This is a continuation from Parts I & II.

An outcome of so much of the Vatican II fallout, says Davies, is that mass is no longer an experience of peaceful reverence for many Catholics, but instead "going to Mass has become a misery for them, they come away disturbed and distressed." For many it is a chore rather than a joy. Naturally many of us have witnessed this fact. Still worse, many thinking Catholics find themselves in situations in which they "quite reasonably wonder whether the sacraments they are receiving are valid." In retrospect, I wonder the same thing about some places I have visited.

Davies believes that we are living through a period in Catholic history not dissimilar to the time of St. Athanasius in which heresy--in our age, modernism--is rampant. Even the age old mass, now known as the Tridentine mass, was unjustly outlawed until our current pope, the Lord bless him, corrected and clarified this error in his Motu Proprio only a few years ago. And so we find ourselves at a crossroads in American Catholic history, a time in which tradition is roundly and summarily dismsissed, our "church buildings" not far behind.

Never before in the entire history of the Church has there been such an abrupt and violent breach with Tradition and established custom. We can say with St. Thomas: "It is absurd and a detestable shame that we should suffer those traditions to be changed which we have received from the fathers of old."

I believe that the forcible closing of our churches in favor of what can be reasonably looked upon as "the new church" both physically and spiritually may fall under the heading of "an absurd and detestable shame." The very structure of a traditional Catholic church is under attack. In a "traditional" Catholic church we all face forward, not in a circle or semi-circle so that we may stare at our "community" during "the liturgy" (even the term, "mass" is apparently, by many, considered a relic of the past). We have kneelers, holy water fonts, stations of the cross, and, typically, stained glass and other art that educates and illuminates the faithful, as well as many other things. Perhaps most importantly, the tabernacle containing Our Lord's precious body is front and center, where it should be, for the purpose of proper dignity and worship!

In the case of St. Mary's, we are also blessed with an altar rail which clearly delineates the space where the Holy Sacrifice takes place. In addition, the choir loft an organ are in the rear of church, where they belong. In a traditional Catholic church, the mass is not a show, therefore we need not see the musicians. The music is meant to elevate our souls to God, who comes to us body, blood, soul, and divinity via the priest who stands in persona christi.

To be continued in Part IV.

by Julie

Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me: for my soul trusteth in thee. And in the shadow of thy wings will I hope, until iniquity pass away. I will cry to God the most High; to God who hath done good to me. (Psalm 56: 2-3)

Why?

I unexpectedly had my sweet little niece for an overnight last night. She's 6. My own two [boys] are five and three (although the youngest is closer chronologically to 22 months due to developmental delay). In any case, ever since she was a baby, whenever I've had my niece with me I like to take her to church since that isn't something she normally does. When you have kids around this age, it's amazing the bizarre or surprising conversations you wind up having with them since they ask "why?" about almost everything.

I happened to have a couple of signs from rallies in the car and my niece was asking me questions about them. I tried to answer her succinctly. But my answers inevitably led to questions about why the bishop would want to close churches. Kids just never understand this, and I can't say I blame them. I truly wish Bishop Galante would listen to the children a little more often, because no child I know can wrap their mind around why their bishop should want to shut down their church. Anyway, I found this simultaneously easy and difficult to answer. Difficult because at first I wasn't sure what to say or how to explain it, and simple because when it came to me, I realized that the situation wasn't really that complex.

No Hope

The bottom line, I thought, is that the bishop has no hope. Truly this is a sad, sad thing on many levels. Hope is something divinely infused, necessary to salvation, and, when you think about it, God Himself. Our hope is in the Lord, our hope is the Lord, and the Lord Himself implants hope within us. But what came to me when I was trying to explain this to the kids was that hope is trust in God, trust that He will provide, that our lives are in His hands, and that no matter what happens to us, He's in charge. When we have no hope, God loses His rightful place on the throne of our hearts, and we go about leading our lives as if we were in charge. As Bishop Galante himself put it, we can't sit around waiting for a miracle to happen.

Of course, this is a dramatic shift in perspective, isn't it? We stop waiting for God's direction and rely upon our own. We even stop expecting God to give us direction, we no longer expect God to care for us, and all of life's burdens are placed squarely on our own shoulders. Like the God of the Deists, He will not intervene, He will no longer draw souls to Himself. He will no longer call men to the holy priesthood nor women to the consecrated religious life. In this view of our world, human life varies from place to place and time to time, and common sense dictates that one must live one's life and alter one's religious practice accordingly. Therefore we cannot have the same view of God as those who lived hundreds of years ago. We cannot be that simple-minded. We must be realistic and face facts: we must downsize the Faith. This, my friends, is a mistake of monumental proportions.

He Don't Change!

In reality, God doesn't change even when our lives on this earth do, no matter the place or the century. However, with the dawn of progressive religious sensibilities, particularly during the modernistic "Second Great Awakening" in the nineteenth century (the fruits of which were seen in the twentieth), came the notion that with the march of time and progress, our understandings of God will become less obscured and consequently more reasonable. Our lives will improve largely due to scientific advances which lead to greater awareness of ourselves and the universe. And while our ancestors were simplistic and naive, we, with greater information at our disposal, are more enlightened. We may look upon our ancestors and their religion, then, with tender sentimentality, but no true regard. Whenever you see the title of a program or workshop that reads "spirituality for today," "modern Catholicism," "religion for our lives and times," or the like, the presumption is that today's religiosity ought to be better than yesterday's because not only our lives, but also our God, are changeable. In a nutshell, this is modernism;

A spirit of movement and change, with an inclination to a sweeping form of evolution such as abhors anything fixed and stationary.

Earlier this evening, my husband and I were talking about modernistic tendencies. He's not Catholic, by the way, but was lamenting the prevalence of this mindset in his denomination. It occurred to me that the modernism we were discussing, which has infected all forms of Christianity and even invented new ones, was connected to my discussion of hope with the kids in the car. Closely associated with a type of liberalism, it

denies, at least practically, God and supernatural religion. If carried out logically, it leads even to a theoretical denial of God, by putting deified mankind in place of God.

You may know from your own personal experience the very thing that this sort of self-reliance leads to: despair. Why? Because without God we are nothing. We are made in His own image and likeness, He is the object of our love and the definition of love itself. We are mortal creatures with immortal souls, and He is the Immortal in us. We were created to long for Him. All the knowledge ever sought was sought with the impulse He placed in the human mind to know Him. Without Him we are incomplete. In a word, placing our broken, sinful selves on the throne of our hearts in place of God just won't cut it.

But be thou, O my soul, subject to God: for from him is my patience. For he is my God and my saviour: he is my helper, I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory: he is the God of my help, and my hope is in God. Trust in him, all ye congregation of people: pour out your hearts before him. God is our helper for ever. But vain are the sons of men, the sons of men are liars in the balances: that by vanity they may together deceive. (Psalm 61: 6-10)

The Bottom Line

Without hope in the Lord, we close up shop. We take things into our own hands instead of placing them in His. At the helm of our ship, we have a bishop who has no hope. PRAY FOR HIM.

O God, who art mighty above all, hear the voice of them, that have no other hope, and deliver us from the hand of the wicked, and deliver me from my fear. (Esther 14:19)

Pray for peace--for those affected by the hurricane, fire, and all disasters.

Pius X refuted Modernism. Modernism is an attempt within the Catholic Church to defy the teaching of the Church by presenting the false teachings as if they are the teachings of the Church, e.g. insisting on obedience to the bishop (any bishop) when he is propagating a false movement like "feminism." This inside movement attacks the holy Priesthood by claiming that everyone is the same and that priests do not have any special powers except to confect the Sacraments. Modern feminists say that the priests should marry. They should wear secular clothes. They don't have to pray the holy Office or pray too much. Socializing is more important than praying. If this sounds like politics, you are correct. We can call them by their first names, feminists say about priests. Feminists in the Church will also defend homosexuality, which is politically correct today in the decadent society. Feminists defy that True Objectivity is wrong and so is the truth in what feminists state or imply. They will say that homosexuality should not be practiced, but human nature is so strong that we cannot call the use a sin. Therefore, most homosexuals will interpret that to suit themselves.

Modernists also like to issue general statements that can be interpreted in ways that always favor their materialistic comfort zone. If a priest defies this ambiguity, he is labeled as too rigid and off he goes, which has happened too many times in the Diocese of Camden. Priest shortage? Only if you carry out the obvious attack on Our Lord. The Marian Movement of Priests is a traditionalist movement that destroys every tenet of the Modernists. It holds to the key principles of spiritual growth:

1. Recognition of the Sacrifice of the Mass holding the primary place in any Catholic's life,
2. Eucharistic Adoration augmenting the Sacrifice so that only God is adored, and
   
3. Marian devotion

Unless a Catholic lives these devotions, he cannot find the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Who is Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Modernists in the Church, in our Diocese of Camden, refuse to seek this position--a sacrificial, persevering life of the Spirit. They follow the safe, satanic way of pleasure, power, and politics.

Praised be Jesus Christ,
Now and Forever!
Fr. Jerome Charles Romanowski, Pastor