non veni pacem

In fact, they argue that if you believe that the pope is a different man than the man they believe is pope, then you are in SCHISM. I rather think it is a species of the leftist tactic wherein everyone who disagrees with me is literally Hitler.
I post here a condensed version of a letter, from an anonymous priest, to Bishop Gracida:
Original HERE

Dear Bishop,
I wish to comment on your Open Letter to the Cardinals of the Church :
The above Open Letter is absolutely brilliant!  …
Most people have a very strong position that Francis is Pope due to the fact that an Infallible Dogmatic Fact arises when a Cardinal is validly elected as a Successor of Peter. The book by John Salza and Robert Siscoe, True or False Pope?, has been hailed as a powerful source for that position, given their treatment on Universal and Peaceful Acceptance of a Pope. However, I have challenged that position precisely because there is apostasy within the Church…
I have argued with Mr. Siscoe, advancing quotes in support of my position from the renowned theologian Canonist Canon Herve, that given the Apostasy WITHIN the Church today, (which was foretold by Our Lady at Fatima and indeed is part of the Third Secret of Fatima per Cardinal Ciappi, Papal Theologian to Pope John Paul II, when he said that “The apostasy in the Church begins at the top”), there CAN BE NO TRUE UNANIMITY, I.E., UNIVERSAL ACCEPTANCE…
Furthermore, St. Pius X states in his Encyclical on Modernism:  “And now with Our eyes fixed upon the whole system, no one will be surprised that We should define it to the synthesis of all heresies.  Undoubtedly, were anyone to attempt the task of collecting together all the errors that have been broached against the faith and to concentrate into one the sap and substance of them all, he could not succeed in doing so better than the Modernists have done.  Nay, they have gone further than this, for, as We have already intimated, their system means the DESTRUCTION NOT OF THE CATHOLIC RELIGION ALONE, BUT OF ALL RELIGION.”
Since that Encyclical how many modernists have entered the Church, are today running the Church and are bereft of “ALL RELIGION”?  I don’t know how Mr. Siscoe and Mr. Salza can argue that there is truly a “Consensus fidelium” and thus that we have the assurance that Francis is the true Pope.  In fact, they argue that to deny that Francis is the true Pope is a sin against the Faith.  And this is why I personally believe that Benedict, whose renunciation actually indicates that he intended to maintain the Petrine Office, is the true Pope and remains the true Pope until he dies. (edit: or until he VALIDLY resigns)
– A Catholic Priest
July 20, 2019

And then there is the combox:

This is tomorrow’s bulletin from St. Cornelius Catholic Church in Chadds Ford, PA:

LINK
I mean, not that I’m surprised. Everyone expects for the noncardinal to have his resignation immediately accepted upon its submission on his 75th birthday in September. Were it to NOT be immediately accepted by the petrine usurper, that would be a real shock.
But you’re really out there front-running it two months beforehand? Has he already been told to pack up his stuff and get back to the reservation? I suppose if you know there will not be a long goodbye, you might as well tailgate the pre-party.
Archbishop Chaput has long been an enigma. Conservative on most things, friendly to Tradition, pretty strong track record in Philly, and in Denver before that. One of the better bishops in the USA, I think would be a safe assessment, if not damning with faint praise.
But then there were those infuriating moments. He was a Never-Trumper, issuing hugely contradictory and unhelpful statements during the 2016 campaign, further confusion on immigration, etc, etc.
It’s late and it’s been a long day. Will be following this to see what comes next. I fear for my native place.
 
 

UPDATE: Commentary from Miss White can be found by scrolling further, inserted at the appropriate spot in this post.

“I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. For I am even now ready to be sacrificed: and the time of my dissolution is at hand.” 2 Tim 4:1-6

What you are about to read is not calumny. Neither is it detraction, since everything in this post is already a matter of public record. I am morally bound to cover this (Canon 1752, Salus animarum supemus lex esto), because I have personally recommended and directed the readership of this blog to the writings and rantings of a certain “thought leader” of Trad Inc., and I have written several blog posts praising her work. Her name is Hilary White, and her erratic actions in the past 6-8 months have been cause for concern, including some nasty calumny as well as public declarations of both heresy and borderline apostasy.
I have posted warnings previously, but in the past I had always redacted her identity, while correcting the errors. Vis:

Let’s move on to the law of unintended consequences. This happens when someone holds a conviction to be true because the data set seems to confirm it, but doesn’t think through the logical implications. The madness we are swimming in can make smart people operate in strange ways. I paste here a couple examples.

This person thinks neither Benedict nor Bergoglio is pope (de facto sedevacantism). They think Bergoglio is an antipope because of his myriad heresies, but that he really was the pope at one point. Which means the See is currently vacant. But they don’t really want to say so, and they certainly don’t want to try to do anything about it. We have to “carry on” doing nothing, saying nothing. It doesn’t matter that millions of souls are at risk, either by losing their faith or by being ratified in their sins by this wretched regime. Better to lie low, you know.

This person is taking the position of the Old Catholic movement: They reject the doctrine of Papal Infallibility as defined at the First Vatican Council. Since it doesn’t make sense that a true pope can be so very fallible, this person wonders if it is solemnly declared settled doctrine that’s wrong. Don’t do this. Don’t let the raging heresy of Bergoglio lead you to question previous magisterial teaching. Don’t become a heretic because a heretic “pope” is leading you to question everything you previously believed.
Keep the faith.
Don’t panic.
God knows what He is doing, and He doesn’t keep the truth hidden. FULL POST HERE

That was back in November, after which she swore off twitter for a few minutes. Prior to that, she had also shut down her blog for little while, but everything is back up and running now.
Below is the culmination of a series of tweets earlier this week, wherein she relentlessly mocked the new Mass. Every Catholic needs to be on notice, as the stakes are sort of high, as every single one of us tries to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Liberal Catholicism: "There is no difference between orange juice and arsenic. Drink up."

Conservative Catholicism: "Orange juice is good for you. Just drink around the arsenic."

Catholicism: "Even a teeny bit of arsenic is deadly. Don't drink poisoned orange juice."

— Hilary White; Sacred Art (@hilarityjane) July 15, 2019

This is an attempted justification for ditching the Third Commandment. What she is saying is that, if all that is available to you is the Novus Ordo, you shouldn’t go to Mass, because the Novus Ordo is poison. It’s deadly.
This is wrong. Don’t fall for it.
Trust me, I have first hand experience with the horrendous abuses of the Novus Ordo. I suffered through it for YEARS before I found Tradition, and still suffer through it in many other dioceses when traveling during the week, which is almost every week. In my own diocese, I am blessed to have several very reverent Novus Ordo parishes, with very few distractions. I often attend weekday Mass at these when I am home, on days when the Traditional Mass is offered at an inconvenient time.
Quick facts (not opinions) on the Novus Ordo Mass of Paul VI:

1. This Mass was conceived in malice, however,
2. THIS MASS IS VALID, which means,
3. Christ comes down onto that altar, and oh by the way,
4. The Third Commandment has not been abrogated

Miss B. has a beautiful, very inspiring essay on this topic HERE.
I learned a very valuable lesson once, and I learned it from an FSSP priest. I had made a mindless quibble to him about a certain Novus Ordo Mass that I was regularly attending a couple days a week, fully expecting him to express some sort of sympathy.  His four word response hit me like a ton of bricks: “It’s still the Mass.” Translation: “The Eucharist was validly confected, Jesus was there for you, and you are complaining?”
But but but it’s just AWFUL! It’s going to cause me to lose my faith! #feltbanners #guitars #bongos #sisterbutch #fatherjazzhands #hugofpeace #martyhaugen #SJWs #daisydukes
Sometimes being a grown-up means having to deal with unpleasantness. Look at it this way: Your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, whom you should love above all things, wants you to be there, WITH HIM. God Himself, out of love for us, is subjecting Himself to the horrors, the abuses, the blasphemy, the gayness, the music from the pit of Hell. He loves you so much that he comes down from Heaven, naked on the Cross, and offers Himself, not for His sake, but for yours. Man up and figure out how to deal with it.
Then again, there was already something amiss even in Norcia, where the Ancient Mass was within walking distance:

Furthermore, if you think the Novus Ordo is poison, and you simply will not attend, yet after Norcia you move to a place where you know beforehand the Novus Ordo is your only option, what does that say about your intentions?
UPDATE, from the combox, in fairness:

Jesus is really there, body, blood, soul, and divinity. He is there, humbly offering Himself to you yet again, if you will only accept His invitation. He is there, DESPITE what they have done to Holy Mass. He does not abandon us. He is there, He wants your company, He deeply desires His love to be reciprocated. You know it’s true.
Miss White, if you are reading this, my Mass and Rosary were offered for you today.
Just one more thing. If someone tries to tell you that you are in mortal sin or a heretic or schismatic by the very act of attending Mass, which means you should NOT attend, and they make a little joke about a topic that puts souls at risk, give that person a very wide berth. The fate of your eternal soul hangs in the balance, and Trad Inc. thinks it’s funny.

“For let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and in habit found as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the death of the cross. For which cause God also hath exalted him, and hath given him a name which is above all names: That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those that are in heaven, on earth, and under the earth: And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. Wherefore, my dearly beloved, (as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but much more now in my absence,) with fear and trembling work out your salvation.” Philippians 2:5-12

(Aside: The words in Greek are so clear and immutable, the correct translation is even preserved in all the Prot bibles, even though none of them believe in this. How do the sola scriptura people square this passage with Once Saved Always Saved? It makes you wonder how Luther forgot to rip it out, like he did with all the other stuff he didn’t like.)
fear
φόβου (phobou)
Noun – Genitive Masculine Singular
Strong’s Greek 5401: (a) fear, terror, alarm, (b) the object or cause of fear, (c) reverence, respect. From a primary phebomai; alarm or fright.
trembling
τρόμου (tromou)
Noun – Genitive Masculine Singular
Strong’s Greek 5156: A trembling, quaking, fear. From tremo; a ‘trembling’, i.e. Quaking with fear.
 
Man up! Get to Mass! Close your eyes and pray in Latin!

The new SSPX Church at their St. Mary’s, KS campus is going to be incredible.
St. Paul Outside the Walls and St. Mary Major in Rome are the principal architectural inspirations. The vault is 150 feet high. Seating for 1500. $30MM project, and they already have half of it in the bank. Not pledged, mind you… In The Bank.
At one point in the video, one of the layman makes the remark that the grandness and the vertical plane aren’t merely tasteful, beautiful, pleasing to the eye… they are tools designed to inspire holiness. These things help us try harder, help us get to Heaven.

The video is 24 minutes long, and well worth it.
I attended my first SSPX Mass last Sunday. It wasn’t any sort of statement on my part; it was a matter of circumstance. It was absolutely beautiful, powerful, manly. The MC was tight, the servers were trained to a degree I’ve rarely seen, and there were ten of them. Solid sermon, about 20 minutes long. A second priest was hearing confessions when I arrived, and he stayed in the box throughout the Mass. The congregants were friendly.
The only nitpick was cheap incense. Buy your priests good incense, folks. Try THESE. I prefer the Cantica most, but the texture of the Laudate works better with thurible and boat.
I’m not sure where we would be right now if not for Archbishop Lefebvre, but it’s hard not to think of him in Athanasian terms.
Saint Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for us
Saint Athanasius, Doctor of the Church, pray for us
Saint Pius X, pray for us

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel
O my God, in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary (here kiss the Brown Scapular), I offer Thee the Most Precious Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, joining with it my every thought, word and action of this day.
O my Jesus, I desire today to gain every indulgence and merit I can, and I offer them, together with myself, to Mary Immaculate, that she may best apply them to the interests of Thy Most Sacred Heart.
Precious Blood of Jesus, save us!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!
Amen.

Watch what is happening at 0:23 and 0:36 of this video:

What are those Cardinals doing? What is the ontological reality of what you are witnessing?
If you have attained the rank of Cardinal, do you genuflect to another Cardinal?
“Oh, but he’s the Pope Emeritus, we have to show respect!”
Oh really? Would that be respect of the man, or respect of the Office? Because when you genuflect before the actual pope, you are reverencing the Office, not the man. But since “Pope Emeritus” is not an Office, then are you reverencing the man? Which is it?
“Oh, well, he’s the Emeritus, see, so we are reverencing the Office he used to hold, out of respect, you know, but he totally does not hold it now, not even a weensy bit.”
Um, no. If you believe Bergoglio is pope, then it’s impossible for you to reverence the Office by genuflecting in front of a guy who no longer holds any of it, because that Office would belong 100% to Bergoglio. Your genuflection in front of totally not the pope Ratzinger would be reverencing man qua man. Because, according to you, HE HOLDS NO OFFICE. Again, we are dealing here with a question of ontological reality; did you study Aquinas for even one day in seminary?
“Oh but Papa Benedict just wanted to make it easier for future frail popes to retire bless his heart so he gave birth to this new thing that all the cool kids were into back in Germany in the 60s like an amazing bolt from heaven for which the Immaculate Conception was a proxy HERE so that they could retire in style and keep the white and keep the ring and keep the residency and keep the papal title and keep the form of address and keep bringing all the shiny new Cardinals in front of him to receive HIS APOSTOLIC BLESSING.”
Dude. Think about what you are saying. They corral all the new red hats, stuff them onto buses, take them to receive the Apostolic Blessing of Pope Benedict XVI, and they put it all on TeeVee. Why? Why would they do this?
Because God is not a jerk, that’s why. God invented this thing called the Church Visible, and He promised us we would always have it, and He promised He would never leave us. Then he stitched you together in your mother’s womb, atom by atom, building your eyes, and your ears, and your brain.  All men are called to use the latter to find the former.
 

And so it came to pass that Church Militant publishes commentary from Antonio Socci, unabridged and unedited, wherein Socci reintroduces the proof set of the Bergoglian Antipapacy, and they offer it without adding any commentary of their own. HERE
It is unironically ironic that just as the English language subtitle of Socci’s book was changed, against his wishes, from “Why (Benedict) is Still Pope,” to “Is (Benedict) Still Pope?” HERE that the editors at Church Militant chose to subtitle their article, “Antonio Socci on the Pan-Amazon Synod and the Francis Pontificate,” because I can assure you that the term “Francis Pontificate” appears nowhere in Socci’s piece.
Socci knows there is no such thing as a “Francis Pontificate.”
As of this writing, the Church Militant article, published 9 July, has been shared on facebook 198,000 times, and retweeted 24,000 times.
Progress!
I share a snippet here:

But wait, there’s more!

Before and after his resignation, Benedict understood and understands his task as participation in such a “Petrine ministry.” He has left the papal throne and yet, with the step made on February 11, 2013, he has not at all abandoned this ministry. Instead, he has complemented the personal office with a collegial and synodal dimension, as a quasi-shared ministry. … This is why Benedict XVI has not given up either his name, or the white cassock. This is why the correct name by which to address him even today is “Your Holiness”; … He has not abandoned the office of Peter — something which would be entirely impossible for him to do following his irrevocable acceptance of the office in April 2005.

Gaenswein spoke of a “pontificate of exception.”  There are those who believe that by a mysterious design of Divine Providence, the Church is being subjected to a very harsh trial, its own Good Friday, but that the presence of Benedict guarantees that She will not be shipwrecked. Certainly Benedict is central in the Church today. And one day everything will become clearer. 

But wait, there’s still more! From their heavily moderated combox, a remarkable number of people, whom Church Militant would have called schismatics just ten minutes ago, have had their comments approved! Alas, my comment was not among them.
I leave you with the small sample below.

How much longer do you think it’s going to be before there are laws, with jail time attached, for so-called “mis-gendering,” “mis-pronouning,” or “trans-hate?” You know I’m not kidding, and you know I’m not wrong. Are we really destined to fight a war over this? Well, if you remember back to last week, Our Lady of Fatima, Sr. Lucia, and Cardinal Caffarra all had something to say on the matter, which I summed up thusly:

In a nutshell, Satan’s battlespace is anti-reality itself. All of these attacks coming at us from all sides are his attempt, since he is incapable of creating anything himself, to replace God’s creation, that is, REALITY, with an anti-reality. HERE

If you think we have hit peak wokeness, think again. Until you start to understand that for the now totally unhinged left, departure from reality IS NOT A BARRIER. In fact not only is it NOT a barrier, departure from reality is A FEATURE, NOT A BUG.
Out this morning on the website of the local ABC affiliate, as it’s lead story, is the headline, “Foster mom heartbroken after transgender son turned away by Payson summer camp.” HERE

PHOENIX — A Valley foster mother says she’s heart broken after her transgender son was told he could not attend a summer camp in Payson despite receiving a scholarship to go.
“I think summer camp is really a place where foster kids can go to simply be kids,” said Amber Checky. The foster mom says her son was supposed to go to Tonto Creek Camp in Payson.
Her nine-year-old transgender foster son was, as most children would be, excited beyond words to attend camp. “My child was looking forward to doing archery and kayaking and hanging out with other kids,” said Checky, who took the boy in when he was seven years old. With the help of Arizona Friends of Foster Care and the families Court Appointed Special Advocate, her foster son received a $400 scholarship to pay for the camp that began on July 14.

So this (lesbian) foster mom took the girl in 2017, when she was seven years old. Now she is “transgender,” and wants to go to a boy’s camp. I wouldn’t doubt she is a tomboy, which is something you grow out of, but no, she’s def trans, says mom.
Let’s have a look at mom’s LinkedIn profile:

“He was born female identified but feels in his brain and his heart that he is a boy,” said Checky. She says she and her partner have always embraced the person he wants to be, supporting him in every way.
The nine-year-old has become an advocate for the LGBTQ community and has thrived on every front.
He’s educated classmates and teachers about being transgender. Started recycling drives at his small charter school as well as excelled as a student.
But last month, just a few weeks prior to camp, Checky was informed her child would not be allowed to attend.
“We get an email from the chief executive officer saying sorry he’s not able to attend anymore and that the camp staff that they had, that has a degree in this, is no longer able to attend, so they would be refunding us,” said Checky.
The camp at first offered to keep him in a completely separate tent from everyone else attending, something Checky did not feel comfortable with.

Click the link to read the rest. The camp was clearly caught off guard and tried to make it work, confusingly. Trying to deal with Anti-reality can be a real bitch.
John Zmirak had a column back in March, re-posted on Independence Day, titled, “Freedom is the Freedom to say, ‘Bruce Jenner.’ If That is Granted, All Else Follows.” It is a really good piece and I encourage you to click and read it all HERE.

My title takes off from a famous passage in Orwell’s 1984, “Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. If that is granted, all else follows.” Winston Smith doesn’t say it out loud, of course. He scribbles it in his journal. And makes sure that the telescreen which monitors his apartment cannot see him.
But of course, the Inner Party finds out his secret. In fact, when he’s caught and tortured, his inquisitor O’Brien makes it a point to force Winston to deny precisely this point. O’Brien tortures Winston until he’s willing to say that two plus two makes five. But that isn’t enough. An old-fashioned tyrant might settle for that, for mere compliance.
The totalitarian wants more. In fact, he needs it. He needs those whom he dominates to really believe the lies he has fostered. Of which he has first convinced himself. That’s because modern ideologies are something much more and worse than tribal bigotries or misguided political systems. As Eric Voegelin, a refugee from the Nazis, taught us, they are “ersatz religions.” To prosper, they must make the same kinds of demands as real creeds.
They must demand more. Religious faith based on sincere belief in the supernatural taps into profound, deep-seated impulses built into man. We are made, it seems, to believe in and order our lives by something both higher and older than nature. That’s true even of creeds that you and I know to be false, such as Islam. Even they evoke a kind of faith that works in harmony with our natures. It’s simply misdirected.

This is what is meant when we say it was never about tolerance. It was never about acceptance. It was never about celebrating it. It was in the beginning, is now, and forever will be (until we win the war) ABOUT PARTICIPATION. You WILL be made to participate in the madness, or else. They NEED you to believe it the same way they do. What exactly is so puzzling about Revelation 13:16?

We Must Believe Because It Is Absurd

This, my friends, is the future the Left has in mind for us. Whether individual leftists realize it or not. And this is what lies behind the sudden and absolute demands of the Transgender movement. No, I don’t mean that it’s what motivates people who mutilate and poison themselves in pursuit of “gender reassignment.” Those people are mentally ill, as psychiatrists admitted until five minutes ago.
The truth is much more sinister. The left has taken up Transgender ideology not just despite the fact that it’s absurd and contrary to nature. They’ve chosen it because of that. Saying and meaning phrases like “female penis” and “pregnant men” is the absolute equivalent of asserting that two plus two make five — or whatever other number The Atlantic, the Harvard faculty, and the EEOC have most recently said that it makes. They don’t just want you to repeat that, of course. Like O’Brien, they need you to believe it.

Click the link and go read the whole thing. It’s going to get so much worse. Fast and pray.

Some of the headlines this morning read, “Last night’s 7.1 quake was five times more powerful than Thursday’s 6.4 quake.” This is absolutely correct, and yes, we felt it in Phoenix. How is it that a 7.1 is 5x stronger than a 6.4? I’m glad you asked!
The Richter magnitude scale is not a linear multiplier, but rather, exponential. Each increase in whole number represents a 10x increase in magnitude. The accelerating force of exponents is best learned graphically:

So as the exponents increase, the scale keeps getting steeper, or taller.
Here is another graphic that is really helpful in order to relate the numbers to past actual earthquakes, as well as notable examples of energy releases. Remember your physics class: An earthquake is essentially a sudden conversion of Potential Energy into Kinetic Energy, like an explosion or a lightning bolt, so we are able to compare magnitudes between these.

If you were alive in the United States in 1989, you surely remember the Loma Prieta quake, because it happened on live TV during the broadcast of the World Series in San Francisco (yes, back in the 80s, everyone still watched the World Series). The damage was quite widespread, with the enduring images being cars driving off the collapsed Bay Bridge, the pancaked double-decker Nimitz Freeway in Oakland, and the fires in the Marina District. I can still remember how nauseated I felt upon seeing the pancaked freeway, wondering how many cars were crushed beneath. HERE
That was a 6.9 magnitude. If yesterday’s 7.1 had hit a hundred miles farther south, at Palmdale on the fault line, Los Angeles would be in ruins right now.
Stay frosty, and stay Confessed.
For video of chandeliers shaking and pools overflowing, IN ARIZONA, go HERE.
For a terrifying exercise in exponential arithmetic and the fate of your eternal soul, go HERE.