SSPX: the excommunications lifted by Pope Benedict XVI

And so the news has finally come.

I am not a member of the Society of St Pius X (SSPX) and I particularly would distance myself from some of the sillier comments made by Bishop Richard Williamson but I do think the Society has been rather shabbily mistreated for the last 20 years or more.

It has become the soft target for every pusillanimous soul who thinks he can gain a few worldly "brownie points" with the fashionable modern pundits by joining in the general frenzy of vilification and venom against the Society, so reminiscent of a pack of bullies kicking a man when he is down.

Defending the underdog somehow doesn't apply when the underdog is the SSPX.

Such are the strange values of some modern liberal Catholics who have joined the unseemly rush to be first to kick those whose principal crime was to continue to worship and believe as did their Fathers in the Faith.

Many simply did not bother to take the time to find out what the SSPX actually taught and held.

Time and again falsehoods were spoken of them - they were sedevacantists (false), they rejected all of Vatican II (false), they were crypto-Protestants (false), they considered the Novus Ordo Missae invalid (false), they rejected the authority of the Pope (false), and even that they were Fascists or Nazis (false). And so on, and so on. It was as if no-one really wanted to find out what they taught and believed but rather just wanted to use them as a useful kick-butt to vent one's spleen upon.

Now read the new decree and you will see that our beloved Holy Father has a rather different, much more pastoral, charitable and compassionate view.

See also that no legal reasons are given for the lifting of the excommunications. That may, however, have been carefully planned.

Is this an act of clemency? Could be.

Is this an act of justice? Could be.

It is (deliberately?) left vague. That way no "side" can claim a victory and all must exercise caution, care and charity. Not a bad solution, that!

The Society of St Pius X long ago appealed the excommunications but it has taken 20 years to hear their appeal - a grave injustice toward anyone, let alone fellow Catholics, regardless of what they may have done or what one may think of them. Everyone should be equal before the law - not just those currently in favour.

Now the appeal has finally been heard and, mirabile dictu, upheld.

The decree of 1 July 1988 was not a decision to excommunicate but rather a declaration of a penalty automatically imposed latae sententiae. Moreover the decree was not signed and for a long time did not appear in the Acta of the Holy See.

The Society appealed the decree which, under the 1983 code, meant that the penalty was suspended until the appeal was heard (Can. 1353) but one never hears this part of the story.

The Most Rev Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre CSSSp

Archbishop Lefebvre argued that his actions had been necessary because the traditional form of the Catholic faith and sacraments might be in danger of extinction without a traditionalist clergy to pass them on to the next generation.

He called the ordinations "opération survie" - "Operation Survival", citing in his defence Can. 1323 and 1324 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

Can. 1323 provides that a canonical penalty is not binding when a person has acted "by reason of necessity or grave inconvenience, unless the act is intrinsically evil or tends to the harm of souls".

Can. 1324 states that, if the act is intrinsically evil or tends to the harm of souls, the penalty must be diminished or replaced by a penance if the offence was committed by a person who was coerced by grave fear, even if only relative, or by reason of necessity or grave inconvenience.

In all these circumstances, Can. 1324(3) concludes, automatic penalties do not apply.

Accordingly this was an appeal with a reasonable prospect of success. But it was simply not heard. Scandalously, it seems that it was simply ignored. Justice delayed - especially for 20 years! - is justice denied, even if the final result would have been a refusal.

But now we have a new pope. And the final result has not been a refusal. On the contrary, the result has been, in effect, that the appeal of SSPX and Archbishop Lefebvre, made all those years ago, has been allowed and the excommunication lifted.

The Assisi debacle in which the Blessed Sacrament was removed from the Tabernacle and the crucifix replaced by a small statue of the Buddha: one of a number of apparent scandals that the SSPX felt moved to criticise

It is rather a shame that the Holy See allowed Archbishop Lefebvre to die with the apparent penalty of excommunication lying upon him - seemingly unjustly, as it now turns out - but at least the matter has now finally been addressed.

No retraction, nor contrition, nor apology, nor recantation has been required by the Holy See of any member of SSPX, it seems.

Indeed, in recent times the Ecclesia Dei Commission has apparently stated that members of the Faithful may fulfil their Sunday obligation by attendance at SSPX masses.

Yet this would not normally be permitted if the celebrant priest was suspended a divinis from administering the Sacrament - still less if he was excommunicate.

Catholics were therefore seemingly permitted to consider that SSPX members and priests were neither excommunicate, nor suspended, or at least that the excommunications were suspended, presumably in in accordance with Can. 1353.

Some, of course, will reject that analysis, but, either way, the precise canonical position is by no means clear, save that they are not excommunicate. That being so, why have not more people given SSPX the benefit of the doubt?

The late Michael Davies who wrote Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre at a time when the Archbishop was being most widely vilified

In any event, it is now quite clear that the policy of the present Pontiff is toward rapprochement and toward lifting penalties (if any) that exist or prevent SSPX priests from administering the Sacraments.

Even though this would seem to call into question the whole policy of purported sanctions in the first place, our holy Pope has had both the courage and the humility to lift the sanctions.

The stuff of martyrdom consists in keeping one's integrity, one's Faith and one's conscience, even in the face of the most overwhelming persecution, even if abandoned by father, mother, son, daughter, friends and superiors and still more so if unjustly attacked by them.

Is it martyrdom to attack the man whom everyone else is attacking and that unjustly? No - of course not.

But what of that man unjustly attacked? Well now, there you do indeed have a possible candidate for martyrdom.

Perhaps now some shoddy-thinking, liberal Catholics with little compassion and less sense of justice may begin to see that their all too hasty jumping onto the bandwagon of vilification of the SSPX may perhaps not have been a matter for such self-congratulation.

Perhaps they may even see the unfairness and uneven-handedness of crying out against the religious vilification of Jews, Moslems and non-Catholics whilst, at the same time, themselves religiously vilifying the SSPX and its members. They might also see that he who calls for justice - as liberal Catholics constantly are - ought to make an attempt to practice that virtue himself.

Even if I may have reservations about certain members of SSPX (and I certainly do!), I seem to hear from some of their more vociferous liberal antagonists the words of the Pharisee: "O God, I give Thee thanks that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as also is this [SSPX?] publican" (Luke 18:11).

Well, let us follow the lead of our Holy Father, hope for better things and for a spirit of reconciliation, fraternal charity and forgiveness.

Here, then is the decree and Bishop Fellay's rather moving response:

http://www.cfnews.org/SSPX-Exc-Nullified.htm

Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior of SSPX

Gloria Olivetae:
our wonderfully humble and compassionate Pope, gloriously reigning!
God grant that he may do so for many years to come!

...

Valkyrie: Stauffenberg and the sacred Germany against the profane Germany...

"Es lebt unser heiliges Deutschland!"

"Long live our sacred Germany!"

These are reputedly the last words of 37-year-old Bavarian Catholic aristocrat and cavalry officer, Colonel Claus, Count Schenk von Stauffenberg, before he was summarily shot in the courtyard of German Army Headquarters in Bendlerstrasse, Berlin, for his attempt upon the life of murderous Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler.

Accurately, the film released yesterday in Britain, and titled Valkyrie, includes this memorable and dramatic scene, played well by American actor, Tom Cruise, as Colonel Count Stauffenberg.

The film is, in my humble view, an excellent portrayal of this true story of patriotic German officers, civilians, politicians, aristocrats and commoners alike, who opposed the Hitler regime and took courageous action to overthrow it from within, risking their lives so to do.

I have followed the Stauffenberg story for decades and got to know his son, Major-General Berthold von Stauffenberg, when he was German military attaché in London.

It is my belief that the film is an accurate portrayal, well handled and well presented. It is also a gripping story presented with all the excitement and drama that it so well deserves.

A clip from the film Valkyrie

Hollywood's homage to the men who risked - and lost - their lives in this courageous attempt is long overdue but now it has come and it will, I am sure, have a considerable impact on the way many cynical moderns view the story of Germany and its people who found themselves governed by a brutal tyranny.

Numerous famous actors play the parts of the key figures in the plot (from left standing) Carl Goerdeler, the Mayor of Leipzig, Stauffenberg, Colonel-General Ludwig Beck (who had resigned in 1938), Major-General Henning von Treskow, (seated) Colonel Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, Lieutenant-General Friedrich Olbricht and one other.

What was the "sacred" or "holy" Germany which Stauffenberg cried allegiance to?

Quite simply it was the holy empire which had placed Germany and Germans at the centre of a Christian, Catholic Europe for 1,000 years and which had built up, lead, governed, protected and enhanced European Christian civilisation for most of its history.

We are apt to forget this when we lump the thousands of years of German history into those very few short years when, after a period of anarchy, the political elite turned its back on the past and installed a new and diabolical ideology in place of the Christian past.

That ideology was a materialist, Socialist, racist, secular, anti-monarchist and anti-Catholic creed called National Socialism.

Goering surveys the bomb damage

As is crystal clear from his early autobiography, Mein Kampf ("My Struggle"), its devilish leader hated all that was associated with the Catholic and Habsburg empire of the past whilst he - schizophrenically and contradictorily - claimed to be restoring the ancient, thousand-year old, empire of the past, albeit in a new and "modern" guise.

The real, thousand-year old, empire of the past was, in truth, the Holy Roman Empire, a Catholic, not a Socialist, empire sometimes called Das heilige römische Reich der deutschen Völker or "The Holy Roman Empire of the German People".

This empire was begun in what later became France by the Emperor Charlemagne, a Frank, a race of people who were ancestors of both French and German people.

Later the Empire was restored to glory by the Emperor Otto the Great and gradually became centred upon what is now Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Northern Italy and parts of France, Poland, Ukraine and Hungary.

This Empire was Roman and Catholic. Its Emperor - successor to the Roman emperors of old - was the first Catholic layman of Christian Europe and recognised as such by all Christian countries and political leaders. This Empire and its rulers recognised their duty of allegiance to the Roman Pontiff as their spiritual superior.

And for this reason it was called "holy" or "sacred". It was titled Sacrum Romanum Imperium and recognised as such by all the popes who ever ruled.

This was the "sacred" or "holy" Germany to which Stauffenberg referred and which he had come to realise was - and must always be - implacably opposed to the dirty little Social Darwinist, secularist tyranny that Hitler and the National Socialists had imposed upon a once noble Germany.

Stauffenberg (left) with Colonel Albrecht, Ritter (Knight) Mertz von Quirnheim, a fellow army officer and co-conspirator in the 20 July 1944 plot against Hitler. He was shot with Stauffenberg outside Army HQ.

The decline and fall of religion in Germany, partly a by-product of the Protestant Reformation, had finally sapped all the life out of the true Germany and the vacuum had been filled with a legion of devils from Hell who inspired this new and grotesque National Socialist ideology, said to be based upon science but actually based upon the spurious findings of a entirely perverse, modern science, based upon Darwinism, among other ideas.

Many were opposed to Hitler - Social Democrats, liberals, Jews, Communists, Evangelicals, conservatives - but only one man summoned up the skill, courage, tenacity, perserverance and commanding personality to hatch a plan to deliver Germany and the world from the tyrant and, moreover, was willing to carry it out himself.

That man was Claus von Stauffenberg.

Stauffenberg with 2 of his children

He came from a noble family of a line 700 years old. That gave him a certain upbringing, education, moral formation and self-possession as well as a sense of responsibility arising from his family background.

His father was the last Oberhofmarschall of the Kingdom of Württemberg and Claus, from an early age, had had impressed upon him that his family heritage was not merely a social status but imposed a solemn duty to serve God, nation and conscience above self.

Interestingly, it was the aristocrats who really showed determination and courage to stand up to the tyrant.

Above all, however, let it not ever be forgotten what most went to make up the core beliefs of Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg and what was his source of strength, discernment and loyalty, as well as courage, and to which he turned for counsel before making his final decision to carry out his plans.

Before deciding to take part in the plot and lay the bomb, Stauffenberg went to confession.

It was his religion, first and foremost, that gave him the tools for reason, emotion and decisive action. His religion was one truly worthy of the name.

And that was because Colonel Claus, Count Schenk von Stauffenberg was a traditional Roman Catholic.

Banner of the Holy Roman Empire



...

Whoops! Spoke too soon. Obama re-opens international abortion funding...

Look left folks.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a "blob of jelly"?

None of the above.

It's a defenceless, baby human being who has no civil, human or legal rights.

Obama's nasty side came out yesterday when he over-turned the pro-life policy on US funding to family planning groups abroad that counsel abortion.

With the full range of anti-life fatuity, he said that the policy was "unnecessarily broad and unwarranted" and had become too politicized an issue.

Too politicised? What? And just who did the politicising, eh? The anti-lifers, that's who.

Is the "ban" on eliminating adults "unnecessarily broad and unwarranted"? No? Then why is it so when the victim is a human baby?

Obama said in a statement that the policy had "undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning in developing countries. For these reasons, it is right for us to rescind this policy and restore critical efforts to protect and empower women and promote global economic development."

What priceless tripe.

What's safe about killing?

And how does it "empower" women or "promote global development"?

"I have no desire to continue this stale and fruitless debate" says the new President. Really? And will he be saying that to NARAL? Or is this newspeak for "I am only against such debates if I disagree with the view expressed"?

The fatuity gets more and more bizarre.

By resuming funding to the UN Population Fund, he said, "the US will be joining 180 other donor nations working collaboratively to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries."

So abortion prevents HIV now, does it? And improves the health of children?

Yeah, right.

And what sort of "family planning assistance"? This means condoms instead of food and medicines, contraceptives instead of hospitals, schools and proper care.

But, hey folks, let's not worry because new Secretary of State, representative of America's new foreign policy and Feminist loony, Hillary "Marry your man and get a top job" Clinton, welcomed the step.

So that's OK, then.

Anyone seen my broomstick?

"This policy has made it more difficult for women around the world to gain access to essential information and healthcare services," Clinton said. Sure, Hillary. For "healthcare services" read "abortion services". If this is the newspeak for "healthcare services" then God help the Third World countries that place any reliance on US aid!

Clinton said she was looking forward to working with "the NGO (non-governmental organization) community to promote programs and policies that ensure women and girls have full access to health information and services".

That is, "abortion services".

After all, Hillary dear, we can't have all those poor, foreign people with different coloured skins and foreign, non-American cultures, having children, now, can we?

Come back Margaret Sanger and all her racist fellow-travellers - all is forgiven. At least by Hillary and other phoney humanitarians.

Remember the Feminist legacy, folks. Here it is, again, just in case you forgot what Feminism has done to the world and to humanity. Figures are from the notoriously and odiously pro-abortion and anti-life Alan Guttmacher Institute:

Approximately 46 Million abortions per year worldwide
Approximately 126,000 abortions per day worldwide.

© Copyright 1999-2000, The Alan Guttmacher Institute.

So, if these figures are right, when it comes to the killing business, Feminism dwarfs both Communism and Nazism put together!

Inaugural: Mr President says...

Well, it was a barnstorming speech. You have to admit it.

But does he mean it?

And what did he leave out?

Barack Obama has made it clear, in his very short period as a US Senator, that he is one of the least pro-life members of Congress.

Will he be the least pro-life US President ever?

Does he really think that nurses should kill babies that managed to survive the abortion process alive?

Does he really think that Catholic and other hospitals should be forced to do abortions against the consciences of doctors, nurses, managers and donors?

If so, how is that in any way "liberal"?

A US TV show compared the words of President Obama with those of President Bush and much was expressed in similar terms - war on terror, strength of America will not be defeated by terrorists, supporting the troops, defending freedom, the importance of markets in the economy and so on. Nothing Socialist there.

Does he meant it?

We shall see.

Here are a few extracts:

"...In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things — some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labour, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

...Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on the ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

...We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort — even greater cooperation and understanding between nations.

...We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honour them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment — a moment that will define a generation — it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence — the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny..."

Great stuff - but does he mean it?

Defiance: it's powerful...

This is a still from the new film Defiance recently out and starring Daniel Craig as a Jewish partisan leader in Nazi-occupied Belarus.

The Bielski family were farmers in Nowogrodek, Belarus. After Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Nowogrodek became a Jewish ghetto, as the Nazis took over.

The three Bielski brothers, Tuvia, Alexander Zisel "Zus", and Asael, managed to flee to the nearby forest after their parents and other family members were killed in the ghetto in December 1941. Together with 13 neighbours from the ghetto, they formed the nucleus of a an independent fighting force.

The group's commander was the older brother, Tuvia Bielski (1906–1987), a Polish Army veteran. He recruited over a thousand to join the group in the Naliboki Forest.

They lived in underground dugouts but built a kitchen, a mill, a bakery, a bathhouse, a medical clinic for sick and wounded and a quarantine hut for those who suffered from infectious diseases such as typhus. Herds of cows supplied milk. They ran small factories and even made weapons. The camp's many children went to dugout school. The camp even had its own jail and a court of law.

Religion even flourished in the camp and many of the group were Hasids or fully Orthodox Jews. These authentic Jews believe the Old Testament fully. They are identifiable today by their dress - ringlets, beards, long coats, shawls, broad-brimmed hats and so on.

Today many of them are even anti-Zionist because they believe that there can be no State of Israel until the Moshiach (the Messiah) comes.

Catholics believe the same, the only difference being that we believe the Moshiach ("the anointed") has already come and His name is Y'shua (Jesus or Joshua) meaning "Saviour" and the current "Kingdom of Israel" is the Church. Catholics are the spiritual Jews.

Jews call this "replacement theology" and disparage it but that is only to be expected and - from their point of view - quite right and proper. If they did not think so then they would cease being Jews and become Catholics. So we ought not be unduly offended by the disparagement.

The past record of the Holy See should be our guide. The popes of the past - even at periods of persecution of Jews - have always taken the Jews under their special protection. No historian dare gainsay this truth because he or she will never find any evidence to the contrary, however much they may find evidence against bad Christian kings. The Jews was never expelled from the City of Rome - ever.

No-one - Catholic or non-Catholic - can have anything but the greatest anger and indignation at the disgraceful attempt to destroy defenceless men, women and children as this film again reminds happened even in once-civilised Europe. The twin evils of Nazism and Stalinism combined to make of the 20th century the bloodiest, dirtiest and most destructive of centruies in the history of mankind. How could man behave so unless he were first possessed of a legion of devils? What an appalling legacy it has left us!

The activities of the Bielski partisans were aimed at the Nazis and collaborators in the area. They also undertook sabotage. The Nazis sent out whole formations to track them down but they fled safely to a more remote part of the forest, still offering protection to the non-combatants among their band.

The real Bielski partisans

Several attempts by Soviet partisan commanders to absorb Bielski fighters into their units were resisted, so that the Jewish partisan group retained its integrity and remained under Tuvia Bielski's command. This allowed him to continue to protect Jewish lives whilst fighting.

In the summer of 1944, when the Soviet counter-offensive began in Belarus and the Germans withdrew, the Bielski partisans, numbering 1,230 men, women and children, emerged from the forest and marched into Nowogrodek.

Asael Bielski served in the Soviet Red Army but was killed at Königsberg in 1945.

Tuvia Bielski returned to Poland, then emigrated to Palestine in 1945 but he and his brother eventually settled in the United States.

Some of the acts of vengeance they undertook, and shown in the film are plainly immoral but they come to regret them and the effect of the whole is one of the triumph of courage and dignity over evil.

It is a powerful story - as is the film - of defiance, courage, horrifying, bloody murders and eventual escape from a most hellish episode in human history.

...

A bishop who has simply lost it...

This is the bishop who lost his way, spiritually, pastorally and theologically.

He has just lost it.

Altogether.

Below are 2 articles in The Catholic Herald which show Kieran Conry as he really is.

Since he plainly no longer believes the Catholic faith and has made this loud and clear both publicly and pertinaciously, he has effectively deposed himself as Ordinary of Arundel and Brighton.

One cannot pertinaciously and publicly repudiate the faith and remain an Ordinary. So says the law and the teachings of the Church, not to mention the great saints like Aquinas, Bellarmine and Liguori.

So now is the time for the people of Arundel and Brighton to petition Rome to give them a bishop since the present pretender has effectively repudiated the job.

Read on:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/features/f0000353.shtml

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/articles/a0000442.shtml

The "wisdom" of Kieran: we cannot talk about salvation of souls; regular confession is not a good idea; Humanae Vitae might be wrong; don't talk about Hell; the Latin Mass is to be kept at bay; let's just talk about saving the planet.

This is secularism with a cheesy, clerical grin.

It is not the Catholic faith. It is a trahison des clercs and an abandonment of the flock by the would-be shepherd. It is pathetic. And sad.

And he is a bishop!

Welcome to the Church in Britain, folks - dying, for want of leadership.

...

In the Octave of the Epiphany: "the kings of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts"

The Epiphany

of the Lord

to the Gentiles

on the same day as

the Baptism of the Lord

and

the miracle of wine at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee

"When Jesus therefore was born in Bethlehem of Juda, in the days of king Herod, behold, there came wise men from the East to Jerusalem, saying: where is he that is born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and are come to adore him. And king Herod hearing this, was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. And assembling together all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, he inquired of them where Christ should be born. But they said to him: In Bethlehem of Juda. For so it is written by the prophet: and thou Bethlehem the land of Juda art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come forth the captain that shall rule my people Israel.

Then Herod, privately calling the wise men learned diligently of them the time of the star which appeared to them; and sending them into Bethlehem, said: go and diligently inquire after the child, and when you have found him, bring me word again, that I also may come and adore him. Who having heard the king, went their way; and behold the star which they had seen in the East, went before them, until it came and stood over where the child was. And seeing the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And entering into the house, they found the child with Mary his mother, and falling down they adored him: and opening their treasures, they offered him gifts; gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having received an answer in sleep that they should not return to Herod, they went back another way into their country."

[Matt 2:12 - Gospel for the Mass of the Epiphany]

The shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne Cathedral

The Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral contains their relics brought from Milan by ship to the City of Cologne on the order of the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, in 1164 as a gift to the Prince-Elector Archbishop, Rainald of Dassel.

This gave rise to the English Carol "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing in".

The relics had first been taken from Constantinople to Milan in 344 by Bishop Eustorgius of Milan.

Around 1199, the Roman Emperor Otto IV gave three golden crowns made for the three wise men as a present to the church of Cologne, the city where, the previous year, he had been elected King of the Romans and Emperor-elect by the Prince-Electors of the Empire (he later gained the support of all the imperial princes at Frankfurt in 1208).

An inscription reads:

Otto rex coloniensis curiam celebrans tres coronas de auro capitibus trium magorum imposuit.

Emperor Otto IV was the only member of the Welf dynasty to be elected Holy Roman Emperor and, being the son of Matilda Plantagenet (married to Henry the Lion, Duke of Bavaria), he was allied to England in the Franco-English wars. He was also the personal preference of Pope Innocent III, who crowned him Roman Emperor at Rome in 1209, although they later fell out over the issue of the imperial rights in Italy.

Because of the importance of the shrine and the cathedral for the later development of the city, the Coat of Arms of Cologne still shows these three crowns symbolizing the Three Kings.

Construction of the present Cologne Cathedral was begun in 1248 to house these important relics. The cathedral took 632 years to complete and is now the largest Gothic church in northern Europe.

On July 20th, 1864, the shrine was opened, and remains of the three Kings and the coins of Philip I, Archbishop of Cologne, were discovered.

An eyewitness report reads:

“In a special compartment of the shrine now there showed - along with remains of ancient old rotten or moulded bandages, most likely byssus, besides pieces of aromatic resins and similar substances - numerous bones of three persons, which under the guidance of several present experts could be assembled into nearly complete bodies: the one in his early youth, the second in his early manhood, the third was rather aged. Two coins, bracteates made of silver and only one side striken, were adjoined; one, provably from the days of Philipp von Heinsberg, displayed a church, the other showed a cross, accompanied by the sword of jurisdiction, and the crozier on either side.”

The bones were wrapped in white silk and returned to the shrine where they remain to this day to be venerated by all the Faithful.

By long tradition, on the Feast of the Epiphany – called Dreikoenigsfest (the Feast of the Three Kings) in the lands of the old Holy Roman Empire – the Rector of the Parish (or in his absence, the father of each family) visits each house with a cross-bearer, 2 acolytes and 3 children dressed as the kings, one bearing a censer with lighted incense. At each house a little ceremony takes place, the house is blessed with Epiphany water, and over the door lintel of the house the following is inscribed with blessed chalk:

20 + C + M + B + 09

In my house we always perform this traditional ceremony.

This symbolises the present year and the blessing of the 3 Magi, Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, upon each home.

The symbols remain all year or until the weather has washed them away.

Blessed Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, wise men and kings from the East, pray for us!

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The Journey of the Magi

by T S Eliot


A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

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"three trees on the low sky... I should be glad of another death."

...