Religious Liberty?

Even the Protestants said no.

Initially, Thomas Cushing, one of the delegates and Founding Fathers of the United States of America, suggested that an inter-religious prayer be said together before the inaugural session of the Continental Congress on 6 September 1774 at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia.

The Prayer in the First Congress

However, John Jay of New York and John Rutledge from South Carolina raised their objection. A certain John Adams later wrote to his wife, Abigail, explaining that the opening prayer was practically impossible "because we were so divided in religious sentiments" and thus "we could not join in the same act of worship".

Many of the Founding Fathers gathered at the Congress are clearly from different Protestant sects, including Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, just to name a few.

Even the Protestants from the different brands and branches of Protestantism do not recognise themselves as a collective group of Christians, as a united 'Body of Christ', as the universal Church of God. They see the differences in doctrines and beliefs, and henceforth conclude that they cannot, in good conscience, pray and worship together. Doesn't this tell us something?

(Sadly), the Modernists' idea of religious liberty set in, as noted by the same John Adams, that a certain "Mr S Adams arose and said he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue who was at the same time a friend to his country". In the end, "the motion was seconded and passed in affirmative".

Modernism is not a modern concept at all. Be reminded that this took place in 1774.

The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima

Old, traditional Catholic movies are the best.

And this one is not an exception. Here are some excerpts compiled from this beautiful movie:

Our Lady did not, and will never, lie. The Miracle of the Sun did happen on the thirteenth day of October that same year.

How beautiful is the Regina Caeli to Our Blessed Mother! Listen to how fervently, how piously the peasants pray and sing to Our Lady in the movie! With how much more faith and reverence must to those happy souls who are present be praying and singing on that blessed day!
On Cova da Ira, the spot where the Apparitions of Our Blessed Lady took place, stands a magnificent Basilica. But woe to the unhappy Modernists, who desecrated the Sanctuary sanctified and consecrated by the Mother of God herself by allowing the pagans, the Hindus in particular, to worship and perform rituals to their idols there! Woe, woe to them!

The Procession to the Sanctuary.

Prayers of reparation for the desecration of the Sanctuary, led by the four Bishops.

The Bishops of the Society of St Pius X led thousands of pilgrims in 2005 to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Fatima to make reparations for the desecrations. Tradition triumps over the Modernism, as the attempted interruption by the singing of the Novus Ordo nuns only encouraged the pilgrims to pray even louder the prayers of the Holy Rosary.

Let us continue to make reparations to the Immaculate and Sorrowful Heart of Mary in our daily prayers!

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God, Church and Soul

Teacher from Hell

Teacher from Hell.

That's what my mates and I used to call our fifth grade English teacher, Hector. When the principal introduced us to the new teachers that year, Hector's reputation preceded him; he was described as a 'walking encyclopedia', a 'drill sergeant', and many other epithets of fear. True enough, when he first came to our classroom, he ordered us to occupy only one fourth of our seats, and have our backs straight as possible; he immediately gave us a ton of homework, and his first words to us were 'I'm not here to be your friend.'

Now, from what I remember, Hector came from a well-off family of lawyers and justices in beautiful Iloilo City, which rivaled Manila in prominence at the end of the Spanish colonial period. Hector studied with the Jesuits in grade school and high school, joined the Opus Dei, went to Harvard, and came back to the Philippines after several years of study. He was the first teacher I'd ever seen who drove a Mercedes Benz to work, and he talked with a perfect Hahvahd accent, with the slightest tinge of a Hispanic flavor to it.

Most of what we knew about Hector came from hearsay. Back then, to us, he was the most awesome teacher we had, while at the same time being the very epitome of Hell. Just a few days into the school year, he already required a notebook to be submitted at the end of the year, containing at least two new words we learned per day, including weekends. The penalty for so much as failure to note one entry was unknown, but we didn't stick around to find out what it was.

He was also the first teacher to deviate from the approved curriculum; he made up his own, and required us to read C.S. Lewis' 'Chronicles of Narnia' instead; for the first quarter, it was 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe', 'Prince Caspian' for the next, and 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader' for the last two. Failure to bring one's book meant being excluded from the lectures for a whole week. Indeed, Hector was so strict in this regard, that some parents even complained against him.

Hector had a lot of quirks. He hated clicky pens, calling them unmanly. One time, a friend of mine who would later on become valedictorian, used a clicky pen for a major test. Hector lost no time in approaching him, and snapped the clicky pen like a twig between his fingers. He also did not mince words; in the Philippines, the Spanish puneta as well as puta are considered exceptionally taboo; he broke this taboo by explaining to us their proper meaning. When he would encourage us, he told us anecdotes from World War II, telling stories of Joseph Goebbels 'the sinister head of the Propagandaministerium'; I don't know why.

He was also our religion teacher as well - and if he was strict in English class, he was doubly strict in religion. He spoke casually of the sufferings our Lord suffered on the Cross, citing ancient Roman sources on the severity of this ignominious execution. One time, during a lecture about the Virgin Mary, an Adventist seat mate of mine cracked, 'Advocate? What do you mean, like the Devil's Advocate?' (The discussion was about Mary being our intercessor before God). Hector fumed, his face turning red; he let out a large scream and swept our jugs, which were resting atop a low shelf to one side of the room, hurling them at Chuck, my Adventist seatmate (who was incidentally our biggest bully). 'Anathem sit! Get the #&*%!@ out of my classroom!' That was the first time I saw Chuck cower in fear. I think he even cried, if I remember correctly.

He was very strict when it came to essays in both subjects; spelling 'ecumenical' wrong, for example, landed one a point's deduction. When someone asked him, 'Sir, can I come inside the room?', he would glower fiercely and say, 'You may not', and slam the door shut. He refused to let the student in until he learned proper grammar. Luckily, I was never one of those students.

There was also a legend, that he picked a fight once with another English teacher in the faculty room, apparently appalled at his grammar or something, who would incidentally go on to teach us in the sixth grade. When we were noisy (and it was rare), he would either make us line outside the room or, more frequently, have us run laps in the quadrangle, or carry our chairs above our heads for forty minutes while he delivered his lectures. The thing that struck fear most of all into us, though, was when he picked up a piece of chalk, and calmly rubbed his forefinger and thumb, and completely pulverized it. Without even breaking a sweat. Without even straining a muscle.

He would have been our Spanish teacher as well, but time did not permit, so we had to settle for another one, who he would probably have called 'a clown' to his face. But that probably would not have been a good idea, since he would have asked us to write essays at least five pages in length (for a Grade 5 student, that's Hell) entirely in Spanish. Besides, I wouldn't want to get a tongue lashing from him like that other student did, whom he called a maricon and a pajero in front of the whole class (the other section).

Looking back, that year under Hector was one of the most memorable things in my mind. Eight years have hardly dulled his memory, and today we still speak of him in a reverent air, afraid that he might pounce at us from a hidden, shadowy corner. Hector was simply awesome; I doubt I'll ever meet another teacher like him again. I would not write the way I do today without his criticisms, and I probably would not know what 'diphenychloroarzine' or 'succinylsulfathiazone' is had he not required those two new words everyday; I must have bled our three volume dictionary set looking for the rarest, most difficult words I could find, but still he knew most of what I put in that notebook.

Please pray for Hector. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer last year, and it is apparently not progressing. He has a beautiful daughter, a lovely wife, and so much to lose-- and still to give-- at this early stage in his life.

In the words of his favorite greeting to us: 'Morituri te salutant!'

We need Catholic teachers like Hector. Big time.

Instaurare Omnia in Christo!

How can the saints, particularly those bathed in the blood of martyrdom, who have suffered and died for the propagation of the Holy Faith ever imagine the cancerous concepts of Modernism ravaging through so many members of the Mystical Body of Christ, nay, even the very heart - the Magisterium, in the present years?

United with the spirit and intention of the late Archbishop (felicis memoriae), we are bound by our moral obligations to echo the Declaration that he had made publicly, and courageously, back in 1974.

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Defender of the Catholic Faith

Declaration of November 21, 1974:

“We adhere with all our heart and all our soul to Catholic Rome, guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary for the maintaining of that Faith, to eternal Rome, mistress of wisdom and of truth. On the contrary, we refuse, and we have always refused, to follow the Rome of neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies, which showed itself clearly in the Second Vatican Council and in the reforms that issued from it.”

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre

And also, this:

The Oath Against Modernism

I, (...), firmly embrace and accept each and every definition that has been set forth and declared by the unerring teaching authority of the Church, especially those principal truths which are directly opposed to the errors of this day. And first of all, I profess that God, the origin and end of all things, can be known with certainty by the natural light of reason from the created world (see Rom. 1:90), that is, from the visible works of creation, as a cause from its effects, and that, therefore, his existence can also be demonstrated: Secondly, I accept and acknowledge the external proofs of revelation, that is, divine acts and especially miracles and prophecies as the surest signs of the divine origin of the Christian religion and I hold that these same proofs are well adapted to the understanding of all eras and all men, even of this time. Thirdly, I believe with equally firm faith that the Church, the guardian and teacher of the revealed word, was personally instituted by the real and historical Christ when he lived among us, and that the Church was built upon Peter, the prince of the apostolic hierarchy, and his successors for the duration of time. Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. I also condemn every error according to which, in place of the divine deposit which has been given to the spouse of Christ to be carefully guarded by her, there is put a philosophical figment or product of a human conscience that has gradually been developed by human effort and will continue to develop indefinitely. Fifthly, I hold with certainty and sincerely confess that faith is not a blind sentiment of religion welling up from the depths of the subconscious under the impulse of the heart and the motion of a will trained to morality; but faith is a genuine assent of the intellect to truth received by hearing from an external source. By this assent, because of the authority of the supremely truthful God, we believe to be true that which has been revealed and attested to by a personal God, our Creator and Lord.

Furthermore, with due reverence, I submit and adhere with my whole heart to the condemnations, declarations, and all the prescripts contained in the encyclical Pascendi and in the decree Lamentabili, especially those concerning what is known as the history of dogmas. I also reject the error of those who say that the faith held by the Church can contradict history, and that Catholic dogmas, in the sense in which they are now understood, are irreconcilable with a more realistic view of the origins of the Christian religion. I also condemn and reject the opinion of those who say that a well-educated Christian assumes a dual personality-that of a believer and at the same time of a historian, as if it were permissible for a historian to hold things that contradict the faith of the believer, or to establish premises which, provided there be no direct denial of dogmas, would lead to the conclusion that dogmas are either false or doubtful. Likewise, I reject that method of judging and interpreting Sacred Scripture which, departing from the tradition of the Church, the analogy of faith, and the norms of the Apostolic See, embraces the misrepresentations of the rationalists and with no prudence or restraint adopts textual criticism as the one and supreme norm. Furthermore, I reject the opinion of those who hold that a professor lecturing or writing on a historico-theological subject should first put aside any preconceived opinion about the supernatural origin of Catholic tradition or about the divine promise of help to preserve all revealed truth forever; and that they should then interpret the writings of each of the Fathers solely by scientific principles, excluding all sacred authority, and with the same liberty of judgment that is common in the investigation of all ordinary historical documents.

Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God...

Given by His Holiness St. Pius X September 1, 1910.

Most unfortunately, this Oath, which is to be sworn to by all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries, has lost its use in the Post-Conciliar church.

So help us God...

Attention: Due to some technical errors, I am no longer able to maintain my previous blog. With this new blog up and running, the legacy of un roi, une loi, une foi continues.