they remained firm in their confession, and were all put to death in diverse ways. Januarius was lashed to death with whips loaded with lead Felix and Philip were beaten to death with cudgels Silvanus was thrown over a precipice Alexander, Vitalis, and Martial were beheaded. Their mother gained the same palm of martyrdom four months afterwards. The seven Brethren gave up their souls to God upon the 10th day of July.”
Hymn (Proper of the Saints)
The martyrs’ triumphs let us sing,
Their blood poured forth for Christ the King,
And while due hymns of praise we pay,
Our thankful hearts cast grief away.
The world its terrors urged in vain;
They recked not of the body’s pain;
One step, and holy death made sure
The life that ever shall endure.
To flames the martyr saints are hailed;
By teeth of savage beasts assailed;
Against them, armed with ruthless brand
And hooks of steel, their torturers stand.
There’s nothing Catholic about Chicago Bob, except his larping as a pope.
Americans were deliberately converted from the Christianity of their ancestors to a “civic religion” called “secular”, but which in reality imposed government as supreme authority in place of God. Oh, they are allowed to “worship” God, which means go to church on Sunday. But Jesus Christ must not be mentioned in government or publicly promoted. That is “religion” and must be private, and not imposed upon people. Biblical condemnation of sin is denigrated as “hate”, and silenced.
Atheist John Dewey openly planned and executed this conversion in the government schools, as well as dealing with what he called “the American reading fetish”, creating illiteracy with “modern” teaching methods. He promoted a dumbed-down class of people who would “serve society”, not knowing any better.
As Christians, in obedience to their state-god, compartmentalize their Faith, false religions are given free reign in the public square and in schools, with schools in the UK requiring the white British children to join in Muslim prayers, and even the Mason-captured Vatican providing prayer space for them.
“[E]ach time those sweet hosannas to the Founding Fathers ring, my mind turns to a different fatherly fraternity, this one truly worthy of the name—that of the Church Fathers. How many American Catholics can name them? Or, perhaps more fairly, how many American Catholics honestly take them and their works seriously? I mean, really seriously? Oh, they may be piously remembered for miracles associated with their lives, or for one or two anti-Arian citations, or even a couple of passages from their writings, rendered noteworthy through repeated quotation on EWTN. Nevertheless, insofar as daily practical life are concerned, they are dead, buried, and forgotten, consigned to the doctrinal rubbish bin. There is simply no contest in this battle of the ancestors, fraudulent and echt. The score is always the same: Founding Fathers “666”; Church Fathers “0”. (more…)
AMERICA’S Founders, despite their evident virtues, held disdain for the religion that was — and is — the basis of Western civilization. Indeed they rejected, in keeping with their rationalist and Masonic worldview, all submission to religion in the new government based on the pervasive and enthralling slogans of freedom.
America was revolutionary. And theirs was a revolution against Christendom.
Despite these facts, Robert Prevost, known as “Pope” Leo XIV, could not find enough positive to say about them in his recent message to Americans on the occasion of the country’s 250th anniversary:
I extend my heartfelt congratulations to all Americans on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This semiquincentennial marks that defining moment in the history of the United States of America, July 4, 1776, that gave enduring voice to the ideals of liberty, equality, the pursuit of happiness, justice and democratic self-government.
For two and a half centuries, generations of Americans have worked together to carry these principles forward — through sacrifice, service, innovation and civic participation. This anniversary stands as an invitation not only to celebrate the nation’s remarkable journey, but also to reflect upon the responsibilities that the sons and daughters of this country bear to one another, and to the generations who will inherit the nation that is being shaped today.
“Liberty,” “equality,” the “pursuit of happiness” as the foremost aim of life — these are “Enlightenment,” deist principles. Have they led to liberty? Have they led to equality? Have they led to happiness? These are interesting issues to ponder at this time, a time when ‘democratic self-government’ has been reduced to the right to pay your tax bill in installments instead of all at once or your right to educate your child at home at considerable expense instead of sending him to the school you are paying for where he will be mentally warped for life. The issue of whether we have separation of church and state is also an interesting question, particularly as the state religion of anti-racism further restructures our world.
A true pope might have drawn attention to the spiritual impoverishment these ideals have created, the economic centralization, the demonization of Christian virtues and civilization that bombards Americans everyday and the quasi-totalitarian government so much Masonic freedom has enabled. Prevost, however, seemed unaware that Americans live under a level of government control and interference the early colonists surely could not in their worst nightmares have envisioned as the outcome of their valiant military sacrifices.
“WITH the excuse of peace and concord, you make your way to church. You do wrong to love the walls so much and to respect the Church in her buildings. Can you doubt that one day Antichrist must needs be seated in the same places? There is more security for me on the tops of mountains, in the depths of forests, by the sides of lakes, in the horror of dungeons and at the bottom of an abyss. For it is there that the Spirit of God descended into the hearts of the prophets; it is there that He quickened their voices.”
— St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitier and Doctor of the Church, 364 A.D.
An SSPX chapel – not Catholic, not holy, not legitimate.
THE grotesque and sacrilegious idea that disobedience to the papacy can legitimize the reenactment of the solemn rituals of the Catholic Church was on full display last week in Ecône, France, where the renegade Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) — started by the charlatan Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre in 1970, after he had officially endorsed Vatican II and thereby fell from office — “consecrated” new bishops.
The alleged consecrations, which are neither valid or licit, have created a whirlwind of controversy, most of it based on false principles.
On the one side, is the head of the Vatican II Church, “Pope” Leo XIV, who embraces every heresy of Modernism condemned by true popes of the Catholic Church.
Despite his false position, Bob Prevost is correct that no one can consecrate bishops without the approval of the papacy. He is correct on principle in his “excommunication” of followers of the SSPX.
But he possesses no authority of his own. He is just a simple layman pontificating to the wind.
On the other side are the leaders of the SSPX, whom have also lost their office in the Catholic Church due to heresy and schism and who would be considered anathema by their namesake, the Holy Pontiff Pius X, despite his blazing condemnations of Modernism. These men are correct that Vatican II was not a council of the Catholic Church, but a synthesis of all heresies. They are incorrect, however, in their hypocritical and illogical recognition of the Conciliar “Popes” and hierarchy. A heretic cannot, by canon law and the constant teachings of the Magisterium, hold any office in the Church.
And so we have mass confusion, with the gullible swept into schism by the Lefebvrists, as well as by equally schismatic “sedevacantist” sects that have the audacity to simulate “consecrations” of their own “bishops” outside the authority of the Church, deceiving “the elect” as was foretold by Scripture for this the Great Tribulation. These sects openly deceive their followers, telling them it is not possible to practice the Faith without donning a lace veil or tie and entering a schismatic chapel with no legitimacy whatsoever. They never educate them about the teachings of the Council of Trent regarding Spirtual Communion and Perfect Contrition, the sacraments by desire which when sought licitly can confer more grace than the actual sacraments of the Holy Eucharist and Confession, which we do not have at this time.
“Having no one to confer the episcopate upon them, they assume the title of Bishop by their own authority. In the Psalms, the Holy Spirit describes these men as sitting on the throne of pestilence; they are pestilences and plagues to the faith, deceivers with serpent’s tongue, skillful corrupters of the truth, who spit deadly poison from their venomous fangs; whose speech spreads like a cancer; whose preaching injects a fatal virus into the hearts and breasts of all.”
— The Unity of the Catholic Church, Saint Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage
“What kind of infernal whisper directed Lefebvre to even think such blasphemy? What kind of hypnosis still afflicts his legion of followers today? If Montini was the Pope, as Lefebvre always believed, then the Novus Ordo is valid, the Montinian Rite of Ordination is valid, and the entire heretical council is dogmatic. And Montini was the Antichrist!
As Pro Deo asserts, “Traditionalist” Catholicism only has the appearance of traditionalism.
It is held together by pride, gullibility, ignorance, and the virtue of obedience carried to an “obsessive-compulsive” extreme.
Faithful Catholics all over the world, though few in number, as was also foretold, are adhering to the Faith in the wilderness and the desert of these times, without resorting to the falsehoods of either Modernism or Traditionalism. We have a pope who rules over us, morally but not physically. He is Pope Pius XII, whose sacred legacy lives on. The Catholic Church is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic for all time and not a whirling, chaotic confusion of warring sects and congregationalist “parishes,” each adopting its own distinct spirit of rebellion.
The papacy is perpetual and we owe it absolute obedience. For without Peter, the Vicar of Christ on earth, we are nothing, nada,cooked.
Without St. Peter, who represents Christ Himself, and his lawful successors, who lasted in a continuous line of legitimate kings for almost 2,000 years by a miracle of the Holy Ghost, we would not have the Bible! (Take that, you rebellious Protestants!)
Without St. Peter, we would never have had any altars or the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!
Without St. Peter, no one would be calling himself a Christian today!
Without St. Peter, we would never have had the greatest civilization that ever existed, a civilization animated by charity and the pursuit of holiness, not the pursuit of material values at all costs. (Take that, you neo-pagans who think you can somehow resurrect European civilization with Odin and Thor!)
Peter is King. Peter is the immoveable center. Peter is the rock.
Without Peter, we are nothing. Outside the authority of Peter, we have no salvation. And with him we have everything. He is ever with us, ever leading us, until the glorious Second Coming of Christ. It is Peter’s holiness and, above all, his eminent humility — a humility that was on display in his deluge of self-condemning tears after he publicly denied our Lord, that we must ever keep as the standard before us. Peter was humble enough to admit his mistakes. Traditionalists, despite their seeming adherence to externals, oh-so-lack this humility. Theirs is a movement of pride and stubborn refusal to delve beneath appearances. Mitres and vestments are all it takes to deceive them.
“We declare, we say, we define, and we pronounce that submission to the Roman Pontiff is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature.”
— Bull Unam Sanctam, Pope Boniface VIII
“Whoever is not found within this ark of Noah will perish when the flood reigns: whoever does not gather with Peter, scatters; he is not of Christ, he is of the Antichrist.”
“Sin is not only a foolishness and vileness, but considered in relation to God it is also the blackest ingratitude, the greatest injustice, and the gravest outrage. God is a father who has given us all: existence, life, intelligence, a conscience to distinguish good from evil, a will to choose the good, and a heart to love it. To show us His love He gave us His Son, who died for us on the Cross; he restored us again to grace making us His friends; He has called us with a special vocation to live even here on earth in the intimacy of His love; and He calls us daily to Communion and surrounds us with a thousand interior graces. Instead of thanking Him, we put ourselves at a distance. We even come to the point of deliberately despising the graces He offers us, even His friendship itself. Sometimes we forget that we have received all from Him. Instead we boast of our intelligence and puny talents; we deliberately prefer ourselves to others; we abandon ourselves to a friendship that is based too much on feelings, thereby offending the divine friendship and saddening our adored Friend. This wound inflicted on the heart of Our Lord leaves us cold and indifferent. What kind of gratitude is this?
“DO not love the world, do not let yourself be ensnared by its deceitful caresses; it flatters its followers, but only to lead them astray. It offers them honey in a golden cup, but this honey is poisoned. The love of Jesus, on the contrary, begins with bitterness and ends in sweetness. Christian, you were created for heaven, do not forget your glorious destiny. What are you doing in this world, my brother, you who are greater than the world? (Saint Jerome)”
“TO experience the tremendous power of genuine, unaffected folk songs, you must sing them yourself, sing them often, and sing them well. You cannot possibly experience the beauty of folk music if you simply hear the songs performed by a choir in picturesque costume. In folk singing, the goal is to sing, and this fact distinguishes the folk song from all other types of song. In the concert hall, in the cabaret, on the radio, the singing is a means to excite emotion in a passive audience who sit quietly and listen. The art song and the modern popular song are founded entirely on an appeal to the ear. But the folk song is founded on the joy of active singing, the joy of rhythmic movement of the entire voice organism. The frequent repetitions of a refrain which are so characteristic of the folk song are evidence that folk music is basically kinesthetic in its appeal. These refrains are a pure delight to the active singer, he does not tire (as a silent listener would) of repeating the same chorus many times. Folk singing is active in goal and method. It is essential to join in the singing to experience the deep beauty hidden in the music.
“If you begin to sing folk songs and to make them a part of your life, you will soon discover that they have the power to form your taste and to cultivate your artistic judgment. You will become aware of the pretension and insincerity in works of art which perhaps you admired before. You will find that you have come to prefer simplicity to sophistication, genuine feeling to empty sentimentality, real joy to superficial amusement.”
— Dr. Jop Pollmann, Laughing Meadows Songbook, Grailville Publications, 1947
“THAT the illiterate may nevertheless reach a high level of culture will surprise those only who imagine that education and cultivation are convertible. The reason, I take it, why these mountain people, albeit unlettered, have acquired so many of the essentials of culture is partly to be attributed to the large amount of leisure they enjoy, without which, of course, no cultural development is possible, but chiefly to the fact that they have one and all entered at birth into the full enjoyment of their racial heritage. Their language, wisdom, manners, and the many graces of life that are theirs, are merely racial attributes which have been gradually acquired and accumulated in past centuries and handed down generation by generation, each generation adding its quotum to that which it received. It must be remembered, also, that in their everyday lives they are immune from that continuous grinding, mental pressure, due to the attempt to ‘make a living’, from which nearly all of us in the modern world suffer. Here no one is on the make; commercial competition and social rivalries are unknown. In this respect, at any rate, they have the advantage over those who habitually spend the greater part of every day in preparing to live, in acquiring the technique of life, rather than in its enjoyment.
—- Cecil Sharp; English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1917)
AN OLD woman in the mining region of Central Pennsylvania describes her troubles in this ballad by Felix O’Hare, sung here by Daniel Walsh. From the George Korson Recordings of Pennsylvania Coal Miners Collection at the Library of Congress:
This ballad articulates the thoughts of the miners in the depression of the early ’70’s. In 1871 the little mine patch of Valley Furnace received a blow from which it never recovered: the mine gave out. Normally the miners might have found jobs at the Shoofly, a nearby colliery. There, however, a bad seam had been struck and men were being laid off. The only alternative to starvation was to gather meager belongings, leave old associations, and trek across the Broad Mountain in to the Mahanoy Valley then being opened to mining. [Songs and Ballads of the Anthracite Miners, Recorded and Edited by George Korson, 1947 ]
THE SHOOFLY
As I went a-walking one fine summer’s morning,
It was down by the Furnace I chanced for to stroll.
I espied an old lady, I’ll swear she was eighty,
At the foot of the dirt banks a-rooting for coal;
And when I drew nigh her she sat on her hunkers
For to fill up her scuttle she just had begin
And to herself she was singing a ditty,
And these are the words the old lady did sing: (more…)
NELSON EDDY sings “Goin’ Home” in 1944. The melody is from Antonin Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9, also known as the New World Symphony, composed in 1893 in Iowa. (more…)
