The death of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI marks the beginning of dark times for traditional Catholics. His successor, Francis, despite frequent and copious praising of his predecessor, before and after his death, has made it clear whatever high regard he may have held for Benedict, it was reserved for him and him alone, not his legions of supporters for whom he displays increasing scorn and contempt. Many lay Catholics enthusiastically embraced Benedict’s “reform of the reforms,” that is, his clamping down on the grossly inappropriate and irreverent practices that spread like cancer following the so-called reforms of Vatican II. Benedict made strides at least limiting, if not eliminating, those practices, some of which bordered on, or even crossed over to, the heretical.

Without question though, Benedict’s greatest reform was permitting Catholics to worship in what is still the official language of Holy Church, Latin, and employing usus antiquior, the ancient rite, its present form dating back to the Council of Trent, 1545-63, but much of it going back to the eighth century. Furthermore, Benedict stipulated that though parishes were not required to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, or “TLM,” as it is commonly known, if there were sufficient numbers of parishioners who requested it, every effort had to be made to accommodate them.

Even though Benedict did nothing to curb the celebration of Novus Ordo, the modern mass said in the vernacular, other than correcting some abusive practices, this writer believes it was his restoring TLM to contemporary worship that so infuriated the left-wing modernists in the Vatican, whose numbers are far greater than those of the traditionalists, and which made him many enemies. As long as he was pope however there was little they could do to thwart the return of traditional Catholic worship and practices. Even after his resignation, Benedict’s presence, close by in the Vatican, was an inhibiting factor in modernist innovators’s efforts to jettison his reform of the reforms.

Now Benedict is gone and for all intents and purposes, the innovators have free reign from the top down. Pope Francis detests traditionalists, seeing them as disruptors and fomenters working to destroy unity in the Church, not, as we see it, attempting to save our Church from devolving into a synthesis of Unitarianism, humanism, and relativism, with guitars and incense.

Your commentator at this juncture sees little to look forward to in the coming years for the Catholic Church. He is mindful of our Lord’s promise in Matthew 16:18: And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it., but we cannot predict in what form the True Church shall take, nor its locale; whether it will be based in Rome or somewhere else.

The sacraments of the Eastern Orthodox, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Polish National Church, the Old Catholic Church, and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) are all considered valid, in light of their unbroken apostolic succession (not so for the Anglican Church). Will we see one of those institutions rise to take the place of the Catholic Church fallen into heresy? (It seems unlikely it will be the Old Catholic Church which is already a heretical stew pot.) Another possibility might be the Armenian Apostolic Church, which predates slightly the Catholic Church. Even though the latter does not recognize the former’s sacraments, the former does so the latter’s and its worship and beliefs are sound, and though it does permit divorce, it is only for adultery and apostasy.

So whither we go? Your correspondent  hasn’t the foggiest notion at this point, so probably the best course is to stay where we are, await further developments, and pray.

UPDATE:

Professor William J. Tighe comments.

For my part, I would have written:

“The sacraments of the Eastern Orthodox, the Oriental Orthodox, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Polish National Catholic Church and its ‘Union of Scranton’ affiliates in Norway and elsewhere, and the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) are all considered valid.”
The “Oriental Orthodox are those churches – Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, and Syrian (and the latter’s offshoots in South India – that reject the Council of Chalcedon. And if by “the Old Catholic Church” you mean the Union of Utrecht Old Catholics, well, they have outdone the Anglicans (with whom they are in full communion) in liberalism over the past 25 years, and I would have omitted them from the list.

Quite so, but we’ll let the original stand so readers may see the difference between an Internet scholar and the real thing.

Of course, the Old Catholics should have been excised from the list, but that would have denied the pleasure of describing them as a”stew pot of heresies,” a metaphor this writer found pleasing.

Bad art speaks for itself, but this is even worse.

Other than the hideous colors in this fresco, located in the Madonna della Difesa Church in Montreal, there is something else even more disturbing about it.

From Fabrizio Bernardi:

Mussolini in Montreal

10 Novembre 2021 di Fabrizio Bernardi

The picture shown in this entry is from a fresco in a church in the Italian neighbourhood “le Petit Italie” in Montreal. The church is named “Madonna della Difesa” and was build up in 1919 by Italian immigrants, mostly from Molise. The fresco dates back to 1933 and celebrates “i Patti Lateranensi”, the agreement between the Italian state and the Vatican, when the Vatican finally recognized the Italian State in exchange to a mass of privilege for the Catholic Church in Italy. In the fresco one can see Mussolini riding a horse and, on the left in the back, the Pope XI, who signed the agreement.

Oh dear, and it gets worse.

Beyond its iconographic interest, the fresco of Mussolini is dense of historical meaning. At the time it was painted, 1933, Mussolini was at the apogee of his international popularity. He was highly admired by most of the state leaders who later became palatines of the war against Nazism and Fascism. He was celebrated by newspapers in USA, for instance the New York Time, and had been defined as the “man of the Providence” by the Pope himself. It is against the backdrop of this worldwide popularity that his emigrated compatriots in Montreal commissioned a fresco of him in their church. When liberal democracy champions paid homage to Mussolini, all the authoritarian traits of Fascism were already in place. While the quality of the fresco leaves much to be desired, it represents very well the blindness, complicity and self-destructive attraction of the so-called liberal democracies with Fascism.

Although your Tatler believes the best fate for this ghastly horror is painting it over in a nice neutral beige, on the other hand, it does serve a useful purpose in showing the limits of papal infallibility. Protestants often ridicule that doctrine, claiming that Catholics believe popes can never err or sin. Far from it. Popes, can and do fail on matters secular, sometimes spectacularly, such as Pius XI’s most unfortunate deal made with the fascists. Cover this monstrosity up or, if the church’s budget permits, replace it with beautiful art which can still be had in these ugly times.

With thanks to GWR.

Benedict XVI

Requiescat in pace.

From the Daily Caller.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said Pope Francis will preside over his predecessor’s funeral on 5 January at 9.30 CET in St. Peter’s Square, according to Vatican News.

It would be a gracious and loving tribute to the man who brought so many, including this writer, to embrace the One True Faith, were his successor to celebrate a Mass of Requiem for Benedict XVI, the patron saint of converts.

This is extraordinary. The man’s mind (such as it is) is now so far badly deteriorated he measures his successes by how many times he puts pen to paper to sign bills, never mind whether or not he has read them, which of course he hasn’t. God help us.

An ancestor’s bill for tuition and boarding, Yale College, 1882.

$52.98.

Even if they’re not Anglicans.

From the Daily Mail.

Britain’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric has hit out at the ‘woke’ rewriting of Christmas carols.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols said preserving traditional songs was more important than ‘sensitivities which come and go’.

His comments came after a Church of England carol service sparked outrage by featuring an ‘inclusive’ version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.

Criminy, how can anyone take this forlorn institution seriously anymore? No wonder its churches are empty.

More foolishness from the Jesuits.

From America, the organ of the Jesuits:

Pope Francis was finally asked the question we have always wanted to hear him answer—what would he say to a woman feeling the pain of a sincerely discerned and unfulfilled call to priesthood? Unfortunately, when asked that pastoral question by executive editor Kerry Weber, the pope did not give a pastoral answer. Instead, he gave a clumsy theological discourse on Marian and Petrine theories, which the average Catholic would be forgiven for not knowing by heart. . .

It’s a shame the authors of this piece didn’t put down a few words explaining exactly what “average” Catholics are capable of knowing, but they obviously place themselves above them. Bickerstaff, a convert, can report his catechesis included the study of Marian and Petrine “theories” (doctrines would be a better word and besides, Marian doctrine is dogma, hence immutable) and had little difficulty understanding them. Neither apparently did any other of his fellow catechumens.

Francis’ suggestion that “woman is more, she looks more like the church, which is mother and spouse” relies on a literal interpretation of the “spousal metaphor” that reduces the extravagance of one’s relationship with God and discipleship to plastic figurines on a wedding cake.

How so? Please explain. How else should the spousal metaphor be interpreted? Ah, yes, in a way accommodating your desire for the ordination of women. We’ll take the literal interpretation, if you please, rather than some sort of plastic one (to use a word from the essay), bending and twisting it so as to bring it into accord with fashionable twentieth-century opinions.

That this blog is no fan of our present pope should be obvious, but Francis does deserve credit for resisting the exhortations of feminist extremists in the Catholic Church. Even he knows were he to acquiesce to their demands, it would lead to chaos, schism, and worse in Holy Church. History supports this view. Read the superb piece in the New Oxford Review titled, “The St. Louis Congress after 45 years,” by William Tighe, which recounts in sad detail the all-but-demise of the once mighty Episcopal Church, brought on by her surrounding to demands precisely those America’‘s editorial staff and other liberals in the Catholic Church make of our Pope.

Lower, lower, lower, he sinks.

Question: Will we ever reach the point where even Democrats concede this drooling idiot in the White House is unfit for office?

Answer: No.

From the New York Post:

A befuddled President Biden casually maligned the Irish while botching his wife’s family history during a gaffe-filled appearance in Delaware on Friday.

“I may be Irish, but I’m not stupid,” Biden inexplicably said as he greeted 102-year-old World War II veteran Ray Firmani during a town hall on veterans’ benefits in New Castle, Del.

“I married Dominic Giacoppa’s daughter,” Biden continued. “So, you know, I got a little Italian in me now, you know?”

The audience of military veterans and federal officials received the off-script comments in puzzled silence — but critics on Twitter took comic umbrage at the ethnic slur.

***

Biden’s mental acuity as the oldest-ever US president has been increasingly in question — particularly after he searched a crowd for the late Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) in September, six weeks after publicly mourning her death and calling her family to offer condolences.