Bishopettes and the return of "liberal" hypocrisy and cant...

Yesterday, the Church of England Synod voted down the proposal for women bishops. The reaction has been even more fatuous than one could have imagined. Once again the allegedly "liberal" hit-men who rule our society have intolerantly and arrogantly condemned the decision of the Synod in fanatical terms. What is most alarming is the way in which these so-called "liberals" simply will not accept any dissent from their views and when a vote goes against them, for all their supposedly liberal and democratic views, they rail against the voters for daring to disagree!

But the problem is even worse than that.

The supporters of women bishops seem to think they know better not only that the voters but than other churches, than 2,000 years of Christian tradition, than almost all theologians in the history of Christianity and even than Christ Himself.

Apparently Christ got it wrong when he only ordained men.

Naughty Christ for daring to disagree with modern "liberals"!

But these people are not only not liberal, they are also hypocritical. They seek to impose an entirely eccentric and theologically false view onto the rest of the Church of England.

If you are an Anglican who does not agree with women clergy you will be imposed upon and forced to accept this entirely novel, false and fatuous theology, against your will.

If you are an Evangelical who says it is unscriptural, or an Anglo-Catholic who says that it is unscriptural and contrary to the Catholic tradition and to a proper understanding of both ordination and the paternality of the clerical ministry, then your view will simply not be tolerated.

And yet these intolerant, so-called "liberals" claim that tolerance is their chief virtue! What priceless hypocrisy. They are simply intolerant of any view but their own and their own view is entirely without merit, tradition, theology or reason.

They have nothing by way of rational argument but only fatuous and emotional bleating of the most irrational kind.

Campaigner: "Boo, hoo, hoo...those horrid people in the pew won't let me be a bishopette and are stopping me fulfilling my brilliant career. Don't they know that it is ME who is the most important person in the world?"

"Bishop": "Don't worry, dear. We won't let reason stand in the way of your ambition to be top dog. I suggest you play on people's natural sympathies by boo-hoo-hooing in public as much as you can. Emotional manipulation is always a great political ploy!"

They simply do not know what ordination is, what human sexuality is for, what the gender differences are for, what the Church is for, who Jesus Christ was, or what Christianity is.

Their "god" is some vague and spurious notion of equality which, in fact, has nothing to do with ordination and everything to do with their own selfish and corrupt ambitions to dominate and oppress their fellow man. This they intend to do by imposing upon an unwilling church the cock-eyed and destructive values of a secularism that, in civil society, are being equally intolerantly imposed by atheism, and by atheist and secular fundamentalists.

We are told that the Prime Minister’s “personal view” is that women should be able to hold the highest offices in the Established Church.

Who cares what the PM's private theological view is? Is he God?

It is already ridiculous enough that a "synod" of clerics, clergy spouses and a select few laity should think that they can tell God that He got it wrong for most of history.

It was equally ridiculous when, before the Church Assembly and Synod were invented in the early 20th century, the doctrine and liturgy of the Church of England were devised by a Parliament which had many unbelievers in it.

"In the name of the Mother, and of the Daughter, and of the Holy Woman Spirit..."

Here is a question: does the "Synod" claim the right to reverse its decision to ordain women? Could it do so in the future?

If it can reverse centuries of tradition in one vote why, then, can't it reverse its reversal in a further vote?

Could the "Synod" also vote down the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Trinity and any other central doctrine of Christianity? If not, why not? If it can vote to pretend that women can be bishops, contrary to Scripture and tradition, then why not vote down all other doctrines?

This question swiftly exposes the fatuity of the so-called "Synodical system" in the Church of England.

Downing Street says there were no plans to change the law to force the Church of England to comply with equality legislation that bans discrimination on the basis of a person’s sex.

Well, well.The government is not (yet!) planning to impose secular fundamentalism on the churches but - hey! - don't get too cocky. We might decide to shove it down your unwilling throats any time we like.

After all, remember what we did to the Roman Catholic Church in Britain? We forced them to give up Catholic babies to same-sex couples, contrary to the Catholic religion, or to close down their adoption agencies! The Church chose to close their adoption agencies and give them to secular agencies (a transfer of some £200 million of Catholic money - the pennies of the Catholic poor - into secular hands).

See how that works, folks?

And see how "tolerant" and "liberal" they are?

It is priceless humbug.

"Bless me, Mother, for I have sinned..."

In Catholic theology, Sacramental confession requires a validly ordained priest, not someone pretending to be a priest...

Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, said the Synod vote was “disappointing” and had left the Church of England “in crisis”.

How would he know?

And who gave him any authority to tell the churches what to believe?

He even suggested it would be “difficult” for the Church to “project moral authority” after the vote. I suppose Mr Hammond thinks that his party is, on the other hand, able to lecture the churches on what moral authority is?

Perhaps Mr Hammond thinks that he can similarly lecture God about morality?

The hypocrisy and dishonesty of people pretending to be "liberal" and "tolerant" is what has really been exposed by the debate surrounding this Synod vote.

The theological position is simple enough. The clerical role is a paternal role, a fatherly role. It is not a maternal role. Sacramentally, any attempt to "ordain" women is a nullity, a pretence and a lie. Just as a man cannot fulfil the literally vital maternal role, so a woman cannot fulfil a role that is paternal. No more can fathers give birth than mothers can generate seed. Men are men and women are women. As Scripture says: "Male and female He created them" and for a reason. Each sex represents a part of the Divine. Together they make up the whole. On that footing, they are already entirely equal.

To give paternal roles to women, or maternal roles to men, is to abuse those roles and to dessicate, and ulitmately to destroy, those roles.

To do this in a spiritual context is little more than a form of spiritual transvestitism.

What next? Will the government compel nunneries to have a male Reverend Mother Abbess and male religious houses or abbeys to have a female Reverend Father Abbot?

Isn't it "sexist" to have only men in a male religious house, or women in a female religious house?

That's what could be coming up next, folks!

"The new Reverend Father Abbot arrives to take charge of the Abbey..."

...

The heresy of nationalism: case study - Poland

This letter received from Jacek, a fairly typical Polish nationalist, is also typical of one of the more destructive errors that ever helped to sunder the unity and peace of Christendom.

I speak of the disease of fanatical nationalism.

Nationalism is NOT patriotism.

Nationalism is a form of political psychopathy and it became the tool and offspring of self-worshipping, political psychopaths.

It is the enemy of Christendom and the plaything of Satan.

It was invented at the Protestant Reformation with the deliberate intention of bringing about the destruction of Catholic Christendom.

It is yet another of the evils that the Protestant Reformation brought into the world.

The picture is of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a fanatical Polish nationalist, Freemason, and revolutionary whose uprising seriously damaged his own country and led to the Third Partition of Poland.

Jacek's letter

Here's Jacek's letter, written in response to a comment from me:

"Dear Tribunus

'And what did the Austrians do soon afterwards? Help partition Poland-wipe it off the map. Some gratitude.'

In reference to your responce to above quote:

Firstly, why do you assume this comment was made by a Pole?

Secondly, if it was made by a Pole (it likely was), why would you assume it was supported by a nationalist viewpoint? I do not know how one can tell. In fact, as a Pole I could positively say the sentiment underlying in that comment is universal among Poles precisely as an expression of our faithfullness to the Holy Mother Church and self-identificaton as Catholics first. We resent the Habsburgs' land grab of Galicia with Lwów and Lesser Poland with Kraków (in your post you mention the agreement between Leopold and John regarding mutual defence of the capital cities - well, less then a hundred years after Poles saved Habsburgs and Vienna from being finished off in the most ignominious way imaginable the Habsburgs were occuping our glorious city of Cracow). But what we resent the most is that after John III, Defender of the Faith, Lion of Lechistan saved the Habsburgs and whole Christendom from Armageddon in 1683, the same Habsburgs, Holy Roman Emperors, in their land grab of 1774 (1th...) and 1795 (3th partition of Poland) allied themselvs against Kingdom of Poland with P r o t e s t a n t Prussia and S c h i s m a t i c Russia. Against Kingdom of Poland upon which Pope Aleksander VII bestow a title of Regnum Orthodoxum - the Most Orthodox Kingdom (as in case of France - Regnum Christianissimum; and Spain - Regnum Catholicissimum). Against Kingdom of Poland - Antemurale Christianitatis.
You call Louis XIV "devious". Louis XIV was a saint when compered to Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor.

Finally, if it was made by a Pole who does not share the above-mentioned Catholic sentiment, why would you assume he is 'fanatic nationalist'. Can't he just be a Polish patriot. Are you of opinion that a patriot 'cannot be called Christian in any meaningful sense of the word'? To that I say: Amor Patriae Nostra Lex (latin proverb that was common inscription on sabres carried by Polish nobility and in turn Hussars that led the way in 1683, sabres that defended Christianitas for centuries).

Concluding, I could go into great detail debating some of the statements you made in your 'To all fanatical nationalists ...' comment, including the issue of nationalism, Polish involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, Irish conflict. However, before I do that, I would like you to clarify what you mean by "LITTLE NATIONALITIES" and whether you stand by that phrase.

Yours sincerely
Jacek

P.S.
1. Despite some minor inaccuracies it is a great post you have written on Battle of Vienna. I would just recomend you add this picture of John III Sobieski
http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plik:Jan_III_Sobieski_2.PNG&filetimestamp=20080224210817 picture of John III Sobieski.
2. I am not a native english speaker. I apologize for the possible mistakes. I do not think I misspelled anything but I struggle with english interpunction at times"

I answer thus.

First, Jacek, try to remember one important thing, if you can: the Habsburgs were CATHOLIC, unlike the Protestant Prussians and the Orthodox Russians.

I repeat: they were CATHOLIC.

That means they were of the religion of which you, a Polish nationalist, boast. And yet you despise them! Where is your charity? Drowned in fanatical nationalism?

The arms of the Imperial House of Austria that ruled the Holy Roman Empire, the very sheet anchor of Catholic Christendom, for many centuries.

Secondly, try to understand this: Catholicism is NOT - repeat NOT - Polish nationalism. They are DIFFERENT things.

I realise this is hard for a Polish nationalist to grasp but it is nonetheless true.

Thirdly, try to understand that my theme is Catholic Christendom and that to compare Louis XIV with Joseph II is ENTIRELY TO MISS THE POINT BECAUSE BOTH OF THEM WERE NOT REALLY TRUE CATHOLICS.

They were no more so than Józef Piłsudski and Edward Śmigły-Rydz, two fanatical Polish nationalists, were.

Your comparison therefore is of little worth.

The truth about the Polish partitions

The First Partition of Poland came about as a result of the failure of the Polish-Luthanian Commonwealth which had been heavily influenced by the Protestant Reformation and had lapsed into political chaos, not least becuase of the anarchic effect of the so-called liberum veto which enabled any member of the Sejm to veto any proposed Act of the Sejm.

 The Polish Sejm in 1622. 

This parliament was another example of what Europe was already doing long before America even thought of it. However, the Sejm was rendered unworkable by the excessively democratic power of the liberum veto allowing every member to veto any proposed legislation at any time.

This was based upon an idea of the equality of the Polish Schlacta or nobility, which had been inflamed by the excessive individualism of the Protestant Reformation which, until the coming of the Jesuits, had made great inroads into the noble families of Poland.

The Jesuits, happily, brought the Catholic Reformation to Poland and restored Catholicism to the noble families.

The Commonwealth had become a tool of Russian foreign policy and, almost inevtiably, Russia soon formalised this state of affairs by signalling to Prussian and Austria that it intended to annex part of Poland.

Prussia greedily agreed as it wanted to close the Danzig corridor and unite East and West Prussia.

 Holy Roman Empress Maria-Theresa. 

She was a devout Catholic and a good ruler but ruled at a time when the Enlightenment was seeking to destroy all Catholic monarchy and replace it with a more secularised rule. Despite being surrounded on all sides by enemies, she managed to rule well.

The Holy Roman Empress, Maria Theresa, objected, and always continued to object, to the partition of Poland but her hand was forced, partly by the political machinations of her Prime Minister, Count, later Prince, Kaunitz who was an Enlightenment figure, and therefore not really Catholic, and was, himself, something of a nationalist, and partly by Russia and Prussia.

You wrongly and ungratefully give her no credit for her objection.

Wenzel Anton, Prince-Imperial of Kaunitz-Rietberg, Imperial Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire. Although nominally Catholic, Kaunitz was actually an Enlightenment figure and a Freemason, secretly opposed to his monarch and the Church.

Kaunitz persuaded her on the basis that if she did not annex a part of Poland, then Russian and Prussia might divide the remainder amongst themselves which might present a later threat to the security of the Holy Roman Empire.

Further, one cannot deny that all of central Europe was once part of the Holy Roman Empire, including Poland and that under the rule of that Empire, distinct nationalities and races had always been respected, preserved and protected.

You simply ignore these very salient facts in your narrow, hasty, imprudent and prejudicial Polish nationalism.

The Holy Roman Empire played no part in the Second Partition of Poland and objected to it.

The Third Partition of Poland came about thanks to the very fanatical nationalist uprising led by Tadeusz Kościuszko who was no Catholic but, far from it, a libertine, a revolutionary and a self-promoter who sought the downfall of Christendom, just as his idol Bonaparte had done.

He was so strongly opposed by Polish conservatives that they sought the aid of Tsarina Catherine the Great to defeat him. That inevitably led to the Third Partition and, again, since Russia and Prussia were involved, the Holy Roman Empire had also to be involved in order to protect its own security.

Tsarina Catherine the Great, Tsarina of all the Russias. She was a powerful and tyrannical ruler who seized Polish territory on the pretext that it really belonged to Russia. In the end, even Polish conservatives were forced to turn to her for aid against wild revolutionaries like Tadeusz Kościuszko. 

Most famously of all, Polish language, culture and nationality were closely protected and encouraged within the Holy Roman Empire but were crushed in Russia and Prussia.

In your fanatical nationalism, you give absolutely no credit to the Holy Roman Empire and its Habsburg rulers for this incontrovertible fact.

In the end, where did your fanatical nationalism lead?

It lead to further fanaticism under Józef Piłsudski and Edward Śmigły-Rydz which, in turn, led to conquest by Nazi Germany and then by Communist Russia.

 

Marshal Józef Piłsudski is considered a great Polish "patriot" but he was a fanatical nationalist and more secular than Christian. Polish political leader, Roman Dmowski, called him "a great sinner" and recognised in him a man who loved power more than faith and truth.

Marshal Edward Śmigły-Rydz was deputy, and later rival, to Piłsudski. He sided with the Socialists and then later became friendly with the Fascists, running Poland himself as a dictator and was a political enemy of General Sikorski. He was the Commander-in-Chief at the time of the German invasion of Poland and escaped to Romania where he was interned.

Now it has led to a Poland, under the rule of ex-Communist apparatchiks, capitulating to the bullying tactics of the European Union.

Of all the external rulers that Poland has had, they never had it so good as under the rule of the Habsburg emperors within the Holy Roman Empire.

But the blindness of fanatical nationalism will not allow them to see it.

Conclusion - I therefore repeat my comment

I repeat what I said in my original comment.

To all fanatical nationalists around the world:

THE WORLD DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND YOUR PETTY NATIONALITIES.

Nationalism is what led to most of the wars of the 19th century and the appalling destruction of World War I and World War II.

Christian Europe and Christendom were one.

Fanatical nationalism - invented chiefly by Protestantism - sundered Europe into fragments and led to the bloody and internecine war, killing millions.

Hungary claimed the right to be free from the Empire whilst crushing and oppressing its own minorities.

The Poles did not distinguish themselves when they sided with the anti-Catholic, Pope-imprisoning and mass-slaughtering Bonaparte - the first of the great modern destroyers of Christian Europe.

Even now, when my post praises the Poles who fought at the Battle of Vienna, anonymous Poles can do nothing but snipe ungratefully.

But this is typical of the disease of nationalist fanaticism.

In Ireland it led to terrorism, war, and the murder of Irishman by Irishman - a disgusting legacy that achieved nothing good and mountains of evil.

Blessed are the peace-makers.

"Blessed are the peace-makers" says Christ.

"Blessed are the terrorists, bomb-throwers, murderers, war-mongers and slaughterers" says the fanatical nationalist.

Fanatical nationalists cannot be called Christian in any meaningful sense of the word.

In fact, I would go further.

Fanatical nationalism was the deceitful tool that Satan used to destroy Christian Europe.

Satan tempted Christ with all the kingdoms of the world, just as he tempted men to overthrow Christendom through nationalism and, even now, tempts men to become fanatical nationalists and put their own selfish aims before that of mankind and their fellow men. His real aim is to get men to worship him and reject God.

Catholics have no excuse for it. They, of all people, should understand the universality of Christianity and the brotherhood of all mankind.

A Catholic who is a fanatical nationalist is a perfect servant of Satan

So, dear Jacek, I urge and implore you: be a Polish patriot, be a lover of your great country, but do not be a fanatical nationalist who cannot see beyond the border of his own country and people and even goes so far as to hate those of his own religion because they are not also of his race.

Racism, whether Polish or otherwise, has no place in Catholicism or Catholic Christendom.

What matters is truth, not race; Christ, not just one's own country and people.

As Christians we are called to love all men and to love the truth, not to be narrow, little fanatical nationalist racists.

Fortunately, the vast majority of Polish people today are not fanatical but usually charitable to all. In our day, it is clear that our Lady has indeed smiled upon them.

Long may it be so!
 

 

Our Lady, the Black Madonna of Częstochowa,
pray for Poland!

 +++

7 October - the Feast of the Holy Rosary and of our Lady of Victory

The Feast of our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary is a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the Queen of the Holy Rosary, the chaplet of prayer beads that are used to invoke the Virgin to aid us whilst meditating upon scenes in the life of her Son, JESUS CHRIST.

The Rosary developed out of the habit of lay brothers, who did the manual work and did not have time to pray the whole Monastic Office, of praying Paternosters and Ave Marias in monasteries. This habit then passed to the devout laity.

In 1208 our Lady appeared to St Dominic in the Church of Prouille, France, and gave him a chaplet of beads representing roses commending to him the devotion which had spread among the Faithful of saying Paters and Aves whilst meditating upon the life of Christ.

St Dominic then gave the Rosary to all his Friars Preachers to use in their efforts to convert the heterodox Cathars in Southern France and to call upon our Lady to assist the soldiers of Count Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, father of the founder of the later English Parliament, to defend Christendom from the attacks by the armies of the heterodox Cathars and Albigensians.

St Dominic receives the Holy Rosary from our Lady

On 12 September 1213, whilst St Dominic and his brethren were praying in the Church at Muret in the South of France, Count Simon and 700 knights charged out of the town to meet an invading army of 50,000 marauding heterodox Albigensians who were set upon capturing the whose of Southern France for the Albigensian heresy.

The Albigensians were a type of Manichee and they believed in euthanasia, abortion and sodomy and opposed marriage and child-birth because they believed that all material things were evil and created by an evil force. They had one Sacrament which was called the consolamentum and consisted in euthanasia by either starvation or suffocation. They had murdered Catholic missionaries sent to preach to them and murdered bishops, priests and the Papal legate who was sent to negotiate with them.

Count Simon and his knights straight into the middle of their ranks and slew their leader King Pedro of Aragon, much to the chagrin of Count Simon who wanted to defeat him but not slay him. At this the Albigensian horde fell into disarray and were routed. Our Lady, Count Simon de Montfort and the Rosary saved the day.

Ever after, the Rosary became a great weapon of prayer against evil, and especially in time of battle.

In thanks for the victory of the Battle of Muret, Count Simon built the first shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Victory.

The Rosary was prayed in 1529 at the Siege of Vienna and a great victory won under Count Nicholas von Salm against the Ottoman Turks and their Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

In 1571 Pope St Pius V instituted the Feast of Our Lady of Victory as an annual feast to commemorate the victory of Lepanto, off the Greek coast, the huge naval battle won by the Christian navies against the navy of the invading Muslim Turkish hosts. The Turkish navies were many times larger than the Christian navies and had been bent upon conquering the whole of Christendom and enslaving all Christians.

The Battle of Lepanto 1571

The victory was attributed to our Lady, as a rosary procession took place on that day in St. Peter's Square in Rome for the success of the forces of the Holy League to hold back the Muslim forces from over-running Western Europe.

In 1573, Pope Gregory XIII changed the title of this feast-day to the Feast of the Holy Rosary. This feast was extended by Pope Clement XII to the whole of the Latin Rite, inserting it into the Roman Calendar in 1716, and assigning it to the first Sunday in October.

King Jan Sobieski and his army at the Battle of Vienna, 12 September 1683

On 12 September (that date again!) 1683, King Jan Sobieski, appointed commander by Roman Emperor Leopold I, and his Polish Hussars, inflicted a massive defeat upon the Turkish hosts in the Battle of Vienna. Again a Rosary campaign had preceded his victory.

Venerable Pope Innocent XI instituted the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary on 12 September to mark the victory obtained by praying to our Lady.

Kara Mustapha Pasha, the commander of the Turkish host, was unfairly executed by his own king, Sultan Mehmed II, after losing the Battle of Vienna

Pope St Pius X changed the date to 7 October in 1913, being the actual date of the great victory at Lepanto.

In 1969, Pope Paul VI changed the name of the feast to Our Lady of the Rosary.

Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us!

...

15 September - the Feast of Princess St Edith of Kemsing and Wilton

Saint Edith of Kemsing and Wilton (Eadgyth in Old English) was the natural daughter of King Edgar “the Peaceful” of England, born at Kemsing, Kent, in 961. She was the half-sister of King Æthelred the Unready. 

Her feast day is 15 September. 

She was the illegitimate daughter of King Edgar by the Lady Wilfrida, or Wulfthryth, a noble-woman and a nun of Wilton Abbey standing nearby the royal residence at Wilton, whom Edgar carried off forcibly from the nunnery. 

He took her to his manor at Kemsing in Kent where Edith was born but, so soon as Wulfthryth could escape from Edgar, she returned to Wilton Abbey, taking Edith with her.  

Wulfthryth became Abbess which tends to show that people were rather less squeamish then that they are today in our supposedly tolerant, but actually supremely intolerant, age. 

Princess St Edith was educated at the Abbey and herself became a nun early in her young life. 

King Edgar offered to make her abbess of 3 communities but she chose to remain with her mother at Wilton. 

St Dunstan, then Archbishop of Canterbury, imposed a 7-year penance upon King Edgar for his crime. The King became holy himself, in due course, and died in the odour of sanctity in 975. 

 

 The village sign in Kemsing

showing a monk or nun praying at St Edith's well

In 979, Edith had a dream that her half-brother, King St Edward the Martyr, was in danger and so it transpired. He was murdered while visiting his step-mother, Queen Ælfthryth, at Corfe Castle, in Dorset. 

St Edith built a church at Wilton dedicated it to St Denis and she died not long after, on 15 September 984, aged only 23 and was buried in her own church. Her loss was greatly lamented by St Dunstan.

 

The ruins of Wilton Abbey in Wiltshire

St Edith was a celebrated scholar and a devotion to her quickly grew up. She appeared in a dream to St Dunstan, telling him that her body was incorrupt and, when St Dunstan had the tomb opened, in the presence of her mother, Abbess Wulfthryth, it was so and the body gave off fragrant perfume. 

Her half-brother, King Æthelred, introduced her cause for sanctity which was also supported by her nephew, King Edmund “Ironside” and his successor King Canute the Great, he who showed his overly fawning courtiers that he was not all-powerful by taking them all to the sea-side to show them he could not order the waves to retreat.

 

The surviving seal of St Edith identifies her as regalis adelpha or “royal sister” to show that she was of royal blood, half-sister of Kings Edward the Martyr and Æthelred the Unready.

 

The Wilton Diptych

 

Wilton Abbey is also associated with the famous English diptych called "the Wilton Diptych" which shows King Richard II being presented to our Lady by St John the Baptist, King St Edmund the Martyr and King St Edward the Confessor, and our Lady presents the Christ Child, all symbolical of England as Dos Mariae, or our Lady's Dowry.

 

On the Sunday nearest her feast day, Catholics and Anglicans gather to pray at St Edith's well in the village of Kemsing, Kent, with Benediction and tea afterwards at the nearby home of Mr Anthony Tyler OBE, formerly Chairman of the Catholic Writers Guild of Great Britain.

 

 

S. Editha, ora pro nobis!

 

 

St Edith's well in Kemsing village, Kent

 

 

+++

14 September - The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and of Summorum Pontificum

On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Exaltatio Crucis), the hymn, Crux Fidelis, is sung.

CRUX fidelis, inter omnes, arbor una nobilis;
Nulla talem silva profert,
Flore, fronde, germine.
Dulce lignum, dulci clavos, dulce pondus sustinens!

FAITHFUL Cross! Above all other,
One and only noble Tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron!Sweetest Weight is hung on thee!

~~~

So for centuries has been sung the song composed by Venantius Forntunatus (530-609) extolling the Triumph of the Cross.

In the picture Crusaders kneel down and worship the Cross on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

And never more so than on the Feast which recalls the return of the True Cross to Jerusalem following its recapture from the pagan Persians by the Roman Emperor in the East, Emperor Heraclius.

Indeed, this Feast used to be celebrated with almost as much ceremony as the feasts of Easter and Pentecost, themselves.

But this Feast Day, 14th September, is also the anniversary of that triumphal day in which our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, restored to the Roman Church the use of the ancient and noble Roman rite of our ancestors.

All hail Pope Benedict XVI, the restorer of the ancient Roman rites!

Yes, this Feast is the 2nd anniversary day when, by his own motion - motu proprio - Pope Benedict XVI restored to the Roman Church its ancient rites. In so doing he has placed himself in the same hallowed tradition of all those popes, among his predecessors, who always sought to preserve the ancient rites of the Church, as all popes until 1970, did.

For this alone, he will go down to history as a great pope.

He chose a very significant and memorable day to make his motu proprio, called Summorum Pontificum, become effective.

It is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross upon which day we sing the praises of the Holy Cross with such ancient hymns as Vexilla Regis and Crux Fidelis.

Listen to the beautiful version of Crux Fidelis written by the gifted royal composer and image of King David, the author of the Psalms, His Majesty King John IV of Portugal - Dom Joao IV. This piece is sung every year on Good Friday at the Brompton Oratory, Knightsbridge in London:

Venantius Fortunatus wrote both hymns, the latter for a procession that brought a part of the true Cross to Queen Radegunda in 570. This hymn is used on Good Friday during the Adoration of the Cross and in the Breviary during Holy Week and on feasts of the Cross like today.

Ancient legend is hinted at in the second verse of this hymn. According to this tradition, the wood of the Cross upon which Christ was crucified was taken from that tree which was the source of the fruit of the fall in the Garden of Eden. When Adam died, the legend states, Seth obtained from the Cherubim guarding the Garden a branch of the tree from which Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Seth planted this branch at Golgotha (the place of the skull), which is so named because Adam was buried there. As time went on, the Ark of the Covenant, the pole upon which the bronze serpent was lifted, and other items were made from this tree.

Eventually the Holy Cross was made from it and our Lord crucified thereon upon Golgotha directly over the tomb of Adam so that the Precious Blood of Christ, seeping through cracks, penetrated into the mausoleum of Adam beneath and fell upon the very skull of Adam to symbolise that the Sin of Adam had now been atoned for by the Crucifixion.

In the old Roman Calendar, the Finding of the True Cross (Inventio Crucis) was celebrated on 3 May to commemorate that day when the Empress St Helena, daughter of a British king and mother of the Emperor Constantine, found the True Cross after long searching for it among the wells and cisterns of Jerusalem.

The British born Roman Empress St Helena finds the True Cross

The True Cross was set up and a Basilica built to house it for posterity.

Three centuries later, the pagan, fire-worshipping, Zoroastrian Persians (not yet Muslim), under King Chosroes II, attacked Jerusalem and took away the precious relic, the True Cross.

The Catholic Roman Emperor Heraclius, then reigning, swore to recover it and warred against the Persians.

Heraclius had been the emperor who changed the language of the Eastern Empire from Latin to Greek which he did in 620. Thus for 600 years the language of the Empire and the Church was exclusively Latin. The Greek language, though used often enough colloquially in the Levant, was not the official language of Byzantium and the Eastern Empire until 620 AD. The Greek Orthodox Church often forget this.

Emperor Heraclius had a number of successes against the Persians, particularly the Battle of Nineveh.

Nineveh is now in northern Iraq and is still a Christian city peopled by Chaldean rite Catholics whose liturgy is still in the language of Christ, Aramaic.

Heraclius, however, suffered a series of defeats and Constantinople was threatened, not only by the Persians,  but also by the Avars and Slavs who invaded and took the Balkans and then attacked Constantinople from the rear.

Heraclius was on the point of being defeated himself and Constantinople taken.

However, an internal dispute arose within Persia which threatened Chosroes II. The distraction gave Heraclius his chance. He soundly defeated Chosroes in 629 and recovered the True Cross.

This was seen as an answer to prayer by all at the time.

Eventually, Chosroes was murdered by his own son, who became king and thereafter the Sassanid Persians were swept away by a new and rising force, Islam which had recently arisen out of the formerly heretical Christian territories of the Monophysites and Monothelites.

When Heraclius returned to Jerusalem to restore the True Cross he carried it himself, as had our Lord, intending to process along the Via Dolorosa in his gorgeous imperial robes. But when he arrived at the gate of Jerusalem he was frozen to the spot and could not move. All were puzzled and eventually the Patriarch of Jerusalem suggested that the Emperor divest himself of his imperial robes. The Emperor did more and stripped himself to little more than the seamless garment that Christ Himself had worn to carry His Cross.

At once the Emperor found himself able to proceed and so he continued until he was able to restore the True Cross to its rightful place in the Basilica upon Golgotha, walking barefoot in a single shift all along the way to the great edification of the people of Jerusalem, his subjects.

Ever after that day, 14 September, was celebrated with great ceremony - nearly as much as Easter and Pentecost - as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Exaltatio Crucis).

The Catholic Roman Emperor Heraclius who restored the True Cross to Jerusalem in 629AD

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, chose this most memorable and triumphant of days to restore to us the glory of the ancient Roman rite which the Roman emperors of old fought and died to protect and preserve and which countless saints and martyrs gave their lives for.

VEXILLA REGIS prodeunt:
Fulget Crucis mysterium,
Qua vita mortem pertulit,
Et morte vitam protulit.

Abroad the Regal Banners fly,
Now shines the Cross's mystery;
Upon it Life did death endure,
And yet by death did life procure.

O CRUX AVE, SPES UNICA,
In hac triumpha gloria
Piis adauge gratiam,
Reisque dele crimina.

Hail, Cross, of hopes the most sublime!
In this triumphant glorious time,
Improve religious souls in grace,
The sins of criminals efface.

On Good Friday the second line reads "Now in this mournful Passion time" but on the Feast of the Cross this is replaced by "in hac triumpha gloria" - in the glory of this triumph!

Triumph, indeed, thanks to our Holy Father gloriously reigning!

St Helena, pray for us!

True Cross, protect us and our Pope!

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And yet still some wish to quibble blindly...

Here are a few of the same, old, tired objections that one always gets from ill-educated Protestants.

"While I mostly agree with the attempted focus on the Good News as the common denominator of all Christian denominations, I find it rather difficult to reconcile the original teachings of the Scriptures with the traditions of the Roman Catholic church. Foremost in my disagreement is their way of exalting humans for whatever reason. I don't see why Mary should be able to hear anyone's prayers, given that she's dead and not a god. Neither do I quite get why every other person who did something is a saint- and in so doing greater than any other Spirit-Inspired human. While I don't doubt that the earliest beginnings of this Catholic church was let by Inspired men, I find it hard to believe that the Holy Spirit can work in this church today given their idolatry (see the above exultation of humans/objects) and the existence of copious amounts of pride in their ranks. Neither do I doubt that, as the above post illustrates, do they really live out a New Life in Christ."

For sheer pomposity and self-righteous arrogance, this one is a real peach, eh?

What makes this chap think that Protestant churches don't have "copious amounts of pride in their ranks".

As a matter of fact, they have Pride to over-flowing!

Idolatry means worshipping the created as if it were equal to the Creator. Giving honour to another human being is not idolatry. It is love, respect and affirmation.

Not everyone is of equal virtue - that is obvious. Some people are better than others. That's a fact. And the saints are the best of all.

This guy doesn't like the idea that there might be someone better than him. There's a word for that: it's called "Pride".

Why shouldn't Mary - or anyone in heaven - be able to hear our prayers?

And the simple reality is that the Bible is a Catholic book and the Catholic religion is the only truly Biblical religion.

The writer of the above is a Protestant who thinks he is better than Mother Teresa, St Francis of Assisi, St Damien of Molokai, St Bernadette, St Therese of Lisieux, St Thomas More, St Edmund Campion and all the saints whom he thinks do not "really live out a New Life in Christ".

Who, then, has the problem with Pride?

Here's another:

"WE ARE NOT SAVED BY GOOD WORKS.However good works are necessary to prove our faith. If we do not do good works , we do not demonstrate our faith and do what Jesus told us to. It's like a boy who joins the scouts but then refuses to wear the uniform.Using good works as our ticket to paradise is extreme selfishness."

Says who?

Errrrrr.....uuummm... he doesn't say. Why? Because he doesn't know. And because he will nowhere find his version of Christianity in the Bible.

In fact, quite the opposite. He will find that the Bible says that faith without works is DEAD. Fact.

Here is what it says:

"Do you see that by works a man is justified; and not by faith alone? ...For even as the body without the spirit is dead; so also faith without works is dead."

James 2:24,26 

See? The Bible says that faith without works is dead and man is NOT justified by faith alone.

This verse alone demolishes the whole of classic Protestantism. And yet it come straight from the Bible.

Martin Luther so hated this verse that he took the Epistle of St James out of the Bible altogether and called it "Epistola straminea" - "an epistle of straw"!!

The fact is that the Bible is a Catholic book, chosen by Catholics and it teaches the Catholic faith.

Here's more:

"Dear Sir, You seem to idolize the Catholic Church and Catholics too much. Perhaps the 'anti-Catholic' comment made by yeomanrycavalry was out of order; but there might be some truth to it. If you believe, or have even read, what the Bible says, then you will agree that the one who is to be worshipped is not the Church, popes, images on walls, or people. All of us people, including popes, are subject to a strong sense of pride, self-righteousness and even stubbornness. It is not surprising that in ancient times people took the 'spiritual warfare' quite literally and crafted it into deadly crusades. We cannot justify that, as it was obviously a mistake and not something mentioned as a task in the Holy Scripture. In addition, your judgment towards yeomanrycavalry stating 'the usual, 'sex, money or power' is misplaced and contradictory. As it suggests that you are all-righteous in your daily living, something the Bible says there is 'not one righteous man' as Romans 3:10 says."

This comment is particularly self-righteous, proud and stubborn. But, then, we have come to expect that from certain types of Protestants.

What about "if you believe, or have even read, what the Bible says"?

Who's he kidding?

I quote the verses. He quotes none. And yet he claims to know it all. But that is all too typical of some.

In fact, as we have seen, the Bible is a Catholic document, selected by Catholics, teaching Catholic doctrine.

He fails to understand the meaning of Romans 3:10. When it says that "there is not any man just" this means that there is no man just by virtue either of the law of nature, or of the law of Moses, but only by faith and grace coming from Christ. THAT is what it means - but our Protestant friend thinks he knows better.

And therein lies another Protestant error: private judgement of Scripture. From this there has resulted over 90,000 different Protestant sects all claiming to teach the truth.

Whereas there is only ONE Catholic Church and it really DOES teach the true meaning of Scripture since that same Catholic Church CHOSE THE VERY BOOKS OF SCRIPTURE!

As to the Crusades, there are a wide variety of examples in Scripture of the people of God fighting battles to defend their culture, religion and way of life. Moses sanctioned this frequently and the Israelites did not scruple from war to defend themselves and their religion.

The inescapable fact is that the Crusades were a response to the invasion of the Eastern Roman Empire and the sacking of sacred Christian sites in the Holy Land by Muslims.

Thereafter Islam set itself to invade and capture the whole of Europe.

Was it wrong, or any surprise, that Christendom decided to defend itself from these marauders?

When Islamic Barbary pirates raided the coasts of Europe to kill all the men, rape the women and enslave them and all the children, was it wrong to fight them and defend Europe from such brutal and savage raiders? And yet that is what a "Crusade" was.

But Protestants simply do not know their history. As Blessed John Henry Newman wrote: "to be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant".

One might also say "to be deep in Scripture is to cease to be a Protestant".

...

Where the Bible came from: the Roman Catholic Church.

Many people simply do not know where the Bible came from.

They think it was “always there”.

Some even think that only the King James Version (KJV) is the real, authentic version, the ONLY one to be inspired by the Holy Ghost.

Some even seem to think that the Evangelists and Apostles actually produced the KJV (presumably in English!).


The KJV was authorised by King James I of England, Scotland and Ireland, who rejected the Protestant Geneva Bible but also the Catholic Bible. He ordered Anglican scholars to translate the original texts into English. This became the KJV. It is not a bad translation but it was chiefly designed to suit Anglican doctrines.

Here is a message to our Protestant Evangelical brothers:

It was the Roman Catholic Church which decided which books would make up the Bible.

Yes. True fact.

In fact, the final canon of Scripture, thereafter recognised by all Christians for over 1,000 years, was settled on 28 August 397 AD by the Council of Carthage after the example set by St Cyril of Jerusalem in 350.

This Council met under the supervision of the Bishop of Carthage, North Africa, and the Western Roman Emperor, Flavius Honorius, the decrees being later approved by the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, who later also approved the definitive translation of St Jerome called the Vulgate.

Biblical texts in original Hebrew

The original texts in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic are the directly inspired texts of the Bible. They were written by the hands, and through the directly and Divinely-inspired understanding and language of the Holy Prophets, Priests and Patriarchs of old, and by the Apostles and Evangelists who are their successors in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, true God and true man, the Second Person of the Trinity and the son of God (ho huios tou anthropou - as the Biblical Greek has it) and the Saviour of all who believe in Him.

Jews and Christians were loath to translate these texts for the simple reason that meaning can easily be changed in translation. Thus translations required some sort of authorization from the community of believers (usually the leading Jewish/Christian emperor/king or bishop/elder) lest promiscuous translations be spread among Jews and Christians to deceive them and lead them away from the truth.

After the Babylonish captivity, when Aramaic became the common language tending to replace classical Hebrew, the Targums were created to allow the people to understand the Torah when read in the Synagogues. However, the most well-known movement to translate the Bible came in the 3rd century BC when over a third of the population of the great Greek-speaking city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great, were Jews.

With the approval of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus, a group of Hebrew scholars who spoke Koine (or spoken) Greek made what is perhaps the first universally accepted authorised translation thereafter called the Septuagint whereby the original Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament was translated into Koine Greek.

Printed version of the beginning of Genesis in the Greek Septuagint

The next major translations came after the death of our Saviour and include the most sacred of all texts, those written by the Evangelists and Apostles under the direct inspiration of the Holy Ghost providing the Euangelion, "Glad Tidings" or "Good News" of Jesus Christ.

This was rendered as Gospel (originally God-spell) in Anglo-Saxon, the language of the early English who had originated in Fryslan or North Germany (whose inhabitants in turn spoke the original of what is now Frieslandisch, the language of Ost-Friesland in North-West Germany).

Origen's Hexapla placed side by side six versions of the Old Testament, including the 2nd century Greek translations of Aquila of Sinope and Symmachus the Ebionite

The canonical Christian Bible was formally established by Bishop St Cyril of Jerusalem in 350 (although it had been generally accepted on an informal basis by the Christian community previously), confirmed by the Council of Laodicea in 363 (both lacked the book of Revelation), and later established by St Athanasius of Alexandria, Doctor of the Church, in 367 (with Revelation added)

The Council of Carthage, held on 28 August 397 under the tutelage of the Bishop of Carthage but with imperial and papal approval, issued a definitive canon (legal decree) of Scripture setting out all the texts that form what is now universally called "The Bible". This canon remained unchallenged for over 1,000 years until not long before the Protestant Reformation when the inclusion of the Deutero-Canonical texts was, among other things, repudiated. These texts were thereafter called "Apocryphal" by Calvinists, Lutherans, Anglicans and others but are often included in some Protestant translations.

Co-extensive with Carthage came the magisterial translation of the Vulgate of St Jerome and it was widely received and recognised as authorised by the Christian authorities, princes, governors and spiritual leaders. It has remained so ever since and has stood the test of time clearly under the guidance and indirect inspiration of the Holy Ghost.

St Jerome, Cardinal and Doctor of the Western Church, the fiery Illyrian penitent who translated the Bible from the original texts to give us the Vulgate

Jerome's Vulgate Latin translation dates to between AD 382 and 420. Latin translations pre-dating Jerome are collectively known as Vetus Latina texts. Jerome began by revising the earlier Latin translations, but ended by going back to the original Greek, by-passing all translations, and going back to the original Hebrew, wherever he could, instead of the Septuagint (as, later, did the translators of the King James Version).

The New Testament was translated into Gothic in the 4th century by Ulfilas. In the 5th century, Mesrob translated the Bible into Armenian. Also dating from the same period are the Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic and Georgian translations.

However, important though the Vulgate was, it nevertheless was only indirectly inspired through the scholarship of the Christian doctor, St Jerome. The original texts remained - and still remain - the only DIRECTLY INSPIRED texts written in the hand and language of those authors who were DIRECTLY INSPIRED by the Holy Ghost.

On the other hand, it was important that Scripture be available to the people in their own language since only scholars tended to know Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and the Latin of the Vulgate. This resulted in various authorised translations.

From the Middle Ages we still have some fragmentary Anglo-Saxon Bible translations, notably a lost translation of the Gospel of John into Old English (Anglo-Saxon) by the Venerable Bede, which he is said to have prepared shortly before his death around the year 735.

An Old High German version of the Gospel of Matthew dates to 748. Emperor Charlemagne in ca. 800 charged Alcuin with a revision of the Latin Vulgate. The translation into Old Church Slavonic dates to the late 9th century.

King Alfred the Great had a number of passages of the Bible circulated in the vernacular in around 900. These included passages from the Ten Commandments and the Pentateuch, which he prefixed to a code of laws he promulgated around this time. In approximately 990, a full and free-standing version of the four Gospels in idiomatic Anglo-Saxon appeared, in the West Saxon dialect; these are called the Wessex Gospels.

King Alfred the Great who translated parts of the Bible into Anglo-Saxon

In 1199, Pope Innocent III banned unauthorized versions of the Bible as a reaction to the Cathar/Waldensian heresies.

The Cathars manipulated Scripture in accordance with their real beliefs which were not Christian but rather those of the Chinese philosopher, magician and theologian, Mani, who believed in Dualism (the existence of two equal forces one good, God, and one evil, the Devil, but each of equal strength and standing, a view entirely opposed to orthodox Christianity). They believed that flesh was evil, thus child-birth was evil, and marriage was evil but sodomy, which produced no children, and euthanasia, which eliminated flesh, were good.

They believed in a "sacrament" called the consolamentum which included euthanasia by suffocation or starvation.

They also included many terrorists who regularly murdered orthodox Christians so that the Church was therefore obliged to launch a defensive counter-terrorist war against them, eventually won, at Muret in 1213, by Count Simon de Montfort (whose son founded the English Parliament) when his 700 Knights miraculously defeated a vast Cathar army of 50,000 under King Peter of Aragon.

Count Simon de Monfort led 700 Christian knights against a huge army of 50,000 or more Albigensian Cathars under King Pedro II of Aragon in the Battle of Muret 1213. St Dominic was praying the Rosary for victory in the Church of Muret. The tiny army of Christian knights defeated the brutal and bloody Cathars who fled away, defeated.

The synods of Toulouse and Tarragona (1234) outlawed possession of Cathar renderings of the Bible. There is evidence of some vernacular translations permitted while others were being scrutinized for Catharist influences.

The most notable Middle English Bible translation, Wyclif's Bible (1383), based on the Vulgate, was banned by the Oxford Synod in 1408 because of its alterations to the text. An Hungarian Hussite Bible appeared in the mid 15th century, and in 1478, a Catalan translation in the dialect of Valencia.

In 1521, Martin Luther was placed under the Ban of the Empire, and he retired to Wartburg Castle. During his time there, he translated the New Testament from Greek into German. This was printed in September 1522.

Tyndale's Bible (1526) was met with heavy sanctions given the widespread belief that Tyndale had changed the Bible as he attempted to translate it. William Tyndale was first jailed in 1535 for translating the Old Testament without permission, and, a year later, after refusing to recant or retract, was executed by order of the English King Henry VIII and Parliament

There was also the 1530 translation of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples. The Froschauer Bible of 1531 and the Luther Bible of 1534 (both appearing in portions throughout the 1520s) were an important part of the Protestant Reformation.

The vast international missionary activity of the Jesuit order led to a large number of 17th century translations into the languages of the New World, to enable the indigenous Indian natives to understand the Bible.

Each translation of the Bible tends to put its own "spin" on the text and this can give rise to controversy. Thus the translators of the KJV were authorised by King James I of England to undertake their translation work because of the very clear "spin" put upon the texts by the Geneva Bible which both King James and the Fathers of the KJV translation famously rejected

For example, the Geneva Bible translated episkopoi as "elders" rather than as "bishops". This the KJV translators rejected and returned to the more traditional rendering of "bishop". King James famously said "No bishop, no king" and so would not tolerate the Presbyterian rendering of "elder" which he knew spelt the end of the bishops and thus of himself as king.

So it proved under his son, King Charles I when the even more extreme and revolutionary Congregationalists or Independents, under Oliver Cromwell, banned all bishops and executed the King setting up a military dictatorship of Army generals under Cromwell as the Dictator.

To the extent that any translation of the Bible is faithful to the original texts, it is an INDIRECTLY INSPIRED text and therefore, to a greater or lesser degree (depending upon the faithfulness of the translation), suitable to nourish the faith of Christians and suitable for them to rely upon.

However, the texts of the Bible DIRECTLY inspired by the Holy Ghost are the Old Testament (called the Tanakh by the Jews) in the classical Hebrew of the masoretic texts mostly, but with some (e.g. the Talmud and the Book of Daniel) in Aramaic, and the New Testament in the original Koine Greek with smatterings of Aramaic (the language spoken by our Lord) and various semitisms typical of Greek-speaking Jews.

However, the decision as to which inspired books would make up the Bible was decided by a Council of the Roman Catholic Church in 397.

The Bible is, thus, a Catholic book, not a Protestant one.

...