A CORRESPONDENCE WITH MOTHER THERESA
Part II
Rama P Coomaraswamy, M.D.

Dear Mother Theresa

Pax Christi! I thank you for your kindness in responding to my letter. It is no less than I expected from one who loves as you do. Unfortunately, the response does not satisfy for me, the demands of truth and justice, as I shall attempt to show in what follows. My answers will be divided into several sections rather than on a paragraph for paragraph basis in order that you may clearly understand my unwillingness to accept the New Mass and the New Directions of the Post‑conciliar Church.

THE QUESTION 0F OBEDIENCE AND THE REAL ISSUES

Your respondent, whose name I do not know; says I take exception to the phrase complete loyalty, and that the original reference (yours) was not meant to be a theological judgment. This in consequence allows him to dismiss the first five pages of my initial letter as well as all other references to Absolute obedience as being not applicable.

Unfortunately, in neither your original letter, nor in my reply, is any reference made to loyalty. I objected to your statement, and again I quote you directly: “We owe our Holy  Father complete obedience...Holy Father cannot make a mistake.” While I am willing to concede that you perhaps may have meant “loyalty” rather than “Aobedience,” it would seem quite clear that, in so far as you suggested my adhering to the Traditional Mass and the Pre‑conciliar theological outlook involved my “turning my back” on Jesus  and in so far as you suggested that my children not be allowed to attend such Masses, that a definite theological judgment is involved.

The facts however are, as your respondent makes amply clear, that  insisting on attending a Traditional Mass, and in adhering to the Pre‑conciliar Traditional theology of the Church, I place myself in “disobedience” to the present Pontiff. This is such an extraordinary statement that I choose to repeat it. In insisting on the Mass as said in the Catholic Church for almost 2000 years, and in adhering to her teachings as they were promulgated for a similar period of time, I place myself in “disobedience” to the successor of Peter, one of whose primary functions is to preserve intact the “deposit of the Faith.”

Let us be clear about the issues that separate us. Your stand must be one that argues:

1) the “New Mass” is not significantly changed from the Traditional one;

2) the “New Directions” in no way represent a significant departure from the traditional teachings of the Church

or

.‑‑ 3) If you concede that the “New Mass” and the “New Directions” represent a significant change, that these changes are legitimate and that we must obey them because “We owe our Holy Father complete obedience” and “the Holy Father cannot make a mistake .”

As opposed to such a position, I hold that

1) the “New Mass” is a parody of the True Mass, and that, as Cardinal Ottaviani states, it is “both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Counci1 of Trent. (and it) teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the purity of the Catholic religion and dismantles all defenses of the deposit of Faith.”

2) the Second Vatican Council on many issues radically departs from the teachings of previous Ecumenical Councils, and from the teachings on “Faith and Morals” as given in multiple Papal Encyclicals. So much so indeed, that I am forced to concur with the opinion of Cardinal Suenens that it represents “a French Revolution within the Catholic Church.” In so far as Vatican II departs from the traditional teaching of the Church, it represents what Saint Paul would call a “New Gospel” and as such, even if an Angel were to proclaim it, I would reject it.

3) that the Church has never taught that “the Holy Father cannot make a mistake,” and has never taught that we “owe complete obedience” to the Holy Father. On the contrary, it has always taught that if legitimate authority asks us to do something  which is either sinful in itself, or destructive of souls, or destructive of the common good of the Church, we should resist and disobey. The first five pages of my initial letter express the Church's teaching on this issue in some detail and can in no way be summarily dismissed as “not applicable” to the issues under consideration in paragraphs 1 and 2 above.

As to the other points (issues which your respondent has challenged and which I shall respond to) such as whether there are Freemasons in the Church, or whether Archbishop 3Bugnini's writings were ever placed on the Index, these are secondary issues and must not be allowed to cloud our major points of disagreement.

In passing. let me state that if your respondent insists on seeing this as an issue of "disloyalty" rather than of "disobedience," it in no way alters the issues. He defines my disloyalty as my believing "without proof, accusations against the person to whom loyalty is owed." Now, what is the nature of my accusation. It is that the present Pope is responsible for promulgating the Novus Ordo Missae; that he is responsible for the promulgation of the documents of Vatican II which he both corrected and confirmed by his signature; and that, both by his silence and by his approval, he has encouraged a large number of heretics such as Karl Rahner, Bernard Haring , Archbishop Bernadine, Archbishop Haldar Camar (need I enlarge the list) to spread their errors abroad among the faithful. It seems to me that the legal concept of res ipsa loquiter applies directly here.

THE MASS

 
Roman Catholic Mass such as “Tridentine” or Traditional,  providing he admits that the Canon of this Mass (which includes the Words of Consecration) is one that derives either directly or indirectly from the Apostles and Christ. The phrase “of All limes” is however most appropriate, for the Canon of the Mass codified (not invented) by Pope Saint Pius V is probably the most ancient Canon known to the Christian Churches of both the East and West As Sir William Palmer, a non‑Catholic historian has stated:

"There seems nothing unreasonable in thinking that the Roman Liturgy, as used in the time of Gregory the Great (thus referring to the Canon), may nave existed from a period of the most remote antiouity; and perhaps there are nearly as good reasons for referring its origlnal composition to the Apostolic age..."

Pope Innocent III wrote in his letter Cum Marthae circa,~ in 1202 that:

“We believe that the form of the words as is found in the Canon, the Apostles received from Christ, and their successors from them.”

Chapter IV, Session XII of the Council of Trent states:

“or it (the Canon) is composed out of the very words of the Lord, the traditions of the Apostles, and the pious institutions also of holy pontiffs.”

Finally, Father Louis Bouyer (of the Oratory), a Liturgical Modernist who remains in obedience despite the fact that he believes “the present situation in Catholic worship has merely gone the same road as the least traditional and most undisciplined aspect of Protestantism” (The Decomposition of Catholicism) said not to many years ago that:

“The Roman Canon, as it is today,, goes back to Gregory the Great. There ls not, in the East or in the West a Eucharistic prayer remaining in use to this day, that can boast of such antiquity. In the eyes not only of the Ortnodox, but of Anglicans and even those Protestants who have still to some extent, a feeling for tradition, T0 JETTISON IT WOULD BE A REJECTION  0F ANY CLAIM ON THE ROMAN CHURCH TO CHURCH TO REPRESENT THE TRUE CATHOLIC CHURCH “

Now' let us be quite clear. if. these quotes we are talking about the Canon of All Times ‑ that Canon that has been used in the traditional Mass of the Church as far back as history instructs us. We are not talking about the various ersatz canons that appear in the Novus Ordo Missae which, despite the fact that they may contain phrases that date back to early times, are of purely human and recent origin. Let us note further that the traditional Mass, apart from the Canon itself (savoring, as the Council of Trent states, of holiness and piety"), contains almost no prayer that is not, at the time of its codification of ancient and immemorial usage. Thus for example, the use of altars (tombs of the Martyrs) dates 4rom the third century. The Scripture  readings ,were fixed in the fourth century (there being no New Testament before the death of Christ). The Gradual and Introit date fro‑7 the fifth century. Your respondent may not like the term ''Mass of A11 Times " but he cannot deny the words of a competent liturgist such as Adrian Fortesque:

“Essentially the Missal of Pius V is the Gregorian Sacramentary; that again is formed from the Galasian book, which depends on the Leonine collection. We find prayers in our Canon in the treatise de sacramentis and allusions to it in the IVth century. So our Mass goes back, without essential change to the age when it first developed out of the oldest liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that Liturgy, of the days when Caesar ruled the world... The final result of our enquiry is that, in spite of unsolved problems, in spite of later changes, there is not in Christiandom another rite so venerable as ours.”

Perhaps in stead of the phrase A “Mass of All Times,”" your respondent would prefer a somewhat longer qualification such as:

“"That Mass which incorporates the Traditional Canon, known to be unchanged since the time of St. Gregory the Great, and probably in greater part of Apostolic Origin, that Mass that incorporate the Scripture readings as appointed by Pope Saint Damasus I in the fourth century; that Mass to which Pope Saint Celestine added the Gradual and Introit; that Mass which has had the continuous and wondrous praise of the Saints; that Mass that Father Faber said >is the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven,  and that Pope Urban said ;is so divine that if the citizens of heaven had any covetousness in their souls, they would covet it; that Mass by which our forefathers lived and for which they died. That Mass that Saint Alphonse of Liguori said was >the most beautiful and best thing in the Church,  and which he warned us the devil would actually succeed in having abolished; and that Mass that Pope saint Plus V added nothing to and deleted nothing of significance from when he codified and fixed it in perpetuity in his Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum. “

Now, if your correspondent prefers such a description to identify what we are discussing, I concede to him that it is indeed more accurate.  If we are to be so precise, let us also describe the Novus Ordo Missae in similar terms as:

 That 'mass' which was written with the aid of six non‑Catholics, some of them, if not all, did not believe in the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation; that 'mass' which is a skillful blending the services invented by Luther and Cranmer; that 'mass' in which, quote Paul VI himself, “the chief innovation affects the
Eucharistic prayer”; that ‘mass’  that has changed the form of the traditional Words of Consecration, and in the vernacular, by changing the meaning they convey, has changed their subtance. That ‘mass’, the greater part of which is of recent and human origin rather than of Apostolic and divine origin; that mass which your respondent admits “lacks poetry or beauty” in its English translation; that 'mass' that Cardinal Ottaviani says “represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent... (and) teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the purity of the Catholic religion” That ‘mass’ that Lutherans and others can attend without compromising their false beliefs because its wording is ambiguou and does not specifically demand the acceptance of Transubstantiation; and finally, that ‘mass’  in which even Consecration does not occur unless the priest or ‘president’ specifically intends to consecrate or effect Transubstantiation.”

Yes, by all means, let us be accurate about what we mean by the Old Mass and the New 'mass'. You will of course say that I am indulging in more false accusations in this description, but each and every point will be substantiated in what follows.

Further, to call the Traditional Mass (a term I prefer) the “A Mass of Al1 Times” is in no way to denigrate the rites of the Eastern Churches, or those other rites of the Western Church ‑ which indeed I implicitly recognize in Paragraph 9 of my initial letter. I have no objection (apart from the fact that it would be silly) to the New Church asking us to use one of the other venerable rites. It is the Novus Ordo Missae that I object to. These other venerable rites are also forms of the A “Mass of All Times” and indeed, when I cannot attend a "True" Roman Mass, I without hesitation attend an Eastern Rite Catholic Mass.

Moreover, the Quo Primum of Pope Saint Pius V also recognized the validity of other rites. To quote  the document directly:

“This new rite alone is to be used unless approval of the practice of saying Mass differently was given at the very time of the institution and confirmation of the Church by the Apostolic See at least 200 years ago, or unless there has prevailed a custom of a similar kind ,which has been continuously followed for a period of not less than 200 years, in which cases we in no wise rescind their above‑mentioned perogatives or custom.”

If only Paul VI had been so considerate ‑ especially as the Traditional Mass has been a “law” for 400 years, and in its essence a “custom” for almost 2300 years.

Since your respondent specifically raises the issue of the Ambrosian rite which is still in use in Milan, let me inform you that, according to the famous Abbe Gueranger, two attempts have been made “in good and proper form” to abrogate this rite. The refusal of the Milanese to accept these directives from Rome (promulgated during the reigns of Nicholas II (1058) and Eugene IV (1431) was carried to the point of civil “war!” Rome, comments Dom Gueranger, “was forced to recognize the legitimacy of this resistance and to accede to the just demands of the Milanese.” “There is,” he said, “nothing more legitimate than to wish to pray with the same prayers, and to use the same rites as one's fathers did in the same religious faith “ (Institutions Liturgiques). Gueranger may not have the "approval@ of the New Church, but he is one of the favorite spiritual writers of St. Therese of Lisieux, and she was, as Pius X said, “the greatest saint of modern times”.

Let us now consider the evidence that my description of the Novus Ordo Missae as given above is indeed valid.

1) In your response, Page 2, Paragraph 2, you stated that "it is not true that the renewed Order of the Mass was .written by six non‑Catholics. I did not say it was, but rather that “it was written ,with the aid of six non‑Catholics.” The evidence for this well known m fact is to be found in La Documentation. Catholique of May 3, 1970 where there is a photograph of Paul VI with the six individuals named in my original letter. This same source gives the quotation where the Pope thanks these individuals for “re-editing in a new manner liturgical texts tried and tested by long usage or established formulas which are completely new...[thus] imparting greater theological value to the liturgical texts so that the lex orandi conformed better with the lex credendi.” Such a statement certainly implies that either the lex credendi has changed, or that the liturgical texts prior to 1969 did not possess that degree of theological value which was desirable!

2) With regard to my statement that the Novus Ordo is a skillful blending of the services invented by Luther and Cranmer, I shall make several points which both prove my contention and at the same time answer issues raised by your respondent.

A) You state in paragraph 4, page 3, that “the Second Eucharistic Prayer is based essentially on the 3rd century Eucharistic Prayer attributed to Hippolytus.” This is an excellent example of suggestio falsi and supressio veri such as we are constantly being inundated with by the New Church. Let us compare the two prayers:

....................HIPPOLYTUS’ PRAYER                      FORM IN NOVUS ORDO

“We give you thanks, O God,                                   “Father, it is our duty and our
through your beloved Son,                                          Salvation always and everywhere
Jesus Christ, whom in these                                        to give you thanks through your
days you have sent to save and                                   Beloved Son, Jesus Christ. He is
redeem us, and to show us                                          The Word through whom you made the
your will. He is your Word,                                        Universe, the savior you sent to 
inseparable from you, through                                    Redeem us. By the power of the
whom everything was made. In                                  Holy Spirit, He took flesh and was
your goodness, you sent him                                       Born of the Virgin Mary. For our
from heaven to be a virgin’s                                        Sake he opened his arms on the
son., Conceived in her womb                                         Cross; he put an end to death and
he took flesh and was revealed                                       revealed the resurrection. In this
as your Son, born of the Virgin                                      He fulfilled your will and won for 
and the Holy Spirit.                                                         A holy people. And so we join
In carrying out your will, and                                         We join the angels and the saints in
forming for you a h9oly people,                                      Proclaiming your glory as we say,
he stretched out his hands as                                           Holy, Holy, Holy Lord...Lord, yhou
he suffered, to free from suffering                                  Are Holy indeed, the fountain of all
those who had faith in you. When                                   All holiness. Let your spirit come
he allowed himself to be given up                                    Upon these gifts to make them holy,
to suffer, so that he could                                                 So that they may become for us the
conquer death and break the bonds                                  The body and blood of our Lord Jesus 
of sin in crushing the power of                                        Christ. Before he was given up to

hell. And so lead the just to the........................................death, a death he freely accepted,
light, make a covenant with them                                     He took bread and gave you thanks.,
And manifest the resurrection, he                                     He broke the bread, gave it to his
took bread and giving thanks to you said...”                     Disciples, and said....”

Now, while it has nothing to do with the authenticity and/or validity of Hippolytus' form, let us note that, as Jungmann does, “Hippolylus allowed himself to be chosen by his followers as an anti‑Pope.” Jungmann also notes that from the fact that he subsequently was martyred for the faith, "we may rightly conclude that before his death, he returned to the unity of the Church" (The early liturgy). Father John Barry Ryan, a liturgical modernist, frankly calls Hippolylus a “schismatic,” and also notes that while Hippolylus' prayer was a “model,” that what is now used in Anaphora II is “a new creation.” It is further pertinent that as Ryan points out, it was Hans Kung that first suggested the use of this prayer, though in a modified form of course. From what healthy roots this “vine” has sprung!

You will of course claim that the changes are “minor.” Minor though they be, they are precisely those changes that bring the prayer into line with Anglican theology. I will only call passing attention to the deletion of such phrases as “breaking the bonds of sin and crushing the power of hell.” What is particularly offensive is the addition of the words for us. In Cranmer's first edition of the Book of Prayer, he prefaced the words of institution with this phrase: “Hear us, O merciful Father, we beseech thee; and with thy Holy Spirit and Word vouchsafe to bless and sanctify these thy gifts and creation of bread and wine that they may be made unto us the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved son, Jesus Christ.” This formula was attacked on the grounds that it was capable of being construed as effecting transubstantiation! To this Cranmer indignantly replied: “We do not pray absolutely that the bread and wine may be made the body and blood of Christ, but that unto us in that holy mystery they may be made so; that is to say, that we may so worthily receive the same that we may be partakers of Christ's body and blood, and that therefore in spirit and in truth we may be spiritually nourished.” (Truly, as the Anglican theologian T.M. Parker said, the Anglican 'mass' was “an ingenious essay in ambiguity.”) It is of course true that in the traditional Roman Canon the phrase nobis is to be found. The Quam Oblationem states: “be pleased to make this same offering wholly blessed, to consecrate it and approve it, making it reasonable and acceptable so that it may become for us the Body and Blood...” But the sense is here unequivocal, for the Transubstantiation has been prepared for by the magnificent Te igitur, Momento Domine and Hanc Igitur..However, in Cranmer’s second book of prayer, and in the Novus Ordo’s Anaphora II these Prayers are omitted. Thus we now follow in the new “mass” Cranmer's sense with exactitude. For the consecration there is no preparation whatsoever. After the Benedictus, the celebrant merely says “"You are truly holy, Lord, the font of all holiness”" and then immediately prays that “"these gifts may be made for us (words not in the original Hippolytus prayer ‑ and why in the world would any one insert them but to conform to Anglican theology) the Body and Blood “" In the Roman Canon it is quite impossible to understand “nobis” in the Cranmerian sense, in Anaphora II it is almost impossible to misunderstand “for us” in any other way.. What makes it even more offensive is that the instruction of the Concilium orders us to make this ersatz Canon, Anaphora II the one in ordinary use, and further' indicates that it is the one to be utilized for the catechetical instruction of the youth in the nature of the Eucharistic Prayer.

b) You state on Page 3, Paragraph 5 that “the central concept of thanksgiving was introduced by Jesus himself at the last supper; the word Eucharist' is simply the Greek word for thanksgiving, and has been used by the Church for centuries.” Now I concur that the “central concept of thanksgiving” was Christic in origin, but I do not concur that the concept of thanksgiving was central to the institution of  the Mass. May I add that your respondent's words which I quote above reek with that very ambiguity that is typical of the Novus_Ordo Missae. There is nothing in the statement that I can say is erroneous, but the impression it leaves is clearly  heretical. As the Third Canon of the IXth chapter of the Council of Trent states, “If anyone saith that the sacrifice of the Mass is only a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving... let him be anathema!” The Mass is much more than a thanksgiving, and while we thank God for the Eucharist, the Eucharist itself is the Body of Christ. Of course, you are aware that both the Anglican and Lutheran theologians deny the “sacrificial” nature of the Mass as Catholics should understand it. Indeed, their phraseology is replete with such phrases which are intentionally ambiguous and misleading ‑ such as “the Sacrifice of thanksgiving and praise.” The pattern of using Protestant phraseology is constant in the Novus Ordo ‑ especially in the “ICLL” translations (which have official Church approval). Thus the Quam Oblationem which immediately precedes the Consecration in two (of the four) new and ersatz canons should read “do thou, O God, deign to bless what we offer, and make it approved, effective, right and ‑wholly pleasing in every way...” is now translated as “make it truly spiritual and acceptable,” or as “make it acceptable to you, an offering in spirit and in truth.” Apart from the fact that these are mistranslations (by modern scholars yet!), there is nothing per se wrong ,`with such phrases as truly spiritual and in spirit and in truth except that in the historical context of the Reformation they become a serious affront to the Divine Majesty. Wycliffe, Ridley, Coverdale, Cranmer, Latimer, Grindall, Tewell, Beacon and the Book of Common Prayer all use this phrase “spiritual” precisely to deny, and with the full intent of denying, the Transubstantiation. To quote Cranmer directly: “Therefore... ‑.we do not pray absolutely that the bread and win may be made the body and blood of Christ, but... that therewith in spirit and in truth we may be spiritually nourished.” Similarly, in the newer canon, the phrase and praise is gratuitously added to the statement.  There is no such phrase in the original Latin, and it is derived from the statement of Luther that “the Mass may be called a sacrifice, if it be understood as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, not a work, nor propitiatory” (De Use. Sacram Euch. Salutari.), Now, any single one of these “innovations” might pass unnoticed or be “innocent,” but all of them taken together force on us the conclusion that someone is intentionally attempting (or more exactly succeeding), in Protestantizing the Mass
c) You may think this an excessive accusation. Let me quote you from Father Grisar's famous study. Luther described the Mass of' All Times as an “abomination and as a false blasphemous cult,” and instructed the rulers under his influence “attack the idolaters” and to suppress their worship as much as possible. Despite this pejorative attitude, the Lutheran service to this day retains many similarities with our Traditional Mass, and in Scandanavian countries is still called the “mass”. As Grisar said, “one who entered the parish church at Wittenberg after Luther's victory, discovered that the same vestments were used for the divine service as of yore and heard the same old Latin hymns. The host was elevated and exhibited at the consecration. In the eyes of the people it was the same Mass as before, except that Luther omitted all prayers which represented the sacred function as a sacrifice. The people were intentionally kept in the dark on this point. We cannot draw the common people away from the Sacrament, and it will probably be thus until the gospel is well understood” said Luther. The rite of celebration of the Mass he explained as “a merely external thing” and he further stated that “the damnable words referring to the sacrifice could be omitted all the more readily, since the ordinary Christian would not notice the omission and hence there was no danger of scandal.. The words in question, especially those of the Canon, are pronounced almost inaudibly in the popish Church.” Now, the actual Lutheran service is based on Luther’s prayer book as published in 1523 and 1526. He retained the first part of the Mass, but dropped the Offertory. He also dropped the Canon and the references to the sacrificial nature of the rite. He retained the Collect and the Epistle and Gospel readings ‑ though he added a third reading. The Creed is retained and followed by a sermon which is the principle part of the service. The vestments and lighted candles are still used, though the use of Latin and the elevation of the host have been dropped. For Luther the Mass was “a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” but in no way an expiatory sacrifice renewing and effecting the sacrifice of the Cross. Transubstantiation is specifically denied (though not within the service). Not only did he drop much of the Canon, but he markedly altered the words of consecration. He added the phrase “quod pro vobis tradetur” (as does the Novus Ordo) because he felt this made the “narrative” aspect more explicit. He dropped the Mysterium fidei and the words pro multis. He specifically considered that what remained was part of the narrative of the Lord's Supper. He further designated the service as the A “liturgy of the Word.” As far as Luther was concerned, the bread remained bread, and to quote his disciple Melanchton, “Christ instituted the Eucharist as a remberance of his passion, and it is idolatry to adore the Host.”  He also instituted communion in both species, the distribution of communion by lay men and women, the use of ordinary bread for the service, the use of vessels made of any substance, the suppression of the altar stone and the use of a table covered with a single piece of cloth, the need for the “priest” to face the people, the leaving of the host on the paten rather than or the corporal, all of which changes denoted his doctrinal refusal to accept the Mass as a true sacrifice and to accept the act of consecration as effecting transubstantiation.

d) When we come to the English reformers, more circumspection was used for the architects of the Anglican reform wished “'to avoid all matters of further contention and strife.” The English Catholics resisted the introduction of the “Christmas game” much more vigorously as is shown by the many martyrs that died rather than give up their Mass. Indeed foreign mercenaries were brought in to slaughter the English Catholics who resisted and priests who persisted in saying the Mass of all Times were hung, fully vested, from their Church steeples. What glorious blood was shed! The first Book of Prayer could not of course be convicted of overt heresy and its production was described by T. M. Parker, as we have said above, as “an ingenious essay in ambiguity,” purposely worded in such a manner that the more conservative could place their own construction upon it and reconcile their conscience to attending it, while  the Reformers could interpret it in their own sense and could recognize in it an instrument for furthering the next stage of the religious revolution. Thus we find many similar changes In the Anglican service (there was of course correspondence between the English and the European reformers), that are now part of the Novus Ordo Missae. Thus Cranmer also added the “quod pro vobis tradetur” which while it may be found in certain Eastern liturgies, is easily interpreted in the sense of the Mass being a “memorial.” He dropped the Mysterium fidei and translated the benedixit (“He blessed...” - far to suggestive of the Transubstantiation) as “giving thanks.” He introduced the “epiclesis” which concept is specifically denied as a necessity in the True Roman Mass. Let us note that in Anaphoras I, II, and III of the Novus Ordo benedixit is also translated as “giving thanks and praise..” while in Anaphora IV it is translated “after blessing...” as if Christ said “grace” before the meal!

e) In view of what we have said above, I find it quite extraordinary that your respondent should in Paragraph 6 of Page 3 state that “the consecratory prayers in each Eucharistic Prayer clearly refer to the sacrifice of Christ – ‘given up’ for you... the new alliance or testament “ You are of course referring to the phrase that both Luther and Cranmer added to the Words of Consecration as part of their intent of destroying the sacrificial nature of the Mass ‑ namely the phrase “quod pro vobis tradetur.” Assuming that your respondent's statement is made in good faith, this becomes prima facie evidence of the ambiguity of the Novus Ordo Missae. One can obviously read into it almost anything one desires.

f) With regard to Mother Theresa's statement that “a few external movements and words added or cut off do not touch the Mass or change it,” you state in Paragraph 7, page 3 that I contradict myself. Despite my re‑reading the passage in question I do not see that this is so. Even if the changes made in the Mass only involved a few words added or deleted, let us remember the words of Pope Leo XIII:

“Nothing is more dangerous than the heretics who, while conserving intact almost all the remainder of the Church's teaching intact, corrupt WITH A SINGLE WORD, like a drop of poison, the purity and the simplicity of the faith which we have received through tradition from God and through the Apostles.”

						Satis Cognitum

But let me assure you, the changes are not a matter of a few words here and there. let us consider just what these “few” changes are:

The Novus Ordo has abolished the Offertory, one of the Principal parts of the Traditional Mass. The Suscipe Sancte Pater the Deus Humanae, the Offerinus Tibi, the Veni Sancticator, the lavabo )(Ps.25, and the Suscipe Sancta are all gone Turn to your old Missal and read these prayers. Note how many concepts that the New Church finds objectionable are clearly proclaimed .within them. Only the Orate Fratres with the Suscipiat have been retained.
0f course, all the prayers said at the foot of the altar (now a table), ‑the Aufer a Nobis, the Munda Cor Meum and the Dominus Sit are gone. As to the Canon, if the “president” chooses not to use the “Eucaristic Prayer Number One” (which is falsely claimed to be the old Roman Canon), the following six prayers before the questionable Consecration are dropped: the Te igitur, Memento Domine, Communicantes, Hanc Igitur, Quam Oblationem and the Qui Pridie. After the consecration, the following seven prayers are dropped, the Unde et quoque Peccatorius, the Supro cuae Propitio, Supplices Te Rgamus Memento Etiam, Nobis quoque Peccatoribus, the Per Quem haec Omnia and the Per Ipsum. As if this were not enough, the following prayers that used to follow the Pater Noster are also dropped, the Liber Nos, Nanem Coelestem, Quid Retribuam, the second Confiteor and its Absolution (which absolution was also dropped at the start of Mass). The Domine non sum dignus of the priest are fused. Also deleted are the Corpus Domini, the Quod Ore, the Corpus Tuum, the Placeat Tibi and the Last Gospel.

Not mentioned in this list are the changes made in the prayers that are retained (such as have been discussed above in earlier paragraphs), and the changes made in the Words of Consecration. Nor do I include the many genuflections, the many signs of the cross and the numerous Versicles that have been deleted. Clearly, if only on the basis of the above list, somewhere between 70 to 80 percent of the Traditional Mass has been done away with. I find it hard to accept the statement of the Pope, a statement that you echo – “Let everyone understand well that nothing has been changed in the essence of our traditional Mass...”

3) Your respondent states that “it is simply not true as it stands that Lutherans and others find nothing they object to theologically in the new order.”Let me inform you that at the Superior Consistory of the Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine, on December 8, 1973, the Protestants publically acknowledged their willingness to take part in “the Catholic eucharistic celebration,” because it allowed them to “use these new eucharistic prayers with which they felt at home.” And why did they feel at home with them? :Because they had “the advantage of: giving a different interpretation to the theology of the Sacrifice than they (the Protestants) were accustomed to attribute to Catholicism.” Further, all the Protestants that assisted in writing the Novus Ordo Missae (including one who was a member of the World Council of Churches) use the New ‘mass’ ‑ indeed the community of Taize (Lutheran) use it most of the time and Brother ‑ Thurian has stated that “one of the fruits of the Novus Ordo Missae will perhaps be that non‑Catholic communities will be able to celebrate the Lord's supper with the same prayers that the Catholic Church uses: theologically it is possible”(la Croix: 30‑5‑1969), The Anglicans have certainly declared their willingness it at the highest level. The Pope and Archbishop Ramsey (Primate of the Anglican Church), have concelebrated the New ‘mass’ together in the Vatican, after which the Pope took off his pastoral ring, placed it on Ramsey's hand, and requested Ramsey to bless the Catholic faithful. Archbishop Ramsey turned to Bernard Haring and asked him what the Pope meant by such an act. Haring (who told this story in public ‑ and the acts are confirmed elsewhere) told Ramsey that it meant that the Pope recognized that he the Anglican primate ‑ was a properly consecrated Bishop. Haring went on to tell us that all Anglican priests, and all Lutheran priests in Europe are truly ordained (in the sense that Catholics understand the term) because their “orders” had been conferred by Bishops. Alas, the American Lutheran pastors ‑ not having Bishops ‑ he felt were not truly ordained.

Now, let us have no doubts about where Archbishop Ramsey stands theologically, As an Anglican, and certainly as the highest ranking Anglican, he has sworn to uphold the 39 articles of the Anglican persuasion. The thirdly first of these describes the Mass as understood by the Council of Trent as a “blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit.” Moreover, in the preamble to the 39 articles it states:

 “no man hereafter shall either print, or preach, to draw the article aside in any way, but shall submit to it in the plain sense and full meaning thereof: and shall not put his own sense or comment to the meaning of the .article, but shall take it in the literal and grammatical sense.”

Now, you may find all this a charming example of Ecumenism, and a thrust towards that “unity” of the Church that is so much spoken of in these days. I find it plain and simple Sacrilege. You may change your canon laws all you want. You may tell us that “the approval of the Second Vatican Council” of certain changes in our relationship with separated brethren automatically revoked any contrary provisions in Canon Law; as your respondent does in Paragraph 1, Page 5, But you cannot change the words of the Apostle who said:

“"Bear not the yoke with unbelievers... Of what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever?”

                                                                       II Cor. 6:14

4)Your respondent attempts a weak defense of “innovation” on Page 3 paragraph 2. He implies that the introduction of Latin in the third century was “an innovation which crept in,” and further states that “the changes introduced by Saint Pius V in proscribing some rites which from time immemorial had been used in the celebration of the Mass” was an “innovation.”.

First of all let me state that in spiritual matters “innovation” is always to be condemned. I challenge you or him to find me one saint, one doctor of the Church, or even one Pope prior to the present “Post‑conciliar” period that has ever spoken in favor of innovation.. You will find that they all concur with St. Vincent of Lerins who said “the more a man is in religion, the more he will hate innovations.”

As to Pope Saint Pius V, what changes did he introduce into the Traditional Mass? He didn't change it, he codified it. Moreover he did not proscribe  rites which had been of immemorial usage and specifically excepted them. Let me quote from the document Quo Primum:

“"This new rite alone is to be used unless approval of the practice of saying Mass differently was given at the very time of the institution and confirmation of the Church by the Apostolic See at least 200 years ago, or unless there has prevailed a custom of a similar kind which has been continuously followed for a period of not less than 200 years, in which cases we in no wise rescind their above‑mentioned prerogatives or custom.”

The spread of Latin throughout the West in the third century as a liturgical language is well known, but there is nothing to say that it wasn't used locally prior to that time. St. Paul spoke it well and may well have used it to say Mass in Rome. Moreover, as St. Hilary of Poitiers has noted, Latin was one of the three languages used to inscribe the title placed over Our Lord's Cross, a fact that he felt indicated its pre‑eminence (along with Greek and Syriac) as a liturgical language. Apart from the fact that translation of sacred texts does not in and of itself imply “innovation,” these other facts would preclude the possibility. In passing let me add that the modernist argument that these languages were chosen for liturgical use because they were spoken is patently false. Spoken they were, but not by all the Germans, Celts, Egyptians, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, MesoPotamians, Armenians and others among whom the faith, according to St. Iranaeus and Tertullian, rapidly spread. And indeed, if they were spoken by all, there would have been no need for the Holy Spirit to confer upon the Apostles the “gift of tongues.”

Actually one of the prime reasons for the Church retaining Latin was precisely to avoid the possibility of “innovation.” Translation while it does not necessarily imply innovation., is very prone to leave the door open to it. By retaining Latin not only was the “unity” of the Church  promoted, but further, as Joseph de Maistre said, “the language of religion was kept out of the domain of man.”(Du Pape), When the meaning of a phrase was doubtful one could always refer back to the original Latin and to the commentaries of the Church Fathers. Needless to say there are no commentaries by the Church Fathers on the Novus Ord Missae

Father O'Leary and others have implied that what some of the faithful want is a “Latin Mass”.While it is admittedly true that some have referred to the Traditional Mass as a Latin Mass, the issue of language is clearly secondary. Certainly the Novus Ordo Missae in Latin is far less offensive than it is in the vernacular (and in every one of the vernacular translations ‑ French German and English ‑ that I have seen the same errors are incorporated. It nevertheless, in Latin, “teems with innovations” as Cardinal Ottaviani states, and is, for all the reasons given in the previous paragraphs, quite unacceptable. While the faithful may be described as “sheep” this does not imply that they are therefore stupid. A “sop” of vinegar will be no less bitter for the fact that it s called “acetum.” It is the Novus Ordo itself that one objects to and if we are to escape the “fumes of Satan” which even the Pope admits are fouling up the Church, than we must start by returning to the Mass of All Times. It has served us well for almost 2000 years while the New 'mass' in 15 years has done nothing but create controversy and bitterness.

5) Your respondent states on Page 3, Paragraph 3 that the “innovations of renewed texts is a return to the earlier discipline existing for centuries prior to the reform of Trent.”   such a statement is clearly false. First of all, apart from the Hippolytus prayer we have already discussed, I challenge you to show me one placewhere the .Mass has returned to an “earlier existing discipline.” In view of the quotation given on page 3, this would be almost impossible. You could perhaps point to the prayer “B1essed are you O lord, God of all creation...” but as Jungmann says, this is a “reconstructed” prayer and he never gives the source. I suspect the source is the Jewish grace before meals which to this day they use ‑ and how appropriate if the ‘mass’ is now a meal. There are no ancient prayers in the Novus Ordo Missae, and if the texts are drawn from any source it is that of the Lutheran and Anglican reform as has been amply; demonstrated. The only ancient prayers in Novus Ordo are those  which were retained from the Mass of All Times ‑ and often precisely those that Luther and Cranmer retained because they were not offensive to Protestant theology.

Further, if modern man has progressed since Apostolic times ‑ if “the human intellect is also broadening its dominion over time...” and if it is necessary “to marry the princip1es of the Church with the conceptions of modern man...” as Vatican II teaches, then how can the primitive practice of the Church possibly be relevant in this day and age. Inconsistency is of course one of the characteristics of the modernist outlook. Clearly another tact is needed and hence we have the process of “"accommodating the Roman Missal to contemporary mentality” as Paul VI states in his Apostolic Constitution. What does all this double‑talk really mean? It means that the Traditional Liturgy can be attacked at both ends. What is surprising is that anything at all is left in the middle.

Finally let me say that the claim on the part of those who would champion the Novus Ordo Missae that it is a  return to “primitive practice” is sheer hypocrisy.  It is we who have retained the most primitive practices historically known in the Western Church. The amount of material discovered since the Council of Trent that relates to early liturgical practice is truly sparse, and apart from the Hippolytus Canon we have discussed above, there is not one prayer in the Novus Ordo that can be shown to have been derived from such ancient documents.

6) Your respondent states on Page 4, Paragraph 1 that “there is no record in Scripture or tradition of our Lord saving Amvsterium fidei”  I agree with him and indeed this is why not all the forms of the Words of Consecration contain them. It is traditionally said that the Apostle added these words. Remember however that the Christian Revelation came to us from Christ and the Apostles. It was entirely within their function for them to add this phrase, and if the Apostles saw fit to place it there, surely the architects of the Novus Ordo Missae would be wise to have some trepidation about deleting them. Remember also that that addition of this phrase in no way changed the meaning of Christ’s Words, but rather tended to emphasize them. Luther also removed this phrase from his service because it tended to emphasize the “mystery” of the transubstantiation which he denied. After all, there is really not much of a mystery about celebrating a “memorial” of the Lord’s Supper unless a true sacrifice occurs ‑ I don’t mean a “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” but the recurring Sacrifice of Calvary.

I am of course aware that the phrase myeterium fidei is proclaimed later in the New 'mass' ‑ in the form of a “memorial Acclamation.” And let us listen to this “Acclamation” “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again!” Not only does such am acclamation in no way suggest the Transubstantiation ‑ it actually suggests that no Transubstantiation has occurred. To state that Christ will come again when he is actually (or at least supposedly) on the altar (or table) is indeed a strange way to proclaim our faith!

7) You state on Page 4' paragraph 3 that “the consecratory prayers have been narrative in fact in the rite of St. Pius V.” You state in the same paragraph that in the Novus Ordo Missae the words are “not narrative, but invocatory.” Such statements are almost text‑book examples of suggestio falsi and supressio veri, and make it very difficult for me to consider your letter as other than a contemptuous attempt to dismiss the issues I raise.

In the Traditional Mass there is of course a “narrative” element, but it is clearly secondary. As to the Words of Consecration, let us listen to St. Thomas Aquinas

“The consecration is accomplished by the words and expressions of the Lord Jesus. Because, by all the other words spoken, praise is rendered to God, prayer is put up for the people, for kings, and others; but when the time comes for Perfecting the Sacrament, the priest uses no longer his own words, but the words of Christ. Therefore, it is Christ's words that perfect this sacrament.”

Indeed, to say the Words of Consecration as part of a narrative clearly invalidates the Mass (both the Traditional and any other).

“the Words of Consecration have to be said not merely as an historica1 narrative of words used once by our Lord - as the Celebrant recites them, e.g., in the accounts of the 1ast Supper, which are read in the Mass in Holy Week, or on the Feast of Corpus Christi ‑ but as a present affirmation by the priest s‑peaking in the person of Christ, and intending to effect something, here and now, by the pronouncing of these words..”

	Rev. J O'Connell, The Celebration of Mass

On the contrary, in the Novus Ordo Missae all the Words of Consecration (if such they be) are part of “The Institution of the Narration.” Not only are some of Luther's changes incorporated ‑ changes he made to stress the narrative aspect ‑ but the entire setting is one in. which, unless the ‘president’ makes a positive intention to the contrary ‑ a narrative is implied. I am not sure what exactly is meant by “invocatory” though one must admit that all prayer has an “invocatory” aspect. In the context of our present discussion this invocatory aspect proves nothing.

8) This leads us to consider another very important aspect of the problem. In the Novus Ordo Missae, as Father Howard Morrison and the Editorial staff of The Wanderer (a conservative New Church Catholic Newspaper ,with wide circulation in America) admit, even when said according to the wish of the present Pontiff, no consecration occurs if the proper intention is lacking on the part of the “president” Of course, in the Tradition Mass it was also possible for the priest to positively intend not to consecrate and to thus invalidate the confection of the sacred Species. However, in saying the rite correctly he assumed the proper intention automatically, and thus, even though he were to be an atheist, the valid of the Mass could be presumed. As long as the priest didn't specifically intend not to consecrate, no problem arose, and should such have been his intention he committed a clear act of sacrilege.

In the Novus Ordo Missae, the wording of the rite no longer automatically supplies this intention. Indeed, it is necessary for the 'president' to specifically intend to consecrate for the sacred Species to be effected. It follows, as The Wanderer admits, that one must positively ascertain n
each and every case that the priest has a truly Catholic if one is to consider his action as "valid " If the priest is a modernist or an atheist, one must presume that consecration has not occurred. ("The Wanderer," St. Paul, Minn., U.S.A. June 16, 1977)

Thus it follows, as the Ottaviani Intervention states, that:

“The words of consecration, as they appear in the context of the ANovus Ordo@ (in Latin) may be valid according to the intention of the ministering priest. But they may not be,‑ for they are so no longer ex vi verborum (by the force of the words used) or more precisely, in virtue of the modus significandi (way of signifying) which they have had till now in the mass.”

It follows that, if the above is true, and if Father Andrew Greeley (Priests in the United States) is correct in his statement that 46 percent the Bishops and 69 percent of the priests in the Post-conciliar Church consider that their faith “is primarily an encounter with God and Jesus Christ rather than an assent to a coherent set of defined truths,” (Can any Catholic admit such a statement?), and if one considers the kind of theology taught to our seminarians in places other than Econe, and if one considers the writings of the most influential theologians on this issue, if  one accepts the “description” of the Mass as given in Paul VI's Apostolic Constitution, and if one understands the Novus Ordo Missae as a narrative, then one can surely ask, as did the Ottaviani Intervention, if priests who “have not had the traditional training and ;who rely on the Novus Ordo in order to ‘do what the Church does,’ make a valid consecration?” Surely, as this document states, “one may be permitted to doubt it.”

We all know that the faithful “pick and choose” which priest's ‘mass’ they attend. Unfortunately the “host” that one receives is not necessarily one that the celebrating priest consecrates. What is even more frightening is that, should one by lying on one's death bed, one could easily receive a “Wafer” that, as Father Morrison says, (op.cit. could as appropriately be used to replace “the filter of a pot‑smoker's pipe.” But you assure me “nothing has changed in the essence of our Traditional mass...” Perhaps you have not heard the Protestant quip to the effect that “in the old Church nothing changed but the bread and the wine; in the new Church everything changes but the bread and the wine.” Hyperbole, yes, but not without a strong element of truth.

9) Your respondent on Page 4, Paragraph 4 objects to my calling Paragraph of the Novus Ordo Missae a “definition.” You may recall that this is the paragraph VI gives “The General Structure of the Mass as: “The Lord's Supper is the assembly or gathering together of the people of God, with a priest president, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord. For this reason the promise of Christ is particularly true of a local congregation of the Church: ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst’”

Whether one wishes to see this statement as a “definition” or as a “description,” its implications are false. Perhaps one should read further in the same document in order to understand the Catholic doctrine. Let us quote other passages. “The mass is the culminating action by which God in Christ sanctifies the world and men adore the Father...” or again, “the Eucharistic celebration, in which the priest acts for the salvation of the people....” Neither of these seem of much help. Going on again in the same document – “the Eucharistic prayer, a prayer of thanksgiving and sanctification is the center of the entire celebration,” and “when He instituted the paschal sacrifice and meal, he handed it over to his disciples for them to do it in his memory.” I admit that there are allusions in the document that can be interpreted was indicative of the traditional view, but as Cardinal Ottaviani states “by a series of equivocations the emphasis is obsessivelv placed‑upon the “Asupper”" and the “memorial” instead of on the unbloody renewal of the “Sacrifice of Calvary,”@ and “the Real Presence of Christ is never alluded to and belief in it is implicitly repudiated.” One is reminded of the words of Cranmer:

“Christ is present whensoever the Church prayeth unto Him, and is gathered together in His name. And the bread and wine be made unto us the body and blood of Christ, but not by changing the substance of the bread and wine into the natural substance of Christ's natural body and blood, but that in the godly using of them they may be unto the recelver Christ's body and blood...”

                                              The Works Of Cranmer. Vol. 1

I think it fair to say that should a Moslem or a Hindu read the Novus Ordo Missae, :without other sources, he would never come away with a “Catholic” understanding of the Mass. And will it be otherwise for a generation of nominal Catholics not reared within the Tradition?

10) Your respondent says that the Council of Trent “did not condemn all that Luther taught, else it would or example be condemning that God created the world or that Jesus was truly God.” Please understand that I do not condemn the Novus Qrdo Missae because the Lutherans and Anglicans like it, or find its theology acceptable, but because the Mass was changed precisely in order that they might like it and find it acceptable. The Novus Ordo Missae is to be condemned because IT IS NOT CATHOLIC, because as the Ottaviani Intervention states:

“the three ends of the Mass are altered; no distinction is allowed to remain between Divine and human sacrifice; bread and wine are only Aspiritually@ (not substantially) changed.”

It is of course quite true that Luther and others have been correct on certain doctrinal points such as the fact that God created the world. If one is to accept the opinions of every heretic that admits that God created the world, or that two and two are four (another truth), then who would we ever proscribe? The fact remains that from a theological viewpoint ‑ and this is the only viewpoint at issue here ‑ Luther is identified with the Lutheran heresy. We are not discussing his lovely Christmas carol, but his abominable view of the Catholic Mass.

11) I have said in my description of the New ‘mass’ that it is a ‘mass’ in which the form of the traditional words of consecration are changed, and in which, in the vernacular, by a change in meaning, the substance is also changed.

The “form” is the sequence of specific, determinate words pronounced by the minister of the sacrament. Of course the form has no power in itself to give grace. This power depends solely on the will of God, Who has made the grace promised depend on the use on certain things (the “matter” ‑ wine and bread) and words, so that if these are altered in their
essence the sacrament is altogether absent. (Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary).

It is well known that the Holy Eucharist was instituted in specie, a teaching no serious theologian has ever denied. To quote the Catholic Encyclopedia:

“Christ determined what special graces were to be conferred by means of external rites: for some sacraments (e.g. Baptism, the Eucharist) He determined minutely (in specie) the matter ana form: for others He determined only in a general way (in genere) that there should be an external ceremony, by which special graces were to be conferred, leaving to the Apostles or to the Church the power to determine whatever He had not determined ‑ e.g. to prescribe the matter and form of the Sacraments of Confirmation and of Holy Orders.”

The form of the Sacrament has been fixed by tradition since Apostolic times. It has been canonically fixed since the so‑called “Armenian Decree” of the Council of Florence (1438‑1445). The Council of Trent in a solemn decree guaranteed the authenticity of the sacramental forms laid down in the then to be written Catechism ‑ as it says is Session XXIV, Chapter 7: “the form will be prescribed for each of the sacraments by the Holy Council in a catechism, which the bishops shall have faithfully translated into the language of the people...”

The Catechism in turn states:

“with regard to the consecration of the wine it is necessary... that the priest know and understand well its form. We are, then, firmly to believe that it consists in the following words:

FOR THIS IS THE CHALICE OF MY BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL TESTAMENT, THE MYSTERY OF FAITH, WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU AND FOR MANY UNTO THE REMISSION OF SINS... of this form no one can doubt.”

No one can doubt but that the New Church has gone against tradition as well as the decrees of the Ecumenical‑Councils in changing the form of the sacrament. It is not a matter of debate as to whether she has the right to do so.

“The Church is forbidden to change, or even touch, the matter or form of any sacrament. She may indeed change or abolish or introduce something in the nonessential rites or ‘ceremonial’ parts used in the administration of the sacraments, such as processions, prayers or hymns before or after the actual words of the form are recited...”
                                                Pope Leo XIII,  Apostolicae Curae

You will of course argue that such an opinion, or for that matter, the form itself, has not been the subject of a de fide definition, and that therefore the Church has the right. While I am not sure tnat this is so, I shall concede the point for now. When however we come to the substance of the Sacrament , no debate is possible. The Substance of a sacrament is said to consist in those elements which are absolutely necessary in order for the sacrament to be effective. Quite clearly the statement "This is My Body, This is My Blood" are substantial and cannot be deleted. Now the Church has never absolutely defined what words are essential to the sacrament and hence theologians have debated the issue throughout the ages. S t. Thomas Aquinas and the greater majority of theologians before the 20th century clalm that all the words belong to the Asubstance of the Sacrament. 

“It is well known that to the Church there belongs no right whatsoever to innovate anything touching on the substance of the sacraments.”

                                                    Pope Saint Pius X, Ex quo nono

“AIt (the Council of Trent) declares furthermore that this power has always been in the Church, that in the administration of the sacraments, without violating their substance, she may determine or change, whatever she may judge to be more expedient for the benefit of those who receive them...”@

                                                       Session XXI, Chap. 2

“As the Council of Trent teaches, the seven sacraments of the New law have all been instituted by Jesus Christ, our Lord, and the Church has no power over the 'substance of the sacraments,' that is, over those things which, with the sources of divine revelation as witnesses, Christ the Lord Himself decreed to be preserved in a sacramental sign.”
                                                                           Pius XII, Sacramentum Ordinis

In the Novus Ordo Missae, when said in Latin, no one can absolutely state that the substance of the formula has been altered. The phrases that have been added or removed do not clearly change the meaning of the words. In the vernacular however, the meaning is altered and hence the substance is attacked.

“it is clear, if any substantial part of the sacramental form is suppressed, that the essential sense of the words is destroyed; and consequently the sacrament is invalid.”
                                             St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa III, Q6C, art. 8

“"if anyone omits or changes anything in the form of the consecration of the Body and Blood; and in this change of words, do not mean the same thing, then he does not effect the Sacrament.”

                                                             De Defectibus, Missa. Rom.

Had the Post‑conciliar Church simply deleted the phrase “for you and for many,” as Luther did, this argument might not hold. She could have argued along the lines of St. Bonaventura and Cajetan that these words were not substantial.  However, the New Church chose to include them and to change “for many” to “for all”, thus clearly changing the meaning of the sacramental formula, or as the theologians would say, making the formula “signify falsely”. (Make no mistake, the Pope fully approves of this mistranslation because when he says 'mass' in Italian, he uses the phrase 'per tutti'.)

You can of course argue that there is no essential difference in meaning between “many” and “all,” but then you must explain why the Post‑conciliar persists in the face of continued criticism on this point in demanding that we accept this mistranslation.

If any doubt remains about the New Church's intention, or about the fact that the change is substantia1, one has but to review the teachings of the Catechism of the Council of Trent and of the Doctors of the Church on this very issue.

“The additional words for you and for many are  taken, some from Matthew, (25:18), some from Luke (2:20), but were joined together by the Catholic Church under the guidance of the Spirit of God. They serve to declare the fruit and advantage of His Passion. For if we look to its value, we must confess that the Redeemed shed His blood for the salvation of all; but if we look to the fruit which mankind have received from it, we shall easily find that it pertains not unto all, but to many of the human race. When therefore (Our lord) said: ‘For you’, He meant either those who were present, or those chosen from among the Jewish people, such as were, with the exception of Judas, the disciples with whom He was speaking. When He added, And for many He wished  to be understood to mean the remainder of the elect from among the Jews and Gentiles.”

* Cajetar. Thomists admit that the phrase “for you and for many” do indeed belong to the substance of the form, but deny their necessity for valid t Pope Saint Pius V, when he ordered Cajetan's works to be published in 157: commanded that this particular opinion be expurgated! In doing so was not Christ acting through Peter?

“With reason, therefore, were the words for all not used, as in this place the fruits of the Passion are‑alone spoken of, and to the elect only did His Passion bring the fruit of salvation. And this is the purport of the Apostle when he says: Christ was offered once to exhaust the sins of many (Heb, 37:28); and also of the words of Our Lord in John: ‘I pray not for the world, but for them whom Thou hast given me because they are Thine’(17:9).”

This opinion is further confirmed by St. Alphonsus Liguori:

“The words Pro vobis et pro multis (“for you and for many”) are used to distinguish the virtue of the Blood of Christ from its fruits: for the blood of Our Savior is of sufficient value to save all men, but its fruits are applicable only to a certain number and not to all, and this is their own fault. Or, as the theologians say this precious blood is (in itself) sufficiently (sufflcienter) able to save all men, but (on our part) effectually (efficaciter) it does not save all ‑ it saves only those who cooperate with grace.”

And further, this is clearly the teaching of the Angelic Doctor (Summa, III, Q 78, Art. 3) and it is an opinion ratified by the Sovereign Pontiff Benedict XIV (De Sacrasanct Missae Sacrificio, B00k II, Ch. XIV)V) who clearly asserts that St. Thomas’ opinion “explains correctly” Christ's use of “for many” as opposed to “for all men.” It is not  surprising then to note that none of the 76 different liturgical forms of the Words of Consecration have ever translated this phrase as “for all men,” and that not one of the Church fathers has ever understood it in this sense.

There can be no doubt that under these circumstances the New Church has had the temerity to alter the very words of Christ! and to distort Our Lord's teaching. That she should do this within the sacramental form and within a sacrament given in specie, and on an issue that authority has spoken so clearly on, certainly raises grave doubt about the validity of Consecration. Perhaps I should put this more strongly, it almost certainly invalidates it!

And yet, you persist in saying “There is absolutely nothing changed in the essence of our Traditional Mass.”.and Father O'Leary insists that the new translations are both “orthodox and accurate!”

12) While those who oppose the Novus Ordo Missae often stress the issue of the Words of Consecration, it should be quite clear that far more is involved than this one passage. It is the entire Canon that must be preserved. To quote from the Canons of the Chapter of Cologne in 1549.

“Urgent need compels us to point out the sheer insanity of those who think that the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ can be consecrated without the Catholic prayer we call the Canon... but merely by the recital of the words of St. Paul to the Corinthians... For there the Apostle simply narrates the actions of Christ historically; and not in such a way as to supply any form of consecration, whereby the priest, the minister of the Church, with the invocation of the divine name, blesses and sanctifies the gifts set on the altar, not indeed by his own words, but by the omnipotent words of our Lord Jesus Christ...”

                                                           quoted by Maurice de la Taille, S.J. in Mystery of Faith

This is not to deny that consecration can occur in certain situations outside of the Canon ‑ though such would be a grave sin.

“Accordingly, it must be held that if the priest were to pronounce only the aforesaid words (the Words of Consecration) with the intention of consecrating the sacrament, this sacrament would be valid because the intention would cause these words to be understood as spoken in the person of Christ, even though the words were pronounced without those that precede,  i.e. the Canon in its entirety).The priest however, would sin gravely in consecrating thus, as he would not be observing the rite oft the Church.”

                                                            St. Thomas, Summa III, 78, l.

You can of course argue that this would not hold in so far as the New Church provides the priest with a New rite. But why, may I ask was the Canon abolished. May I suggest an answer taken from the mouth of Luther.

“That abominable Canon is a confluence of puddles ofslimy water, which have made of the Mass a sacrifice. Offertories have been added. The Mass is not a sacrifice. It is not the act of a sacrificing priest. Together with the Canon, we discard all that implies an oblation.”

13) Let me add that I am not convinced that the majority of the Fathers at the Second Vatican Council ever envisioned the wholesale destruction of the Traditional Canon that has occurred in the Novus Ordo Missae. Apart from certain individuals such as Cardinal Lienart and his cotery, the majority would have doubtless been shocked at what has happened. Thus the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy states that “the liturgy is made up of unchangeable elements divinely instituted and of elements subject to change.” Surely the “unchangeable elements”' referred to the Canon and above all to the form and substance of the Sacrament. As one reads the Novus Ordo one finds that the only unchangeable elements are such words as “Alleluela” and certain prayers such as the Our Father and the Gloria that have always been acceptable to the Protestants. Indeed, such an opinion is strengthened if one reads the Council Daybook (a sort of “running log”) for Nov. 5, 1962 where it states that “it was insisted that the Canon of the Mass
especially should remain intact...”

14) One of the reasons that the Novus Ordo Missae has been reluctantly accepted by the faithful is that they find it impossible to believe that the Mass is being destroyed, and being destroyed by those whose obligation it is to preserve it. I find it hard to believe myself. Yet, as St. Cyril said:

“Let no one at that day say in his heart... ‘unless God willed it, He would not have permitted it.’ No: The Apostle forewarns you, saying beforehand, ‘God shall send them a strong delusion,’ not that they may be excused, but condemned...”

                                                                Catech. xv. 16,17

The situation is prefigured in Daniel 9:27.”The Victim and the Sacrifice shall fail: and there shall be in the Temple the abomination of desolation,” and Daniel ll:31: “And they shall defile the sanctuary of strength and shall take away the continual sacrifice.” Listen to Malachi I:7: “You offered polluted bread upon My altars, and you say, wherein have we polluted Thee?” And Jeremias speaks in God’s Name when he says “My tabernacle is laid waste, all My cords are broken: My children are gone out from Me, and they are not... Because the pastors have done foolishly, and have not sought the Lord: therefore have they not understood, and all their flock is scattered.” And further, we find Ezechiel saying “Her priests have despised My law, and have defiled my sanctuaries: they have put no difference between holy and profane.”

St. Alphonsus of Liguori also predicted the destruction of the Mass:

“Also, the devil has always attempted, by means of the heretics, to deprive the world of the Mass, making them precursors of the Anti‑Christ, who, before all else, will try to abolish and will actually abolish the Holy Sacrament of the altar, as a punishment of the sins of men, according to the prediction of Daniel >And strength was given him against the continual sacrifice/”

Such predictions as these clearly warn us that our Mass will be taken from us. It is for us to judge whether the Novus Ordo Missae is in fact a fulfillment of these prophecies. On the basis of the facts offered above in earlier paragraphs I would strongly suggest that it does.

15) In the face of this assault on Catholic teaching, how does the Traditional Church, the Church of All Times, react? Let me quote you a passage from AA Vindication of the Bull Apostolicae Curae by Cardlnal Archbishop and Bishops of the Province of Westminster London@ published in the remote time of 1892:

“The Church must not omit or reform anything in those forms which immemorial custom has bequeathed to us. For such an immemorial usage, Awhether or not it has in the course of ages incorporated superfluous accretions, must in the estimation of those who believe in a divinely guarded and visible Church, at least have retained ,whatever is necessary; so in adhering rigidly to what has been handed down to us we can always feel secure; whereas if we omit or change anything, we may perhaps be abandoning just that element which is essential... That they were permitted to subtract prayers and ceremonies in previous use, and even to remodel the existing rites in a most drastic manner, is a proposition for which we know no historical foundation, and which appears to us absolutely incredible.”

The words of St. Thomas Aquinas are even more strongly put:

“Falsehood in outward worship occurs on the part of the worshipper, and especially, in common worship which is offered by ministers impersonating the whole Church. For even as he would be guilty of falsehood who would, in the name of another person, proffer things that are not committed to him, so too does a man incur the guilt of falsehood who, on the part of the Church, gives worship to God contrary to the manner established by the Church or divine authority, and according to ecclesiastical custom. Hence St. Ambrose says: ‘He is unworthy who celebrates the mystery otherwise than Christ delivered it.’”

16) I have raised a series of issues for you to resolve. While I could take my stand on almost any single one of them, it falls upon you to resolve them all. There are of course still other Points of contention that could be raised, for as the Ottaviani Intervention states, the Novus Ordo Missae “teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the purity of the Catholic religion...” This document is not the product of a single individual, but of a group of theologians and liturgists of high standing. Since the crux of the issue that we are discussing is clearly expressed within this document which I attached to my initial letter, it is wit surprise that I note that neither your respondent, nor Father O'Leary even think it worth mentioning. I would be most interested in reading any theological refutation that the New and Post‑conciliar Church can provide of this “damning” document.

17) Finally mother, let me say that I have not made these points to win an argument, but rather to convince you whom I love that you should join with me in rejecting absolutely the Novus Ordo Missae on the grounds that IT IS NOT CATHOLIC. If I have not convinced you that every point I raise is both valid and critical, surely I have raised some doubt in your mind about most of them. The only way you can avoid the issue of resolving these doubts is to hide behind the statement that “we owe our Holy Father complete obedience,” and “Holy Father cannot make a mistake.” But to do so again IS NOT CATHOLIC as has been amply demonstrated in my initial letter.

I look forward with prayer to that time when we can both again receive Our Lord together at the altar rail. To do so requires that we find a Church where the Traditional Mass is said. Clearly no one need have any doubts about the validity of the Mass of All Times. Religion to me is a very serious matter, and if I would not risk my body to a physician with dubious qualifications, I am certainly unwilling to risk my soul to a “mass” that has been deliberately altered so that it “as every possibility of satisfying the most modernist of Protestants.” (again, Ottaviani)

PART II -VATICAN II, A FRENCH REVOLUTION WITHIN THE CHURCH

1) I assume, from the tone of your respondent's answer, that you concur with Cardinal Suenen's statement that

“It is possible to draw up an impressive list of theses which Rome has taught in the past and up until yesterday as being the only valid ones, but which the Council fathers have thrown out.”

Indeed, as your respondent says, “to reject the authoritative teaching of this (Second Vatican) Council makes a mockery of accepting the authoritative teaching of any other. Church teaching can change and develop in matters which are not ‘of faith’, i.e. taught infallibly.”

One would like to make several comments about this opinion  which is typically modernist statement that confuses issues and combines truth with error.

a) If it is true that the “changes” made by Vatican II pertain to issues that do not fall into the realm of “infallibility,” than it is clearly also true that the changes themselves are not “infallible” and that we are not obliged to accept them in a de fide manner. I underline “if” because while I agree with the second proposition, I do not fully accept the first. Our faith cannot be reduced to the acceptance of only those statements that are clearly “infallible” in the legal and canonical sense of the word. Thus for instance, I do not believe that the subject of abortion has ever been covered by an “ex cathedra” statement, though clearly it is against the ten Commandments and  against the natural 1aw.

b) Our Faith is unchangeable because it is True, and this statement applies to the entire deposit of the faith. Faith, as the Catholic Encyclopedia states, “may be considered both objectively and subjectively Objectively, It stands for the sum of truths revealed by God in Scripture and Tradition and which the Church presents to us... Subjectively, faith stands for the habit or virtue by which we assent to these truths.” Thus our faith consists of more than, what has been “infallibly” determined; it consists, as St. Vincent of Lerins says, of “what is believed by all,       everywhere.” I think it can be demonstrated with ease that Vatican II has changed things that fall into this latter category. (vide infra Page 26, paragraph 2 ) 

c) The non-infallibility of the changes made by Vatican II is further demonstrated by the fact that Pope Paul VI stated in hi s closing speech that “no extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements” had been “issued.” (Perhaps it is here that the action of the Holy Spirit in the Second Vatican Council is most clearly to be seen.) As Cardinal Felici,. A former secretary of the Curia and secretary General of the Council has stated, the decrees of this council may be de jure, but they are not de fide. Being de jure it is only the discipline of obedience that can oblige us to accept them, and the application of this discipline is clearly outlined in the first five pages of my initial letter.

d) Since the Second Vatican Council has declared itself to be “pastoral” and not “dogmatic,” it follows that it has an obligation to reconcile its statements to the faith that has existed throughout history. Indeed, even if it had been a “dogmatic” council, this obligation would pertain. As St. Anasthasias stated with regard to Chalcedon, a Council should function “to drive away the doctrines of error by a common decree, and to renew the unswerving faith of the Fathers” for, as he continues, “according as from of old the prophets spoke of Christ, and He Himself instructed us, and the creed of the Fathers has (been) delivered to us, other faith is not lawful for any to bring forth, or to write, or to draw up, or to hold, or to teach.” St. Leo speaks even more strongly of the need for “the hearts of all to concur in that faith” in which “there is no discussion allowed whatever with a view  to retraction.” He further states that it is “no mark of a peacemaker, but of a rebel.. A for anyone to assail “what is once determined.” To do so is the act of “aut antichristus aut diabolus.”

e) When we come to the Papa1 Encyclicals the “infallibility” of their authority is not always clear. According to Father Fenton:

“'It is quite probable that some of the teachings set forth on the authority of the various papal encyclicals are infallible statements of the Holy Father. It is absolutely certain that all the teachings contained in these documents and dependent on their authority merit at least an internal religious assent from every Catholic.”

Father Pegues states that the Encyclicals contain the sovereign teaching of supreme authority. “Hence the faithful have a strict obligation to receive this teaching with infinite respect. A man must not be content simply not to contradict it openly...An internal mental assent is demanded. It should be received as the teaching of the sovereign authority within the Church.”

Anna Freemantle (The Papal Encyclicals in their Historical Context) states that “Encyclicals are  not thus not necessarily ex cathedra pronouncements. When they are, their matter must be of faith or morals; in method they must use the terms, formal or equivalent, declare, define or pronounce, and they must definitely state the sanctions regarding the obligation to believe and the censures incurred.” The Encyclicals Acerbo Nimis, the teaching of Christian doctrine, and Pascandi are frequently given as examples of such ex cathedra pronouncements. 

f ) An Ecumenical Council has been defined (H. Jadin,‑ Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church as:

“An assembly of Bishops and other specified persons invested with jurisdiction, convoked by the Pope and presided over by him, for the purpose of formulating decisions on questions of the Christian faith, or ecclesiastical discipline. These decisions however require papal confirmation... It has always been the highest duty of a council to assure the proclamation of the faith by delimiting Catholic doctrine from contemporary errors. There have been councils which issued no disciplinary canons, but none at which some error 's not rejected.”

Vatican II is unusual as an Ecumenical Council in several ways. It was the first such council to address itself, not to the Catholic faithful but to the entire world. It was the first such council to be declared (by two popes) “pastoral” and not “dogmatic.” It was the first such council that neither delimited Catholic doctrine from contemporary errors, nor issued disciplinary canons. It was the first such council that departed from the teaching of previous councils and contradicted the teachings of Papal Encyclicals.

Finally, it was the first Ecumenical Council where a pope in closing clearly stated that “no extraordinary dogmatic statements. were issued” Hence it is the first such council that cannot be considered “infallible.”

g) I strongly object to the blending of the terms change and develop.. This is a typical modernist ambiguity. These two terms ‑ especially when used theologically ‑ mean different things. Doctrines can be “developed,” providing we clearly understand what is meant by such a word. Being true, they cannot change.

Let us consider the opinion of Cardinal Newman. on this issue:

“A development, to be faithful, must retain both the doctrine and the principle with which it started... Such too is the theory of the Fathers as regards the doctrines fixed by Councils, as is instanced by the language of St. Leo: 'To be seeking for what has been disclosed, to consider what has been finished, to tear up what has been laid down, that is this but to be unthankful for what is gained?' St Vincent of Lerins, in a like manner speaks of the development of Christian doctrine as perfectus fide non permutaio (as the perfection of the faith and not its alteration).”

And after all, how could it be otherwise, for as Cardinal Newman also stated:

“the holy Apostles would without words know all the truths concerning the high doctrines of theology, which controversialists after them have piously and charitably reduced to formulae, and developed through argument.”

It is in the light of these facts that your respondent's statement teems with insinuations against the purity of the Catholic religion. If the changes that Vatican II introduced are permutatio, and they clearly are, then to accept it as authoritative would be to make a mockery of the pronouncements of earlier “infallible” ecumenical councils, and to make a mockery of the encyclica1 writings of a series of pope s. The Truth ‑ and the Holy Spirit is the Truth ‑ cannot contradict itself.

2) To show that the “New Gospel” promulgated by Vatican II is a clear permutatio, ;I shall take but a few examples. Mind you, only one would be sufficient.

The Syllabus of Errors, which the Catholic Encyclopedia states “A11 Catholics. are bound to accept... They must exteriorly neither in word nor in writing oppose its contents; they must also assent to it interiorly,” and .which Pius X stated in his Encyclical was in essence an ex cathedra statement, proscribed the following errors:

“Every man is free to embrace and profess the religion he shall believes true, guided by‑ the light of reason...That the eternal salvation may at least be hoped for, of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ. That Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion in which it is possible to please God as in the Catholic Church.”

As opposed to this Vatican II teaches that:

“Religious freedom has its foundation in the dignity of the person. The requirements of this dignity have come to be more adequately known to human reason through centuries of experience... The brethren divided from us also carry out many of the sacred actions of the Christian religion. Undoubtedly in ways that vary according to the condition of each Church or Community, these actions can truly engender a life of grace and can be rightly described as capable of providing access to the community of salvation...”

In passing, let me note that this “religious freedom” given to our separated brethren seem to be denied to those of us who wish to live by the rites and rules that for centuries prevailed within the Catholic Church.

However, clearly Vatican II has reversed the Church's attitude on a host of issues. Apart from those relating to the Syllabus, let us consider a few others.

Vatican II teaches:

“Let the faithful blend modern science and its theories and t he understanding of the most recent discoveries with Christian morality. Thus their religious practice and morality can keep pace with their scientific knowledge and with ever‑advancing technology.”

You and your respondent may wish your religion to keep pace with the ever changing (and rapidly changing) theories of the scientific community. Such a “situation ethic” has absolutely no interest for me.

Another tidbit for you:

“It is necessary to marry the principles of the Church with the conceptions of modern man.”

A truly adulterous relationship for the Bride of Christ ‑ but one pleasing as Jeremias would say, to a “generation of harlots!”

And again:

“The human race has passed from a rather static concept of reality to a more dynamic evolutionary one.”

Pure poppycock, despite Teilhard ‑ indeed the New Church better watch out for scientists seem to be looking on evolution with a rather jaundiced eye!

“It is a fact bearing on the very person of man that he can come to an authentic and full humanity only through culture, that is, through the cultivation of natural goods and values. Wherever human life is involved, therefore, nature and culture are quite intimately connected.”

“In every group or nation, there is an ever‑increasing number of men and women who are conscious that they themselves are the artisans and the authors of the culture of their community, Thus we are witnesses of the birth of a new humanism, one in which man is defined first of all by his responsibility towards his responsibility towards his brothers and towards history.”

“Man's social nature makes it evident that the progress of the human person and the advance of society itself hinge on each other. From the beginning, the subaect and goal of all social institutions is and must be the human version, which for its part and by its very nature stands completely in need of social life. This social life is not something added on to man. Hence through his dealings with others, through reciprocal duties, and through fraternal dialogue, he developes all his gifts and is able to rise to his destiny.”

“Opportunities for the same kind of education can also be found in modern society, thanks especially to the increased circulation of books and to the new means of cultural and social communication. All such opportunities can foster a universal culture.”

“It has pleased God to make men holy and save them not merely as individuals without any mutual bonds, but by making them into a single people... from the beginning of salvation history He has chosen men not just as individuals, but as members of a certain community.”

‘The Church further recognizes that worthy elements are found in today's social movements, especially an evolution towards unity, a process of wholesome socialization and of association in civic and economic realms.’

“God's plan gives man's vocation a communitarian nature.”

“It is a fact bearing on the very person of man that he can come to an authentic and full humanity only through culture, that is, through the cultivation of natural goods and values.”

Now these are Conciliar statements! You cannot seriously tell me that my Catholicism is dependent upon my accepting this sort of sociological and intellectual “dribble” as “truth.” You will of course claim that I am quoting out of context. To this I answer that for you to quote “orthodox” passages from Vatican II is out of context ‑ and in any event if “orthodox” I shall accept them.

What makes this “new humanism,” this “universal culture” that “man is the author of,” this “communitarian vocation” so offensive, is that it is not even Catholic. After all, as the document states, the Church “is bound to no particular form of human culture, nor to any political, economic or social system.” She (the Church) “recognizes that worthy elements are found in today's social movements, especially an evolution toward unity, a process of wholesome socialization and of association in civic and economic realms. For the promotion of unity belongs to the innermost nature of the Church...” This “New” society is one wherein “Religious Freedom” will prevail and indeed be guaranteed by government as a “civil right.” It is a society in which heresy is given the same prerogatives as Truth. It comes within the meaning of religious freedom that religious bodies (and perhaps other “communities”) should not be prohibited from freely undertaking to show the special value of their doctrines in the whole of human activity. “The social nature of man and the very nature of religion afford the foundation of the right of man freely to hold meetings and to establish educational, cultural, charitable, and social organizations, under the impulse of their own religious sense.”

The New Church no longer sees Her role as being “above” history, but rather as being “in” history. Indeed, as Vatican II states, “the Church believes she can contribute greatly towards making the family of man and its history more human.”

As opposed to this “modernist” and “secularist” outlook, the True Church always proclaimed Her role as Eternal and above exigencies of historical circumstance. As such, She never abandons Her role as a director of society, economics, politics and religion. As Pope Pius XII stated, “the good and evil of souls depends on and derives from the question of whether or not the form given to society conforms to divine laws.” The final end of man is to “love, honor and serve God, and thus to save his soul” and a society or community is only valid in so far as it helps man to do this. Authoritv does not derive from man (either singly or in vast numbers) and as for modern “Aculture,” ‑ that “culture” that man is the author of, it is the very antithesis of anything that an be called truly “Catholic”. A Christian sociology must be based and founded on Revelation. The idea that the freedom to express and teach heresy should be “guaranteed” as a civil right is insanity and has been condemned as such by two papal encyclicals. But then, why the change?

“Thanks to the experience of past ages, the progress of the sciences, and the treasures hidden in the various forms of human culture, the nature of man himself is more clearly revealed and new roads to truth are opened.”

Indeed, in view of what Vatican II teaches, how could we ever envision a clearly Catholic society, a hierarchical society in which the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church prevailed (even the idea smacks of “triumphalism”) If “the promotion of unity belongs to the innermost nature of the Church,” and if our clergy are to “wipe out every ground of division so that the whole of the human race may be brought into the unity of the family of God,” and if “many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church,” and “if the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them (separated Churches and “Communities”) as a means of salvation,” and if those who are separated from us believe that “man is able to rise to his destiny, through dealings with others, through reciprocal duties, and through fraternal dialogue, then surely it follows that it is the duty of the Church ‑ that “sacrament of unity” ‑ to unite under its mantle of charity all those who live “in the spirit of brotherly love,” and work “for the common good of humanity” (all quotes from Vatican II documents). Thus clearly the “new humanism” which the “New Church” is promoting is one in which Religious liberty will prevail.

Unfortunately the facts are that the Magisterium has constantly taken a firm stand against such a view The Magisterium imposes upon us the Truth, and morally obliges us to accept it. Unquestionably a certain psychological liberty remains, and if man has the ability to refuse the truth, this is by no means his “inalianable right.” Man has an obligation to accept the truth and his refusal to do so risks eternal damnation.

3) All these issues come to a sort of  “focal point” in the issue of “active” communicatio in sacris. Your respondent states that “the approval of the Council of certain changes in our relationship with separated brethren automatically revokes many contrary provisions in Canon Law.” If this is so, it would seem that the pre‑existing Canon Law regarding our relations with Protestants was not based on sound and permanent Christian principles, but was arbitrarily chosen or based on a more “primitive” understanding, and hence is changeable at will.

The Church and the Magisterium has always carefully regulated communicatio in sacris for the simple reason that joint worship with our heretical (and hence separated) brethren involves us in a “false worship.” To state that a Catholic can derive “grace” from such a worship is absurd and only undermines the very principles of our accepting our Faith and our Manner of Worshiping from the Apostles. It places us in the position of disobeying the Natural law (for it is against reason for us to worship in a manner other than the Apostles indicated) and above all it is against the First Commandment. The concept was clearly condemned in the Old Testament as the story of Solomon indicates, and is condemned in the New Testament as St. Paul indicates.

“Bear not the yoke with unbelievers. For what participation hath justice with injustice? Or what fellowship hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? Or what part hath the faithful with the unbeliever?” (II Cor. 6:14)

Such an attitude on the part of the Church neither denied the possibility of Truth (“All Truth is from the Holy Spirit” as St. Augustine stated) outside its own confines, as is clearly shown by the story of Job, who as St. Gregory in his commentary tells us, was not of the Jewish religion, nor does it act an injustice on those who do not believe. To quote Pope Leo XIII

“If the Church judges that it is not lawful for various types of divine worship to have the same right as the true Church, she does not on that account condemn those rulers who, for the sake of gaining some good or prohibiting some evil, patiently tolerate in their conduct and practice that each should have a place in the state.”

Such an attitude is full of charity, for charity demands that we promote the truth and hinder error. It never demands that we treat with error on an eoual footing (which Vatican II instructs us we should). How can those who speak with the words of St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas and Cassian ever deal on an equal footing with economic determinists, communists, heretics, and atheists? To do so, as Piux XI said in his Encyclical Mortalium Animos is to “distort the true idea of religion and thus reject it.... to encourage such is tantamount to abandoning the religion revealed by God.”

4) One of the characteristic features of the statements of the documents of Vatican II is their ambiguity and their tendency to state one thing in one place and to modify or contradict it several paragraphs later.

“It is one of the cleverest devices of the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) to present their doctrines vrithout order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and disjointed manner, so as to make it appear as if their minds were in doubt or hesitation, whereas in reality they are quite fixed and steadfast...”
                                                                            Pascandi

An excellent example of this is to be found in the “Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy” where it states that “other things being equal, it (Gregorian chant) should be given pride of place in liturgical services.” Unfortunately “other things” are never equal and we are all aware of the place that Gregorian chant has been relegated to. Such a statement may console the “conservative” but at the same time it gives the “reformer” full freedom to do whatever he wants with liturgical music.

Or again, the same document it states that “here are to be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinly and certainly requires them,” and then it goes on to state that “in some places and circumstances (which?)... an even more radical (!) adoption of the liturgy is needed... (and) the Apostolic See will grant power to this same territorial ecclesiastical authority (the local ordinary in practice) to permit and to direct as the case requires, the necessary preliminary experiments over a determined period of time among certain groups...” Every time I have questioned a local liturgical monstrosity such as a “picture‑slide” 'mass' or a “yoga” ‘mass,’ it has always been “performed” with the permission of the “local ordinary.”

Yes indeed, those who drew up the documents of Vatican II were most clever. People of any persuasion can draw from it long quotations to prove and support their viewpoint. It fails to say “Yes” and “No” and blends truth and error in a welter of prolix statements that take considerable time and effort to unravel. What is said in one place is qualified several paragraphs later. It intended and succeeded in creating a “French Revolution within the Church,” and has done everything on the level of doctrine that the Novus Ordo Missae on the level of the Liturgy
Perhaps the Holy Spirit was never acted with greater wisdom then when He lead Paul VI to deny 
that “any extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements” were issued. It is here that His - the Holy 
Spirit’s action is most clearly demonstrated.

5) Yet, despite all this, your respondent states that “to reject the teachings of the Second Vatican Council is to set oneself against the Holy Spirit.” Now, the Holy Spirit is God, and it is a teaching both of reason and of the Church of All Times that God in Himself cannot contain what is self‑contradictory. It is not the Holy Spirit but Pale faith that speaks with forked‑tongue. Now, I ask you, does the Holy Spirit want our “religious practice and morality to keep pace with scientific knowledge” or does he in fact teach that our morality, reflecting as it does Christ's law, requires that modern science and its applications be limited and indeed controlled by our religious practice and morality? Do you believe that the Holy Spirit teaches that “man rises to his destiny through fraternal dialogue ..etc ?” And further, how does one explain the fact that twenty years ago the Holy Spirit spoke one truth and now suddenly reverses Himself and says just the opposite. Frankly, I would suggest that both you and your respondent carefully “discern the Spirit” of Vatican II which is the spirit of modernism, the spirit of the world, the spirit of what is euphamistically called “our times,” and by no means necessarily the Holy Spirit which we are want to call the Paraclete. There is no “comfort” to be found in these “New Directions” which can only lead, and indeed have on the part of the vast majority of the former faithful, have led, to indifferentiasm.

6) Let us rather listen to the words of Pope Saint Pius X:

“One must condemn... anything that seems to be animated by the unhealthy spirit of novelty; anything that holds up to derision the piety of the faithful or suggests new orientations for the Christian life; anything that suggests new directions for the Church to follow or new hopes and aspirations that are more suitable to the souls of modern day Catholics, anything that implies a new social vocation for the priesthood or for Christian civilization; and in fact, any ideas that remotely resemble such concepts.”

73 Dear Mother, I cannot believe that you hold with all these ideas and “New Directions.” I cannot believe that you are aware of all this dubious council teaches. How can you reject the Syllabus of Errors when Pope Pius IX stated of its contents

“With our Apostolic Authority, we reject, we proscribe, we condemn, and desire and order that all the children of the Catholic Church consider rejected, proscribed and condemned each and every one of the evil opinions and doctrines outlined in detail in these letters...” (referring to the Encyclical Qumnta cura and the “Syllabus”)

and when Pope Leo XIII said that the reason the Syllabus was promulgated was in order that “Catholics might have a sure direction.... in the present overwhelming flood of errors.” (Immortale Dei) I invite you to clearly join with me in accepting whatever in Vatican II is consistent with what the Church has always taught, and in rejecting with me all that it teaches that is against the teaching Magisterium of the Church. Popes may come and go; Councils may come and go; the Church's Magisterium cannot change.

“Stand ye on the ways and see
and ask for the old paths
             which is the good way.
       And walk ye in it

                   And you shall find refreshment for your souls.”

Pray God, we shall not be among those who say “we will not walk.”

Part III - THE LEGAL ISSUE

1) While I am very impressed with the list of Canonical Law degrees that Father O'Leary holds, I am far less impressed with the use he puts them to.

In the first place he is intellectually dishonest and falsifies historical fact. He states that APaul VI followed faithfully in the footsteps of Pope Saint Pius V@ in the manner of legislatlng the Novus Ordo Missae. This is an outrageous falsificatlon, and one moreover which both you and the Pope have repeated. Adequate evidence has already been given to show that the Traditional Mass was not written by Pius V or his contemporaries, but was only codified by him. I refer you back to page 4 to review these facts. He added not one jot to the Mass and every prayer in it can be traced back through history. As Adrian Fortescue states,
 
“Essentially the Missal of Pius V is the Gregorian Sacramentary; that again is formed from the Galasian book, which depends on the Leonine collection We find prayers in our Canon in the treatise de Sacramentis and allusions to it in the IVth century...there is not in Christiandom another rite so venerable as ours”.

The Novus Ordo Missae is an entirelv new 'mass'. Pius V also never forbade the use of forms of the Traditional Mass that had been in customary use for more than 200 years. Pau1 VI has forbidden the use of a mass that has been a law for some 400 years, and prior to that was a “custom” for centuries, Pius V never went to the Albigensians and the Cathars for assistance in writing a ‘mass’. Paul VI has enlisted the help of a :whole cotery of heretics in his production. One could go on listing discrepancies: but I think the point is quite clear.

2) One could argue endlessly about the legal points. I find it interesting that I hesitated to accuse Paul VI of “banning” the Mass of All Times but both your respondent and O’Leary clearly state that “it is not legal in the Latin Church today ever to celebrate publicly according to the rites in use prior to Vatican II.” Where I had accused the pope of seduction, you all declare him guilty of RAPE! I concede the point that the New ‘mass’ is legal and the old Mass is forbidden. Indeed, not only do I concede it, I state that this is precisely the point. This is the issue. I hesitated to accuse the pope of such an heinous crime.

3) Returning to the various legal arguments, let me state that those who most often are prone to argue these do so from one or two motives. Either they desire to continue go to the Traditional Mass and are seeking to show that they are not “in disobedience” ‑ these people simply do not understand the Church's teaching on obedience as outlined in the first five pages of the initial letter ‑ or they wish to save the Pope the embarrassment of being accused of “destroying” the Traditional Mass. Like the sons of Noah, they would cover up their Father's drunken nakedness..

4) Clearly the Traditiona1 Mass is “legally” forbidden. Those who obey can always hide behind the statement that their superiors have so ordered. The world did not lightly those who used this  excuse to explain their complicity in the extermination of German Jewry - especially  those who were aware of the real facts. I fear my involvement with the Novus Ordo Missae because one day I too must face a Judge. The fact that something is legal does not make it right. This is the situation with abortion in America, and it is the situation with the “banning” of the Mass of All Times.

5) You see mother, I am admittedly ‑ on the issue of the Mass and the “New Directions” of Vatican II ‑ clearly “in disobedience” to the New and Post‑conciliar Church.. The question of importance however is, am I in disobedience to the Church of All Times. Would my refusal to abandon the Traditional Mass, and my refusal to join in communicatio in sacris have ever placed me “in disobedience” between the years of say 50 A.D and 1950 A.D?. I think the answer is certainly no, for thousands have died for these issues and been proclaimed as saints for doing so.

6) Law is defined as “the complex of rules which direct the exterior order of the Church to its proper end.” However, “the end of the Church being mainly spiritual, i.e., of the supernatural order, it is plain that Canon Law must partake of that order, and hence tend a potiori to a supernatural end.” (Comentary:on Canon Law, Augustine) A legal enactment may be immoral, and then it cannot in conscience be obeyed. If all that I have contended in the previous sections of this letter is true, then clearly I have an obligation as a Catholic to be in disobedience on these particular issues. Against my stand you can only claim that “Holy Father can do no wrong...we owe Holy Father complete obedience...” I refer you again to the first five pages of my initial letter. The Pope can be a heretic, and as Cardinal Turrecremata states, “were the Pope to command anything against Holy Scripture, or the articles of faith, or the truth of the Sacraments, or the commands of the natural or Divine law, he ought not to be obeyed.”

SOME COMMENTS ON O'LEARY'S QUOTES FROM PAUL VI

Father O'Leary quotes Paul VI with approval as having said:

“Discredit is cast upon the authority of the Church in the name of a Tradition, to which respect is professed only materially and verbally. The faithful are drawn away from the bonds of obedience to the See of Peter and to their rightful Bishops, today's authority is rejected in the name of yesterday's... It is even affirmed that the Second Vatican Council is not binding; that the faith would also be in danger because of the reforms and post‑conciliar directives; that one ha a duty to disobey in order to preserve certain traditions... What traditions?” asks Pope Paul. “Is it for this group, or for the Pope, the College of Bishops, the Ecumenical Council, to decide which among the innumerable traditions must be considered as the norm of faith?”

The Pope goes on to state that those who persist in attending the Traditional Mass do so from a “sentimental attachment to habitual forms of worship,” and that they are guilty of “inconsistency and often falsity of doctrinal positions.”

1) The first point to be made is that this statement is a frank admission that there is in the Church today two different authorities competing for our allegiance. There is the authority of “today, of the present Pope and the rightful Bishops,” and there is the authority of “yesterday” and of Tradition (however much our respect for it may be only verbal or material).

2) Traditionally speaking (and Papal authority derives from Tradition as much as from Scripture), there has only been one “authority” in the Church, that authority “vested” in Peter and handed down unchanged through the ages. The Church has, until recent times, always spoken with one voice. 

3) No pope can declare that something is infallibly true unless he can show that the proposition in question “is referable to the Apostolic depositum, through the channel of either Scripture or Tradition...” (Pastor Aeternus). As the same document continues, that if such cannot be demonstrated, “the proposition defined will be without any claim to be considered binding on the belief of Catholics.” Such is the value of Tradition that as Bishop Mayer states:

“even the Encyclicals and other documents of the ordinary teaching of the Sovereign Pontiff are only infallible in the teachings confirmed by Tradition, or else by a continuous indoctrination, under various popes for a long time. If, therefore, an act of the ordinary teaching of a Pope disagrees with the teaching guaranteed by the Magisterlal Tradition of several popes for a considerable length of time, it should not be accepted.”

Clearly, neither the “New Directions” of Vatican II, nor the Novus Ordo Missae, can claim to have any roots in Tradition or the constant teaching of the Popes. If the Pope speaks with Peter's authority (and he has no other) then his words must fulfill these criteria. For him to speak with an authority other than Peter's is for him to use his power in an “arbitrary” manner. As St. Thomas Aquinas said, “the arbitrary use of power is tyranny. A tyrannical law is not in accord with reason, and is not, absolutely law, but rather a perversion of law” (Summa).

Let us listen to the words of this arbitrary pope:

“The order to which Christianity tends is not static, but an order in continual evolution towards a higher form...” (Dialogues, Reflections on God and Man); “It is necessary to know how to welcome with humility and an interior freedom what is innovative; one must break with the habitual attachment to what we used to designate as the unchangeable tradition of the Church...” (La Croix 9,.4.1970). “There are no true riches but MAN” (Observatio Romano 8.5. 1969). “Honor to MAN, honor to thought, honor to science, honor to technique, honor to work, honor to the boldness of man, honor to the synthesis of scientific activity and the organizing ability of man which unlike other animals knows how to give to his spirit and his manual dexterity these instruments of conquest. Honor to man, king of the earth, and today, prince of heaven...” (Doc. Cath. No. 1580, Jan. 21, 1971); “From the start the Council has propagated a wave of serenity and optimism, a Christianity that is exciting and positive, loving life, mankind and earthly values. an intention of making Christianity acceptable and lovable, indulgent  and open, free of mediaeval rigorism and of the pessimistic understanding of man and his customs. .” (Doc. Cath. No. 1538; “The rapport of the Faithful with Christ has in Peter its minister its interpreter, its guarantor. All must obey him (the Pope) in whatever he orders, if they wish to be associated with him in the new economy of the Gospel.” (Allocution, June 29, 1970)

Now, such statements coming from the mouth of Paul VI ‑ even granting that their ambiguity allows for various interpretations ‑ clearly are not examples of Christ speaking through Peter. How can we talk of a Christianity tending towards a “higher form” than that which Christ Himself gave us? On what grounds can we ever be asked to “break with the unchangeable tradition of the Church”? Since when has man been elevated to the state of “prince of heaven”? How can anyone presume to make Christianity “acceptable and lovable, indulgent and open...” And above all, despite Vatican II's promulgation of a “New Humanity” there is in fact no such thing as a “New economy of the Gospel,” and even if there is, though an Angel should preach it, I would, with God's grace, reject it.

3) As to the faith not being endangered by the reforms and the post-conciliar directives, this is simply a joke that no responsible person takes seriously. As Time Magazine has said, “That fortress (the Church) has crumbled.” According  to the “Boystown Project,” a study undertaken by the Catholic University of America, “nearly seven million young people from Catholic backgrounds no longer identify themselves with the Church.” In America alone, some 10,000 priests and 35,000 nuns have abandoned their religious vocations. Church attendance by the laity has drastically dropped. And what of those who have stayed. To quote Archbishop Bernadine the “president” of the American Council of Bishops, those who continue to call themselves Catholics “are by no means unanimous as to what this term means.” (Time, May 24, 1976). Now this person speaks with both personal experience and authority, for when questioned about Father Dulles, S.J., who teaches at the Catholic University of America, and who has publicly denied both the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Our Lady, Archbishop Bernadin answered that it was “his belief that it was legitimate for theologians to speculate about the removal of doctrines that have already been defined, and to request the Magisterium to remove such doctrines from the content of the Faith” (The Wanderer, June 17, 1976). But the New and Post‑conciliar Church assures us that despite what the Pope himself has called “the autodestruction of the Church,” “the faith is not in danger because of the reforms and post‑conciliar directives.”

4) While I admit that the Pope and the hierarchy have the right to decide which is and which is not a tradition, I would suggest that neither the pope nor the “rightful Bishops” have the right to pick and choose which of the innumerable (are there that many?) traditions must be considered as the “norm of the faith.” Surely all the traditions that come to us from the Apostles are to be accepted, and surely, since they have been around for some two thousand years, we have a rather good idea of just what they are. It is precisely because the New Church, with its “New Humanism” would reject some of these traditions that we refuse to give it our total assent. Remember the words of Paul:

“Stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle...” (2 Thes. 2:14)

and the words of a prior Pope:

“To refuse to believe in any one of them (points of doctrine) is equivalent to rejecting them all.”
                                                  (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae.)

5) It is typical of the present Pope that he should characterize those who refuse to accept the New 'mass' as having “a sentimental attachment to habitual forms of worship.” He knows that this is not the case. Th refusal to accept the New 'mass' is based on solid theological reasoning

REMAINING ISSUES

I have left this final section for several secondary issues that your respondent has raised. I consider them secondary because the principal issues remain those already discussed.

1) Your respondent states that “the Pope has spoken out against heresy and communism.” Let me say that I agree he has. The Pope has in his encyclicals spoken in a most orthodox manner (the Holy Spirit is again seen to be at work) on many of the pertinent issues. let me quote the pope's Encyclical Mysterium Fidei on the issue of the Mass.

“having safeguarded the integrity of the faith, it is necessary to safeguard also its proper mode of expression lest, by the careless use of words, we occasion, God forbid, the rise of false opinions...The Church... has established a rule of language confirming it with the authority of the councils. This rule, which has often been the watch word and banner of orthodox faith, must be religiously preserved. Let no one presume to change it at his own pleasure or under the pretext of new science. Who would ever tolerate that the dogmatic formulas used by the Ecumenical councils for the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation be judged as no longer appropriate for men of our times and therefore permit others to be rashly substituted for them? Likewise, it cannot be tolerated that any individual should on his own authority modify the formulas used by the Council of Trent to express belief in the Eucharistic mystery. The formulas are adapted to men of all times and all places.” (Para. 23, 24.)

Truly words that Pope Saint Pius X might have written! Similarly in his Credo, he has clearly condemned “Modernism” ‑ the same modernism that he has made de jure by signing the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

The Pope speaks ambiguously on many issues, saying one thing in one place and just the opposite elsewhere. If he has condemned Communism, he has also supported Archbishop Helder Camara whom he publicly greeted by saying “Good morning my Communist Bishop” (La Monde, Sept 26, 1974) Listen to his words on Communist China ‑ that is the Pope's words:

“The Church recognizes and favors the just expression of the actual historical phase of China and the transformation of ancient forms of esthetic culture into the inevitable new forms that rise out of the social and industrial structure of the modern world... We would like to enter into contact once again with China in order to show with how much interest and sympathy we look on at their present and enthusiastic efforts for the ideals of a diligent, full, and peaceful life.”

No wonder the Bishops of Mozambique voice their support for Samora Machel, the Marxist president of that country. let me quote them:

“We pledge ourselves to the revolution which intends to radically transform society in Mozambique into a community for solidarity for all people of good will, whether believers or non‑believers...”

And do not be surprised to find that seventeen Bishops in Brazil state that they approve Msgr. Nguyen Van Binh, the Archbishop of Saigon's decision to “cooperate” with the Communist regime. In their document “The Church in Vietnam is Disposed to Survive,” they state:

“What difference does it make if the regime expels foreign missionaries... In the final analysis, weren't the missionaries and the Church’s also the symbols of the misery and the domination of our people? The regime which ‘liberates’ our people can now enslave our Church.”

Pope Paul can be quoted on almost any side of any issue. This is typical of the Modernist.

“AIt is one of the cleverest devices of the Modernists (as they are commonly and rightly called) to present their doctrines without order and systematic arrangement, in a scattered and disjointed manner so as to make it appear as if their minds were in doubt or hesiltation, 'whereas in reality they are quite fixed and steadfast...”

You willl of course say, How can I accuse Paul VI of being a Modernist. I respond, who but a Modernist could speak of the Church as being “in continual evolution toward a higher form ?” or proclaim that we should obey him “in whatever he orders,” if we “wish to be associated with him in the new economy of the Gospel.” Who else but a modernist would for the Novus Ordo Missae down our protesting throats. Let us consider how the Catholic Encyclopedia defines Modernism:

“Modernism is a remodeling, a renewal according to the ideas of the twentieth century, such is the longing that possesses the Modernists... Modernism is a spirit of movement and change, with an inclination to a sweeping form of evolution such as abhors anything fixed and stationary...”

Indeed, it was M. Loisy himself who said

“The avowed Modernists form a fairly definite group of thinking men united in the common desire to adapt Catholicism to the intellectual, moral and social needs of today.”

I leave you with this statement as a summary of the intent of Vatican II

2) The evidence that Bernard Haring was for a time the spiritual director of the pope, or to quote my initial letter more exactly, “this man is not only in obedience, his teachings have a very personal stamp of approval from Montini himself; when Paul VI became Pope, he asked Bernard Haring to give the Vatican retreat ‑ to become for a time the spiritual director of himself and tnose around him,” is to be found in recently published book called “Retraite au Vatican,” by “Frere” Rene Voillaume, published by Fayard: 1969:which lists the names of all those who have given the annual Vatican retreats.

3) Your respondent states that “it is not true that the charismatic movement is heretical (though of course some groups in it may be, like some who call themselves Catholic, too.)”

Now, it is very hard to define the “beliefs” of the Pentecostals, for as Father Gelpi, S.J. states, “the Catholic charismatic renewal is... suffering from a vacuum in its pastoral catechesis.” Putting it simply, the charismatics have no systemic theology, no body of doctrine to which they give clear adherence. The only thing that all the charismatics agree on is the need for “baptism in the Holy Spirit.” And what is this? Father O'Conner states that it is “quite difficult to determine what exactly is essential to it.” A Father Vincent Walsh describes it as “an internal religious experience (or a prayer experience) whereby the individual experiences the risen Christ in a personal way. This experience results from a certain ‘release’ of the power of the Holy Spirit usually already present within the individual. . .” A Father Kilian McConnell says it “manifests itself in an adult when by either a crisis act or growth process he says ‘yes’ to what objectively took place during the rite of initiation (Baptism or Confirmation)”  Father Gelpi S. J states “a classical Protestant Pentecostal theory of conversion separates the experience of conversion from the reception of the Holy Spirit. It designates the latter as a ‘second blessing’ over and above conversion It regards tongues as the only decisive sign of the reception of the Spirit” While himself a “charismatic” he admits that “there is no way to reconcile such a theory with Catholic doctrine. Spirit Baptism (he continues) is a self validating experience” which “brings self integration, freedom and the enhancement of creativity and greater selflessness in one' s actions.” Now these are all “orthodox” exponents of the Charismatic “faith experience,” and their books are published by the “Newman Press” under control of the Paulist Fathers.

Some things however are quite clear. Obviously, one does not even have to be a Catholic ‑to have the “experience” which is how those who have been “Baptized in the Spirit” refer to their religious state. Again, from the fact that those who introduced this “rite” into the Church had to go outside the Church to receive it, they have certainly implied that something is lacking to that “fullness of the faith” that Our Holy Mother, the Church proclaims is only to be found in her. Can anyone who has acted in this manner still claim to be Catholic?

“Only the Church is the Body of Christ of which He is the Head and Savior. Outside of this Body, the Holy Ghost does not vivify anyone. Those who are outside of the Church do not have the Holy Ghost. Let he who wishes to have the Holy Ghost be vigilant so that he does not land outside the Church.” 

                                                           St. Augustine, Ep. 185

This movement was not only conceived in active communicatio in sacris, its pregnancy was sustained with funds provided by the “Full Gospel Businessman' s Fellowship,” and it continues to this day to practice “inter‑communion” with the whole gamet of “Evangelical” denominations. let me quote a statement from the Ranaghans:

“All of this must be taken and given in the context that God does have a plan for his People, a strategy for the salvation of the world. . We subjects of this King (Christ I presume) are Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, Mennonites, Pentecostals, and others. As a rule our families have not always loved or trusted each other very well. But Jesus is determined to be Lord of all his People and He is outpouring his life‑giving Spirit upon us all. No matter what church background we come from, no matter what serious theological difficulties may  still lie between us ‑ Jesus is teaching us that we are basically and fundamentally called to be one People. One Holy Nation, one royal priesthood, a new humanity led by the New Adam... We have discovered, and the whole church needs to experience that we are not meant to be saved as isolated individuals, but as brothers and sisters who belong to each other....”

Of course, those who follow the teachings of Vatican II to their logical conclusions will find in such a statement an expression the “New Economy of the Gospel.” It is a fulfillment of the words of Cardinal Heenan who publicly said

“"the New Religion has something for everybody. It is intent on roping in all hands in good time, using the new liturgy as the chief instrument of propaganda.”

No wonder that the present Pontiff (Paul VI) has said to the Charismatics who met at St. Peter’s:

“You have gathered here in Rome under the sign of the Holy Year; you are striving in union with the whole Church for renewal ‑ spiritual renewal, authentic renewal, renewal the Holy Spirit. We are pleased to see the signs of this renewal...We are very interested in what you are doing. We have heard so much about what is happening among you. And we rejoice.”
                                      May 19, 1975 and Oct. 11, 1975 Observatore Romano
(May 19, 1975 and Oct. 11, 1975

One of the things that is happening among the Pentecostals is the free‑flowing of various “charisms,” predominant among which is “speaking with tongues.” Indeed this latter is regarded as one of the decisive signs that the Holy Spirit has been received. This is not the “gift of tongues” that is understood by Traditional Catholics and which was manifested by such saints as St. Francis Xavier. No indeed, it is simply “gibberish,” or to quote Dom Peter Flood, O.S.B., a “mere gibberish., not having the philological structure of any language.” and similar to the phenomena “of hysteria and in the tantrums of young children not yet capable of sustained speech.” This phenomena has been present in a whole host of “Evangelical” sects as is amply demonstrated by Father Knox in his book “Enthusiasms.” As a warning, let me quote the last authority:

“To speak with tongues you had never heard was, and is, a recognized symptom in cases of alleged diabolical possession.”

If as your respondent states, “the charismatic movement is not heretical,” it is only because in the New Church there is no such thing a heresy. If he considers that what these Catholic Pentecostals represent our faith, than clearly his faith and mine are different.

4) Your respondent states on Page 7 that “it is not true that there are cardinals who are masons. They have been accused of being such by people who reject the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.”

Let me first of all point out that the infiltration of high positions in the Church by Freemasons (I refer to those of the Grand Orient and the Scottish rite) has been a problem for many decades prior to. Vatican II. Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State for the Vatican under Leo XIII was exposed ‑after his death as a Freemason, and he was known to have organized a “lodge” within the Vatican. It was this that led Leo XIII to write his Encyclical against the Freemasons. In 1938 Monseigneur Beauussart, Auxiliary Archbishop of Paris, gave Pius XI a dossier proving that 17 Cardinals ,Archbishops and Bishops in France were Freemasons. This led to an investigation about the possibility of other prelates being in this condemned organization and in the course of this investigation the person responsible, Msgr. Bouteloup was assasinated. In any event, it is a historica1 fact that the pope gave a copy of the list to Marechal Petain in 1941. It is also well known, that many of the Anglican prelates are Freemasons and lists of their names have been published by the Freemasons themselves.

As to the issue of whether there are Freemasons in the Church today, this one that I would admittedly like to avoid. Not only is such an accusation hard to prove beyond doubt, it is, in the face of the real issues clearly secondary and almost beside the point. What is not beside the point is the open spreading of Freemasonic ideas within the Church. let me give you an interesting quote:

“God's plan is dedicated to the unification of all races, religions and creeds. This plan, dedicated to the new order of things, is to make all things new ‑ a new nation, a new race, a new civilization and a new religion....”

This is not a statement from Vatican II or the present Pope. It is a statement taken from The New Age ‑ the official organ of the Supreme Council 33rd degree, Scottish Rite Freemasonry! No wonder then that Yves Marsaudon could write in Item, Christmas 1976, and as an official spokesman for Freemasonry state:

“The sense of universalism that is rampant in Rome these days is very close to our purpose for existence. Thus, we are unable to ignore the Second Vatican Council and its consequences... With all our hearts we support the ‘Revolution of John XXIII...’ This corageous concept of the Freedom of Thought that lies as the core of our Freemasonic loges, has spread in a truly magnificent manner.”

Finally, I should like to quote from the documents of the Alta Vendita that fell into the hands of Pope Pius IX and were publis'ne

“In a hundred years time... Bishops and priests will think they are marching behind the banner of the Keys of Peter when in fact they will be following our flag.”

Yes indeed, as Gogazzaro, founder of the Modernist lodge of Milan used to teach:

“The reform will have to be brought about in the name of Obedience.”

5) Your respondent states that Hans Kung does not teach with the Pope's approval and argues that his contract is with the state. In view of Hans Kung's repeated public statements and the fact that he has never been silenced, his teaching seminarians is clearly to be interpreted as being with the Pope's approval. As to his contract being with the state this is true ‑ all professors in Germany have their contract with the state, for the state supports both Catholic and Protestant education.

6) You state that "the oath referred to specifically mentions all the “observances and regulations” of the Church... including the new rite Let me quote the entire pertinent passage:

“AI resolutely accept and embrace the traditions of the Apostles and all other traditions of the Church and all its observance and regulations. Likewise, I accept the Sacred Scriptures in that very sense in which Holy Mother Church, whose right it is to declare their true sense and meaning, has held them and holds them now; nor will I ever accept or interpret them in a way contrary to the unanimous agreement of the Fathers (of the Church).”

“Further, I profess that there are seven true and proper Sacraments of the Law each instituted by Jesus Christ...Also I accept and adhere to the rites of the solemn administration of the aforementioned Sacraments according as they have been accepted and approved by the Catholic Church...”

“Moreover, I maintain and profess, without doubting, all the other teachings handed down, defined, and declared in the Sacred Canons by the Ecumenical Councils especially by the Most Holy Council of Trent and by the First Ecumenical Council...”

Now, I cannot take seriously your respondent's contention that this oath obliges priests to accept all that the New Church demands of the faithful. If it did, why was it decided that the oath should not be taken any longer ‑ especially as the New Church would oblige us under obedience to accept its “New Gospel.”

7) Your respondent's statement that “abuses” are partly responsible for Archbishop Lefebvre's stand avoids the issue entirely. It has been my privilege to defend this “Second Athanasius” whose writings I have now read and find increasingly impressive. His stand is clearly on the issue of the Mass and the issue of the “New Directions” of Vatican II. I take the same stand. The Aabuses@ are of course unfortunate, but are inevitable in view of what the New Church teaches. I have no objection to Protestants because a given protestant is insane. It is Protestant doctrine that I object to. The same with the New Church. The fact that some priest is insane (theologically speaking) is beside the point. It is the New Directions that I object to. Let us keep the issues clear between us.

8) As to Archbishop Bugnini, the greatest accusation that I levy against him is that he is one of the principa1 architects of the Novus  Ordo Missae The curse of this association will be with him throughout all eternity As to the other accusations the facts have been established in Forts dans  la Foi which is a journal that takes great pins to be accurate. I have written to its editor for the primary documentation and will forward it as an appendix to this letter when it arrives.

CONCLUSIONS

In conclusion, I feel that I have explained my reasons as a Faithful Catholic for rejecting the Novus Ordo Missae and the New Directions advocated by Vatican II.

We have spoken much in our correspondence about the issues of obedience and “disobedience.” Obedience is not a virtue that stands in isolation from Truth, for if it did, those who obeyed Satan could also claim a virtuous stance. It is an inconceivable proposition that one can be obedient to Pre‑conciliar teachings and yet be in disobedience to the Church. If this is true for Doctrine, it is also true for Liturgy. Either the New Church has made no substantial changes in the faith and hence there is no disobedience, or there are substantial changes, and those who accept such changes are the ones that are in disobedience to the Church of All Times.

What I am saying is that my seeming “disobedience” is in fact a true and proper Christian “obedience.” Nor can one who is faithful to what has always been believed, believed everywhere and believed by all be disobedient? In so far as the New Church would impose on even a single point, a new faith on us, or oblige us to worship in a manner that differs ‑ even on a single issue from that which the Apostles taught us, it proclaims itself in heresy. The Post‑conciliar Church cannot have it both ways. Either it has changed nothing (a proposition no one can take seriously) and it follows that to obey the Church of All Times is to obey the New Church ‑ or it has substantially changed the lex credend and the lex orandi and is itself in disobedience to the charge that Christ gave it when He said “feed my sheep.”

I understand that the Pope has recently threatened to excommunicate Archbishop Lefebvre and those who think like him. Thus it is clear that I am subject to excommunication for refusing to attend the Novus Ordo Missae, and for refusing to follow the New Directions. Imagine that ‑ for my refusal to abandon the Traditional Mass, and for my refusal to deny the teachings of a whole series of Popes from Apostolic times down to Pius XII, I am to be excommunicated. Of course, according to the New Church, it would be all right for me to deny the Apostolic succession, for me to go to Communion at Anglican services, for me to be a Freemason, for me to partake of dance or marajuana ‘masses’, for me to be a Communist, for me to go to a non‑Catholic minister to receive the Holy Ghost, for me to babble with tongues, and for me to hold with a whole host of modernist positions. These at most would be called “abuses.” I could deny the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption of Our Lady and even be called a “speculative theologian” and be supported by the “president” of the American Council of Bishops. Yes, such aberrations would at most be minor peccadilloes ‑ perhaps venial sins. But to adhere to the Traditional Mass, and to adhere to the teachings of previous Papal Encyclicals! That is a “sin” beyond anything but Papal absolution. Well, so be it, the Pope can excommunicate me from his New Church, but not from the Church of All Times. He cannot “unbaptize” me.. He can forbid me the questionable sacraments of his New Church, but he cannot take away from me my Catholic Faith.
   
One must remember that, as St. Clement of Alexandria says, “there is only one true Church, which remounts to the Apostolic time by means of its traditions, and to which all those belong who practice justice and virtue... For us, we recognize only one ancient and Catholic Church, which is one by its nature, and by its principles and by its origin, and by its excellence, which reunites all its children in the unity of the same faith.” (Strom. lib.vii). As St. Athanasius says, “even if Catholics faithful to Tradition are reduced to a handful, they are the ones who are the true Church of Jesus Christ.”

I do not see how anyone who is faithful to the traditions of the Church can attend the Novus Ordo Missae, or how one .who accepts the New Directions can claim to follow the traditional paths of the Church. All you can claim is obedience to the Pope. Surely this is an example of that “indiscrete obedience” that St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of, “an obedience which obeys even in matters unlawful.” As this beacon of the Church taught, “sometimes things commanded by a superior are against God therefore, superiors are not to be obeyed in all things.”

“If at any time, my son, someone ‑ whether he be a superior or not ‑ should try to persuade you of any lax doctrine, do not believe in it or embrace it, even though he might confirm it with miracles.”

                                                            St. John of the Cross, Minor Works

May our lady help us both to know the Truth, the light and the Way, and may she give us the grace to be obedient in the fullest sense of the word.