Council of Vatican II
Vatican II: “the Council that has brought forth discord, disunity, and the loss of souls”
Bishop Rudolph Graber, in his book, Athanasius and the Church of Our Time (1974), quoted a prominent Freemason who declared that “the goal (of Freemasonry) is no longer the destruction of the Church, but to make use of it by infiltrating it.”[1]
Catholics not only have to worry about the masons in our midst, but also the communists. In the early 1950s, Mrs. Bella Dodd gave voluminous testimony on communist infiltration of Church and state before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and also provided detailed explanations of the communist subversion of the Church. Speaking as a former high ranking official of the American Communist Party, Mrs. Dodd said: "In the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood in order to destroy the Church from within." Twelve years before Vatican II, she said: "Right now they are in the highest places in the Church". She also predicted changes in the Church that would be so drastic that "you will not recognize the Catholic Church."
Dr. Alice von Hildebrand recalled, during an interview with Latin Mass magazine, that "Bella Dodd told my husband and me that when she was an active [Communist] party member, she had dealt with no fewer than four cardinals within the Vatican 'who were working for us'." (Latin Mass magazine, Summer 2001)
We also know of communist infiltration of the Catholic Church from the book, A.A. 1025. This is the memoirs of a communist agent who infiltrated into the Catholic Church in 1938, went to the seminary, became a priest who wielded enormous power behind the scenes, and participated in Vatican II. He succeeded in fostering the adoption of ambiguous Council documents which laid the groundwork for future experiments by unsuspecting prelates and priests. He stated: "'The Spirit of the Council' has become for me a master-trump."
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Part 1 – Infiltration of the Church
Vatican II: “the Council that has brought forth discord, disunity, and the loss of souls”"I repeat, My children, as I have told you in the past, that the great Council of Vatican II was manipulated by satan. He sat there among you and he worked you like a chessboard.
"What can you do now to recover? It is simple, My children: turn back and start over with the foundation given to you. You must bring respect back to your priesthood. You must bring respect back to your Holy Father...!" - Our Lady of the Roses, May 15, 1976
Infiltration of the Church
“Are these Fathers planning a revolution?” These were the words of Cardinal Ottaviani during the debate on the Liturgy Constitution at the Second Vatican Council. A revolution was planned long before Vatican II, but the revolution reached critical mass and then exploded throughout the Church under the guise of Vatican II. Bishop Rudolph Graber, in his book, Athanasius and the Church of Our Time (1974), quoted a prominent Freemason who declared that “the goal (of Freemasonry) is no longer the destruction of the Church, but to make use of it by infiltrating it.”[1]
Catholics not only have to worry about the masons in our midst, but also the communists. In the early 1950s, Mrs. Bella Dodd gave voluminous testimony on communist infiltration of Church and state before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and also provided detailed explanations of the communist subversion of the Church. Speaking as a former high ranking official of the American Communist Party, Mrs. Dodd said: "In the 1930s we put eleven hundred men into the priesthood in order to destroy the Church from within." Twelve years before Vatican II, she said: "Right now they are in the highest places in the Church". She also predicted changes in the Church that would be so drastic that "you will not recognize the Catholic Church."
Dr. Alice von Hildebrand recalled, during an interview with Latin Mass magazine, that "Bella Dodd told my husband and me that when she was an active [Communist] party member, she had dealt with no fewer than four cardinals within the Vatican 'who were working for us'." (Latin Mass magazine, Summer 2001)
We also know of communist infiltration of the Catholic Church from the book, A.A. 1025. This is the memoirs of a communist agent who infiltrated into the Catholic Church in 1938, went to the seminary, became a priest who wielded enormous power behind the scenes, and participated in Vatican II. He succeeded in fostering the adoption of ambiguous Council documents which laid the groundwork for future experiments by unsuspecting prelates and priests. He stated: "'The Spirit of the Council' has become for me a master-trump."
This agent's true identity is unknown except for a code number AA-1025 given by the Russian Secret Police, meaning Anti-Apostle number 1025. There had been 1024 similar agents before him. Some have risen to the rank of Archbishop and Cardinal, many of whom could have been heads of departments in the curia (papal government) and religious congregations.
He died in a hospital after a car accident, and the attending nurse (Marie Carre) providentially discovered his personal memoirs in his briefcase. After she read the memoirs, she decided to publish them for the world to know why the Catholic Church has been undergoing destructive changes to the lament of its faithful. The English translation is published under the title AA 1025: The Memoirs of an Anti-Apostle by Éditions Saint-Raphael, 31, rue King Ouest, Suite 212, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada, 1988.
Within the communist agent's diary are many chilling details for the destruction of faith within the Catholic Church. This communist agent writes:
"To weaken more the notion of 'Real Presence' of Christ, all decorum will have to be set aside. No more costly embroidered vestments, no more music called sacred, especially no more Gregorian chant, but a music in jazz style, no more sign of the Cross, no more genuflections, but only dignified stern attitudes .... Moreover the faithful will have to break themselves the habit of kneeling, and this will be absolutely forbidden when receiving Communion .... Very soon, the Host will be laid in the hand in order that all notion of the Sacred be erased."
Alice von Hildebrand reports the following incident in an interview with Latin Mass magazine (Summer 2001). In this interview, she mentions the Italian priest Don Luigi Villa (diocese of Brescia), who published two books in 1998 and 2000. Fr. Villa, at the request of Padre Pio, has devoted many years of his life to the investigation of the infiltration of both Freemasons and Communists into the Church:
“Another of Don Villa’s illustrations of infiltration is one related to him by Cardinal Gagnon. Paul VI had asked Gagnon to head an investigation concerning the infiltration of the Church by powerful enemies. Cardinal Gagnon (at that time an Archbishop) accepted this unpleasant task, and compiled a long dossier, rich in worrisome facts. When the work was completed, he requested an audience with Pope Paul in order to deliver personally the manuscript to the Pontiff. This request for a meeting was denied. The Pope sent word that the document should be placed in the offices of the Congregation for the Clergy, specifically in a safe with a double lock. This was done, but the very next day the safe deposit box was broken and the manuscript mysteriously disappeared. The usual policy of the Vatican is to make sure that news of such incidents never sees the light of day. Nevertheless, this theft was reported even in L’Osservatore Romano (perhaps under pressure because it had been reported in the secular press). Cardinal Gagnon, of course, had a copy, and once again asked the Pope for a private audience. Once again his request was denied.He then decided to leave Rome and return to his homeland in Canada. Later, he was called back to Rome by Pope John Paul II and made a cardinal.” (Latin Mass Magazine, Summer 2001)
Her husband, Dietrich von Hildebrand, warned in the book The Devastated Vineyard that the Church can only save mankind from the brink of destruction"if the vineyard of the Lord blossoms anew. And therefore we must storm Heaven with the prayer that the spirit of St. Pius X might once again fill the hierarchy, that the great words anathema sit might once again ring out against all heretics, and especially against all the members of the 'fifth column' within the Church."
"The great Council, the Council that has brought forth discord, disunity, and the loss of souls, the major fact behind this destruction was because of the lack of prayer. Satan sat in within this Council, and he watched his advantage." - St. Michael, March 18, 1976
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Part 2 – Dark clouds forming before Vatican II
Vatican II: “the Council that has brought forth discord, disunity, and the loss of souls”
"I repeat, My children, as I have told you in the past, that the great Council of Vatican II was manipulated by satan. He sat there among you and he worked you like a chessboard.
"What can you do now to recover? It is simple, My children: turn back and start over with the foundation given to you. You must bring respect back to your priesthood. You must bring respect back to your Holy Father...!" - Our Lady of the Roses, May 15, 1976
(grateful acknowledgements to Fr. Paul Kramer for his book, The Devil’s Final Battle, from which many of the following quotations are taken).Dark clouds forming before Vatican II...Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict) stated in 1988 that many people treat Vatican II as “a new start from zero,” as if this one Council could by itself redefine Catholicism:The Second Vatican Council has not been treated as part of the entire living tradition of the Church, but as an end of Tradition, a new start from zero. The truth is that this particular Council defined no dogma at all, and deliberately chose to remain on a modest level, as a merely pastoral council; and yet many treat it as though it had made itself into a sort of super dogma which takes away the importance of all the rest. (1988 address to the bishops of Chile)Cardinal Ratzinger lamented in 1984:I am repeating here what I said ten years after the conclusion of the work: it is incontrovertible that this period [following Vatican II] has definitely been unfavorable for the Catholic Church.The revolution unleashed within the Church at Vatican II started many years before the Council. Fr. Paul Kramer in his book, The Devil’s Final Battle, mentions that the currents of modernism started to grow stronger again in the reign of Pope Pius XI. Well before Vatican II, Pope Pius XI asked his Cardinals if it was prudent to summon a Church Council. Fr. Kramer writes, “Father Raymond Dulac relates that at the secret consistory of May 23, 1923, Pope Pius XI questioned the thirty Cardinals of the Curia on the timeliness of summoning an ecumenical council.... The Cardinals advised against it. Cardinal Billot warned, ‘The existence of profound differences in the midst of the episcopacy itself cannot be concealed.... [They] run the risk of giving place to discussions that will be prolonged indefinitely.”[1]And this was in 1923!Cardinal Billot warned that such a council could be “maneuvered” by “the worst enemies of the Church, the modernists, who are already getting ready, as certain indications show, to bring forth the revolution in the Church, a new 1789.”[2]The cardinals who advised Pope Pius XI against calling a Church Council at that time were aware of the writings of the excommunicated Canon Roca (1830-1893), who preached revolution and Church “reform,” and also predicted a future change in the liturgy: “[T]he divine cult in the form directed by the liturgy, ceremonial, ritual and regulations of the Roman Church will shortly undergo a transformation at an ecumenical council, which will restore to it the venerable simplicity of the golden age of the Apostles in accordance with the dictates of conscience and modern civilization.”[3]With Roca’s writings in mind, as well as the growing currents of modernism, the wise cardinals could foresee that the enemies of the Church could use a Council as a weapon to introduce revolution into the Church and her liturgy. The enemies of the Church bided their time, waiting for a Pope that could be maneuvered enough to provide a window for the assault and revolution within. The time came with the arrival of Pope John XXIII:At the news of the death of Pius XII, the old Dom Lambert Beauduin, a friend of Roncalli’s (the future John XXIII) confided to Father Bouyer: “If they elect Roncalli, everything would be saved; he would be capable of calling a council and of consecrating ecumenism.”[4]Pope Pius IX declared on June 18, 1871: “That which I fear is not the Commune of Parish—no—that which I fear is Liberal Catholicism ... I have said so more than forty times, and I repeat to you now, through the love that I bear you. The real scourge of France is Liberal Catholicism, which endeavors to unite two principles as repugnant to each other as fire and water.”[5]As Our Lady of the Roses told us:"My Son, His heart is torn asunder by His representatives in the priesthood who now are Judases in His own House. They consort with the enemies of your God. In the manner of humanism and modernism, and an ecumenism that has been designed from hell, man now is plunging fast into making ready the full capitulation of My Son's Church and the world under a dictatorship of evil.” (Our Lady, November 22, 1976)In 1959 it was announced that the Vatican II Council would be convoked. Just a year later, on February 8, 1960, the Vatican announced that the real Third Secret would not be released and that “it is most probable that the ‘Secret of Fatima’ will remain forever under absolute seal.” (A.N.I. news service, February 8, 1960)It is very interesting to note that the decision to call Vatican II occurred in 1959, and the suppression of the Third Secret the year after in 1960. Sister Lucy was also silenced in 1960. Why did the Third Secret and Sister Lucy have to be silenced, and was there a correlation with what would take place during and after Vatican II? Did Our Lady of Fatima warn against the new orientation of Vatican II and the post-conciliar period, and therefore the enemies of the Church had to silence the Fatima message?Some history on the Third Secret is necessary to understand why the year 1960 was significant. In 1946, Sister Lucy was asked when the Third Secret would be revealed to the world, and without hesitation she said, "In 1960." In 1955 Cardinal Ottaviani asked her why it was not to be opened before 1960. She told him,"because then it will seem clearer (mais claro)." Sister Lucy had made the Bishop of Fatima-Leiria promise that the Secret would be read to the world at her death, but in no event later than 1960, "because the blessed Virgin wishes it so." And from Canon Barthas: "Moreover, it [the Third Secret] will soon be known, since Sister Lucy affirms that Our Lady wills that it can be published beginning in 1960." (Read more…)As noted above, the real Third Secret was not released in 1960, against the express command by Heaven. Could Sister Lucy’s comment that the Third Secret would “seem clearer (mais claro)" in 1960 and after be due to some profound revolution within the Church at that time?Fr. Alonso, the official archivist of Fatima and one of the greatest Fatima scholars in the world, wrote the following about the Third Secret:“It is therefore completely probable that the text (of the third Secret) makes concrete references to the crisis of faith within the Church and to the negligence of the pastors themselves.” He speaks further of “internal struggles in the very bosom of the Church and of grave pastoral negligence by the upper hierarchy,” of “deficiencies of the upper hierarchy of the Church.”Cardinal Oddi has perhaps the best quote tying the Third Secret to the Vatican II revolution:“What happened in 1960 that might have been seen in connection with the Secret of Fatima? The most important event is without a doubt the launching of the preparatory phase of the Second Vatican Council. Therefore I would not be surprised if the Secret had something to do with the convocation of Vatican II... I would not be surprised if the Third Secret alluded to dark times for the Church; grave confusions and troubling apostasies within Catholicism itself ... If we consider the grave crisis we have lived through since the Council, the signs that this prophecy has been fulfilled do not seem to be lacking ...” (March 17, 1990 interview published in Il Sabato magazine in Rome)
"How I warned and warned that satan would enter into the highest realms of the hierarchy in Rome. The Third Secret, My child, is that satan would enter into My Son's Church." - Our Lady, May 13, 1978
"My children, long ago I warned you from Fatima, I warned you through many voice-boxes throughout your world that the time will come when you will embark upon a stormy sea, and it shall be bishop against bishop and cardinal against cardinal, and satan shall set himself in your midst." - Our Lady, November 20, 1976
"I say this evening, as your God, that on that date [1972], as promised at Fatima, satan entered My Church upon earth. He brought with him his agents—and satan himself, the deceiver of all mankind—sat in on Vatican II and maneuvered all the outsiders to come in and distort My doctrines and distort the truth…. And if you think you have seen carnage now already in the Church, the worst is yet to come, unless you follow the rules, given by My Mother many years ago, of prayer, atonement, and sacrifice. By your example you may be able to save others. For soon there will come upon you the great Chastisement. It comes in two parts, My child and My children: the Third World War and, also, the Ball of Redemption. These can no longer be delayed. For the good seem to go about their way, perhaps pridefully.” - Jesus, June 18, 1986
[4] L. Bouyer, Dom Lambert Beauduin, a Man of the Church, Casterman, 1964, pp. 180-181; quoted in The Devil’s Final Battle, p. 49.
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Part 3 – The satanic revolution gains momentum at the Council
Vatican II: “the Council that has brought forth discord, disunity, and the loss of souls”
"I repeat, My children, as I have told you in the past, that the great Council of Vatican II was manipulated by satan. He sat there among you and he worked you like a chessboard.
"What can you do now to recover? It is simple, My children: turn back and start over with the foundation given to you. You must bring respect back to your priesthood. You must bring respect back to your Holy Father...!" - Our Lady of the Roses, May 15, 1976
(Grateful acknowledgements to Fr. Paul Kramer for his book, The Devil’s Final Battle, from which many of the following quotations are taken).The satanic revolution gains momentum at the CouncilThe word ‘revolution’ has been used numerous times to describe Vatican II. During the debate on the Liturgy Constitution at the Council, Cardinal Ottaviani asked,“Are these Fathers planning a revolution?”Regarding the changes since Vatican II, Professor James Daly wrote:It is one thing to pull off a revolution, quite another to do so and then have the gall to pretend that nothing “substantial” has been changed. It is not enough for our liturgical Robespierres to win; they must go on to claim that they never used the guillotine.[1]Revolution was apparent very early on. According to Anne Muggeridge (the daughter-in-law of the famous British Catholic convert and journalist Malcolm Muggeridge), John Cardinal Heenan of Westminster reported that when, during the rebellious first session of the Council, Pope John XXIII realized that the papacy had lost control of the process, he attempted to organize a group of bishops to try to force it to an end. But before the second session of the Council could open, Pope John XXIII died. His last words on his deathbed, as reported by Jean Guitton, the only Catholic layman to serve as a peritus at the Council, were: "Stop the Council; stop the Council." (The Desolate City)Before the end of Vatican II, in February 1965, someone announced to Padre Pio that soon he would have to celebrate the Mass according to a new rite, in the vernacular, which had been devised by a conciliar liturgical commission. Immediately, even before seeing the text, he wrote to Paul VI to ask him to be dispensed from the liturgical experiment, and to be able to continue to celebrate the Mass of St. Pius V. When Cardinal Bacci came to see him in order to bring the authorization, Padre Pio let a complaint escape in the presence of the Pope's messenger: "For pity sake, end the Council quickly."Several years after Vatican II, on April 12, 1970, Sister Lucy warned of "a diabolical disorientation invading the world and misleading souls". On September 16, 1970, she wrote to a friend in religion, Mother Martins, who had been her companion at Tuy, in the novitiate of the Dorothean Sisters. She had just been sorely tried by illness:...I too, was not feeling very well in my heart, my eyes, etc.; but it is necessary to the Passion of Christ; it is necessary that His members be one with Him, through physical pain and through moral anguish. Poor Lord, He has saved us with so much love and He is so little understood! so little loved! so badly deserved! It is painful to see such a great disorientation and in so many persons who occupy places of responsibility...! For our part we must, as far as is possible for us, try to make reparation through an ever more intimate union with the Lord; and identify ourselves with Him that He may be in us the Light of the world plunged in the darkness of error, immorality and pride. It pains me to see what you tell me, now that that is going on over here...! It is because the devil has succeeded in infiltrating evil under the cover of good, and the blind are beginning to guide others, as the Lord tells us in His Gospel, and souls are letting themselves be deceived...This is why the devil has waged such a war against [the Rosary]! And the worst is that he has succeeded in leading into error and deceiving souls having a heavy responsibility through the place which they occupy...! They are blind men guiding other blind men...The "great disorientation and in so many persons who occupy places of responsibility" is a reference to the disorientation within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.Vatican II and the hereticsBishop Helder Camara praised Pope John XXIII for his “courage on the eve of the Council in naming as conciliar experts many of the greatest theologians of our day.Among those whom he appointed were many who emerged from the black lists of suspicion.” In other words, from the censures and condemnations of Pius XII and the Holy Office. Heretics were among those advising and helping the bishops draft the documents of Vatican II.Fr. Paul Kramer reported in his book, The Devil’s Final Battle:On October 13, 1962, the day after the two communist observers arrived at the Council, and on the very anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima, the history of the Church and the world was profoundly changed by the smallest of events. Cardinal Liénart of Belgium seized the microphone in a famous incident and demanded that the candidates proposed by the Roman Curia to chair the drafting commissions at the Council be set aside and that a new slate of candidates be drawn up. The demand was acceded to and the election postponed. When the election was finally held, liberals were elected to majorities and near-majorities of the conciliar commissions—many of them from among the very “innovators” decried by Pope Pius XII. The traditionally formulated schemas for the Council were discarded and the Council began literally without a written agenda, leaving the way open for entirely new documents to be written by the liberals. It is well known and superbly documented that a clique of liberal periti (experts) and bishops then proceeded to hijack Vatican II with an agenda to remake the Church into their own image through the implementation of a “new theology.’”[2] (p. 53)Two such theologians were Hans Kung and Edward Schillebeeckx. According to Chris Ferrara:It was Schillebeeckx who wrote the crucial 480 page critique employed by the “Rhine group” bishops to coordinate their public relations campaign against the wholly orthodox preparatory schemas for the Council, which led to the abandonment of the Council’s entire meticulous preparations. Schillebeeckx was later placed under Vatican investigation for his outrageously heterodox views concerning historicity of the Virgin Birth, the institution of the Eucharist, the Resurrection, and the founding of the Church.[3]The liberals at Vatican II avoided condemning modernist errors, communism, and they also deliberately planted ambiguities in the Council texts which they intended to exploit after the Council. The liberal Council peritus, Father Edward Schillebeeckx admitted, “we have used ambiguous phrases during the Council and we know how we will interpret them afterwards.”[4]Monsignor Rudlolf Bandas, a peritus at the Council, acknowledged that allowing suspect theologians at Vatican II (such as Schillebeeckx and Kung) was a grave mistake:No doubt good Pope John thought that these suspect theologians would rectify their ideas and perform a genuine service to the Church. But exactly the opposite happened. Supported by certain ‘Rhine’ Council Fathers, and often acting in a manner positively boorish, they turned around and exclaimed: “Behold, we are named experts, our ideas stand approved”... When I entered my tribunal at the Council, on the first day of the fourth session, the first announcement, emanating from the Secretary of State, was the following: “No more periti will be appointed.” But it was too late. The great confusion was underway. It was already apparent that neither Trent nor Vatican II nor any encyclical would be permitted to impede its advance.[5]Fr. Paul Kramer writes:In his book Vatican II Revisited, Bishop Aloysius J. Wycislo (a rhapsodic advocate of the Vatican II revolution) declares with giddy enthusiasm that theologians and biblical scholars who had been “under a cloud” for years surfaced as periti (theological experts advising the bishops at the Council), and their post-Vatican II books and commentaries became popular reading.[6]Yves Congar, one of the artisans of the reform remarked with quiet satisfaction that “The Church has had, peacefully, its October revolution.”[7] Congar also admitted, as if its something to be proud of, that Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty is contrary to the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX. He said: “It cannot be denied that the affirmation of religious liberty by Vatican II says materially something other than what the Syllabus of 1864 said, and even just about the opposite of propositions 16, 17 and 19 of this document.”[8]Cardinal Suenens declared “Vatican II is the French Revolution of the Church.”[9] Cardinal Suenens may have been one of the cardinals indicated by Our Lady of the Roses, that would receive great punishment for his participation in the destruction of the Church. (Read more…)Vatican II documents and sessionsAs we stated above, Father Edward Schillebeeckx admitted, “we have used ambiguous phrases during the Council and we know how we will interpret them afterwards.”[10] The New York Times recognized these ambiguities: “The Council’s documents, shaped by the bishops and their theological advisers in four two-month sessions held each fall from 1962 through 1965, offer more than enough compromises and ambiguities for conflicting interpretations.” Fr. Frank Poncelot writes, “That there are ambiguities in the sixteen Council documents no one can deny. You can misquote its numerous paragraphs to prove or disprove many ideas, and this is frequently done to support liberal and devious schemes.”[11]Cardinal Ratzinger observed that the documents of Vatican II, especially Gaudium et Spes, comprised a “counter syllabus” designed to “correct(!) ... the one-sidedness of the position adopted by the Church under Pius IX and Pius X,” and that these documents were an “attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789.”[12] He also admitted that the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes is permeated by the spirit of Teilhard de Chardin.[13]Our Lady of the Roses, however, stated that Teilhard de Chardin is in hell:"Many of Our clergy have become blinded through their love of worldly pleasure and riches. Many have accepted a soul once high as a priest. Teilhard is in hell! He burns forever for the contamination he spread throughout the world! A man of God has his choice as a human instrument to enter into the kingdom of satan. Man will not defy the laws of God without going unpunished. You are a perverse generation, and you call the hand of punishment down fast upon you." - Our Lady, March 18, 1973 (Read more…)At Vatican II, Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani was shocked to discover that a statement proposing that married couples may determine the number of their children was summarily added to the text of "The Sanctity of Marriage and the Family" without so much as a discussion as to its consistency with prior Catholic teaching. Cardinal Ottaviani asked:...yesterday in the Council it should have been said that there was doubt whether a correct stand had been taken hitherto on the principles governing marriage. Does this not mean that the inerrancy of the Church will be called into question? Or was not the Holy Spirit with His Church in past centuries to illuminate minds on this point of doctrine?[14]Fr. Frank Poncelot writes:Ecumenism means the modern movement toward religious unity, but false ecumenism is now one of the serious problems because of modernist elements in the Church and unauthorized modern theologians trying to “give away the store.” The sixteen documents of Vatican Council II are lengthy and “wordy”; many sections are ambiguous; they were not meant to make doctrinal changes, but opened the doors, unfortunately, for changes which were not intended. It authorized commissions to be formed with later became “open-ended,” especially when the dreadful word, “option,” became prevalent in the Council’s implementation. Well over 2000 bishops were present for all sessions and numerous observers (including non-Catholic) and the bishops’ periti. While there were ten Council Commissions, the liberal European alliance, controlled mainly by German bishops and their periti, quickly dominated the sessions and, with much behind the scenes work, influenced the direction taken by the commissions which were set up in the aftermath of the Council. These commissions “implemented” Vatican II and were responsible for interpreting the recommendations of the Council in their practical and pastoral applications. This is most important to note, because the great majority of the bishops present never intended most of the “implementation” that resulted, principally the Novus Ordo of the Mass—the Mass which was actually promulgated in 1970. The document from which liturgy changes came, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy—first of the sixteen documents, ironically, is the most misunderstood Church document. Today we have Roman Missals almost entirely in the vernacular, whereas the Council document contains nothing about an all vernacular Mass, only that some parts of the Mass may use the vernacular, and ordered that the Latin language remain in the essential parts of the Mass. Further irony is that most Catholics today think that the Mass in Latin is forbidden, whereas the Council forbade the opposite—exclusive use of the vernacular.[15]Cardinal John Heenan of Westminster, a participant at Vatican II, explains in his book, A Crown of Thorns:The subject most fully debated was liturgical reform. It might be more accurate to say that the bishops were under the impression that the liturgy had been fully discussed. In retrospect it is clear that they were given the opportunity of discussing only general principles. Subsequent changes were more radical than those intended by Pope John and the bishops who passed the decree on the liturgy. His sermon at the end of the first session shows that Pope John did not suspect what was being planned by the liturgical experts.[16]The liturgical expert Monsignor Klaus Gamber says the same thing in his book, The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, that the new liturgy would not have been endured at the Council:One statement we can make with certainty is that the new Ordo of the Mass that has now emerged would not have been endorsed by the majority of the Council Fathers.[17]Richard Cowden Guido reported that many bishops were openly disillusioned with Vatican II at the Bishops’ Synod of 1985:That there were misjudgments made at the Council no serious Catholic will deny. Following the Synod of Bishops in 1985, surprising comments were made by bishops who admitted this before leaving Rome. One author wrote, quoting another source: “… yet, delicately in public and more candidly in private, synod fathers acknowledged that Vatican II made two massive errors in judgment. The first was the vast over-estimation of the solidity of Catholic teaching and practice … the second error was an astonishing naiveté about the nature of the modern world.”[18]Vatican II and the failure to condemn communismVatican II even failed to condemn communism. Fr. Frank Poncelot writes:… Vatican II was not called to suppress a particular heresy or problem in the Church. It overlooked the evil of Communism; it overlooked the spreading modernism with its Masonic ingredients that Pope St. Pius X condemned; and it did not address the problems that the electronic media could very likely cause for the Church worldwide.”[19]Fr. Paul Kramer reports that hundreds of bishops attempted to condemn communism at the Council, but their petition was mysteriously “lost”:The written intervention of 450 Council Fathers against Communism was mysteriously “lost” after being delivered to the Secretariat of the Council, and Council Fathers who stood up to denounce Communism were politely told to sit down and be quiet.[20]Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1983 told a Long Island, New York conference that it was he himself who carried the 450 signatures to the Secretariat of the Council at Vatican II:And the Communists were promised, Communism will not be condemned at the Council, and it wasn’t condemned at the Council. I myself carried 450 signatures to the Secretariat of the Council in order to have Communism condemned. I did it myself! Four hundred and fifty signatures of bishops were put away in a drawer and they were buried in silence whereas sometimes the request of a single bishop was listened to. In this case, 450 bishops were ignored. The drawer was closed, we were told, no, no, we have no knowledge of that, there will be no condemnation of Communism. And they replaced the anti Communist bishops: Cardinal Mindszenty by Cardinal Lekai, Cardinal Beran in Czechoslovakia by Cardinal Tomasec. The same happened in Lithuania, and in Czechoslovakia, all the bishops became priests of the Pax movement, collaborators of the Communist regime. You can read in the book calledMoscow and the Vatican how the Lithuanian priests wrote to their bishops a letter in which they say: “We no longer understand. Before, our bishops used to support us in the fight against Communism and they died martyrs, many are still in prison, others are dead, martyred because they supported us against the Communists in order to fulfill our duty as priests, and now it is you bishops who are condemning us, it is you who are telling us that we don’t have the right to resist, to fulfill our apostolate, because it is contrary to the laws of Communism, it is contrary to the government.[21]That the communists were promised that communism would not be condemned at Vatican II was effected through the Vatican-Moscow Treaty. Our Lady of the Roses said of this treaty:Veronica - Our Lady is holding up a parchment of paper.
"Look, My child, what has been written down. From where and whence did this parchment of reconciliation with Russia originate, signed by many cardinals? O My child, My heart is bleeding.... The parchment of paper contains the words that made a treaty between the Vatican and Russia." (Our Lady, July 1, 1985)Jesus also spoke on this treaty:"My child and My children, remember now, I have asked you to contact Pope John Paul II, and tell him he must rescind the Treaty, the Pact made with Russia; for only in that way shall you have a true peace." (Jesus, June 6, 1987)Vatican II: a pastoral, not a dogmatic CouncilIn Cardinal Ratzinger’s letter to Archbishop Lefebvre on July 20, 1983, he states that: “It must be noted that, because the conciliar texts are of varying authority, criticism of certain of their expressions, in accordance to the general rules of adhesion to the Magisterium, is not forbidden. You may likewise express a desire for a statement or an explanation on various points…. You may that personally you cannot see how they are compatible, and so ask the Holy See for an explanation.” Pope Paul VI himself also made a similar comment: “Given the Council’s pastoral character, it avoided pronouncing in an extraordinary manner, dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility.”[22]At the close of Vatican II, the bishops asked Archbishop Felici (the Council’s Secretary) for that which the theologians call the “theological note” of the Council . That is, the doctrinal “weight” of Vatican II’s teachings. Felici replied: “We have to distinguish according to the schemas and the chapters those which have already been the subject of dogmatic definitions in the past; as for the declarations which have a novel character, we have to make reservations.”[23]Regarding the novel changes and imprudent decisions that resulted after Vatican II, Dietrich von Hildebrand, praised by Pope Pius XII as the "20th century Doctor of the Church", instructs us:In the case of practical, as distinguished from theoretical, authority, which refers, of course, to the ordinances of the Pope, the protection of the Holy Spirit is not promised in the same way. Ordinances can be unfortunate, ill-conceived, even disastrous, and there have been many such in the history of the Church. Here Roma locuta, causa finita does not hold. The faithful are not obliged to regard all ordinances as good and desirable. They can regret them and pray that they will be taken back; indeed, they can work, with all due respect for the pope, for their elimination.
"The great Council, the Council that has brought forth discord, disunity, and the loss of souls, the major fact behind this destruction was because of the lack of prayer. Satan sat in within this Council, and he watched his advantage." - St. Michael, March 18, 1976
[1] Professor James Daly of McMaster University, Ontario, The Catholic Register, October 12, 1977.
[2] Our Lady of the Roses Herself mentioned this “new theology” in Her message at Bayside: "I allowed you, My child, to become aware now in full measure of evil in the teaching institutions of My Son's Church. A new theology of morals has been set among you. And what is it but a creation of satan!” (Our Lady, January 31, 1976)[3] Chris Ferrara, “The Third Secret of Fatima and the Post-Conciliar Debacle,” Part 3.
[6] Most Reverend Aloysius Wycislo S.J., Vatican II Revisited, Reflections by One Who Was There, p. x, Alba House, Staten Island, New York; quoted in The Devil’s Final Battle, p. 53.[7] Yves Congar, O.P. quoted by Father George de Nantes, CRC, no. 113, p.3.
[8] Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, Ignatius Press: San Francisco (1987) p. 42.
[9] “Open Letter to Confused Catholics,” Archbishop Lefebvre, Kansas City, Angelus Press, 1992, p. 100.
[8] Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, Ignatius Press: San Francisco (1987) p. 42.
[9] “Open Letter to Confused Catholics,” Archbishop Lefebvre, Kansas City, Angelus Press, 1992, p. 100.
[10] Ibid., p. 106.
[11] Fr. Frank Poncelot, Airwaves from Hell, p. 187.
[18] Richard Cowden Guido, John Paul II and the Battle for Vatican II, Trinity Communications, 1986, the author quotes National Review, February, 1986; quoted in Fr. Frank Poncelot, Airwaves from Hell, pp. 18.[19] Fr. Frank Poncelot, Airwaves from Hell, p. 186.
[20] The Devil’s Final Battle, p. 52.
[21] Conference Of His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Long Island, New York, November 5, 1983.
[20] The Devil’s Final Battle, p. 52.
[21] Conference Of His Excellency Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Long Island, New York, November 5, 1983.
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The case for the Latin Mass…
“Jesus is not pleased with the manner in which His clergy are carrying out their vocations and, also, the Mass. Jesus wishes that the Old Mass be returned to wipe out many of the errors that have crept in since the New Mass has started.” – Veronica, July 1, 1985
Dietrich von Hildebrand, called by Pope Pius XII "the 20th Century Doctor of the Church,” was one of the world's most eminent Catholic philosophers. Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) wrote about Dietrich von Hildebrand in the year 2000: "I am firmly convinced that, when at some time in the future, the intellectual history of the Catholic Church in the 20th century is written, the name of Dietrich von Hildebrand will be most prominent among the figures of our time." No other Catholic writer has so thoroughly echoed the message of Our Lady of the Roses than Dietrich von Hildebrand. The following is an article he wrote on the Latin Mass that appeared in the October 1966 issue of Triumph magazine:
The arguments for the New Liturgy have been neatly packaged, and may now be learned by rote. The new form of the Mass is designed to engage the celebrant and the faithful in a communal activity. In the past the faithful attended Mass in personal isolation, each worshipper making his private devotions, or at best following the proceedings in his missal. Today the faithful can grasp the social character of the celebration; they are learning to appreciate it as a community meal. Formerly, the priest mumbled in a dead language, which created a barrier between priest and people. Now everyone speaks in English, which tends to unite priest and people with one another. In the past the priest said Mass with his back to the people, which created the mood of an esoteric rite. Today, because the priest faces the people, the Mass is a more fraternal occasion. In the past the priest intoned strange medieval chants. Today the entire assembly sings songs with easy tunes and familiar lyrics, and is even experimenting with folk music. The case for the new Mass, then, comes down to this: it is making the faithful more at home in the house of God.
Moreover, these innovations are said to have the sanction of Authority: they are represented as an obedient response to the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. This is said notwithstanding that the Council's Constitution on the Liturgy goes no further than to permit the vernacular Mass in cases where the local bishop believes it desirable; the Constitution plainly insists on the retention of the Latin Mass, and emphatically approves the Gregorian chant. But the liturgical "progressives" are not impressed by the difference between permitting and commanding. Nor do they hesitate to authorize changes, such as standing to receive Holy Communion, which the Constitution does not mention at all. The progressives argue that these liberties may be taken because the Constitution is, after all, only the first step in an evolutionary process. And they seem to be having their way. It is difficult to find a Latin Mass anywhere today, and in the United States they are practically non-existent. Even the conventual Mass in monasteries is said in the vernacular, and the glorious Gregorian is replaced by insignificant melodies.
My concern is not with the legal status of the changes. And I emphatically do not wish to be understood as regretting that the Constitution has permitted the vernacular to complement the Latin. What I deplore is that the new Mass is replacing the Latin Mass, that the old liturgy is being recklessly scrapped, and denied to most of the People of God.
I should like to put to those who are fostering this development several questions: Does the new Mass, more than the old, bestir the human spirit--does it evoke a sense of eternity? Does it help raise our hearts from the concerns of everyday life--from the purely natural aspects of the world--to Christ? Does it increase reverence, an appreciation of the sacred?
Of course these questions are rhetorical, and self-answering. I raise them because I think that all thoughtful Christians will want to weigh their importance before coming to a conclusion about the merits of the new liturgy. What is the role of reverence in a truly Christian life, and above all in a truly Christian worship of God?
Reverence gives being the opportunity to speak to us: The ultimate grandeur of man is to be capax Dei. Reverence is of capital importance to all the fundamental domains of man's life. It can be rightly called "the mother of all virtues," for it is the basic attitude that all virtues presuppose. The most elementary gesture of reverence is a response to being itself. It distinguishes the autonomous majesty of being from mere illusion or fiction; it is a recognition of the inner consistency and positiveness of being--of its independence of our arbitrary moods. Reverence gives being the opportunity to unfold itself, to, as it were, speak to us; to fecundate our minds. Therefore reverence is indispensable to any adequate knowledge of being. The depth and plenitude of being, and above all its mysteries, will never be revealed to any but the reverent mind. Remember that reverence is a constitutive element of the capacity to "wonder," which Plato and Aristotle claimed to be the indispensable condition for philosophy. Indeed, irreverence is a chief source of philosophical error. But if reverence is the necessary basis for all reliable knowledge of being, it is, beyond that, indispensable for grasping and assessing the values grounded in being. Only the reverent man who is ready to admit the existence of something greater than himself, who is willing to be silent and let the object speak to him--who opens himself--is capable of entering the sublime world of values. Moreover, once a gradation of values has been recognized, a new kind of reverence is in order--a reverence that responds not only to the majesty of being as such, but to the specific value of a specific being and to its rank in the hierarchy of values. And this new reverence permits the discovery of still other values.
Man reflects his essentially receptive character as a created person solely in the reverent attitude; the ultimate grandeur of man is to be capax Dei. Man has the capacity, in other words, to grasp something greater than himself, to be affected and fecundated by it, to abandon himself to it for its own sake--in a pure response to its value. This ability to transcend himself distinguishes man from a plant or an animal; these latter strive only to unfold their own entelechy. Now: it is only the reverent man who can consciously transcend himself and thus conform to his fundamental human condition and to his metaphysical situation.
Do we better meet Christ by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our workaday world?
The irreverent man by contrast, approaches being either in an attitude of arrogant superiority or of tactless, smug familiarity. In either case he is crippled; he is the man who comes so near a tree or building he can no longer see it. Instead of remaining at the proper spiritual distance, and maintaining a reverent silence so that being may speak its word, he obtrudes himself and thereby, in effect, silences being. In no domain is reverence more important than religion. As we have seen, it profoundly affects the relation of man to God. But beyond that it pervades the entire religion, especially the worship of God. There is an intimate link between reverence and sacredness: reverence permits us to experience the sacred, to rise above the profane; irreverence blinds us to the entire world of the sacred. Reverence, including awe-indeed, fear and trembling-is the specific response to the sacred.
Rudolf Otto has clearly elaborated the point in his famous study, The Idea of the Holy. Kierkegaard also calls attention to the essential role of reverence in the religious act, in the encounter with God. And did not the Jews tremble in deep awe when the priest brought the sacrifice into the sanctum sanctorum? Was Isaiah not struck with godly fear when he saw Yahweh in the temple and exclaimed, "Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips . . . yet my eyes have seen the King?" Do not the words of St. Peter after the miraculous catch of fish, "Depart from me, 0 Lord, because I am a sinner," testify that when the reality of God breaks in upon us we are struck with fear and reverence? Cardinal Newman has shown in a stunning sermon that the man who does not fear and revere has not known the reality of God.
When St. Bonaventure writes in Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum that only a man of desire (such as Daniel) can understand God, he means that a certain attitude of soul must be achieved in order to understand the world of God, into which He wants to lead us.
This counsel is especially applicable to the Church's liturgy. The sursum corda--the lifting up of our hearts--is the first requirement for real participation in the Mass. Nothing could better obstruct the confrontation of man with God than the notion that we "go unto the altar of God" as we would go to a pleasant, relaxing social gathering. This is why the Latin Mass with Gregorian chant, which raises us up to a sacred atmosphere, is vastly superior to a vernacular Mass with popular songs, which leaves us in a profane, merely natural atmosphere.
The basic error of most of the innovations is to imagine that the new liturgy brings the holy Sacrifice of the Mass nearer to the faithful, that shorn of its old rituals the Mass now enters into the substance of our lives. For the question is whether we better meet Christ in the Mass by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our own pedestrian, workaday world. The innovators would replace holy intimacy with Christ by an unbecoming familiarity. The new liturgy actually threatens to frustrate the confrontation with Christ, for it discourages reverence in the face of mystery, precludes awe, and all but extinguishes a sense of sacredness. What really matters, surely, is not whether the faithful feel at home at Mass, but whether they are drawn out of their ordinary lives into the world of Christ--whether their attitude is the response of ultimate reverence: whether they are imbued with the reality of Christ.
Those who rhapsodize on the new liturgy make much of the point that over the years the Mass had lost its communal character and had become an occasion for individualistic worship. The new vernacular Mass, they insist, restores the sense of community by replacing private devotions with community participation. Yet they forget that there are different levels and kinds of communion with other persons. The level and nature of a community experience is determined by the theme of the communion, the name or cause in which men are gathered. The higher the good which the theme represents, and which binds men together, the more sublime and deeper is the communion. The ethos and nature of a community experience in the case of a great national emergency is obviously radically different from the community experience of a cocktail party. And of course the most striking differences in communities will be found between the community whose theme is supernatural and the one whose theme is merely natural. The actualization of men's souls who are truly touched by Christ is the basis of a unique community, a sacred communion, one whose quality is incomparably more sublime than that of any natural community. The authentic we communion of the faithful, which the liturgy of Holy Thursday expresses so well in the words congregavit nos in unum Christi amor, is only possible as a fruit of the I-Thou communion with Christ Himself. Only a direct relation to the God-Man can actualize this sacred union among the faithful.
The depersonalizing "we experience" is a perverse theory of community
The communion in Christ has nothing of the self-assertion found in natural communities. It breathes of the Redemption. It liberates men from all self- centeredness. Yet such a communion emphatically does not depersonalize the individual; far from dissolving the person into the cosmic, pantheistic swoon so often commended to us these days, it actualizes the person's true self in a unique way. In the community of Christ the conflict between person and community that is present in all natural communities cannot exist. So this sacred community experience is really at war with the depersonalizing 'we-experience" found in Mass assemblies and popular gatherings which tend to absorb and evaporate the individual. This communion in Christ that was so fully alive in the early Christian centuries, that all the saints entered into, that found a matchless expression in the liturgy now under attack--this communion has never regarded the individual person as a mere segment of the community, or as an instrument to serve it. In this connection it is worth noting that totalitarian ideology is not alone in sacrificing the individual to the collective; some of Teilhard de Chardin's cosmic ideas, for instance, imply the same collectivistic sacrifice. Teilhard subordinates the individual and his sanctification to the supposed development of humanity. At a time when this perverse theory of community is embraced even by many Catholics, there are plainly urgent reasons for vigorously insisting on the sacred character of the true communion in Christ. I submit that the new liturgy must be judged by this test: Does it contribute to the authentic sacred community? Granted that it strives for a community character; but is this the character desired? Is it a communion grounded in recollection, contemplation and reverence? Which of the two--the new Mass, or the Latin Mass with the Gregorian chant evokes these attitudes of soul more effectively, and thus permits the deeper and truer communion? Is it not plain that frequently the community character of the new Mass is purely profane, that, as with other social gatherings, its blend of casual relaxation and bustling activity precludes a reverent, contemplative confrontation with Christ and with the ineffable mystery of the Eucharist?
Of course our epoch is pervaded by a spirit of irreverence. It is seen in a distorted notion of freedom that demands rights while refusing obligations, that exalts self-indulgence, that counsels "let yourself go." The habitare secum of St. Gregory's Dialogues--the dwelling in the presence of God--which presupposes reverence, is considered today to be unnatural, pompous, or servile. But is not the new liturgy a compromise with this modern spirit? Whence comes the disparagement of kneeling? Why should the Eucharist be received standing? Is not kneeling, in our culture, the classic expression of adoring reverence? The argument that at a meal we should stand rather than kneel is hardly convincing. For one thing, this is not the natural posture for eating: we sit, and in Christ's time one lay down. But more important, it is a specifically irreverent conception of the Eucharist to stress its character as a meal at the cost of its unique character as a holy mystery. Stressing the meal at the expense of the sacrament surely betrays a tendency to obscure the sacredness of the sacrifice. This tendency is apparently traceable to the unfortunate belief that religious life will become more vivid, more existential, if it is immersed in our everyday life. But this is to run the danger of absorbing the religious in the mundane, of effacing the difference between the supernatural and the natural. I fear that it represents an unconscious intrusion of the naturalistic spirit, of the spirit more fully expressed in Teilhard de Chardin's immanentism.
Again, why has the genuflection at the words et incarnatus est in the Credo been abolished? Was this not a noble and beautiful expression of adoring reverence while professing the searing mystery of the Incarnation? Whatever the intention of the innovators, they have certainly created the danger, if only psychological, of diminishing the faithful's awareness and awe of the mystery. There is yet another reason for hesitating to make changes in the liturgy that are not strictly necessary. Frivolous or arbitrary changes are apt to erode a special type of reverence: pietas. The Latin word, like the German Pietaet, has no English equivalent, but may be understood as comprising respect for tradition; honoring what has been handed down to us by former generations; fidelity to our ancestors and their works. Note that pietas is a derivative type of reverence, and so should not be confused with primary reverence, which we have described as a response to the very mystery of being, and ultimately a response to God. It follows that if the content of a given tradition does not correspond to the object of the primary reverence, it does not deserve the derivative reverence. Thus if a tradition embodies evil elements, such as the sacrifice of human beings in the cult of the Aztecs, then those elements should not be regarded with pietas. But that is not the Christian case. Those who idolize our epoch, who thrill at what is modern simply because it is modern, who believe that in our day man has finally "come of age," lack pietas. The pride of these "temporal nationalists" is not only irreverent, it is incompatible with real faith. A Catholic should regard his liturgy with pietas. He should revere, and therefore fear to abandon the prayers and postures and music that have been approved by so many saints throughout the Christian era and delivered to us as a precious heritage. To go no further: the illusion that we can replace the Gregorian chant, with its inspired hymns and rhythms, by equally fine, if not better, music betrays a ridiculous self-assurance and lack of self-knowledge. Let us not forget that throughout Christianity's history. silence and solitude, contemplation and recollection, have been considered necessary to achieve a real confrontation with God. This is not only the counsel of the Christian tradition, which should be respected out of pietas; it is rooted in human nature. Recollection is the necessary basis for true communion in much the same way as contemplation provides the necessary basis for true action in the vineyard of the Lord. A superficial type of communion--the jovial comradeship of a social affair--draws us out onto the periphery. A truly Christian communion draws us into the spiritual deeps.
The path to a true Christian communion: Reverence . .. Recollection . . . Contemplation
Of course we should deplore excessively individualistic and sentimental devotionalism, and acknowledge that many Catholics have practiced it. But the antidote is not a community experience as such-any more than the cure for pseudo-contemplation is activity as such. The antidote is to encourage true reverence, an attitude of authentic recollection and contemplative devotion to Christ. Out of this attitude alone can a true communion in Christ take place. The fundamental laws of the religious life that govern the imitation of Christ, the transformation in Christ, do not change according to the moods and habits of the historical moment. The difference between a superficial community experience and a profound community experience is always the same. Recollection and contemplative adoration of Christ--which only reverence makes possible--will be the necessary basis for a true communion with others in Christ in every era of human history.
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Restore the high altar…
"My child and My children, be it known now that We have looked into the churches about the world, and We are much confused and perhaps cannot understand the nature of humans who can in such little time do so much to destroy My Church, My House upon earth. You must restore My houses to their original condition. We ask that you return the statues to My churches, that you restore the main altar, that you replace the gating so that others may kneel in adoration to their God. This is only the beginning; there is much else that you, My pastors, can do, and those who wear the mitres shall do, or they shall find themselves quickly in hell.” - Jesus, August 21, 1985
The following is the beautiful explanation and history of the Catholic high altar, taken from the Catholic Encyclopedia:High Altar (ALTARE SUMMUM or MAJUS.)
The high altar is so called from the fact that it is the chief altar in a church, and also because it is raised on an elevated plane in the sanctuary, where it may be seen simultaneously by all the faithful in the body of the church. It symbolizes Christ, and it serves at the same time as the banquet table on which He offers Himself through the hands of the priest to the Eternal Father; for Christ is present in our churches not only in a spiritual manner but really, truly, and substantially as the victim of a sacrifice. A sacrifice necessarily supposes a priest and an altar, and the Acts of the Apostles (ii, 42) plainly indicate that the faithful are to participate in the prayers of the sacrifice and to partake of the victim. Naturally the altar and priest were separated from the faithful, who, as St. Athanasius (Quaest. adAntioch., 37) and Clement of Alexandria (Strom., vii, 7) inform us, were instructed by the Apostles to pray, according to the traditions of the Mosaic Law, facing the East. Hence in the early days of the Church the altar was usually placed in a chapel at the head of the edifice, the back of which, whatever may have been the character of the building, looked directly towards the East, in such a way that it could be seen from any part by the faithful. When it was impossible to erect a church in such a manner the altar was located opposite the chief doorway.
In olden times there was but one altar in a church. The Christian Fathers speak of one altar only, and St. Ignatius (Ep. ad Philadelph., 5) refers to this practice when he says: "One altar, as there is one bishop" (Unum altare omni Ecclesiae et unus Episcopus). This altar was erected in the middle of the sanctuary between the bishop's throne, which stood in the apse, and the communion-rail, which separated the sanctuary from the body of the church. On it Divine services were celebrated by the bishop only, assisted by the clergy, who received Holy Communion from his hands. Although each church had but one altar, there were oratories erected near or around the church in which Mass was celebrated. This custom is still maintained throughout the East, so that the liturgical or high altar of the solemn sacrifice is isolated from what may be called the altars of devotional sacrifice on which Mass is said privately. Later on, in the time of St. Ambrose (fourth century), we find the custom of having more than one altar in a church; and St. Gregory (sixth century) evidently approves of the same by sending to Palladius, Bishop of Saintes, France, relics for four altars which, of the thirteen erected in his church, had remained unconsecrated for want of relics. After the introduction of private Masses the necessity of several or even many altars in each church arose. They were erected near the principal altar or in side chapels. The altar in the sanctuary or high chapel always remained the principal one of the church, and the pontifical services in cathedrals as well as the solemn functions in other churches invariably took place at the chief altar on Sundays, holidays, and other solemn occasions of the year.When the custom of erecting the episcopal throne on the gospel side of the sanctuary became prevalent, the high altar was removed nearer to the wall of the apse. The object of this was that sufficient space might be allowed between the lowest step of the altar and the communion-rail (six to twelve feet) for the proper carrying out of the ceremonial, and for the accommodation of the clergy who frequently assisted in large numbers at the solemn celebration of Mass and of the Divine Offices. The high altar was erected on steps, which for symbolical reasons were usually of an uneven number -- three or five, including the upper platform (predella) and the pavement of the sanctuary, thus placing it on a higher level than the body of the church, a practice which is still maintained in our churches. In parish churches the Most Blessed Sacrament is regularly kept on the high altar, which accordingly should have a tabernacle for the reservation of the Sacred Species (S.R.C., 28 Nov., 1594; 21 Aug., 1863). The prescribed ornaments are a crucifix and six high candlesticks. The high altar in a church that is to be consecrated should be a fixed altar (see ALTAR, FORM OF), which according to the prescriptions of the Roman Pontifical (h.l.) is itself to be consecrated simultaneously with the solemn dedication of the church edifice. Hence it must stand free on all sides, allowing ample room for the consecrator to move around it. As its name indicates, the high altar, being the chief place for the enactment of the sacrificial function, is to be prominent not only by its position but also by the richness of its material and ornamentation. Apart from the liturgical part of the Mass, it serves as the repository for the Eucharistic Presence and becomes the centre of all the more solemn parochial functions of the year.
"Already there is much discord in My Church upon earth. It saddens everyone in Heaven. And We are out in force now, going throughout the world seeking to set up armies of good children who will fight, to the bitter end if necessary, to save My Church upon earth. It is being destroyed. Just as rodents will burrow into a house, those who have evil natures are burrowing into My Church. We find it almost unrecognizable, My children. However, I will say this: I asked you to remain in your parish churches, not to judge by the actions of man.” – Jesus, March 18, 1989
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