Cor Orans Revisited...

Read Hilary's Cor orans, Part I HERE.

[Editor’s Note: “Cor Orans” (“Praying Heart”) is the title of an April 1, 2018 document that implements instructions on how to apply Pope Francis’ 2016 Apostolic Constitution – “Vultum Dei Quaerere” (“Seek the Face of God”) addressed to Catholic women religious in contemplative communities. MJM]

One of the abiding characteristics of documents coming from the current administration in the Vatican is the aspect of “bait and switch,” the clever couching of completely opposite intentions in pious Catholic language. Many of the critics-of-the-critics of Amoris Laetitia pointed to the “good” passages of that document praising the family, and excoriated as “paranoid” the people who pointed out that these were there mainly to serve the function of the sugar that helped the drop of arsenic go down.

Pope Francis and Cardinal Newman

August 2, 2018 will go down in Catholic history as the day when the supposedly impossible happened.

On that day, Pope Francis unilaterally dismissed centuries of moral teaching from both Scripture and Tradition by proclaiming capital punishment as immoral, even as a punishment for first-degree murder. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith changed the Catechism in May to embody the new teaching.

Those defending it claim the new moral teaching reflects doctrinal development, an idea Cardinal John Henry Newman popularized in the 19th Century. But upon closer examination, the new moral teaching contradicts all of Newman's tests for evaluating such development.  

Remnant Editor’s Note: As part of our ongoing effort to show how Francis, far from being some roguish papal maverick, is in fact part and parcel of the deeply-entrenched conciliarist revolution in the Catholic Church, we present this excellent Remnant article whose esteemed author foresaw Francis’s latest scandal on the horizon already twenty years ago. This article from March of 2001 was prompted by earlier and more subtle papal attempts to undermine the Church’s teaching on capital punishment. Of course, Pope Francis has taken it much further, but the fuzzy-headed Modernist take on capital punishment is certainly not something Francis invented. His ban on capital punishment was a long time coming, its groundwork having been laid back when Jorge Bergoglio was still in short pants. MJM

TO ARGUE AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY is to contend with constituted reality. Ever since Adam and Eve committed the Original Sin, every living creature is subject to it. Every one of us is born on Death Row and lives out his allotted lifespan in its shadow without hope of reprieve. God made that clear when He told Adam that “in what day soever” he preferred his own will above his Creator’s, “thou shalt die the death,” condemning him sooner or later to “return to the earth out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return” (Gen. 3:19). In other words, there has always been a death penalty. God instituted it, and He was the first to impose it, embedding it in the very fabric of natural law.

Cardinal Carrera assists Cardinal McCarrick. Also pictured are Cardinal Pell, Cardinal O'Malley, and Cardinal Mahony. (Photo Cred: Paul Haring | CNS)

The Barque of Peter is stuck in an unholy see of “filth.” Many of its occupants struggle to normalize their relationships with the cabin boys. On the poop-deck is Theodore (“Uncle Ted”) Mc Carrick, and behind him are numerous clerics, all saluting McCarrick and sporting blue-striped sailor ensembles. Apparently, he liked his victims and “lovers” to wear such outfits on occasion. Those saluting encourage the oarsmen, as the barque forays deeper and deeper into the filth:

“Forward, forward, there shall be no turning back,” as Pope Francis has stated with regard to the changes of Vatican II.  

It is the solemn hour. The priest has summoned God from Heaven. The Consecration has been done. The ancient Sacrifice is renewed. Our Lord lies on the altar. He lies there, waiting. Waiting for you to come to Him. Waiting to come to you.

First, we must prepare. Our hearts must be ready.

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum, the priest intones in the old Rite; the Peace of the Lord be with you always, he says in the new.         

By the power granted him at his ordination, it is the Peace of Christ the priest bestows, not his own. Not friendly sociability or kindly affability. Not openness or caring or concern. None of those things, just the awesome Peace of the Holy One, Jesus Christ Our Lord. It is the wounded Hand of God reaching out to touch us with His Love. This supernatural Peace is ours to receive. It is ours to keep. It is ours to have confidence in the One Who, in a few moments, will come to us, will enter our soul, will feed us with Himself.

“Where the tongue slips, it speaks the truth” ~An old Irish Proverb

His dismissive arrogance oozes off the computer screen. He barely can contain his congenial disdain for this meddlesome matter. One scant minute is all he can muster to defend, distance and obscure his friendship with a sexual monster. Yet, 60 seconds is all we need to see this calloused soul, this lilliputian of a man with his mediocre and mendacious mind, who rose from the clerical ranks to Vatican heights.

Cardinals Maradiaga and McCarrick

Well, it’s been quite a couple of news weeks for the Catholic Church, hey? McCarrick, Pineda/Maradiaga, Fr. James Larkin getting the boot in Dublin for upholding Catholic teaching on abortion… I know some people are, to put it bluntly, freaking out. The anger of the laity over the McCarrick situation is boiling over into the Twitter feed of the people we still call “the good bishops”. Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence RI, - nicknamed the “Good Tobin” in contrast to the “Bad Tobin” and FrancisCardinal, Joseph Tobin of Newark – got quite an earful when he tweeted the other day, “Despite the egregious offenses of a few, and despite the faults and sins we all have, I’m very proud of my brother bishops and I admire and applaud the great work they do everyday for Christ and His Church.”

“The true Sweden is Catholic Sweden.” –Fr. Håkan Lindström, SSPX

(Western) Europe is post-Christian.” –Justice Antonin Scalia

On an unusually warm Spring afternoon in Stockholm, an architecturally beautiful city, described by a frequent visitor “as a mixture of Edinburgh and Venice,” I met with Fr. Håkan Lindström, SSPX, to discuss the past, present, and future of the Catholic Church in Scandinavia. (N.B.: when speaking of “Scandinavia,” the only nations that are correctly included are Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. When Iceland and Finland are included, the word “Nordic” is used. Some ethnographers would include the “Sami,” Europe’s only nomads, in that group.)

Also at the meeting was Ferdinand Hellers, an “advokat” (attorney), who, like Padre Lindstrom, is a convert from Lutheranism, and, as the lawyer mentioned, someone who “had enough” of the Novus Ordo Church. He is dedicated to the SSPX in general, and Fr. Lindstrom, who was ordained in 2009, in particular. So much so, in fact, that Herr Hellers has traveled to London to hear Fr. Lindstrom say Mass and preach. To square the circle, I also sought the input of official representatives of the Novus Ordo Churches in Sweden and Norway to assess where the Church of Rome currently stands in their respective countries.