Culture

Don’t ‘Taizé’ Me, Bro!: The Attack On The Liturgy — Guest Post by Ianto Watt

Taizéd and dazed. We’ve gone to sleep. How did this begin to happen? And when was it we got Taizéd?

Have you ever seen those little inconspicuous signs outside of some mainline Protestant church, saying ‘Taizé Service’? Essentially, they mean ‘we have achieved nuclear parity’. It’s similar to what happened when Stalin exploded his first test nuke, back in August of 1949.

You first need to understand that revolutions don’t just happen by chance. They require planning. And dedication. And persistence. And hate. Hate, always hate. And they never stop, unless they are killed in the cradle. Which we failed to do to Stalin in 1949. Patton was right.

Just like the Russian nuke in 1949, the power to Taizé was a stolen power. Stolen by turncoats. That’s another word for Revolutionary. But that’s what history is all about. Who will betray whom. Ask Viriathus if you’re not sure.

The setting for this story (and it is a big story, which is why you’ve never heard of it) is the early 1800’s, in Europe. We have the Europeans still reeling from the Napoleonic revolution that set out to overturn every monarchy and re-create the world. But this time, in the image of Man. Or rather, the goddess whose name is Reason.

This destruction of the powers of the past had disrupted the people’s memory of the past, and all that was built upon it. The Europe everyone goes to see was not built by the Enlightenment. Sure, some sadists like to see the guillotine, but most would rather not. Who still understands what motivated those people who actually built the palaces and cathedrals that define our image of Europe? Europe, before the bloodshed?

The European people’s only authentic link with the past after the French/Napoleonic Revolution was the Church. Only Her doctrine and liturgy had survived this revolutionary onslaught. All the rest, the material stuff, was either razed or stolen. With the founding of the Solesmes Congregation in 1833 (in the ruins of the abbey demolished by the Revolution) a humble monk named Dom Prosper Guerangér began the second act of the Benedictine re-construction of Europe. And the first step towards this goal was the re-establishment of time. Forget Thermidor. Remember Advent. Guerangér’s masterpiece, The Liturgical Year was the beginning of this return to normalcy. It was a commentary on the saints and liturgy for each day of the year, wrapped in the norms of the ecclesial seasons. With this work Dom Prosper set about the task of re-orienting man towards his true work—his participation in the liturgy. The true worship of God.

What is this liturgy? Man’s public duty to God. It is not just the acknowledgment, but also the understanding of this duty that Gueranér sought to re-awaken. Because of this he is known as the godfather of The Liturgical Movement. And here we find the beginning of the trail of tears. The trail of Taizé. For it was from Taizé (a small village north of Lyon, in France) that the modernist ecumenical movement was unleashed upon the world. The original weapon of Mass destruction. The movement that will eventually rule all the world, if only for a time. And that ecumenical time is coming fast upon us.

I’m not saying that Dom Guerangér was the originator of today’s inversion of liturgical reform. But, as with all movements towards truth, there will be the inevitable spin-offs that, knowingly or not, will divert a good many men who begin their trek towards truth, but who end up ideologically turning right or left into the dead-ends of time. And it truly was absolutely necessary that someone should re-awaken mankind to the meaning of their public duty. Dom Prosper Guerangér was just the man for this job.

For otherwise the liturgy, attended by men who had forgotten it’s meaning, would continue in a meaningless repetition of ritual, devoid of intent. Any intent. Which is to say, worthless, to the practitioner. Rather like the worship Caesar demanded of his ‘citizens’. Why would Caesar demand that? Conditioning, my friend. Do what you’re told, I’ll do the thinking. Caesar was the first acolyte of B.F. Skinner. Or was it the other way around? But that is not what God expects of Man. God made man to think His thoughts after Him. He wants us to think. Before we act, however. So why should The Church expect anything less of Her children?

Now here is where the most important fork in the road to Liturgical reform was met. The next monk who had to decide which way to go was Dom Lambert Beauduin. A Benedictine monk, of course. But not at first. Born in Belgium in 1873, he first became a diocesan priest whose specialty was as a ‘worker’s missionary’. He was heavily involved in the education of the working people. Which, in those times, meant political and economic education. And he was good at it. Too good. During his gifted pastoral practice, he gradually lost sight of the true purpose of education. And the true source. What is that purpose? Adoration. The source? Informed adoration. Which is to say, a people in tune (and time) with the Liturgy.

This is what Dom Guerangér understood and worked for. He understood that educating the people about the meaning of the liturgy would re-awaken in them the true understanding of life here on earth. This would make possible a true education that put all of mankind’s activity in the proper perspective. Which is to say, the eternal.

This story of revolutionary ritual is laid out very clearly in a little book by Fr. Didier Bonneterre, The Liturgical Movement. In it, Bonneterre charitably explains how Dom Beauduin went off the rails. Like most revolutionaries, he got his means and ends mixed up. He thought his mission was to educate his flock before he taught them the purpose of education.

Then he began to think that his real calling was not to educate the Catholic masses, but rather he would reach out to the pastors of his ‘separated brethren’. His Anglican, Lutheran and Orthodox friends, of whom he had many. Which, in itself, is not a bad thing. I know many Samaritans whom I like and love. Dom Beauduin thought, in his many ecumenical safaris, that there could be a way to rationally approach them on the question of the re-unification of Christendom. And he believed the way to this reunification was dialogue. Which is Hegelian, of course. Not Christian. And not necessarily rational.

Dom Beauduin failed to see that example is the best teacher. Work, not talk, is what impresses people. And if he had understood this, he would have seen that true ecumenism lies in the attraction of one side towards the other, based on the fruit of their work. Not some middling compromise that sullies both sides. Beauduin, an enthusiast of the Malines Conversations, was willing to accept an Anglican Church that was ‘united to Rome but not absorbed’.

Now within the Roman Church there are twenty-three distinct separate rites of worship. Being absorbed does not mean losing your personal identity. Each rite (and its culture) is distinct, each is authentic. And twenty-two of them are ancient. This is important. Remember that, as you try and restore your memory to what you were before you were Taizéd.

This concept of absorption was the lesson John Cardinal Newman learned in his epiphany in the institutional failure of the Oxford Movement. The Eastern Orthodox laughed the Oxford Movement’s ecumenist William Palmer out of town when he went to Moscow in 1840 to peddle that Three Branch hokum.

The Orthodox knew that giving in to Anglican claims of authenticity (and, ergo, autonomy) would lead directly to the need to admit the authenticity (in any fashion) of Holy Rome. In fact, Patriarch Nikon’s musing, during his deposition in 1666 by Tsar Alexi, that he should appeal his removal directly to the Pope was what sealed his fate.

The true personal fruit of the Oxford Movement was not the mutual recognition of autonomous equals. Rather it was the conversion of Newman and Palmer and numerous other Oxford Brethren to the centricity of Holy Rome. Conversions are what advance true ecumenism. Why? Because that is the only thing that produces true unity. Forget the Left. Forget the Right. The bullseye is always in the Center. No matter what you aim for.

In Dom Beauduin’s eagerness to seek rapprochement with his separated brethren (and in his frustration with Anglican reluctance), he became even more enthralled with the Eastern-most of these separated brethren, the Orthodox. Enthralled to the point of founding ‘The Monastery of Union‘ at Amay in 1925. The monastery that included (and celebrated) all forms of ‘Christian’ belief. Even contradictory ones. This, in spite of the fact that one of the most profound results of the Amay movement was that numerous Catholic monks were converting to Orthodoxy.

Guess who Beauduin became fast friends with there? Guess who would declare, in 1958, that ‘the method of Dom Lambert Beauduin is the right one’? Would you believe, Msgr. Angelo Roncalli? The future Pope John XXIII. The pope who convened the Ecumenical council known as Vatican II. The Pope that Taizéd us. And the Center began to move. Not, as Yeats had said, that ‘the centre cannot hold’ in his seminal work The Second Coming. No, rather it was because the centre would not hold. The falcons were abandoned by the Falconer. As the gyroscopic poles began to move, the world that spun around it began to wobble. And then everything flew apart. Literally, everything.

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Now we are getting to the end of the story. The story of how the modernist New Mass supplanted the time-immemorial Latin liturgy of Pius V in the late 1500’s. Which liturgy Pius got from Pope Gregory the Great, around 600 AD. And Gregory got it, undisturbed, from the Apostles. Guess who they got it from? No, not Caiaphas!

What was this New Mass of Vatican II? Essentially, it was identical to the pre-existing Eucharistic Liturgy of Taizé. The Mass created by the experiments of the mad liturgical scientist, Dom Beauduin. And which experiments were recorded by Brother Roger, the ecumenical Protestant saint of The World Council of Churches (WCC). He, and his buddy, Max Thurian (Reformed Church pastor). Take a minute and read this liturgy, from 1959. Now compare it to the Mass of Vatican II. It’s actually better in a lot of ways than the New Mass of 1969.

Where did Thurian and Brother Roger get this new liturgy? From Dom Beauduin, and his People’s Masses that he had been experimenting with for a dozen years in his treks across Europe between The Great Wars. All the elements of Taizé (and later, the new Mass, delivered at Vatican II) were there. Including the most important, from their combined perspective; that the People were equally as important as the Eucharist. Fools. Poor fools.

There is only one word for this bi-polar thought: revolution. The ‘reformers’ (on both sides of the ecclesial divide) said that the liturgy, which was basically unchanged from the night of The Last Supper till WWI, actually stood between the people and their faith. The Ancient Church said that the liturgy is, in fact, the people’s acting out this faith. It was the linkage of the people and their faith. After all, if the liturgy is the public duty of man, then it is simply the expression of his faith. If God is unchanging, why shouldn’t the liturgy remain unchanged? But that answer never satisfies the revolutionary. He wants change, at any and all costs. As long he isn’t the one who pays the tab. And if the only way to change things is to destroy what currently exists, guess who pays?

Let’s get back to a previous point about revolutionaries. We’ve seen Beauduin, and Brother Roger. And Msggr. Roncalli. Now let’s look closer at another of the Komrades. Specifically, Max Thurian. This is the same Max Thurian who was secretly ordained as a Catholic priest in 1987, with no abjuration of any of his anti-Roman beliefs. How was it that he and Brother Roger (a close friend of all Popes since John XXIII) could write (and more importantly, celebrate) something equal to the reigning liturgy of the Catholic Church today? How can a man claim to believe everything the Catholic Church believes, and to act upon that belief, liturgically speaking, without publicly becoming one with Rome? How can autonomy be reconciled with unity?

Now I ask you, why was Max secretly ordained? And have there been any secretly consecrated Bishops? Ugly questions. Uglier answers. Ugly, but rather simple. Counterfeiting is basically a very simple concept. Substitution always seems to work. Some (most) people will buy something based on the hood ornament, regardless of what’s under the hood.

Yes, the Taizé liturgy appears (to my un-ordained mind) to contain the essence, the Canon, of the Mass, whether it be the old or the new form of the Mass. On paper, the nuclear parity of sacramental power appears to have been achieved. Canterbury and Augsburg could now (theoretically) rival Rome. Everyone could have their own atomic weapons now. If there were any real Anglicans and Lutherans left, that is. If there weren’t enough of them to accomplish the reunification of Christendom (through compromise), was there was another way to achieve the numerical parity this new Protestant-cum-Catholic liturgy needed in order to succeed?

Well, if you couldn’t rally enough men to your own side, then perhaps you could reduce the other side’s forces? Perhaps the other side could be persuaded to engage in some unilateral disarmament? Some pleasant form of suicide, perhaps? By the way, isn’t it funny how the semantics work out? The old Latin form of the Latin Mass now has an English name, the ‘Extraordinary Form’, while the new English Mass has a Latin name ‘Novus Ordo‘. Is it any wonder the people get confused? Back to the plot. For it is a plot, you know. Why? Because there is no need for secrecy if this ecumenical ordination of Max Thurian was truly licit. You know. Legal. Sure, it’s valid, it’s effective. But was it legal? Well, what revolution is ever legal?

Here’s the heart of the plot. Let’s assume the Taizé liturgy has the crucial magical (canonical) elements that would constitute a true Mass (the form and substance of the consecration). If so, there’s only one thing missing here in order for this liturgy to actually result in the confection of the Eucharist. What would that be? A real priest, of course. One who was actually and effectively ordained into the Apostolic succession of the priesthood. There has to be apostolic succession here in order for the celebrant to be able to make the words of the liturgy bring alive the act of transubstantiation. The change of the bread and wine into the Real Presence.

Yes, this is an act of magic. True magic. An act that requires a true magician. One who has been given this power. You can’t just achieve it. Or take it. Or buy it. Ask Simon Magus. It must be given. By Who? By the One who owns it. The One who gave it to a particularly chosen group, and to be passed on by them, in an orderly way. Holy Orders. Sorry guys (and gals), The Last Supper was invitation-only. Discrimination in its best form.

That’s what all these liturgical revolutionaries (in both camps) recognized. They knew that even if the Protestant denominations had valid claims that their liturgy, on paper, was congruent with Catholic belief, there still had to be a legal driver for the car. Someone with an actual valid license. A celebret of some type. Otherwise, he’s driving without insurance.

Here’s the logic driving this whole thing. The current Catholic hierarchy wants re-unification, at seemingly any cost. The Protestant hierarchy wants the real liturgy, at almost any cost. Any cost but bending the knee to Peter. Forget the current occupant of that Chair for a minute. Focus on Peter. That’s what the other side has done. That’s what we have forgotten to do.

How do we accomplish this, Komrade? First, if we can get the Catholics to act Protestant, then maybe we can get the Protestants to act like Catholics. If the one disappears, how can the other mirror it? Unless they both disappear. Which is apparently what’s happening. And that’s how the Revolutionaries did it. They changed the old form of the Mass into the newly proclaimed Protestant form, and called it a tie game. And everybody began to leave. They all went home for a nap. A long nap. Check the figures for Mass attendance since 1969. Same for Mainline Prot churches. Every one was selling short.

The Ref that called this tie game was Fr. Annibale Bugnini, the head of the Commission for Liturgical Reform. Another friend of Dom Beauduin. And Msgr. (Pope) Roncalli. Shazzam! Annibale. Hannibal. ‘The grace of Baal‘. The everlasting enemy of Rome. Imperial or Holy, it makes no difference. Who was vetting these vocations?

After Pius XII died in 1958 and Msgr. Roncalli became Pope John XXIII, the way was clear to make the big move. That’s when Fr. (soon to be bishop) Bugnini used the Taizé liturgy as his blueprint, knowing the Protestants would accept it. Because, after all, they had already accepted it! So, monkey-see, monkey-do. Turn the altar around and make it a buffet table. Speak in the vernacular instead of the sacred. Treat priests like waiters. And treat everyone else like a priest. Maybe a priestess? Then, sneak the Canon of the Mass (complete with transubstantiation) into the Protestant form of ritual and turn it into a Catholic liturgy (but without a lot of public chatter about what’s been done). Abracadabra. Presto-change-o.

If they can somehow inject a valid (though possibly illicit) priesthood into the Protestant side, then they can say their Taizé, then liturgy produces exactly what the Catholics have. The Eucharist. In other words, Nuclear Parity. They can be just like Holy Rome. And, by the way, just like the Orthodox, too. Same dogma, same rites, same priesthood as Rome. The Three Branch Theory, fulfilled! All without having to bend the knee to Peter. Thus, we have the conditions for an eternally extended Mexican Standoff. Even better than peaceful (but still uncomfortable) co-existence. It’s Amnesty!

The Orthodox aren’t buying this scam. They shouldn’t. But they have their own separate agenda. The agenda of continued separation, that is. Their own refusal to bend the knee. While the Eastern Orthodox maintain a presence in the World Council of Churches, they are aloof to it. They sneer at it privately, because to them Moscow is the true Third Rome. And the center is moving towards Moscow, Komrade. The one pole that will not move.

Why not let these Teutonic Lutheran and Anglican idiots think they’ve swiped the Holy Grail, literally? The Orthodox are certain they are the only true possessors of it, now that the grip of Rome has loosened. Let these silly Protestants think they are the equals of Holy Rome. Too bad they don’t realize both Rome and Canterbury have both apostasized, in the Orthodox view. So, let them trade costumes, who cares? The result is the same. Forget that stupid Three Branch theory. We told Palmer that publicly in Moscow in 1840. No need to repeat ourselves, eh Komrades?

This is how they herd all of the sheep into one pen. Without any unnecessary bleating, of course. Stay calm and carry on, they tell us again, as we continue down the chute into the common killing fields. We appear to have no choice. Either we go with the currently relaxed Cat/Prot liturgy of the secularized West, or we embrace the rigid but vacuous rituals of the Orthodox East. Yet both, in the end, owe their continued existence to their refusal to bend the knee to Peter. To Peter, who appears to be abandoned by all.

Who is this ‘they’ I refer to? Does it matter? The deed is done. Whether by Kabbalah or its pale Gentile version known as Freemasonry, or both in concert, the deed is done. The sheep are scattered, the wolves are loose. It’s every sheep for himself. Baaa!

What is the faithful man to do? Where can he find support? What is the right response to this Mongol strategy of deliberatively contrived confusion followed by exhaustion and collapse? Well, in war, the correct response, as always, is to attack. That requires guts. And guts require faith. Both are in short supply today. That’s the point.

We haven’t paid attention to what Dom Guerangér tried to teach us. Because we have shifted the focus of the liturgy, our public duty, from God to Man. We have forgotten the need for contemplative adoration. Both words, together. Liturgy, with ancient understanding. That is the key to enlivening our faith. Only that will give us the guts we need. The guts to do our public duty to God. To do it the way it was intended. The way unchanged from the time of Peter till now. That, Komrade, is the best means of attack.

My friend, if you want to live, wake up. Shake off that Taizéing. Remember your past. Reverence your origin. Give your personal thanks for the conscious opportunity to die in the Faith. Then you will live again. Just keep the Faith. That’s all you have to do.

Oremus.

Categories: Culture

34 replies »

  1. Oh My!

    Deja Vu all over again! (See comment section of May 8, 2018)

  2. Human beings are a curious creature. They can know all the symptoms of heart failure and yet stand there denying they have the symptoms until the massive coronary is happening to them. It’s fine to detail how one believes we got into the mess—it may help the survivors dig out of the mess. It will not, however, prevent the massive coronary, the damage, the slow recovery. Human beings simply do not learn, no matter how tech savvy, educated, etc, they become. Rise up and fall down—knowing history does nothing to prevent the process, only possibly slow it in some instances. You cannot stop it now—the massive coronary is well under way while people kept insisting and keep saying “Not us”.

  3. Mr Watt exactly parrots Mr Teapot (from last week’s post comments) idea that the Church has been in Apostasy since 1958.

    If Mr Watt and Mr Teapot represent True Catholicism, they’re EXACTLY why I cannot “Come Home”.

    I’m quite comfortable AND well protected in my cardboard box, thank you very much.

    See comments:
    https://www.wmbriggs.com/post/24460/

    (Just Wow!)

    Anyone from last week want to join in since last week’s comments seem to be closed?)

  4. I always love the posts of Ianto Watts. I appreciate his many references to history because they help this uneducated and bumbling late-to-the-table-of-Truth Catholic convert catch up. It is difficult for the ignorant to know where to start and I am grateful whenever I find direction. One truly does need a broad education to understand how we arrived at this confusing point fully – a thing sadly lacking for some time (I am fairly old and I learned nothing of value except through my own reading and from my observations of my children and grandchildren I can see that calling school “education” is now an outright lie. It is merely indoctrination).

    But I really do hope that no one from last week save Mr Teapot joins in the discussion because he was the one person who made sense and actually had a point in those comments.

    “And in all seduction of iniquity to them that perish; because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Therefore God shall send them the operation of error, to believe lying: That all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity.”

    2 Thessalonians 2: 10-11

  5. John B, I came to read your comments! I still haven’t and won’t be reading, Watt’s usual shark infested custard, (which spoils a good joke) ever, now. He and Brigs are peas in a pod.

    Glad you can see the truth and saw fit to sweetly say so. A little while ago.

    In a world of lies and deceit, the truth looks revolutionary. That was Jesus’s situation in a way.

    ‘The shadowlands’ springs to mind.

    Personally, the more mad and silly, nasty and filthy they become, the easier it is to see the truth for what it is. Paid activism and self preservation!

    Apropos:
    “Georgie Porgie pudding and pie,
    kissed the girls and made them cry,
    When the boys came out to play,
    Georgie Porgie ran away”!

  6. Shadow Caves, I meant, probably where the title came from but also apt.
    Zebras are reactionary.
    I must be an orang utan, after all.

  7. Been offline for a bit … if this gets read … fine … if not …

    Ianto said :: “…but rather he would reach out to the pastors of his ‘separated brethren’. His Anglican, Lutheran and Orthodox friends, of whom he had many. Which, in itself, is not a bad thing. I know many Samaritans whom I like and love.”

    Only this is a rather upside-down observation. In the story Jesus told, the Samaritan WAS the ‘good guy’ (as well as the ‘separated brethren’). He was not the priest worrying about performing the “rites” expected of him by the brethren and less concerned about what God expected of him.

    Earlier in Luke, the Apostles were upset because some guy was casting out demons who wasn’t part of their group. Jesus replied to leave the man be, whoever is not against us is with us (READ UNSEPARATED).

    In John, the Samaritan woman discussed worship at THEIR mountain while the Jews worshipped at the Temple. Christ said where one worships would be of no value. HOW one worships is and THAT is in loving God.

    IF we are brothers IN Christ then we are not separated. If you hold onto this idea of separation, then you need to be more concerned with God’s history rather than Man’s history. When I was a Catholic, I was offended by the vociferousness of some Protestants. I am equally offended by the vociferousness of Catholics like Teabag. Ianto, while not demonstrating any vociferousness to me (Joy feels otherwise), does feed into that of others.

    I am saddened that Ianto and Teabag feel that the Church above their priests is in shambles, but it points to the upside down nature of the Catholic Church. My brother is on the other side of Watt and Teabag, loves his priest and Church family but hates that the Church fights against gay marriage and other such social justice ideals.

  8. John B, ell and carefully put!
    However Ianto Watt has be writing, as I’ve previously stated remarks for a long while now and was originally including information which if he is not in contact with Briggs verbally would have no way of knowing. There is more going on here than meets the eye and for that reason I was not surprised by the showdown from Teapot. Just that it took so long to show it’s face and that he chose that strange moment in particular. Clearly missing the point entirely.

    Watt’s love of earthly power and empire which he accuses others of is exactly the thing which he is fretting about regarding the Catholic church and it’s veracity, it’s power!
    It is nothing to do with a piety about the true nature of God.
    It is confusion about power and an envy of the power of others. Of their youth, their independence and freedom.
    Power is subject to the law
    the law is subject to God.
    Divine power and earthly power are not the same thing. Watts always mixes this up. It’s where he lives, to coin a phrase.

    Finally, those supporting sectarianism are for me utterly foolish. British Catholics in the main would feel the same. It is dangerous and unChristian. Just gang bullying. That Briggs entertains it means Briggs supports it. It’s a game to him. Playing with people’s lives. Playing with entities he does not understand.
    Using information given in confidence, too.

  9. John B,
    Excuse me, it’s what I know not what I feel.
    Remember you don’t know what I know and I don’t know what you know.
    Briggs won’t let me post the truth.

  10. I found it curious that both Ianto and Teapot gave rather diluted versions of Apostolic Succession:

    Ianto :: A real priest, of course. One who was actually and effectively ordained into the Apostolic succession of the priesthood.

    Teapot :: Apostolic succession refers to how every priest is related to the apostles. When one becomes a priest, they give up their family and accept their parish or city as their family. Their genealogy then becomes what bishop that ordained them and who ordained them and so on.

    At least Teapot mentioned the Bishop in his definition. If both are talking about 60 years of Apostasy, then that succession becomes tenuous at best.

    If, however, one examines the Catholic Apologist understanding of Apostolic Succession you find: ” We must prove

    that St. Peter came to Rome, and ended there his pontificate;
    that the Bishops of Rome who came after him held his official position in the Church.

    As soon as the problem of St. Peter’s coming to Rome passed from theologians writing pro
    domo suâ into the hands of unprejudiced historians, i.e. within the last half century, it received
    a solution which no scholar now dares to contradict”
    So despite Teapot’s assertion, Apostolic Succession is ALL about the Pontifical/Papal succession.

    Many Apologists will admit there have been some bad popes, but God managed to work those out and the succession continued with little undue damage.

    With Ianto and Teapot both asserting that the church has been in Apostasy for sixty years, that’s a problem, especially when you consider VATICAN II. Neither Ianto nor Teapot actually say Vatican II but obviously it IS Vatican II that brought Ianto’s Taize Liturgy. SIXTY YEARS ago and since then there have been Priests, Bishops and at least one Cardinal that were excommunicated because of VATICAN II. How many Priests, Bishops and Cardinals have been brought in because of VATICAN II. I realize that most Cardinals are probably older than VATICAN II, but their Apostolic Succession becomes truly suspect if Ianto and Teapot are correct! There are So-o-o many other things that Ianto claims that border on humorous if it all wasn’t so sad.

    Yes! Keep the faith in your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! It is in Him, where you will live again.
    It is interesting and telling that neither Ianto nor Teapot mention His Name once

  11. Joy

    Apologies

    Teapot was doing So-o-o-o much projection last week that it rubbed off. (just an excuse because I do my share of projection. It was funny that Teapot kept accusing us of projection and when I went back, I just couldn’t see it)

  12. One more Apology

    I must have blanked in the middle of Ianto’s rant and missed the three or four brief mentions of Vatican II in the forty paragraphs and thousands of words.

    I knew he and Teapot were talking Vatican II so when Ianto actually mentioned it I missed it.

  13. Briggs,

    Wow! Just Wow!
    Check out this summary from another site condemning Vatican II, it’s a lot more cogent:

    In short, we see that the bishops at Vatican II did not create a renewal of the Catholic Church as they promised, but instead created a new religion with its own system of government, set of teachings and mode of worship that are all in opposition to the Catholic religion.

    We believe the situation is serious enough that we must oppose these reforms of Vatican II, just as brave Catholics opposed the Protestant reforms of Cranmer in England.

    http://www.catholicapologetics.info/modernproblems/vatican2/renew2.html

  14. Briggs and Ianto and Teapot:

    Sorry my men; one more comment

    You all should get in touch with this site, if you haven’t already:

    http://www.catholicapologetics.info/

    It has a load of stuff you’d appreciate and maybe you could contribute as well.
    They say they’re constantly updating.

    I’ve only shared the following story with one other person:

    In the third grade, at my parochial school, I told Sister Mary (or was it St.?) Jude, that I wanted to be a priest/theologian (although I didn’t know the word theologian she worked it out for me). She as much as said that I would fall away from the Church.

    The person I shared it with was also a “grew up Catholic”. He laughed and said, the nuns would tell that to all the boys. If he was correct, I guess they were practicing a kind of perverted “reverse psychology”. If true, I’m guessing they figure that boys are most at risk.

    If what he said wasn’t true, the good sister was quite prophetic.

    The peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all

  15. Oh dear!
    Things have gone from bad to worse around here.
    The ignorant are laying noisy siege to the university and demanding that the professors repudiate their knowledge and conform their teaching to the irrational prejudices of their students.

    “Mme Reason” of the revolution is but a ghostly and nebulous chimera who will conform herself to whatever size and shape the bitter and twisted desire in their rage against God and Man.

    As I have tried to explain many times; reason, by itself, is an unguided missile of associations of ideas that can start at any idiotic assumption (superstition) and proceed by no valid method to any random conclusion. Protestantism (Christianity is whatever I want it to be); Agnosticism (the only thing you can know is that you can’t know anything); Relativism (the only truth is that there is no truth except what is convenient); Atheism (there is no God [except me]) are all examples of rationalising runaway egos … various degrees of a “reality” that is a private construct of the ego and not a transcendent “what is” that sanity requires conformity to.

    Now that the inmates have taken over the asylum, various kinds of gulags are instituted to ensure that institutional insanity is imposed as the “new” sanity. Preeminently, in the “Western World”, is the indoctrination (“education”) system and the relentless propagation of impossible superstition in the media.

    The diabolically inspired revolution of “Mme Reason” and the “Rights of Man” (based on the impossible superstition of the “supremacy” of Man [i.e. some “enlightened” men]) is a fantasy conjured up in Kabbalah and imposed on the gentile world by the servile, avaricious, ambitious, cultivated egotism of Freemasonry.

    Now then, “right reason” is diametrically opposed to “Mme Reason” (a Kabbalistic/Talmudic construct spread by ‘Masons) because “right reason” is securely based on, and subject to, the scientific “rules of logic”. That is, they are based on the “Law of Non-Contradiction” which is intuitively known by all honest people the world over except by those inhabiting the “ivory towers” of academia. Such “ivory towers” are erected to prevent the ingress of commonsense or the common sense of the ridiculously impossible contradictions.

    So then, I say again, that philosophy is the mother of all science and that philosophy is the search for knowledge and understanding of reality using a scientific instrument called logic. Logic is the scientific rules for valid and consistent reasoning that has given rise to the scientific method that is abhorred by the political and ideological lackeys that are promoted as “scientists” for political and ideological purposes. There is also a plethora of “theologians” who are similarly promoted for their sycophancy of “contemporary” fashions that cannot be reconciled with Faith or right Reason.

    Faith and Reason are necessarily congruent. As many erudite men have observed; an apparent discrepancy between versions of the reality can only mean that one or the other is right or that both are wrong.

  16. John B,
    No apology required. John those who are truly lost don’t know it. Those who know they are, are rarely far from home.

    Teapot needed an opportunity and we provided an excellent service!
    The clue is in the eating people reference. So I smelled a rat before Teapot even showed up. Someone else’s guilt trip, defective conscience, or, phoney guilt by proxy. These people feed off each other and some are impressed by phoney outrage. Not a single person defended the Katie Perry thing as far as I remember. One poster pretending to be against the motion posted something which seemed at a glance, worse. So that’s voyeurism, as Ken said.

    Teapots can’t blush or follow people on Twitter. My teapot is very well mannered, being English, never dribbles or drools at the sight of a milk jug or sugar bowl.
    Thumper? Well, fluffy bunny, what can you expect? got Twitterpated and hasn’t been seen since.

    Here’s to real teapots.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msvOUUgv6m8

  17. Oldavid

    It is well that Joy followed your missive with a link to the king of reason and logic Lewis Carroll (I guess he was a Protestant at that).

    As Alice said, “I thought there was plenty of room.”
    To which the rabbit said “Young Lady it’s very rude to sit down without being invited.”
    Someone will have explain to me what that Leave a Reply at the bottom of the post means.
    Is it a qualified invitation?

    I have problems figuring out what label to place on myself. After finding myself self excommunicated from the Catholic Church, I tried very hard to let it all go. But, no, God said you can’t just do that. After joining a little ‘c’ church, I would often tell my pastor, “You can take the boy out of the Catholic Church, but you can’t take the Catholic Church out of the boy.”

    Oldavid, I’m not demanding that the professors repudiate their knowledge and conform their teaching, I’m asking them to simply further defend their position that the Church is in Apostasy. I don’t see that claim any different than the claims of those during the Reformation. How is their claim of 60 years of Apostasy any different from Luther’s similar claim.

    If Briggs feels threatened by me, he has my “number” and can ask me cease and desist.

    Speaking of reason and logic, I once submitted a post to Briggs about God and Godel and how Godel tried to prove God, only God proved Godel first. But it was like 2000 words long and Briggs said it had to be under 1000, ideally 880 words. Of course Ianto’s posts are 1000’s of word long, but like you said, it’s Brigg’s university, I’m only here to ask questions.

    Oldavid

    I realize that you may not have directed your missive to me but felt I had to respond. If I missed the mark, I apologize

  18. Orrite, Jackbo, let’s go at it then, eh?
    There’s nothing in Lewis Carrol’s “reasoning” that suggests any connection to the rules of logic. In fact, he is delivering a subliminal message that what is seen as reality is a social construct. I would even suggest that Alice is a version of Rousseau’s “Noble Savage”. He also does that ubiquitously Pommy Protestant thing of confusing morality with social mores.

    You could just label yourself as an apostate… that just about covers it all without getting tangled in legalistic red tape.
    That business about “taking the boy out of the Church” etc. reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my classmates way back in the early ’70’s. He said: “It’s uncanny. Protestants, Buddhists etc. can abandon the practice of their religion without qualm but for a Catholic there’s always something niggling. You can’t just walk away and ignore it. We always have to justify ourselves with some kind of attack or practical opposition.”

    We were both grown up when the “on-the-ground” Church was coherent; the Faith was reflected in the discipline, the Liturgy, the philosophy, theology; that was before Modernism busted that integrity. But we were both right there when Modernism burst out of the secretive “back rooms” and “onto the streets”. When the Church went from being a Divine institution to another man made construct in the inevitable evolutionary “becoming” of everything.

    Now then, Jack, if you could apply yourself to some serious science you would smartly see that this Modernist “becomingness” is the greatest and most destructive hoax of all time. Then we could start to argue about whether the “New Church” is apostate or not.

    Start here as this ‘site provides a good mix of physical science, science of reason (philosophy) and rudimentary theology.
    http://kolbecenter.org/
    If you are proficient at reading and comprehension you must check the “articles” for a wealth of good info. I can provide many, many more links to other ‘sites if you’re genuinely questioning as in looking for answers rather than “questioning” as in trying to avoid the obvious answers.
    Cheers, Jack.

  19. Oldavid

    I’ll accept Apostate. I like it. It fits no matter who asks.
    (I’ve also referred to myself as “a once and future catholic”. Little ‘c” intentional)

    I’ll tell you another story. My uncle once mentioned our then president John F Kennedy and how they called him Jack. He asked if they called me Jack. I said “No-o-o-o-o!”, as only a four year old boy could get away with saying to his uncle. But feel free to call me Jack. I’ve had so many nicknames (Jack never was one of them); one name given to me (God knows why) was Arthur Naftalin. Sometimes that name was shortened to Arthur or Nafty.

    Thanks for the link.
    Personally, I like to use Job as the creation story.
    I believe that – just as God punished the Jews by giving them a king when they asked for them;
    God also punished them by giving them Genesis, when they asked for a creation story.

    Cheers, yourself

  20. Just guessing “between the lines”, it sounds like you’ve fallen for one of the many variants of Gnosticism that claims two equal and opposite “principles” of “good” and “evil”. Esoteric “enlightenment” can come from either or both. What is regarded as good or evil is simply a matter of choice. It enjoyed some measure of arcane success when it was adapted to infiltrate and subvert Christianity in the belief system known as the Manichean “enlightenment” wherein Matter, or the material, was intrinsically “evil” and the only “good” was esoteric “enlightenment”. As usual, it provided an excuse for hedonistic indulgence… the material body is naturally “evil”… nothing you can do about it. Think about it! Sniff the air! It smells like Eastern “Mysticism”, Kabbalah, Calvinism.

    Modernism, being the “synthesis of all heresy” has no difficulty with simultaneously holding contrary opinions because each has its own use in its own place in the evolution of the only god “progress” and there is no absolute or underlying reality to conform to because all that is in a perpetual state of “becoming”.

    Anyhow, according to the great “enlightenment” the only “good” is “progress”, the unachievable “Great Ohm”, “Omega Point”, which comes about through conflict, competition, dialectics, “survival of the fittest”, dominance of those able, etc. For those manipulating it’s a great ego trip; getting “one up” on God and degrading Man. For the degraded Man it’s an abject, hopeless hedonism because he’s convinced that there’s nothing more than what he can get in the here and now. No priest or prelate or lay religious would ever degrade themselves or their victims unless they had imbibed that perverse ideology and were confident of “protection” by similarly perversely “enlightened” in the ecclesiastical and secular establishments.

    Orrite, Jack, again guessing between the lines, if your “pastor” is a euphemism for a cult manager for Scientology, you may be being groomed for another (small “c”) catholic infiltrator to carry on the Judas’ job.

    Small “c” catholic is a nonsense. Catholic means “always and everywhere the same” or “the same in all times and in all places”. Catholic Christian Faith means that “One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church” is essentially (in belief) exactly what the Apostles taught right from the Pentecost.

  21. Oldavid

    You do like to read between the lines … not a bad thing – reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes.
    But no, “pastor” was simply pastor of a nondenominational “Bible believing” christian church.
    I’ll quit scare-quoting things that are non-Catholic. The pastor himself was a former Catholic (grew up with parents who identified as Catholic), although not as ensconced as I was. By the way, I am not, nor have I ever been a Scientologist. I just play one on this Site. When I ran into cults all over the large university I attended, never ran into a Scientologist (closest was Eckenkar). I am fascinated by cults and Scientology is one of my “hobbies” since one of my first loves was science fiction. (L Ron Hubbard was not a great SF writer, just prolific.)

    I’d always heard of Kabbala, but never knew or was interested in what it was. It’s funny when I finally read Elie Wiesel’s “Night” within the last decade or so (I’d read Vonnegut’s “Mother Night” well before then), I was struck by Elie’s brief exposition on Kabbala, and understood immediately the attraction. (Don’t get me started on Bokonism.) I’d also read Jonathon Livingston Seagull back in the day but rather quickly rejected that as a philosophy. I enjoyed the Moody Blues’ “In Search of the Lost Chord”, but tough to use as a philosophy without understanding more about Zen, et al. (Who was the Catholic brother from earlier last century who was big into Eastern mysticism? Wrote some books, can’t remember.) Then there was John Michael Talbot originally with Mason Proffit “Two Hangmen” (became a Franciscan and founded own his community).

    Calvinism? I DO believe in the Sovereignty of God, but Calvinism is not for me. I “ran into” James R White on Youtube before I found out he was a “Reformed” Theologian and before I found out “Reformed” is a flavor of if not Calvinism. I first ran into Dr. White discussing the Mormon Church and later his expositions on the Trinity. Then I found out he was “Reformed” and all the “baggage” that comes with that. I’ve listened to his long expositions on Reformed/Calvinism but am thoroughly unconvinced.

    No little ‘c’ Catholic?
    from catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/the-four-marks-of-the-church.html
    “The Four Marks of the Church
    FR. WILLIAM SAUNDERS
    In the Nicene Creed, we profess, “We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church”: these are the four marks of the Church. They are inseparable and intrinsically linked to each other.”

    I’m an Apostate, do you really need to label me? According to some, that fact alone dooms me.

    Hope Briggs doesn’t mind all of this.

  22. Looks like you’ve led me on a wild goose chase using some red herrings for bait. I’ll have to be more careful, eh? Dreary ole Protestant Bible-Bashers usually only rely on myopic sensationalised hype and careful cherry-picking to sell their errors.

    Assumption #1: The Bible is the word of God! Right!! (I ask, how do you know that? Why would you believe that?)
    Assumption #2: It means (the interpretation) is whatever is convenient according to purpose, time and place. (I remark: there about 40000 official versions of “Bible-believing Christians”… just shop around- you’re bound to find one that can be adapted to your personal “requirements”).

    The spanner in the works. The Bible was selected and approved by the very descendants and disciples of the Apostles from a growing mountain of apocrypha at the very time the Proddys claim that the Church was “corrupted” into Catholicism. We Catholics believe the Bible is what it says it is on the authority of the Apostles’ descendants and disciples, and it is interpreted by them who heard the many other things that Jesus said and which couldn’t all be written. (The end of John’s Gospel).

    I think the crazy bod you alluded to was a supposed-to-be Cistercian named Thomas Merton who went off into a dream-world trying to adapt Christianity into Eastern Mysticism.

    I think that this thread is worn out from a general topic point of view and anyone still following is only doing so because they are interested or amused by our argument. Mr Briggs has my email and he could shout desist! any time he liked.

  23. Oldavid

    Ah, yes; Thomas Merton (and let’s not forget Karen Armstrong or Brennan Manning – I loved Abba’s Child)

    I believe we just had this sideline so we can take a measure each other. My question is still out there and unanswered.

    Now that you know I’m not a Dreary ole Protestant Bible-Basher, maybe you can answer some of those questions.

    1 Do you, like Ianto and Nigel Teapot (from the previous week), believe the Catholic Church has been in Apostasy (and has been for 60 years)?

    2 If it has been in Apostasy for such a long time, what does that portend for the future?

    3 Just what were the previous periods of Apostasy and how did God pull it out.
    – I remember reading in Francis of Assisi’s bio that his pope at the time was a questionable
    character and had at first rejected Francis’ attempts to create an order but God managed to
    intervene in Francis’ favor.

    Looking forward to a response from you and or from any of those who feel the Church is in Apostasy

    Thanks

  24. Righto, Jackbo.

    When you learn what Christianity is then we can argue about whether or not “New Church” is apostate. It is not a simplistic ideological or legalistic matter.

    I’m not convinced that you’re not “a Dreary ole Protestant Bible-Basher” nor that you’re not just another “New Age” clever-dick all primed up with spurious accusations according to Alinsky’s programme (plan) about how to “bring down” civilisation. The “Frankfurt School” programme preoccupied themselves in enlisting likeable “useful idiots” in their assault on the remnant of Christian (Western) civilisation.

    Of course, I don’t expect you to be honest.

  25. John, I don’t know who you are or where you’re coming from but I, personally, have nothing against “EM thrusters” or “gravity thrusters” as long as they are consistent with reality. Stuff or things “powered by unicorns” (such as “Evolution”) cannot be in the realm of possibility.

  26. Oldavid

    Wow!

    I’m almost saddened. You don’t trust me at all to have a decent conversation? And yet you jumped in saying all kinds of smack about me with little to no provocation. I thought better of you.

    I have commented many, many times on posts on which you have commented. I get the impression that you are not in the US (probably UK). I get the idea that you have a “classical” education. (Half of the time I don’t understand what you are saying and the other half of the time I understand half of what you say.) Why are you afraid to engage in conversation even if I were a New Age or Proddy? (By the way, in the US it’s Bible-Thumper not Basher. As an Atheist, Lee Phillips would be a Bible Basher.)

    I grew up Catholic. I went to a Catholic grade (elementary) school. I was an altar boy (my first year or so with Latin Mass). I admit to the unique situation where my father was not Catholic. He was Episcopalian, had taken classes prior to marrying my mother, but never converted (they married in the priest’s house). I remember when I was very young, I understood my father’s eternity was in peril. I asked him about it. To this day, I have no idea what he told me, but thereafter, I never worried about him again.

    Almost 40 years ago, my father was on his deathbed. My brother had his Parish Priest come to visit him. When the priest came out of my father’s room, he said, “I ostensibly came out to offer comfort to him, but I think I was the recipient of all of the comfort.”

    Eventually, I found that I was outside of Catholic Dogma, accepted that I was an Apostate, and quit taking part in the sacraments. I companionably attended Mass with my mother, but honored that I could receive none of the sacraments. Oldavid, I attend Protestant Churches, but trust me, if I were held up to believe half of what they believe, I would find myself escorted out of the door.

    We are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord
    And I pray that all unity may one day be restored
    And they know we are Christians by our Love

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC3yZdG_2Bc

  27. No apology necessary. “Atheist” is problematic on philosophical grounds, that we need not go into now. But I join many others who don’t believe in the revelatory nature of the bible in recommending that it be read, especially, for English speakers, in the King James version.

  28. Jackbo, I apologise for my laconic and apparently unsympathetic style. It’s just one of the effects of my “personality defects”. I am often engaged in several combative “conversations” simultaneously and gripes and frustrations can sometimes “spill over” from one to another.

    We can’t really gripe about anyone’s “apostasy” (either yours or a prestigious prelate’s) unless we know what it is. I’ve made a few guesses about what you might be getting at based on some of the common and prevalent thought fashions and your cunningly contrived red herrings. Let’s get more specific. What are your gripes that render you “apostate”?

    No, I’m not from “over the pond” I’m antipodean and from the bush.

  29. Lee

    Interesting. (The King James Version bit but I get your point.)

    You have to realize, as far as many Catholics go, the King James is almost Anathema. Back in the day, the Bible was only to be presented the Latin Vulgate. Once the genie was out of the bottle, the Catholic English response to the KJV was the Douay Rheims.

    Not being a Hebrew/Greek/Latin scholar, my poor man’s approach to Bible Scholarship is to examine as many English translations as I can find. I am usually more interested in the Old Testament than the New Testament (and of the OT, I’m interested where Historical texts meet Prophetic texts). (I found one of the most interesting variations in translations in 2 Samuel 14:14. That’s a whole ‘nother story.)

    One the challenges in translating any Old Testament text written in Hebrew, is that the Hebrew is written without vowels. It gives one pause. With that bit of knowledge and the fact that Hebrew numbers are only represented by consonants and being a computer/serial communications transmissions/(frustrated)math guy I wondered if there was maybe some kind of Ancient CRC system going that kept the text from being corrupted over the centuries.

    Yea, Unicorns and fairies, but I think it has merit. I also like the explanation that the ambiguity presented without vowels in the text gives multiple layers of meaning to the text. From examining the translations of 2 Samuel 14:14 this seems especiallly true.

    Oldavid

    I truly don’t have any gripes about the Catholic Church. When I was younger, I thought that I’d been cheated by the education I’d received from my church’s school, but I realized later how fortunate it probably had turned out.

    Davy, I’m not interested in discussing my own Apostasy. I found myself outside of the Catholic Church. Then two weeks ago, Lee, Joy and I were treated to some acerbic comments by a fellow calling himself Nigel Teabag. The further we got into it with him the more we realized he was bemoaning that there hasn’t been a legitimate Pope since 1958 (Kind of like another Anti-Podal Mel Gibson).

    So I’ve admitted my Apostasy because I found myself outside of the Catholic Church. My Apostasy is totally unrelated to Vatican II and the “New Church” as you’ve termed it. It seems like you all (Teabag, Ianto and Mel) found yourself “outside” of the “New Church”, refuse to accept your own Apostasy and instead say the Church is in Apostasy.

    It all seems disingenuous to me, especially how you seem to feel about Proddy’s.

    We can end it here, if you don’t want to discuss Ianto’s post (which is what I was commenting to)

  30. Jack, you made me go back and re-read Lanto’s post with which I have no serious or fundamental disagreement. I did not even notice the week ago argument (preoccupied with other things) that featured Nigel who seems to be one of the “Sedevacantist” mob along with Gibson and a plethora of others, some of whom I have known personally.

    That all has the bother of what, exactly, is the Catholic, Christian Faith. You may not be “apostate” by refusing the “new insights” of the Modernist structure or the ideological fancies of a pope but you would certainly be “apostate” by refusing the Apostolic legacy.

    Blardy popes (or councils) have no imperious discretion as to what the Faith is… they only have authority to propose and propagate (and define within strict limits) what the Apostles taught and what it means.

    The notion that whatever a pope says is “infallible” is a con-job. One is not apostate for rejecting the notion that popes are always and everywhere “infallible”. St Paul gave us the hint that popes are also subject to the reality of truth and virtue when he said “I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed”.

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