(Antipope “FtR” Prevost belched forth a document today on “the poor” that is being described as something ghostwritten by a UN staffer who used an AI text generator. –AB ’25)

The weekend before His Passion, Jesus went and stayed with His friend Lazarus (whom He had raised from the dead) and Lazarus’ sisters Martha and Mary. Mary brought out a very expensive flask of ointment for the dead and applied it to Jesus’ feet with her hair. The whole house was filled with the sweet smell of that ointment. And guess who gets all mouthy about this? Yep. Judas Iscariot – who already was planning to sell out Jesus, and had been planning on cashing in on Him since the miracle of the loaves and fishes a few days earlier. Specifically, when Our Lord told the people that they must eat His Flesh and drink His Blood, and kept repeating it over and over and over again to be sure that everyone understood that He meant it literally, Judas (with urging from satan) decided that Our Lord was nuts and started planning to betray Him and profit from it. That whole episode is in John chapter 6. Read it.

Back to Lazarus’ house in John 12. Judas gets all holier-than-thou and complains that the flask of ointment could have been sold for 300 pence and “given to the poor”. Does this not sound like the godless Marxist liberals of today who are so quick to tell everyone else what they should be doing with their money and assets, all in the name of the poor, of course?

(Cough)

Then, an absolutely delightful verse – verse 6:

“Now he said this, not because he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and having the purse, carried the things therein.”

Um, hello? The Holy Ghost is talking to us. Are we listening? That verse should make the hair on your arms stand up. Is this not a PERFECT mapping to our contemporary situation?

You have a “disciple” who doesn’t really believe in Jesus or what He says – he just pretends to because he thinks he can gain power and wealth by associating with Jesus for now. He’s just working the “Jesus angle”. But everything he is doing behind the scenes is working in direct opposition to Our Lord. Now, this “disciple” starts trying to appear pious and devout by pontificating that all wealth and resources should, by definition, be redistributed to “the poor”. But in truth, he is just a thief.

(Cough cough)

Can this be any more obvious?

Now here is the key passage from Jesus Himself:

“Jesus therefore said: Let her alone, that she may keep it against the day of My burial. For the poor you have always with you; but Me you have not always.”

First of all, Our Lord says, “Let her alone.” (Sinite illam.)

Judas has appointed himself the arbiter of wealth and asset distribution and has decided that Mary’s flask of ointment (or the cash value thereof) should have gone to “the poor”. And Our Lord says, “Let her alone.”

It is hers to do with as she (and her family) sees fit, and they have seen fit to use it to anoint their beloved Jesus.

Judas, sit down and shut your proto-Marxist piehole. THWAP!

(Cough cough cough)

In the next phrase, Our Lord explains economics in eight words (FIVE in Latin):
“For the poor you have always with you.”
(Pauperes enim semper habetis vobiscum.)

What does He mean? Does He mean, “Bah, forget the poor! Live it up!”

Absolutely not. What He is explaining is that in all morally sane societies, wealth will always exist within a SPECTRUM.

Let’s compare a “poor” person in the U.S. to a “poor” person in Bangladesh. A poor person in Bangladesh lives in the gutter without so much as a cardboard shelter to sleep under. They are sick from malnutrition and starvation. They probably dress in rags, and certainly do not own a pair of shoes. Bathing only occurs when they can immerse themselves in a river, which is opaque with sewage. They own nothing except the rags that they wear. Every day is a struggle to get a bit of clean water and enough food to merely survive. That’s a poor person in Bangladesh.

What constitutes a “poor” person in the former U.S.? A poor person in the former U.S. does not have cable. A poor person in the U.S. might not have a laptop, ONLY a smartphone. A poor person in the U.S. receives food stamps, medicaid and a welfare check. A poor person in the U.S. is probably significantly OVERweight, and smokes cigarettes. A poor person in the U.S. drives a car that is so old that it came with a factory in dash CD player. A poor person in the U.S. lives either in a trailer or a HUD apartment complex. A poor person in the U.S. almost certainly DOES have a smart phone with high speed internet connectivity.

Understand that on a percentage level, these two descriptions are equivalent. A “poor” person in the U.S. has a standard of living that would be considered luxurious in Bangladesh and other impoverished countries. The notions of “wealth” and “poverty”, by logical and mathematical definition, exist within a SPECTRUM. And no matter what we do, that spectrum will always, always exist. That is what Our Lord is saying. There will always be a top-end, and there will always be a bottom-end.

In some nations (like Bangladesh), that spectrum is very broad and reaches very far down into poverty, indeed. There are billionaires in Bangladesh, and there are people starving in the gutters in rags. In the former U.S., we certainly have a wealth spectrum, but the low end is much higher and the spectrum is much narrower. We have many billionaires, but our lower-end is nowhere NEAR as low as Bangladesh’s.

The point is, no matter how much you bring up the bottom-end, there will ALWAYS, by mathematical definition, BE a bottom-end. If the bottom-end were a $100,000 per year household income and a $300,000 home in today’s dollars, then a household with a $100,000 income and a $300,000 home would be considered “poor”, called “poor”, and Marxists would tell those “poor” that they were being “oppressed” and “deserved” and were “entitled to” a $500,000 annual household income and an $800,000 home. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

(Cough cough cough cough)

Someone is always going to have more money and assets than somebody else. It is impossible to have a free society wherein every person has exactly the same level of wealth. Someone has to be the business OWNER, and someone has to be the EMPLOYEE. Someone has to be the wage PAYER and someone has to be the wage EARNER. If everyone in a culture were economically equal at all times, there would be zero employment because no one would work for anyone except themselves. You can’t have a company with 1000 CEOs. Conversely, you can’t have a company that is nothing but entry-level laborers. Someone has to be responsible. Someone has to sign the paychecks. Someone has to determine the course of the business. Someone has to risk their assets and wealth to start-up the company in the first place. And, at the other end, someone has to scrub the toilets.

The only way to get true, complete equality of wealth would be to KILL EVERYBODY.

Stupid Rabbits. Stop obsessing about the baby killing. My friend and consultant Prof. John Schellnhuber says there are 6.5 BILLION too many of you…. Go get your booster!

Since we know from Our Lord that there will always be a wealth spectrum, it is obviously disordered to eliminate said spectrum and collapse it down to a single point of “economic equality”. To do that would collapse the society itself and result is chaos and poverty for ALL. (Ahem, MARXISM, TYRANNICAL OLIGARCHY, VENEZUELA, cough, cough.)

The ideal is a healthy wealth spectrum that is always moving higher through growth and moral technological advancements and innovations, is open-ended on the top side, but has an intrinsic morality such that the top-end of the wealth spectrum always makes certain that the bottom end advances apace and that the spectrum maintains its proportional width – or even narrows a bit. This is achieved through personal charity AND through a moral, lawful, CHRISTIAN society that allows for movement both up AND down the spectrum. Yes, up AND DOWN.

The top-end cooperates with the bottom end to enable upward mobility for those who work hard, and are innovative. Conversely, if someone on the top-end does not work hard or is dishonest in his dealings, he can and will fail and slide back down the spectrum.

This freedom of movement within the spectrum – both up AND down – is essential. Trapping people on the low-end (ahem, cough, WELFARE STATE, CLOWARD-PIVEN STRATEGY, FREEMASONIC-BERGOGLIAN ANTIPAPACY, cough) is equally as immoral as the disgusting oligarchical upper-classes who think themselves immune from morality, the rule of law or personal responsibility (ahem, cough, SOROS, PALO ALTO, AND ENTIRE POLITICAL CLASS, cough, cough).

So, there you go. Economics as explained by our Blessed Lord in five little words while He was hanging out at His friends’ house having supper the weekend before He suffered and died to redeem mankind. And proof that Judas Iscariot was the intellectual father of Marxism and of scumbag thieving politicians in general.

I hope this helps.

(The readership here never ceases to impress. Over the transom comes this letter and citation, as Trad Inc. continues to show exactly zero interest or concern over the fact that St. Peter’s Basilica was invaded and profaned in an unprecedented way by a mob of unrepentant, vomitous sodomites – basically Genesis 19 all over again.

As we have previously documented in this space, the 1917 Code of Canon Law declared ANY liturgical or Sacramental function (Mass, Confession, Baptism, praying of the Divine Office, etc etc) performed in a publicly profaned, desecrated church before the church is ritually Reconciled, to be a NEFARIOUS act. So a Mass, even a TLM celebrated by a Cardinal, (ahem, Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage, ahem Cardinal Burke) would be valid, but not merely ILLICIT, but NEFARIOUS. Sit in stillness with that. And yet what do we see? No one seems to care. And they know that they don’t care, AND THEY DON’T CARE THAT THEY DON’T CARE.

Folks, this is a textbook example of the vice of ACEDIA.

“Not my circus, not my monkeys. There’s nothing we can dooooo. We get to have a TLM in St. Peter’s! Why do you have to ruin everything? So what if it’s ‘nefarious’? We’re so back!”

Below, please read this amazing excerpt from St. Mechtilde, and let it edify you as you assist at Mass. The Mass for the anniversary of the dedication of a church is the Mass of the Feast of the Dedication of St. John Lateran on 9 November, if you would like to find it in your missal or on DiviniumOfficium.com . And feel free to forward this to Cardinal Burke and/or to the organizers of the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage. Maybe they’ll overcome whatever Acedia they might be facing and do whatever needs to be done to prevent the celebration of a Mass in a profaned, unreconciled church, even St. Peter’s, which would be considered nefarious.—-AB ‘25

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Dear Ann,

In light of the recent sad events at St Peters…

…I’d like to share this reflection and vision from St. Mechtilde during a Mass for the Consecration of a Church, back in the 1200s. It is a rare book. The excerpt below is translated from a Latin translation to French. Reading it underscored, for me, the enormous sanctity and holiness and need for obedience in the Lord’s temple. It also showed me how deeply she participated in the Mass, where liturgical elements such as chants, graduals, collects shaped the way she engaged directly with Our Lord.

May God bless you,

M

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Book of Spiritual Graces – by St. Mechtilde of Hackeborn

CHAPTER XXXV

1. FEAST OF THE DEDICATION OF THE CHURCH

On the feast of the Dedication, during Mass, while singing the verse: “Deus cui adstant angelorum chori”¹: “God before whom stand the choirs of angels,” she saw in spirit the heavenly Jerusalem and the throne of God established there. This throne is of such dimensions that it extends from the heights of heaven to the depths of hell; below it is a powerful lever that crushes all the damned. She understood that this lever signifies the justice of God, which has so rightly separated the wicked from Him. This city is built of precious and living stones, which are the saints, and each saint appears in the walls, with all his merits, as one would see an image in a clear mirror. The angels are ranged before the throne, according to their order and dignity. However, as this soul desired to reach her Beloved, the Angels took her with admirable condescension in their midst, and made her ascend to the Archangels, who then led her to the Virtues, and thus passing through all the angelic choirs, she arrived at the throne of her Beloved, and falling at His feet, said to Him: “I greet your sacred feet, which served You to leap forth like a giant of love and desire, to traverse the path of our redemption and our salvation.” Then she gave thanks for the favors she had obtained at the feet of her Savior.

She then said to the Lord: “What shall I ask now, since today we are invited to pray with the assurance of being heard as often as we ask?”² The Lord replied: “Ask first for yourself the remission of all your sins, for this is what is most salutary for man and the best means of obtaining true joy. Whoever, truly penitent, confesses his sins, throws himself at my feet with the sincere will to confess them in order to obtain pardon, that one will be certain of having full remission, provided that he finds in his heart a sentiment humble enough to be ready for obedience toward every creature.”

Then the soul, rising, saw the Lord seated on His throne, with hands extended. He said: “On the cross, I remained with arms outstretched until my death; I still stand thus before my Father, as a sign that I am always ready to embrace in my arms all those who wish to come there. Does someone desire this favor? If he is ready to suffer every adversity for my love, it is a sign that he has already attained this embrace. Does someone aspire to my kiss? If he can bear witness to himself that he loves my will in all things and that it pleases him supremely, it is an indication that this kiss is obtained. Whoever wishes to make me hear and grant his prayers must be ready to always obey, for it is impossible that the prayers of the obedient man should not be accepted.”

As they sang the response Benedic3, she saw all the virtues named therein, personified by virgins standing before God. One among them, more beautiful than her sisters, held a golden cup, into which the other virgins poured a fragrant liquor that the first virgin, kneeling, offered to the Lord. Amazed at this sight, she desired to understand its meaning, when the Lord said to her: “This one is obedience; she alone presents to me to drink, for obedience contains within itself the riches of the other virtues: the true obedient one must necessarily possess all these virtues together. First, the health of the soul, that is to say, the absence of the infirmity that is mortal sin. Next, humility, since he submits in all things to his superiors. Holiness (sanctitas) and chastity are also in him, since he guards the purity of body and heart. The virtues and victory are necessary to him to be strong in good works and victorious in the struggles against evil. Other virtues still befit the obedient one: faith, without which no one can please God; hope, which makes us tend toward God; charity toward God and neighbor; goodness, which shows itself gentle and agreeable to all; temperance, which cuts away all superfluity; patience, which triumphs over adversities and renders them useful and fruitful; finally, religious discipline, by which one strictly observes his rule.”4

During this time, she prayed for a person who found her charge burdensome, and she saw her near God among these virgins. The Lord said of her: “Why does she sing to me ungraciously, since I will sing this good grace for her in eternity? To sing for me for a single day, out of obedience, pleases me more than all possible songs performed according to one’s own will.”

Bibliography

Mechtilde of Hackeborn, Saint. Le livre de la grâce spéciale: révélations de Sainte Mechtilde, vierge de l’Ordre de Saint-Benoît. Translated from the Latin edition of the Benedictine Fathers of Solesmes. 3rd ed., rev. and corr. Tours and Paris: Maison Alfred Mame et Fils, 1921, pp. 138-141.

Online text: https://livres-mystiques.com/partieTEXTES/Ste_Mechtilde/Revelations%20.pdfhttps://livres-mystiques.com/partieTEXTES/Ste_Mechtilde/Revelations%20.pdf

(Originally penned and posted on July 17, ARSH 2014. Jamie Dimon of J.P. Morgan infamy had just announced that he had throat cancer.  Apparently he received chemotherapy and yet lives. This is the essay I referenced in Barnhardt Podcast #178, specifically the execution of the Nazi Hans Frank, who apparently died on the gallows repentant, shriven, and reconciled to Jesus Christ. -AB ’25)

Um, yeah, so why EXACTLY did I have a Mass said for Jamie Dimon yesterday again??  Seems odd, no?  There are multiple reasons:

a.) To pray for the salvation of his soul that he might not spend all of eternity burning in the deepest darkest corner of hell.
b.) To pray that he might be cured of his throat cancer, because if he dies of throat cancer anytime soon, he will not be able to be arrested, tried and executed for his crimes against humanity, and that would be a terrible deprivation, both to Dimon and to society in general.
c.) Because praying for the salvation and achievement of the Beatific Vision for one’s enemies is extremely constructive and good.

With regards to point B, remember the words of Dr. John Senior, as quoted in my essay “The one about… HOW THE TOTAL ABSENCE OF JUSTICE CAN ONLY LEAD TO THE TOTAL ABSENCE OF FREEDOM” , which, if I do say so myself, is one of the more conceptually important pieces I have written.

Justice is simply the social good, and it must therefore be done. It is defined as “giving each his due” – cuique suum, “to each his own.” A man is due his life because he is a living thing; it is his nature to have life; and, since it is also his nature to be moral, if a man commits a crime, he must be punished because punishment is retributive – punishment is the penalty due the criminal in justice to him. Proportioned punishment is due him, too, and you cannot deny him that right without yourself committing an injustice against him deserving punishment in turn. The judge who fails the criminal in punishment himself incurs a greater guilt.
-Dr. John Senior from his book, “The Death of Christian Culture”

Depriving criminals of the punishment justly due to them is NOT NOT NOT merciful, nor is it in any way CHARITABLE.  It is, as Dr. Senior rightly pointed out, depriving him of his real, fundamental right to justice, which is another crime.  If Jamie Dimon, Jon Corzine, Lloyd Blankfien, Mario Draghi, Christine Lagarde and the numerous other people who have committed crimes against humanity purely within the financial realm are not tried, and upon being found guilty, executed – because the punishment MUST be proportional, and these people have, without question, committed capital offenses – the odds of them ever repenting, being baptized (in the case of the Jews among them and unbaptized Gentiles) and thus attaining the Beatific Vision is massively, massively reduced.  History proves and common sense dictates that being faced with one’s own execution has a way of … bringing moral clarity to the condemned man, a clarity that dying peacefully, hopped-up on painkillers in one’s twenty million dollar Long Island or French Riviera compound simply will not provide.

Remember how Nazi Hans Frank reverted to the Church after having apostatized while awaiting his execution, received the sacraments, and by all accounts died well and with humble dignity on the gallows with his last words being,’I am thankful for the kind treatment during my captivity and I ask God to accept me with mercy.’  If Hans Frank had never faced justice and the hangman, a death he so richly deserved, the odds of his reversion would have been infinitesimal.

Here is a short clip of the execution procession of a Nazi. Nothing gory is shown.

Note the the priest is in full choir dress and wearing the biretta (the liturgical hat). Birettas are NOT worn outside of liturgical functions. You NEVER see clerics or seminarians casually walking down the street in Rome wearing a biretta – only if they were walking in a formal liturgical procession would the biretta be worn outdoors. This shows that the Church considers the procession of the condemned to be a liturgical function requiring choir dress and the biretta, not a casual “accompaniment”. So how, exactly, can what Holy Mother Church considers LITURGICAL be “immoral” or “inadmissible”?

The OBVIOUS answer is because this heretical nonsense about the abolition of the death penalty has NO RELATION to Jesus Christ and His Holy Church. This is the sulphuric farting of Antipope Jorge Bergoglio, the probable False Prophet Forerunner of the Antichrist, and the Luciferian Antichurch occupying the Vatican of which he is the puppet front.

No, I had Mass offered for Jamie Dimon precisely because I fear that either the throat cancer OR our thoroughly wicked and cowardly culture will deprive him of the trial and execution to which he has an inalienable, Divinely ordained right, and may be his only hope for conversion, repentance and salvation.

I also know that to deprive Dimon of his just punishment will also edify others like him to commit other and larger crimes against humanity, and thus the deprivation of justice to Dimon is an act of violence against the totality of mankind.

 

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ARSH 2025 Update: As you can clearly see and hear in this clip, Antipope Robert “FtR” Prevost is an arch-heretic and also an imbecile. He’s not teetering on the precipice of mental retardation as Antipope Bergoglio was, but he’s not an intelligent man. I’d say Antipope “FtR” Prevost is probably 20 IQ points above Antipope Bergoglio, not the 40 I originally estimated. The Freemason-satanist faggots like their puppets dumb, and Antipope “FtR” Prevost certainly is that. It’s why he was tapped and installed by them.

For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways.
Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis.

In their hands they shall bear thee up: lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
In manibus portabunt te, ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum.
-Psalm 90: 11-12

I strongly suspect that we will all be mightily embarrassed when we are shown just how much our guardian angels have done for us, how many times they have saved our skins, how much they love us, and how little we acknowledged them. Make sure you acknowledge your guardian angel today, most especially.

From CatholicTradition.org:

Clovis, king of all northern Gaul (France), was himself yet a pagan, though not unfriendly to the Church. He had married St. Clotildis, daughter of the Christian king of Burgundians, Chilperic, and she made repeated attempts to convert her husband. In 496, the Alemanni crossed the Rhine and the Franks marched out to drive them back. One account says that St. Clotildis had said to Clovis in taking leave, “My lord, to be victorious invoke the God of the Christians. If you call on Him with confidence, nothing can resist you”; and that the wary Clovis had promised that he would be a Christian if he were victorious. The battle was going badly against him when the king, either reminded of these words or moved by desperation, shouted to the heavens, “O Christ, Whom Clotildis invokes as Son of the Living God, I implore Thy help! I have called upon my gods, and they have no power. I therefore call on Thee. I believe in Thee! Deliver me from my enemies and I will be Baptized in Thy name!” The Franks rallied and turned the tide of battle; the Alemanni were overcome.

Queen St. Clotildis was not trusting to any enthusiasm of victory, and sent for St. Remigius, telling him to touch the heart of the king while he was well disposed. When Clovis saw her he cried out, “Clovis has vanquished the Alemanni and you have triumphed over Clovis. What you have so much at heart is done.” The queen answered, “To the God of hosts is the glory of both these triumphs due.” Clovis suggested that perhaps the people would not be willing to forsake their gods, but said he would speak to them according to the bishop’s instructions. He assembled the chiefs and warriors, but they prevented his speaking, and cried out, “We abjure mortal gods, and are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remigius preaches.” St. Remigius and St. Vedast therefore instructed and prepared them for Baptism. To strike the senses of barbarous people and impress their minds, Queen Clotildis took care that the streets from the palace to the church should be adorned with hangings, and that the church and baptistery should be lighted with a great number of candles and scented with incense. The catechumens marched in procession, carrying crosses, and singing the litany; St. Remigius conducted the king by the hand, followed by the queen and the people. At the font the bishop is said to have addressed Clovis in words that are memorable, if not actually pronounced: “Humble yourself, Sicambrian! Worship what you have burned, and burn what you have worshipped!” Words which may be emphatically addressed to every penitent, to express the change of heart and conduct that is required of him.

St. Remigius afterwards Baptized the king’s two sisters and three thousand men of his army, as well as women and children, with the help of the other bishops and priests present.

St. Remy, pray for us!

Read this over and over again until you get it. Shutting up and going along to get along is simply not an option. It never has been.

The one and only antidote to scandal is the TRUTH ITSELF. Excuse me, the TRUTH HIMSELF. When you speak the Truth, even when it’s ugly, you proclaim Christ.

Leave it to a Boomer Novus Ordoist to drive a zealous convert out of the Church. It’s infuriating. The most wantonly destructive generation in human history. By a long shot.

Do you LIKE the Bible?

Thank St. Jerome (died 30 September ARSH 420). He was fluent in… everything, so he was tasked with doing a definitive Latin translation of everything in preparation for setting the Canon of Scripture. Hence, we have to this day St. Jerome’s translation which synthesized perfectly the Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic original texts. I use St. Jerome’s translation, which is the official version of The Church, called the “Vulgate”, translated into modern English, which is called the “Douay-Rheims”.

Www.DRBO.org

St. Jerome was known for not being… cuddly. Hence, I always think of him as Grumpycat.

Now, be inspired by St. Jerome’s grumpy wisdom. Be attentive!

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The Church was founded upon Peter: although elsewhere the same is attributed to all the Apostles, and they all receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven, the strength of the Church depends upon them all alike, yet one among the twelve is chosen so that when a head has been appointed, there may be no occasion for schism.

It is our part to seek,
His to grant what we ask;
ours to make a beginning,
His to bring it to completion;
ours to offer what we can,
His to finish what we cannot.

The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for theologians to swim in without ever reaching the bottom.

A false interpretation of Scripture causes that the gospel of the Lord becomes the gospel of man, or, which is worse, of the devil.

Instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.

Martyrdom does not consist only in dying for one’s faith. Martyrdom also consists in serving God with love and purity of heart every day of one’s life.

We must love Christ and always seek Christ’s embraces. Then everything difficult will seem easy.

They please the world most, who please Christ least.

It is no fault of Christianity that a hypocrite falls into sin.

Seek to learn on earth those truths which will remain ever valid in Heaven.

So valuable to heaven is the dignity of the human soul that every member of the human race has a guardian angel from the moment the person begins to be.

Without doubt, the Lord grants all favors which are asked of Him in Mass, provided they be fitting for us.

The best advice that I can give you is this. Church-traditions — especially when they do not run counter to the faith — are to be observed in the form in which previous generations have handed them down; and the use of one church is not to be annulled because it is contrary to that of another.

Thank God I am deemed worthy to be hated by the world.

The Church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it.

Honest speech does not seek secret places.

Whosoever you are who introduce new doctrines, I beseech you to spare the ears of Romans! Spare that faith which was commended by the voice of an Apostle. Why should you attempt to teach us, at the end of hundreds of years, that which we never heard before? Why bring forward what Peter and Paul did not will to make known? Until this day, the world was Christian without your doctrine. Thus, I hold as an old man onto that faith wherein I was regenerated as a boy.

Today is the Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, and I am going with the Byzantine style this year even though on the Byzantine Calendar this feast is observed on November 8.  Why?  Because the Byzantine name of the Feast is just about the coolest, most macho thing you’ve ever heard.  Check it out:

The Synaxis of the Chief of the Heavenly Hosts, Archangel Michael and the Other Heavenly Bodiless Powers

The term “synaxis” in this context refers to “a common commemoration of a number of saints in a single service”.

Also, I just like saying the word “synaxis”, because… easily entertained. Talk about a six dollar word!

I also like referring to Angels as “Heavenly Bodiless Powers”.  I reckon they like it too, because the whole business of depicting Angels as winged babies, or as Precious Moments figurines must be galling to them.  “Heavenly Bodiless Powers” is not only macho, it is also much more accurate a description of their nature.

Here is a really good page (albeit Eastern Orthodox, but the content is totally sound) about our friends the Heavenly Bodiless Powers.

And remember, this… YES:

This… NO:

And for your musical interlude, Bortniansky’s Cherubic Hymn Number 7:

“All we that in mystery
Holy Cherubim portray
As the life’creating Trinity
With thrice-holy hymn we adore and praise.
Come, let us cast off all earthly care,
And forget every vain employ.
FOR THE KING OF ALL COMES IN TRIUMPH
BY UNSEEN HOSTS OF ANGELS BROUGHT
TO US THAT BID HIM WELCOME.
ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA, ALLELUIA!”

St. Michael and all Heavenly Bodiless Powers, pray for us!

“To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good.” – Catholic Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, 10 January 1890

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It can’t be said better than this:

It’s apropos that this is being posted on day 1000 of the current interregnum, as we can see on the counter on the sidebar.

NonVeni Mark gets the credit on this one, as he wrote the answer. NonVeni Mark is one of the most eloquent and accessible exponents today of the argument as to why the post-Vatican II popes were valid, albeit really, really bad, and therefore the Petrine See has only been vacant for 2 years and 9 months and counting, NOT 67 years.

Again, I didn’t write the answer to this Q&A, NonVeni Mark did, so please credit him accordingly. —-Alpha Bravo

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Question:

Dear Ann and the Gang,

While I can agree that Prevost cannot be Pope based on what he is saying, the thing that bothers me is the reasoning you are using to make the case: how does it substantially differ from the arguments made by the sedevacantists who say there has been no valid Pope since Pius XII or John XIII?

If you rely on “heresy disqualifies or takes away any office” then how can you accept any of the Popes after Pius XII?

Sincerely yours,

P

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Answer (written by NonVeni Mark): I believe the answer is that none of post-conciliar, pre-Bergoglian popes ever denied an infallibly defined dogma of the faith.

The errors of Vatican II do not rise to the level of dogmatic negation, and the council itself declared that it defined no new dogma. Of the errors that do exist, some are a matter of interpretation (Dignitatis Humanae, Lumen Gentium), and some are indeed more serious and opposed to perennial teaching (Nostra Aetate). Our faithful assumption is that these errors will be corrected in due time, because… this sort of thing has happened before.

The most famous case is that of the omission of the Filioque in the Nicene Creed, something that wasn’t corrected for 700 years, at the cost of schism. Surprisingly, this does not rise to the level of dogmatic error, because none of the various creeds are considered infallible.

For me, the most relevant episode in comparison to Vatican II is the Council of Constance during the Great Western Schism. This validly-convoked council eventually obtained the disposition of all three simultaneous claimants to the papacy, and the installation of a valid and universally accepted one. But before that, the council in 1415 promulgated the heresy of Conciliarism (Haec Sancta), which does indeed violate at least two infallible dogmas. This error was not corrected until a hundred years and three popes later. None of those men were considered antipopes, and no one thought the Church had apostatised. The backstop of the Petrine Promises came in the form of the Holy Ghost preventing the proper implementation of plan as was laid out in the document”Frequens” which determined the frequency of councils going forward as having the primacy of jurisdiction over the Church. Again, no one went Sede, no one claimed the Church apostatized. People simply waited, and it was eventually corrected.

Aside: The current heresy of Synodality is much worse, of course, because it uses the model of Conciliarism but extends the ruling body to the non-ordained, violating still other infallible dogmas. A laymen attempting to wield ecclesiastical jurisdiction is a heretic by Divine Law.

(Everything in the above answer was written by NonVeni Mark.)