Father Z's Spittle Flecked Nutty Against Pope Benedict XVI and Summorum Pontificum

Credit:  www.slate.com

I recently commented on Father John Zuhlsdorf's blog in which I pointed out that he, Father Z, was in profound disagreement with Pope Benedict XVI.  He admitted that yes, he did disagree with Pope Benedict XVI, but he considered my comment to be "nasty" and as a result, he has completely blocked me so that I cannot even access his blog on my home IP address, much less leave any comments.

	Name:		Rev. John Zuhlsdorf
	Current Position:		President Tridentine Mass Society of Madison
	Parish(es) Currently Serving:		Cathedral Parish of MadisonMadison St. MaryPine Bluff
	Year of Ordination:		1991

Here's the story.

Father Z did a post in which he answered a reader's question, as follows:

I know a [priest] who uses the Old Offertory Prayers when he says an Ordinary Form Mass. Is this okay for a priest to do? Is it a liturgical abuse?

You can read Father Z's answer HERE.  One would think that the answer would be a simple yes or no, and if you have read Summorum Pontificum, you would know that mixing of the two forms of Mass is not permitted.  But Father Z's answer delved much deeper into this question.  He entitled his post, "ASK FATHER: Using the traditional offertory prayers in the Novus Ordo. Wherein Fr. Z rants."  

Father Z started his answer with this paragraph:

The legislation which covers the use of the Extraordinary Form spells out that there is to be no mixing of the two rites (I say “rites”, because I don’t think that they are, liturgically, the same rite… juridically there are two “forms”, but liturgically and in many points theologically there seem to be two… but this is a digression).

Father Z correctly states in his first sentence that there is to be no mixing.  Everything in that sentence is correct up to the word "rites."  As Father Z explains, he feels that the two Masses are not two forms of the same rite, but two distinct and separate rites.  This is in direct contradiction to the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI and Summorum Pontificum as written by Pope Benedict XVI.

Credit:  www.amazon.com

I commented on Father Z's blog that Pope Benedict would not agree with his statement, and quoted from the Pope Benedict's Letter to the Bishops which accompanied the Summorum Pontificum document.  Father Z answered (his answer is in red):

1. Brooklyn says:

   21 April 2015 at 4:50 AM

   Father, you seem to be in disagreement with Pope Benedict XVI who wrote the following in Summorum Pontificum:

   “In this regard, it must first be said that the Missal published by Paul VI and then republished in two subsequent editions by John Paul II, obviously is and continues to be the normal Form – the Forma ordinaria – of the Eucharistic Liturgy. The last version of the Missale Romanum prior to the Council, which was published with the authority of Pope John XXIII in 1962 and used during the Council, will now be able to be used as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgical celebration. It is not appropriate to speak of these two versions of the Roman Missal as if they were “two Rites”. Rather, it is a matter of a twofold use of one and the same rite.” [Yes, I disagree with that statement. Summorum Pontificum was clearly a juridical settlement of the disputed question of whether or not priests could use the older Missal. It doesn’t settle the liturgical and theological questions.]

   We may like the prayers of one form over the other, but Jesus Christ is present in both, and that is all that really matters. If Our Lord honors the OF, we should also. [Nice little speech. On the other hand, the content of the prayers, EF and OF parallels compared side by side (which I have done for a couple decades) are at times strikingly different.]

Rejection of the Pope is Rejection of the Church

It has now been one year since Pope Benedict XVI abdicated the papacy.  The rumor mill concerning his reasons for leaving the papacy started at his announcement and has not stopped, continuing right up to this time.  Having lived my Catholic life in the world of Traditional Catholicism for the last years, I hear things mostly from their perspective.

One thing that strikes me about the perspective of Traditional Catholics is that they think that everything that happens in the Church is about them and their enemies' attempts to destroy them. (Traditionalists tend to see their enemies as anyone who is not a self-defined Traditionalist, so that includes just about everyone else in the Catholic Church.) This is most certainly true when it comes the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. After all, he is the one who gave us Summorum Pontificum, so therefore all the modernist liberals in the church wanted him out.

This is the message that comes through loud and clear from Louie Verrecchio (who will be referred to as "LV" from this point on), a layman who has set himself up as some kind of expert on Vatican II and who writes a blog called "Harvesting the Fruit of Vatican II", with the subtitle, "Separating the fruits from the nuts by the light of tradition."  LV wrote a post entitled, "A Tale of Two Popes", found HERE, in which he speculates about the "real" reasons Pope Benedict XVI resigned, and also compares Pope Benedict to Pope Francis, showing us that pretty much everything Pope Francis says and does is liberal, modernist heresy.  It should be noted that LV, while he says there are some good things about Vatican II, for the most part has almost total condemnation of the Council.  

LV starts his post by informing us that it is based entirely on speculation:

A year has now passed since Pope Benedict XVI shocked the world by announcing his intention to abdicate the Throne of St. Peter, and what have we learned?

In concrete terms, perhaps very little as it relates to the real reasons behind his renouncement of the papacy, but circumstantially, we can infer quite a lot. With this in mind, please allow me to indulge in a bit of informed speculation.

He tries to tell us that this is "informed speculation."  Just what does he use for his basis of being "informed?"  Nothing but his own imagination.  Yet, he expects us to accept everything in his post, and sadly, many do.

LV then tells us that Pope Benedict's announcement was met with two reactions. The first was "shock". But, according to LV, some of those who expressed "shock" were actually hiding their true motivations and involvement in the pope's resignation from the rest of us:

I do not doubt for even a moment that there were any number of clerics, particularly members of the Curia, who looked straight into the television cameras to express their surprise, when in truth they had played an active role in coercing Pope Benedict to take his leave.

LV, with absolutely no proof, is accusing Cardinals, princes of the church, and more specifically, members of the Curia, of playing "an active role in coercing Pope Benedict to take his leave."  This statement alone should be enough for anyone to completely dismiss this article as nothing more than the baseless accusations of an enemy of the church.

LV then discounts and ridicules those who pointed out the humility of Pope Benedict XVI in his decision to resign, calling all such talk "blather" and "spin":

The other most common reaction coming from Rome and elsewhere, especially in less-than-traditional quarters, was a near endless stream of blather (more properly, “spin”) touting the sheer humility of this pope who courageously decided to step aside for the good of the Church.

According to LV, the "humility" displayed by Pope Benedict was a way to set us up for what LV calls the "Cirque du Humilité" of Pope Frances, whom he brazenly insults as a fraud:

In hindsight, this was but the opening act for the Cirque du Humilité that burst onto the Roman stage with the elevation of Jorge Bergoglio.

Is it merely coincidental that the suddenly “humble” abdicator’s successor immediately undertook to implement an unprecedented program of papal humility-on-display, with everything from worn out shoes to shoddy vestments, to pedestrian living quarters and compact cars serving as props?

LV then openly insults Pope Benedict by suggesting the real reason for the resignation was because he was "fleeing from the wolves".  This statement infers that Pope Benedict was afraid and ran away from the papacy in order to protect himself with little or no thought for the Church, a horrendous and libelous accusation:

Oddly enough, in the weeks following Benedict’s announcement, only a relative few were wondering aloud if perhaps he was in fact fleeing for fear of the very “wolves” he had mentioned in his inaugural homily. And yet, they had been howling at Benedict’s doorstep for quite some time.

Pope Benedict and Cardinal Bergoglio

LV then starts on a litany of accusations against Pope Francis, comparing his actions to those of Pope Benedict. It is a long list, and starts out contrasting the views of the two Popes regarding the Muslim religion. Pope BXVI was the "brave" pope, the one who gave the Regensburg Lecture on September 12, 2006 in which he criticized the prophet Mohammed.  LV cites an article in which then Cardinal Bergoglio disagreed with the statements of Pope Benedict. The article incorrectly says that the statements were made in 2005, and it makes one wonder what else is wrong in the article. We will assume, for the sake of argument, that Cardinal Bergoglio did disagree with the Regensburg address.  

LV, to contrast Pope Benedict with Pope Frances, writes:

Is it merely coincidental that the above mentioned Prince [who supposedly spoke against Pope Benedict] is now known as Pope Francis, a pope so determined to court favor with the Muslims that he even goes so far as to actively encourage them to hold fast to their false religion?

Pope Benedict praying at mosque

LV conveniently leaves out the fact that  just a few days after the Regensburg address, Pope Benedict, in a statement issued from the Vatican, humbly clarified his statements and even praised the Muslim religion.  Here is an excerpt from the statement which you can read HERE:

The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all-powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, Who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God.

LV then makes a statement which cannot be answered because it is of a general nature with no specifics whatsoever. In a court of law, this would immediately be thrown out as vague and unsubstantiated:

Pope Benedict XVI, in spite of whatever shortcomings he may have had from a traditional perspective (e.g., Assisi III, the “continuity” illusion, his failure to celebrate the traditional Mass in public even once), committed what the neo-modernist cabal in post-conciliar Rome considers an unforgiveable sin; he showed a willingness to render papal authority in the manner of a Sovereign, when clearly everyone who is anyone in the Eternal City knows darn well that the church-of-man playbook now firmly in place requires the pontiff to govern according to unwritten rule number one: collegiality.

LV contrasts and compares Pope Francis showing that he promotes collegiality, strongly implying that Pope Francis is watering down the authority of the papacy.  But this cannot be answered in any way because of the vagueness of the statements.  Therefore, these statements by LV carry no weight whatsoever and have to be dismissed.

LV then attempts to tell us what Pope Benedict XVI did "in the way of overstepping his bounds as primus inter pares (first among equals); landing himself in water so hot that he felt he had no choice but to end his days in seclusion."

From LV:

First, he issued Summorum Pontificum.

Had he simply treated the “old Mass” as a sentimental attachment to be tolerated, rather than as a gift to be propagated, his own traditional leanings in matters liturgical could have perhaps been overlooked by the wolves, but as it was, he incited their fury.

I will be the first to admit that there are those, even among the clergy and the bishops, who do not like the "Old Mass."  But I can't help but wonder if it often has something to do with the attitude displayed by people like LV?  In this statement, LV shows that he feels everything revolves around Traditionalists and the attempts by the rest of the Church to destroy them.  The traditionalists truly do not understand that they bring on much of the "persecution" that they may suffer because of their self righteous and condemning attitudes of anyone who doesn't agree with them.  

At this point, LV brings up Pope Francis' praise of the late Cardinal Martini, who is condemned by many Traditionalists.  LV gives us this statement by Cardinal Martini to show how opposed he was to Traditional Catholics, and by inference, how opposed Pope Francis is to traditionalists:

"Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our cassocks are pompous.”

What LV doesn't tell us is that in the interview in which Cardinal Martini made this statement, he followed it up with another statement with which I think most Traditionalists, who never hesitate in their criticism of the post-conciliar Church, would be in complete agreement:

“The church must admit its mistakes and begin a radical change, starting from the pope and the bishops,” he said in the interview. “The pedophilia scandals oblige us to take a journey of transformation.”

Pope Benedict and Cardinal Martini

LV also does not tell us that Pope Benedict praised Cardinal Martini.  This is from a CNS story about the death of Cardinal Martini:

The late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini was a "generous and faithful pastor of the church," who not only studied the Bible, "but loved it intensely and made it the light of his life," Pope Benedict XVI said.

Does this somehow make Pope Benedict an enemy of Tradition?  LV doesn't touch this.

LV then gives us the second reason "Pope Benedict turned up the heat under his Throne":

Secondly, Pope Benedict turned up the heat under his Throne considerably by lifting the excommunications from the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X, and this in the very same year that he decreed the “Heroic Virtues” of Venerable Pope Pius XII.

Both of these acts, together with Summorum Pontificum two years earlier, amounted to an anti-Semitic trifecta in the minds of many a Jew and their progressive con frères within the Church; brothers in arms in the cause of creating an institution only a Mason could love.

While much of the dust-up concerned the comments of a now former SSPX Bishop relative to the Holocaust, the entire affair was treated as an occasion to proclaim the Jewish people off-limits in terms of evangelization.

I really don't know what to say to this.  LV gives us nothing to support his contention that lifting the excommunication of the SSPX bishops brought persecution.  There can be no doubt that there were those within the Church who thought it was a mistake, but for this reason they wanted to throw Pope Benedict out of the papacy?  We need something to back up this grave accusation, and we need to know who these people are.  LV gives us nothing.

LV then segues this into a "contrast" between the views of the two pope on the Jews.   LV  takes a swipe at Pope Francis with these words:

Pope Francis raised eyebrows in saying, “We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked,” (cf Evangelii Gaudium 247) as if their rejection of Christ amounts to anything less than a rejection of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Is it merely coincidental that Pope Benedict’s successor not only boasts a history of synagogue visits and inter-worship with Jews, but has also co-authored a book with his rabbi-best-friend; the same with whom he prayed during Sukkot and Shabbat at the Vatican, a papal first?

It should be noted that Pope Benedict made several visits to synagogues to pray with the rabbis, and in the early part of his pontificate, Pope Benedict had an audience with the chief rabbi of Rome.  The following is an excerpt from his address (you can read the entire address HERE)

“The Catholic Church is close and is a friend to you. Yes, we love you and we cannot but love you, because of the Fathers: through them you are very dear and beloved brothers to us (cf. Romans 11:28b). This reciprocal esteem and trust has continued to grow since the Second Vatican Council. Fraternal and cordial contacts continued to develop and were intensified throughout the Pontificate of my venerable predecessor, John Paul II.

In Christ we participate in the same heritage of the Fathers as you, to serve Almighty God “with one accord” (Zephania 3:9), grafted onto the one holy trunk (cf. Isaiah 6:13; Romans 11: 16) of the People of God. This makes us Christians aware that, with you, we have the responsibility of cooperating for the good of all peoples, in justice and in peace, in truth and in freedom, in holiness and in love.”

LV, in his post, says the Jews' rejection of Christ also means "a rejection of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." I submit that LV's statement amounts to a rejection of the teaching of the Catholic Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church plainly states at #121: "The Old Testament is an indispensable part of Sacred Scripture. Its books are divinely inspired and retain a permanent value, for the Old Covenant has never been revoked." To reject Jesus Christ is most certainly wrong, but it is NOT equal to "rejecting the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." To say this is to contradict the plain teaching of the Catholic Church.  And someone really should caution LV that he is definitely courting with antisemitism in his statements. 

LV gives us one more reason for the ouster of Pope Benedict from the papacy:

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Pope Benedict all but signed his own walking papers the moment he set in motion the so-called “Doctrinal Discussions” with the Society of St. Pius X.

Imagine, the Roman Pontiff suggesting that these “traditionalists,” with their attachment to the doctrine of the Faith as it was taught without confusion prior to the Council and their insistence upon the Social Kingship of Christ, have something of value to offer the Church!

Again, in the eyes of the Traditionalist, everything revolves around them.  Yes, Pope Benedict absolutely did reach out to the SSPX and tried very hard to bring them back into the fold of the Catholic Church, and I praise him for that.  But it was the SSPX, under the leadership of Bishop Fellay, who refused to sign the agreement with the Vatican in June 2012.  The SSPX said they will not accept the legitimacy of Vatican II nor the legitimacy of what they call the Novus Ordo Mass.  LV tries to praise the SSPX for their loyalty to the Church when it was anything but loyalty.  Rather, the SSPX completely rejected and turned their backs on the Magesterium of the Catholic Church and by doing so, they rejected Jesus Christ Himself and crucified Him anew.

Pope Benedict XVI showed tremendous courage in trying to reunite with the SSPX. This very act alone shows he would never "flee from the wolves." How can Louie Verrecchio or anyone else dare accuse this courageous and humble man of lack of courage and of fleeing from obedience to the Lord? I'm not sure LV even realizes he is doing this because he is so blinded by his own beliefs and prejudices.
There is more to Verrecchio's post.  Again, you can read it HERE, but it is just more of the same.

The comments to this post show just how dangerous it is.  A few examples:

1. Theresa February 12, 2014 10:36 pm

   Pope Benedict is the Vicar of Christ…….need I say more???

1. Biggie February 13, 2014 1:47 am

   If Pope Benedict was forced or coerced in ANY way to resign this current “pope” is invalid thus Saint Francis of Assisi’s “A man not canonically elected..” prophecy. Sorry, I know it offends many people but I call it as I see it and I’m calling Shenanigans.

1. Andrew February 13, 2014 3:07 pm

   But wait. I believe it was an act of Providence that the Society wasn’t regularized. Clearly the Mother of God spared them from what is now happening to the Franciscans of the Immaculate.
2. 
   

   Andrew February 13, 2014 3:08 pm

   And yes if Benedict’s resignation was forced then it would be invalid, making the other bishop of Rome Antipope Francis.
3. 
   

   Taylor Hall February 13, 2014 4:11 pm

   Interestingly enough, Antonio Socci wrote an article in “Libero” arguing that Benedict’s resignation may have been invalid, thus making Francis an Antipope. A whole can of worms has just been opened.

1. Hannah February 13, 2014 7:29 pm

   For a year, I’ve been trying to convince myself that Benedict was no longer Pope. But, I can’t. Something isn’t right, as everyone is saying here. Every so often, I hear reports that he’s doing fine, in good health, etc. Well, shouldn’t he be on his death bed? You’d think so, after the drastic abdication. It hasn’t happened in centuries and it doesn’t just happened. Why is he still wearing white and being called Pope Emeritus? He choose to still wear white himself. It just seems obvious that he’s trying to show us something yet he acts like he’s no longer Pope and acknowledges his Successor.

   If he’s still Pope, what are we supposed to do about it? That means there’s an imposter in the Chair of Peter and someone has to restore Benedict back to his rightful place, but how?

   Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich saw when there would be a time with “two Popes” and she saw the “consequences of the false church.” She’s talking about now.

   Pray is all I can say. One of these days, God will straighten this out.

As you can see, many of these people have in effect become sedevacantist, for all intents and purposes rejecting Pope Francis as the Vicar of Christ. Blogs like those run by Louie Verrecchio and other self-proclaimed "Traditionalists" are what one person has called ecclesiastical pornography. These blogs are occasions of sin and while pretending to show the Face of Jesus Christ, they are leading you directly away from him and into the arms of the devil. I know this is a very strong accusation, but there can be no Catholic Church without the Vicar of Christ. Therefore, anyone who tries to turn you against the Pope is an agent, wittingly or unwittingly, of the devil.


We live in very confusing days when, more than ever, the devil appears as angel of light. We must constantly test the spirits. One sure test is the position of a person in regard to the Holy Father. Does he or she recognize and accept the Holy Father as the Vicar of Christ, Christ's true representative on earth? Does he or she accept the teachings of the Catholic Church? Many traditionalists complain about "Cafeteria Catholics", those who pick and choose what they want to believe. The sad fact is Traditionalists tend to lead the pack in picking and choosing what they want to believe, and far too often, their choices do not include accepting the Vicar of Christ. They will tell you they "pray for the Pope" in one breath, and tear him down in the next breath.  This is not supporting the Pope.

The Venerable Fulton Sheen described it best in his biography, "Treasure in Clay".  Bishop Sheen met every pope from Pius XI to Blessed John Paul II.  This is what he wrote:

"This close association with so many Pontiffs was only the coming to a head in my life of that experience of faith which occurred in the seminary.  I had such reverence for the Vicars of Christ because I saw in them the visible head of the Body of Christ, the Church.  It has always grieved me to see little candles spluttering in contempt at the corporate and garnered wisdom of the Church."

Pope Francis, A Humble Man of God

Pope Francis bowing down after asking the people
to ask God to bless him

The 267th successor to St. Peter has been elected.  I wish to use this post to publicly pledge my complete support and obedience to His Holiness, Pope Francis.

I really know very little about our new Holy Father save for what I have learned since he was elected earlier today.  I was very impressed when he came out onto the balcony to greet the people.  His humility and gentleness were so evident, especially when he bowed after asking the people to pray that God bless him.  Here is the text of his remarks from Catholic News Service:

He starts out by humbly calling himself the bishop of Rome:

Brothers and sisters, good evening. You know that the task of the conclave was to give Rome a bishop. It seems my brother cardinals went almost to the ends of the earth to find one.

I thank you for your welcome.

The diocesan community of Rome has its bishop. Thank you.

He then shifted the attention to His Holiness, Benedict XVI, calling him "bishop emeritus" as opposed to  "pope emeritus".  He led the people in prayer for his predecessor.  I was especially impressed that He called on both our Lord and Our Lord's Mother:

First of all, I would like to offer a prayer for our bishop emeritus, Benedict XVI. Let us all pray together for him that the Lord bless him and that the Mother of God protect him. "Our Father who art in heaven. ... Hail Mary, full of grace. ... Glory be to the Father ... ."

Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio

He then made a statement about the "journey of the Church of Rome, which is the one that presides in charity over all the churches." I thought this was a beautiful way of saying that the Catholic Church is the one true Church of Christ, but we shouldn't use that fact to hit people over the head and tell them they are wrong. Instead, we should reach out to others in love. I believe Pope Francis is telling us that this will be a hallmark of his papacy: brotherhood, love and trust.

Now let's begin this journey, bishop and people, this journey of the church of Rome, which is the one that presides in charity over all the churches -- a journey of brotherhood, love and trust among us. Let us pray for one another. Let us pray for the whole world that there be a great brotherhood. I hope this journey of the church that we begin today -- and I will be helped by my cardinal vicar, here present -- will be fruitful for the evangelization of this so beautiful city.

He then went on to give the traditional blessing, but first he did something very unusual. He asked the people to first pray that God would bless him. He bowed low while complete silence fell over that vast crowd of people as they prayed for him. It was an amazing moment.

Now I would like to give my blessing. But first, I will ask a favor. Before the bishop blesses his people, he asks that you pray to the Lord to bless me, the prayer of the people for the blessing of their bishop. Let's pray for me in silence."

(He gave his blessing "urbi et orbi" (to the city and the world)).

Brothers and sisters, I'll leave you. Thank you so much for the welcome. Pray for me. We'll see each other soon. Tomorrow I want to go to pray to Mary so she would watch over all of Rome. Good night. Have a good rest.

There can be better way for Pope Francis to start his Pontificate than by spending his first day in prayer to our Blessed Mother. I think when he talks about asking her to "watch over all of Rome", he is speaking about much more than the City of Rome. I believe he is asking Mary to watch over the Church of Rome. He is telling us in a humble and simple way that he is putting the Church in the hands of our Blessed Mother, and there can be no better and no safer place for us to be.

Pope Francis would seem to be a man to whom faithful Catholics could easily pledge their allegiance. Catholic New Service gives us this background:

Pope Francis has had a growing reputation as a very spiritual man with a talent for pastoral leadership serving in a region with the largest number of the world's Catholics.

Since 1998, he has been archbishop of Buenos Aires, where his style is low-key and close to the people.

He rides the bus, visits the poor, lives in a simple apartment and cooks his own meals. To many in Buenos Aires, he is known simply as "Father Jorge."

He also has created new parishes, restructured the administrative offices, led pro-life initiatives and started new pastoral programs, such as a commission for divorcees. He co-presided over the 2001 Synod of Bishops and was elected to the synod council, so he is well-known to the world's bishops.

The pope has also written books on spirituality and meditation and has been outspoken against abortion and same-sex marriages.

In 2010, when Argentina became the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage, Pope Francis encouraged clergy across the country to tell Catholics to protest against the legislation because, if enacted, it could "seriously injure the family."

He also said adoption by same-sex couples would result in "depriving (children) of the human growth that God wanted them given by a father and a mother."

In 2006, he criticized an Argentine proposal to legalize abortion under certain circumstances as part of a wide-ranging legal reform. He accused the government of lacking respect for the values held by the majority of Argentines and of trying to convince the Catholic Church "to waver in our defense of the dignity of the person."

His role often forced him to speak publicly about the economic, social and political problems facing his country. His homilies and speeches are filled with references to the fact that all people are brothers and sisters and that the church and the country need to do what they can to make sure that everyone feels welcome, respected and cared for.

While not overtly political, Pope Francis has not tried to hide the political and social impact of the Gospel message, particularly in a country still recovering from a serious economic crisis.

After becoming archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998, he created new parishes, restructured the administrative offices, taken personal care of the seminary and started new pastoral projects, such as the commission for divorcees. He mediated in almost all social or political conflicts in the city; recently ordained priests have been described as "the Bergoglio generation"; and no political or social figure missed requesting a private encounter with him.

Seems like a pretty good resume for the Vicar of Christ, don't you think? Well, there are some who would strongly disagree and sadly, it is those who identify themselves as Traditional Catholics. I quote from one of the most popular blogs among Traditionalists, Rorate Caeli. Their headline is: "The Horror! A Buenos Aires journalist describes Bergoglio."  Their opening paragraph is as follows:

Of all the unthinkable candidates, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is perhaps the worst. Not because he openly professes doctrines against the faith and morals, but because, judging from his work as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, faith and moral seem to have been irrelevant to him.

"Faith and moral seem to have been irrelevant to him"????? The following is from a secular website, mediaite.com:

On same-sex marriage: The new pope has called gay marraige “a scheme to destroy God’s plan” and “a real and dire anthropological throwback.” In 2010, he was a vocal opponent of the Argentinian government’s proposed legislation to legalize same-sex marriage.

On homosexuality: Bergoglio is reportedly “unwaveringly orthodox” on such moral issues.

On abortion: He has rallied his clergy against the “culture of death” that is the pro-abortion movement.

On contraceptives: The new pope strongly opposed Argentinian President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner‘s efforts to distribute free contraceptives, likely seeing it as part of the aforementioned “culture of death.”

On same-sex adoption: Bergoglio has called it a form of discrimination against children

As I have stated many times here, I do consider myself a Traditional Catholic. I love the Latin Mass and all things traditionally Catholic. But I cannot hold with those who in any way judge and condemn the Holy Father, no matter who they are or what they say they believe. I believe and accept with all my heart that the Vicar of Christ is the divinely appointed head of the Mystical Body of Christ here on earth. We have no right to judge him in any way. We are bound as part of Christ's Mystical Body to be unerringly loyal and obedient to the Pope. If we don't have that, we don't have a church.

Rorate Caeli ended their post with these complete falsehoods about Pope Francis:

This election is incomprehensible: he is not a polyglot, he has no Curial experience, he does not shine for his sanctity, he is loose in doctrine and liturgy, he has not fought against abortion or homosexual "marriage"[approved with practically no opposition from the episcopate], he has no manners to honor the Pontifical Throne. He has never fought for anything else than to remain in positions of power.

It really cannot be what Benedict wanted for the Church. And he does not seem to have any of the conditions required to continue his work.

May God help His Church. One can never dismiss, as humanly hard as it may seem, the possibility of a conversion... and, nonetheless, the future terrifies us.

I would hope that all Catholics would completely denounce such false, defamatory statements as these. These statement are truly scandalous.

When a man becomes the Vicar of Christ, his life has in effect ended. That is why he takes a new name, a symbol that he has been transformed. He no longer belongs to himself. He now belongs totally to Jesus Christ and to the Church. He is the "servant of the servants." The Pope carries the Cross of Christ and walks the road of Calvary. It is a crushing burden that can only be lifted by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Even in the best of times, we must pray constantly for the Pope. In times such as we now experience where evil is found even in the Church, we must pray even more.

It is obvious that our new Holy Father will be the object of much persecution. Pope Francis asked us today to pray that God will bless him. Let us pray every day that God will bless him.

HABEMUS PAPEM!

Try Not To Judge The Priesthood By The Priest

Alec Guinness in "The Prisoner"

I recently saw a truly great movie with Sir Alec Guinness (a Catholic convert) made in 1955 that, up to now, I never even knew existed.  It is called "The Prisoner",  about a Cardinal in an unnamed Communist country who is arrested by the government and charged with treason.  If you wish to watch the movie online, you can do so on Youtube.   This is a very powerful movie, and I recommend you take 90 minutes to watch it.

As Wikipedia says, "The Cardinal was based on Croatian cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, who was a victim of a show trial staged by the communist regime led by Josip Broz Tito[2]and on Hungarian cardinal József Mindszenty, who was also the victim of the communist-staged show trial, while the communist regime was fronted by Mátyás Rákosi and Árpád Szakasits."  In the movie, the Cardinal is arrested immediately upon completing a High Pontifical Mass.

Here is the trailer for the movie:

The Cardinal in the movie is also a famous war hero who fought against the Nazis in WWII.  As a loyal Prince of the Church, he is adamantly anti-Communist, and therefore a threat to the government who wants to discredit and then execute him.  But to do this, they must get him to confess to crimes he did not commit.  The person put in charge of interrogating the Cardinal is someone who had fought alongside the Cardinal in WWII and knows him to be a man of high moral values.  He realizes that the usual threats of physical torture and even death will not work, so he resorts to psychological torture by using sleep deprivation, solitary confinement and generally trying to confuse his mind.  He eventually succeeds in convincing the Cardinal that he did indeed betray the people and the government, and because the Cardinal is such a good and holy man, he readily admits to crimes that he believes he committed but in reality did not.  At the end of the movie is a scene in which a prison worker looks at him with great disappointment, and Alec Guinness tells him, "Try Not to Judge the Priesthood By The Priest."

I think we would all do well to take this advice.  The priesthood, instituted by Jesus Christ, is a sacred vocation charged with saving souls.  We would all be doomed to eternal damnation without the Catholic priesthood.   Who could hear our confessions and absolve us from the sin which damns our souls, who could change bread and wine into the the life-giving sacrament of the Eucharist?  Who could confirm us?  If how we spend eternity is the most important question in our lives, and I believe it is, Catholic priests are the most important and invaluable people on the earth because we cannot attain eternal life in heaven without them.

Just as there seems to be an attempt in our world to destroy everything that is good and right and holy, such as the family, there has been and continues to be a war to stamp out the Catholic priesthood which is so indispensable to the salvation of our souls.  This war against priests, and in effect against the Church, played out in full force in the January 27 edition of the New York Times, as seen in an editorial written by Frank Bruni concerning an upcoming book by Garry Wills.  Mr. Wills calls himself Catholic but yet constantly rails against the Pope and the Magesteruim of the Church.  Both the book and this editorial are nothing less than diabolical in tone, and could have easily been dictated by the devil himself.   The editorial is entitled "Catholicism's Curse."

Mr. Bruni starts by telling us that he and Mr. Wills have nothing against priests.  Mr. Bruni says he has met many good priests who, according to Mr. Bruni, are good in spite of, and not because of, the Catholic Church:

“I HAVE nothing against priests,” writes Garry Wills in his provocative new book, “Why Priests? A Failed Tradition,” and I’d like at the outset to say the same. During a career that has included no small number of formal interviews and informal conversations with them, I’ve met many I admire, men of genuine compassion and remarkable altruism, more dedicated to humanity than to any dogma or selective tradition.

You know there is a "but" coming, and here it is:

But while I have nothing against priests, I have quite a lot against an institution that has done a disservice to them and to the parishioners in whose interests they should toil. I refer to the Roman Catholic Church, specifically to its modern incarnation and current leaders, who have tucked priests into a cosseted caste above the flock, wrapped them in mysticism and prioritized their protection and reputations over the needs and sometimes even the anguish of the people in the pews. I have a problem, in other words, with the church’s arrogance, a thread that runs through Wills’s book, to be published next month; through fresh revelations of how assiduously a cardinal in Los Angeles worked to cover up child sexual abuse; and through the church’s attempts to silence dissenters, including an outspoken clergyman in Ireland who was recently back in the news.

Mr. Bruni would definitely not agree with the advice given to us by Sir Alec Guinness and in fact, Mr. Bruni believes we must judge the priesthood by the priest.  I wonder if he feels that way about other institutions.   What about pedophiles who have been caught in police departments, teachers, government officials, the Protestant ministry, the Hasidic community, all at much higher rates than among Catholic priests?  Shouldn't we be judging these institutions by the same standards Mr. Bruni wants us to use with the Catholic priesthood?  The fact is that pedophilia is found everywhere in our culture and it is a very sad fact that this includes the Catholic Church, as Mr. Bruni does not hesitate to point out, and yes, bishops did mishandle many of these cases:

LET’S start with Los Angeles. Last week, as a result of lawsuits filed against the archdiocese of Los Angeles by hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by priests, internal church personnel files were made public. They showed that Cardinal Roger M. Mahony’s impulse, when confronted with priests who had molested children, was to hush it up and keep law enforcement officials at bay. While responses like this by Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals have been extensively chronicled and are no longer shocking, they remain infuriating. At one point Cardinal Mahony instructed a priest whom he’d dispatched to New Mexico for counseling not to return to California, lest he risk being criminally prosecuted. That sort of shielding of priests from accountability allowed them, in many cases across the United States, to continue their abusive behavior and claim more young victims.

Mr. Bruni continues on with a description of Cardinal Mahony's handling of abusive priests and then launches into an attack on the Vatican:

Church officials and defenders note that Cardinal Mahony’s gravest misdeeds occurred in the 1980s, before church leaders were properly educated about recidivism among pedophiles and before the dimensions of the child sexual abuse crisis in the church became clear. They point out that the church’s response improved over time. That’s true, but what hasn’t changed is the church’s hubris. This hubris abetted the crisis: the particular sway that abusers held over their victims and the special trust they received from those children’s parents were tied into the church’s presentation of priests as paragons.

And this hubris also survives the crisis, manifest in the way that the Vatican, a gilded enclave so far removed and so frequently out of step with the rest of the world, clamps down on Catholics who challenge its rituals and rules. Much of what these dissenters raise questions about — the all-male priesthood, for example, or the commitment to celibacy that priests are required to make — aren’t indisputable edicts from God. They’re inventions of the mortals who took charge of the faith.

I'm assuming Mr. Bruni would say it was hubris that caused Our Lord to choose an all-male priesthood in the Apostles.  Mr. Bruni also seems to reject Matthew 16:19 in which Our Lord said to St. Peter, our first Pope, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."  No doubt Mr. Bruni would see this as the epitome of hubris and an "invention of mortals".

As an example of the hubris of the Catholic Church, Mr. Bruni tells us about the "injustice", as he sees it, that has been done to an Irish priest who is in active rebellion against the Magesterium of the Church:

And yet with imperious regularity, Vatican officials issue their relished condemnations. These officials are reliably riled by nuns, a favorite target of their wrath. And they’ve been none too pleased with an Irish priest, the Rev. Tony Flannery, 66, who was suspended from his ministry by the Vatican last year and informed, he recently said, that he could return to it on the condition that he publicly express his endorsement of a range of official positions that he had questioned, including the exclusion of women from the priesthood. Last Sunday he broke a long silence to say that the Vatican had threatened him with excommunication and to call its approach toward him “reminiscent of the Inquisition.”

Among the Vatican’s issues with him was his stated belief in a 2010 article that the priesthood, rather than originating with Jesus and a specially selected group of followers, was selfishly created later by a “privileged group within the community who had abrogated power and authority to themselves.”

Mr. Bruni now presents us with the fiction of Garry Wills, who asserts in his new book that the priesthood was not given to us by Jesus Christ, but an invention by mere mortals, and that the priesthood was actually opposed in the early Church. Mr. Bruni also feels that the Church needs to have a more democratic government:

That may sound like an extreme assertion, but the new book by Wills, a Pulitzer Prize winner who has written extensively about Christianity and the church, says that at the start, Christianity not only didn’t have priests but opposed them. The priesthood was a subsequent tweak, and the same goes for the all-male, celibate nature of the Roman Catholic clergy and the autocratic hierarchy that this clergy inhabits, an unresponsive government whose subjects — the laity — have limited say.

Mr. Bruni and Mr. Wills now completely toss out Vatican I, which said that the teachings of the Magesterium, which is guided by the Holy Spirit, are infallible:

“It can’t admit to error, the church hierarchy,” Wills told me on the phone on Thursday. “Any challenge to their prerogative is, in their eyes, a challenge to God. You can’t be any more arrogant than that.” 

Mr. Wills makes an outright attack upon the priesthood and Mr. Bruni agrees, trying to tell us that the abuse crisis proves that the Church and the world would be much better off without the Catholic priesthood:

“We Catholics were taught not only that we must have priests but that they must be the right kind of priests,” he writes in the book, which argues that priests aren’t ultimately necessary. “What we were supposed to accept is that all priesthoods are invalid ones except the Roman Catholic.”

That’s an awfully puffed-up position, and there’s a corresponding haughtiness in the fact that bishops can assign priests to parishes without any real obligation to get input or feedback from the parishioners those priests serve. This way of doing business in fact enabled church leaders to shuttle priests accused of molestation around, keeping them one step ahead of their crimes.

It has also helped to turn many Catholics away from the church, while prompting others to regard its leaders as ornamental and somewhat irrelevant distractions. They cherish the essence and beauty of their religion. They just can’t abide the arrogance of many of its appointed caretakers.

The arguments made in Mr. Bruni's editorial and Mr. Wills's book about the Catholic priesthood and the teachings of the Catholic Church are not only specious, but they are dangerous to our souls.  This is not to say that there are not problems within the church.  The church is filled with sinners.  We all have fallen natures and live in a fallen world.  We need spiritual guidance and correction, and we get it all the time from the Magesterium.  Certainly if the priests and bishops who now stand accused had put themselves entirely in line with the teachings of the Church, the abuse crisis would have never happened.

The Church is not the cause of the crisis.  It was and is caused by those who refuse to abide by the divinely inspired teachings of the Church.  To throw out the priesthood is truly to throw out the baby with the bathwater.  It is to quite literally throw away our eternal salvation.

We all must be very careful when we speak against priests.  From Catholictradition.org:

IN his epistle to the Christians of Smyrna, St. Ignatius, Martyr, says that the priesthood is the most sublime of all created dignities: "The apex of dignities is the priesthood." St. Ephrem calls it an infinite dignity: "The priesthood is an astounding miracle, great, immense, and infinite." St. John Chrysostom says, that though its functions are performed on earth, the priesthood should be numbered among the things of Heaven."

According to Cassian, the priest of God is exalted above all earthly sovereignties, and above all celestial heights-----he is inferior only to God. Innocent III says that the priest is placed between God and man; inferior to God, but superior to man. St. Denis calls the priest a Divine man. Hence he has called the priesthood a Divine dignity. In fine, St. Ephrem says that the gift of the sacerdotal dignity surpasses all understanding.

For us it is enough to know, that Jesus Christ has said that we should treat his priests as we would his own person: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; he that despiseth you, despiseth Me." Hence St. John Chrysostom says, that "he who honors a priest, honors Christ, and he who insults a priest, insults Christ." Through respect for the sacerdotal dignity, St. Mary of Oignies used to kiss the ground on which a priest had walked.

St. Francis

Yes, we have a troubled priesthood in many ways.  But have we contributed to it by not honoring our priests as they deserve?  They are here as representatives of Jesus Christ.  As quoted above and taken from Luke 10:16, Jesus Christ said:  "He that heareth you, heareth Me; he that despiseth you, despiseth Me."  We need to look beyond the priest as a man and see our Lord himself.  We need to keep in mind that the priest is here to save our souls.  If we were on a lifeboat in the middle of an ocean and that lifeboat was our means of salvation, we would treat it with great respect.  When our priests fall, it is not our job to condemn them. It is our job to pray for them, just as St. Francis did.  From catholic.org:

Francis was not a reformer; he preached about returning to God and obedience to the Church. Francis must have known about the decay in the Church, but he always showed the Church and its people his utmost respect. When someone told him of a priest living openly with a woman and asked him if that meant the Mass was polluted, Francis went to the priest, knelt before him, and kissed his hands -- because those hands had held God.

Try not to judge the priesthood by the priest. 

Credit:  http://pinterest.com/pin/436356651365237654/

What Is The Cause of the Crisis in the Church?

Christ has endowed the Church with the gift of infallibility, the highest level of participation in His teaching authority. “This infallibility extends as far as does the deposit of Divine Revelation; it also extends to those elements of doctrine, including morals, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, or observed” (CCC, n. 2035).  
Cardinal Raymond Burke

I have posted many times on this blog about the great crisis of faith we have been experiencing in the Church in the last several decades.  The very fact that 50% of Catholics voted for a pro-abortion, pro gay rights, anti-Catholic for president of the United States should tell us everything we need to know.  Women want to be priests, priests want to get married, Catholics support abortion and same sex marriage, Mass attendance is at all time lows.  Many in the Church, including many religious, i.e., the nuns on the bus, feel they are completely justified in questioning and even disobeying the authority of the Magesterium.  But it isn't just the United States.  For example, Ireland, once the most Catholic country in the world, has had a major drop off in Mass attendance and those faithful to the church.  The entire country is down to one seminary and the continued existence of that one is in question.  Similar circumstances can be found throughout the entire world.

I was recently listening to Michael Voris, and I found one Vortex episode particularly interesting.  Michael asked for viewer participation in a survey to determine  the top cause of the crisis we have witnessed in the Church in the past 50 years. He started out by stating that there are many causes to the Catholic Church crisis:

The crisis in the Church in the west has many causes and these causes create NEW causes which sometimes become responsible for even MORE problems that the original cause.

We’ve heard from hundreds of priests and seminarians .. as well as sisters and brothers and deacons .. even some bishops on what they each are the most concerned with. We’ve communicated with thousands and thousands of laity .. a lot of it face to face. So .. as we said .. we have put together a list of the top 10 most frequently pointed to causes of the crisis in the Church and here they are .. in no special order:

The 10 ten causes listed by Michael Voris are:

1. False Ecumenism – (too much protestant influence in liturgies and life of the Church)

2. Liberal Social Justice Agenda (including lack of attention to Pro-life issue)

3.  Rebellion Among Clergy (being disobedient to the Magisterium)

4.  Secular Relativism (attacks against the faith from outside the Church)

5.  Cafeteria Catholics (indifferent and lukewarm Catholics)

6. Abuses at Novus Ordo Mass (lack of reverence, understanding of the Sacrifice)

7. Lack of Zeal by Bishops (more interested in earthly concerns than spiritual)

8.  Unwillingness/Cowardice in Confronting Dissent (a “don’t rock the boat” attitude)

9. The Homosexual Clergy network (the infiltration into parish life, seminaries and orders)

10. Poor Lay Education and Priestly Formation (on all levels, school, college, RCIA, seminary)

These are all extremely serious problems in the Church and put millions of souls at risk.  I see the problems listed above as spiritual cancers that have infected the Body of Christ, and just as cancer destroys us physically, these spiritual cancers are destroying millions of souls, robbing them of eternal life.  The Oxford dictionary defines cancer as "a disease caused by an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of the body."  Cancer is an organic disease, which means something has gone wrong with an organ or organs of the body.  Cancer does not occur without a reason.  There must be something to cause "an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells." All of these spiritual cancers attacking the church did not just spontaneously happen.

My question is this:  what has caused this explosion of spiritual cancer in the Church?

Raymond Cardinal Burke

I found a wonderful posting that I believes helps to answer this question,  It is a presentation given on July 15, 2006 in Louisville, Kentucky by then Archbishop, now Cardinal, Raymond Burke on the importance of "Obedience to The Magisterium and the Responsibility of the Bishop Toward the Laity."  Cardinal Burke was the bishop of St. Louis at the time he gave this talk.  He is now Cardinal Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial authority in the Catholic Church.  I am personally a huge fan of His Eminence.

Archbishop Burke started out with a very profound statement in which he says that our very relationship with Jesus Christ and our eternal salvation are bound up in the Magesterium.  This should catch our attention immediately:

The relationship of the Magisterium to our eternal salvation lies at the very foundation of our life in Christ.

"The Roman Pontiff and the Bishops are servants of Christ

and of His Holy Word. The Magisterium 'teaches

only what has been handed on to it. At the command and 

with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this 

devotedly, guards it with dedication, 

and expounds it faithfully' (Dei Verbum, n. 10b)."

His Eminence further explained how the Magesterium, which is vital to our salvation, has become so marginalized in the lives of Catholics:

In a world which prizes, above all else, individualism and self-determination, the Christian is easily tempted to view the Magisterium in relationship to his individualism and self-pursuit. In other words, he is tempted to relativize the authority of the Magisterium. The phenomenon today is popularly known as “cafeteria Catholicism.”  [This statement supports #5 (Cafeteria Catholics) of Michael Voris' list.] 

Archbishop Burke defines the "Magesterium" :

The entire content of our faith, what Saint Paul in his First and Second Letters to Timothy calls the deposit of faith, is found in Sacred Scripture and Tradition (1Timothy 6:20; and 2Timothy 1:12-14). The faith, in its integrity, has been entrusted to the Church by Christ through the ministry of the Apostles. The deposit of faith is the teaching of the Apostles and the living of that teaching in the life of prayer and the sacramental life, and the witness of the teaching in the moral life. The foundation is the sound doctrine which finds its highest expression in the Sacraments, above all the Holy Eucharist, and which is witnessed in the holiness of life of the believer (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church (hereafter CCC), n. 84).

When Christ gave Peter the
Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven,
He established the Magesterium

The Magtesterium  - the teaching authority of the Church - has been given directly by Jesus Christ to the Church.  Since the Magesterium is "the entire content of our faith. . . entrusted to the Church by Christ through the ministry of the Apostles," everything we think, say and do should be completely in line with the Magesterium.  This point is emphasized even further in the next statement from Archbishop Burke:

The responsibility for the deposit of the faith and its transmission in every age belongs “to the living teaching office of the Church alone” (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution Dei Verbum, “On Divine Revelation,” 18 November 1965, n. 10b). The “living teaching office” or Magisterium of the Church, exercised by the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops in communion with him, has its authority from our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has conferred upon the Apostles, with Peter as their Head, and their successors, the Bishops, with the Successor of Peter as their head, the authority to teach authentically (CCC, n. 85).

The Magesterium gets its teaching authority directly from the Head of the Church:  Jesus Christ.  This means that to follow the Magesterium of the Catholic Church, the "living teaching office of the Church", is to follow Christ.  Conversely, to reject the Magesterium - to reject the authority of the Bishops and the Pope - is to reject not just the Church, but to reject God in the second Person of the Trinity.

Archbishop Burke emphasizes the fact that the Magesterium is the voice of Christ on this earth:

The Roman Pontiff and the Bishops are servants of Christ and of His Holy Word. The Magisterium “teaches only what has been handed on to it. At the command and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it listens to this devotedly, guards it with dedication, and expounds it faithfully” (Dei Verbum, n. 10b). The Roman Pontiff and the Bishops in communion with him teach only what is contained in the deposit of faith as divinely revealed truth (CCC, n. 86).

The Magisterium, in obedience to Christ and by the power of the particular grace of the Holy Spirit, interprets the Word of God, contained in the Sacred Scriptures and Tradition, in matters of both faith and morals. The Roman Pontiff and the Bishops in communion with him define the dogmas of the faith, that is, the truths contained in the deposit of faith and “truths having a necessary connection with these” (CCC, n. 88).   

The Magesterium leads the
Church just as the Pillar of Cloud
and Fire lead the Israelites

Our loving and merciful Lord did not leave us alone on this earth to try to figure out on our own the best way to serve him, as the Protestants believe.  In the Old Testament of the Bible, we are told of how God led the Israelites through the desert with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  This directly foreshadowed the Magesterium of the Church.  Since He founded His Church 2000 years ago, Jesus Christ has led His Mystical Body through the spiritual desert on this earth by means of "the 'living teaching office' or Magisterium of the Church, exercised by the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops in communion with him."

Archbishop Burke gives a further explanation into the workings of the Magesterium:

The Magisterium is exercised in solemn declarations and in “catechesis and preaching” (CCC, n. 2033). The Roman Pontiff and the Bishops in communion with him are, in the words of the Dogmatic Constitution Lumen gentium, “authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach the faith to the people entrusted to them, the faith to be believed and put into practice” (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council: Lumen gentium, n. 25).

Archbishop Burke would seem to take strong exception with those who say teachings of Vatican II are not part of the Magesterium and that we are not bound by them because Vatican II was pastoral and not doctrinal in nature.  As a side comment, it is interesting to note that Archbishop Burke constantly referred to the documents of Vatican II to show the authority of the Magesterium.  Archbishop Burke makes it plain in the following statement that all ecumenical councils are part of the Magesterium:

The Magisterium is either ordinary or extraordinary. The Ordinary Magisterium is all that the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops in communion with him teach. The Extraordinary Magisterium consists of the “definitions of the ecumenical councils or the ex cathedra definitions that the Popes might pronounce” (Louis Bouyer, Dictionary of Theology, tr. Charles Underhill Quinn, New York: Desclee Company, 1965, p. 290).

This is not something we can take lightly.  To turn away from the teachings of the Magesterium puts us in the same danger spiritually that the Israelites would have been in physically if they had not followed the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire at night.  They would have been subject to the dangers of wild animals and dangerous men intent on killing them.  The Israelites would have further been exposed to the inhospitable and life-threatening conditions of the desert itself.  They also would not receive the daily manna that was given to them directly from heaven. The Magesterium was given to us by Jesus Christ to protect us from the spiritual dangers in the world and to lead us to the true promised land:  eternity in the presence of the Beatific Vision.

When we reject the Magesterium, we put our souls in extreme peril, and that is as true for "traditional" Catholics as for "progressives."  This is why our Holy Father is insisting that the Society of St. Pius X accept all of the Second Vatican Council.  To allow them to reject any part of the Council is to allow them to reject the Magesterium, an act expressly forbidden by the Holy Spirit.  

Next, Archbishop Burke goes on to explain how and why the Magesterium is infallible.  The gift of infallibility of the Magesterium "extends as far as does the deposit of Divine Revelation; it also extends to those elements of doctrine, including morals, without which the saving truths of the faith cannot be preserved, explained, or observed” (CCC, n. 2035)."  The Magesterium, according to this statement, not only explains the "saving truths of the faith", but actually preserves them.

Further, the infallibility given to the Bishops and the Holy Father in teaching the Divine Truth is also given to the faithful when it comes to believing these truths so that the "whole body of the faithful cannot err in matters of belief".  The faithful's belief and acceptance of the Magesterium is just as much the work of the Holy Spirit as it is in the teaching of the Bishops and the Roman Pontiff:

The gift of infallibility, by which the Roman Pontiff and the Bishops in communion with Him, exercise most solemnly the teaching authority of Christ, refers to the all-generous gift of Christ to the Church by which the “whole body of the faithful cannot err in matters of belief” (Lumen gentium, n. 12). The gift is manifest in what is called the sensus fidei, which is the grace to give assent to the faith, poured out by Christ on all the faithful. The Magisterium guides the faithful by handing on to them “the faith, once for all delivered to the saints” (Lumen gentium, n. 12).

The faithful, inspired by the Holy Spirit dwelling within them “unfailingly [adhere] to this faith, [penetrate] it more deeply with right judgment, and [apply] it more fully in daily life” (Lumen gentium, n. 12). It is clear that the sensus fidei is not the foundation for some democratic form of Magisterium but a reflection of the fundamental and essential obedience to the Magisterium in the lives of the faithful.

The next statement by Archbishop Burke gives, I believe, the key to the crisis of faith that we have seen in the Church:

When Bishops and faithful obediently submit themselves in mind and heart to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, the perennial truth of the faith shines forth in the whole Church for the building up of the Body of Christ and the transformation of the world.  

I say that this statement is the key to understanding the crisis in the Church because the converse would also have to be true, that when the Bishops and faithful do not "obediently subject themselves in mind and heart to the promptings of the Holy Spirit", then the "perennial truth of the faith" will not shine forth and the Church and the world will be left in darkness and chaos.

Archbishop Burke shows us the consequences that arise when the bishops and the faithful do not "obediently subject themselves in mind and heart to the promptings of the Holy Spirit":

In what pertains to morals, in particular, the faithful “have the right to be instructed in the divine saving precepts that purify judgment and, with grace, heal wounded human reason” (CCC, n. 2037). At the same time, the faithful “have the duty of observing the constitutions and decrees conveyed by the legitimate authority of the Church” (CCC, n. 2037). The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that even the disciplinary norms of the Church “call for docility in charity” (n. 2037). One cannot fail to observe the grave harm done in the Church and in her mission to the world by the lack of obedience to the disciplinary norms regarding the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, the teaching of the faith and the right order of the individual communities of the faithful. Our Lord Himself cautioned us that our fidelity in little things is the indispensable condition to our fidelity in great things (Luke 16:10).   [This statement would seem to support #6 (Liturgical abuse), #7 (Lack of zeal by bishops) and #10 (poor Catechesis) of Michael Voris' list]

Archbishop Burke puts the major responsibility upon his fellow bishops:

When the shepherds of the flock are obedient to the Magisterium, entrusted to their exercise, then the members of the flock grow in obedience and proceed, with Christ, along the way of salvation. If the shepherd is not obedient, the flock easily gives way to confusion and errors. The shepherd must be especially attentive to the assaults of Satan who knows that, if he can strike the shepherd, the work of scattering the flock will be made easy (cf. Zechariah 13:7).  [This covers #3 (rebellion among the clergy) on the Voris list]

I would submit that the root cause of the cancerous growths in the Body of Christ and, by extension, throughout the world, can be summed up in one word:  sin.

Oh c'mon, you say. That's not the question. We want to know what causes people to turn away from church teachings.

Sin is both the the cause of all the ills in life we suffer and the result of our actions.  It can be either our personal sin or the sin of others.  Sin is what causes the growth of "abnormal cells."  Sin is when, like Satan, we say to God "Non Serviam",  "I will not serve."    Each sin we commit is a replay of the original sin of our first parents. We are taking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We are becoming our own magesterium, deciding for ourselves what is right and wrong, what is good and evil.  When we do that, like our first parents, we are cast out of the Garden of Eden to a greater or lesser extent, and we are on our own in a spiritual wilderness.  Disobedience to the Magesterium of the Church is sin, which leads to even greater sin in our lives until, if our sin is not repented of and absolved, we say to God as Satan did, "Non Serviam."

Since the time of Christ, our Lord has worked through only one Church, and has guaranteed that the teachings of that one church, the Catholic Church, are perfect.  This does not mean that the people in the Church are perfect.  Far from it.  But the one thing in this world that you can rely on with 100% certainty is the Magesterium - the teaching - of the Catholic Church.  You will never be led astray if you stay in line with the teachings of the Church.

Archbishop Burke tells us that obedience to faith is "the disposition of mind and heart to believe all that God has revealed to us and to do all that He asks of us."  He goes on to say that obedience to the Magesterium, which is "the guardian and teacher of the faith, is the fundamental disposition of the baptized and confirmed Catholic."  In other words, disobedience to the Magesterium destroys our faith, and as Hebrews 11:6 tells us, "without faith it is impossible to please God."

A glaring example of how problems of morality
stem from disobedience to the Magesterium

Archbishop Burke tells us that "the moral life flows from faith in God.  It is the 'obedience of faith' in action. . . . When we fail morally, we also fail in faith. . . . Where there are problems of chastity, there are problems of obedience."  If we live a life of faith, then we are living a life of obedience to the Magesterium, which produces a moral life.  Immorality is a sign of disobedience to the faith and thus, to the Magesterium.   Therefore, it is wrong to blame the Church for the immorality found in the clergy.  In fact, the answer to immorality among the clergy is not to change the teachings of the Church by allowing the clergy to marry, as so many argue, but for them to return to "obedience of faith" and obedience to the Magesterium.

The moral life flows from our faith in God. It is the “obedience of faith” in action. The first tablet of the Ten Commandments governs our right relationship with God, which makes possible our right relationship with others and the world, governed by the second tablet. When we fail morally, we also fail in faith (CCC, nn. 2087-2088). I often recall the words of a sage professor of Canon Law, who taught me the Church’s discipline regarding clerics. More than once, he told the class: “Where there are problems of chastity, there are problems of obedience.” Our rebellion against the moral truth is a rebellion against God and all that He teaches us. 

Archbishop Burke readily admits that obedience to the Magesterium is no walk in the park.  It has always been difficult and in many ways, is even more difficult in our modern times:

Obedience to the Magisterium is difficult for man in every age. The practice of the “obedience of faith” is difficult to master. The difficulty comes both from within us and from outside of us. We suffer the effects of the sin of our First Parents, which fundamentally was a sin of prideful disobedience, of rebellion against God’s will. The grace of the Holy Spirit, poured forth into our soul through Baptism, strengthened and increased in our soul through Confirmation, and nourished within our soul through the Holy Eucharist, alone helps us to overcome our inherited tendency to rebellion and disobedience.

Archbishop Burke goes on to explain the difficulties we face in our modern culture in being obedient to the Magesterium:

The world around us, the culture in which we live, to the degree that it is has succumbed to Satan’s deceptions, is a source of strong temptation for us. Our culture, in fact, has been described as “godless” both by the late and most beloved Pope John Paul II and by Pope Benedict XVI. Our culture teaches us to act as if God did not exist. At the same time, it teaches a radical individualism and self-interest which lead us away from the love of God and from the love of one another.

Now Archbishop Burke makes a very important point.  He points out that our obedience to the Magisterium often is "not total but selective."  This is where "cafeteria Catholicism" comes from.  This is the accusation Traditionalists often make against Progressives, and that, sadly, is often a very true charge.  But Traditionalists must realize that they are not above this error, either.  They can do the "traditional Catholic thing", but if they are speaking out against the Magesterium, they are in as much spiritual danger as the Progressives:

Often the lack of obedience to the Magisterium is not total but selective. Our culture teaches us to believe what is convenient and to reject what is difficult for us or challenges us. Thus, we can easily fall into “cafeteria Catholicism,” a practice of the faith, which picks and chooses what part of the deposit of faith to believe and practice.

Archbishop Burke now touches upon what I believe is one of the main sources of the crisis in the Church.  It is not Vatican II, but the rejection and disobedience to Humanae Vitae:

A most tragic example of the lack of obedience of faith, also on the part of certain Bishops, was the response of many to the Encyclical Letter Humanae vitae of Pope Paul VI, published on July 25, 1968. The confusion which resulted has led many Catholics into habits of sin in what pertains to the procreation and education of human life.

Archbishop Burke now goes on to tell us how to obey the faith:

To meet the challenges to the practice of the “obedience of faith,” we must draw upon the grace of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. 

How do we draw upon the Holy Spirit?  Archbishop Burke gives us two key steps.  First of all, we must have a life of prayer, "an indispensable condition for being able to obey God’s commandments.  It is only through communion with God in prayer that we come to know His will in our lives and that we find the courage to do what God asks of us."  Archbishop Burke emphasizes contemplative prayer, which is "hearing the Word of God."  He tells us this is not a passive act, as it may appear from the outside, but "attentiveness is the obedience of faith, the unconditional acceptance of a servant, and the loving commitment of a child."  It is our participation with Christ in saying to the Father, "Not my will but yours be done", and with Mary when she said "Yes" to being the Mother of God.

Then we must do something that is pretty much considered anathema in our world today.  We must live a life of discipline and sacrifice, which means saying no to our own desires and wants on a fairly regular basis.  We must make sacrifice a regular part of our lives.  These sacrifices are "our union with Christ in His Eucharistic Sacrifice throughout the day. We must embrace those sacrifices, both small and great, which are necessary if we are truly to love God and our neighbor (CCC, nn. 2099-2100, and 2340). If we are to meet the great challenges in the following of Christ, we must discipline our thoughts and desires, so that they become more Christlike. The more we practice self-discipline, the easier it becomes for us to grow in the obedience of faith."  To understand more fully what it means to make daily sacrifices in our lives, I cannot recommend highly enough the autobiography of St. Therese of Liseux, "The Story of A Soul."  I did a post on her "little way" which is a life of sacrifice in our daily lives.  You can read the post here.

Prayer and sacrifice will lead us directly to obedience of faith.  In fact, Archbishop Burke says that it is impossible to have a life of obedience of faith without prayer and sacrifice:

Prayer and sacrifice necessarily lead us to attend to our growth in the life of the virtues. Prayer and sacrifice both unveil for us the virtues which make obedience possible and win for us the grace of the Holy Spirit to grow and develop in those virtues, for example, justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude, humility, chastity, and, above all, charity (CCC, nn. 2340-2342).

Prayer, sacrifice and the practice of the Christian virtues lead us to hear God’s Word ever more attentively in our lives and to put it into practice, without hesitation or compromise. There is no other way to know God’s will in our lives and to do it, to know who we are and to be true to our identity. Clearly, they are the most important heritage for us to hand on to our children and young people.

Archbishop Burke does not hold back but tells us plainly that our obedience of faith could ultimately lead to martyrdom, especially as our culture becomes more and more anti-Christian, as the trend now is:

The obedience of faith obliges us in all situations of life, also in situations in which it is most difficult to do what God asks of us. Ultimately, the obedience of faith could require martyrdom. In his Encyclical Letter Veritatis splendor, “Regarding Certain Fundamental Questions of the Church’s Moral Teaching” of August 6, 1993, our late and most beloved Holy Father Pope John Paul II taught us that there can be no compromise in the obedience to the moral teaching of the Magisterium:

Even in the most difficult situations man must respect the norm of morality so that he can be obedient to God’s holy commandments and consistent with his own dignity as a person. Certainly, maintaining a harmony between freedom and truth occasionally demands uncommon sacrifices, and must be won at a high price: it can even involve martyrdom (n. 102a).

How often our beloved Father John A. Hardon, S.J., taught us that living the Catholic faith today in our totally secularized society demands a readiness to give the ultimate witness of martyrdom!

Going way back to the beginning of this post, what is the answer to Michael Voris' question on the cause of the crisis of faith in the Church?  It is all of the reasons he listed, which are in reality the result of rejection of the Magesterium of the Church.  The Magesterium is our Pillar of Cloud and Fire to lead us through the spiritual desert in which we live.  It is the means by which God protects us from the mortal dangers that surround us.  To step outside of the protection of the Magesterium is to place ourselves outside the protection of our Lord and Savior, and to subject our souls to the very real danger of eternal hellfire.

A crisis of faith boils down to a crisis of authority, and takes us right back to the Garden of Eden - shall we eat of the Tree of Life, which is the Magesterium of the Catholic Church, or do we become our own Magesterium and eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and find ourselves cast out into spiritual darkness.

Archbishop Burke concludes with the following statements, in which he tells us that there is no other way to salvation than obedience to faith, which is obedience to the Magesterium:

It is my hope that these few reflections will help us all to understand the fundamental importance of obedience to the faith for our eternal salvation and the irreplaceable service of the Bishops in leading us all to an ever purer and stronger obedience. There is no other way to salvation than hearing God’s Word and putting it into practice with all our being. The Letter to the Hebrews which teaches us, in a particular way, the “obedience of faith” reminds us that our Lord Himself “learned obedience from what He suffered” and thus became the source of eternal life, of eternal salvation, for us all. We ask for the obedience of Christ each time we pray to God the Father in the words which our Savior Himself taught to us: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” We pray through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, that we may imitate her belief that God’s promises to us will be fulfilled.

I conclude with the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, inspired by our prayer, Christ’s prayer in us, that God’s will be done in all things. How much more reason have we sinful creatures to learn obedience – we who in Him have become children of adoption. We ask our Father to unite our will to His Son’s, in order to fulfill His will, His plan of salvation for the life of the world. We are radically incapable of this, but united with Jesus and with the power of His Holy Spirit, we can surrender our will to Him and decide to choose what His Son has always chosen: to do what is pleasing to the Father (n. 2825).

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church and Queen of the Apostles, intercede for us, that we may grow in the obedience of faith, in obedience to the Magisterium, for our own salvation and for the salvation of the world.

"Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church." 

-St. Ignatius of Antioch