John Pacheco Campaign Update:
(Plus Reaffirmation of Endorsement and Strategy Suggestions for Upcoming Debate)

Your humble servant heard yesterday through the grapevine that the Canadian Parliment voted to designate the Bible as "hate literature" because of its clear denunciations of sodomite behaviour. Though not sure if this is true or not, We at Rerum Novarum want to take this time to vigorously reaffirm our endorsement of our friend John Pacheco in Ottawa South. John's campaign site is HERE. Please include him, his family, and those actively running his campaign and their families in your prayers. (As well as help out however you can be it time, talent, or treasure.) If what was heard through the grapevine is correct, things are only getting uglier up there in Canada.

On a more positive front, it was nice for yours truly to find himself on the same side of the fence as Pat Buchanan again - something I have not seen too often since repudiating the Republican Party after the 1996 elections.{1} Nonetheless the following article from anthropologist Peter Wood is in a magazine of Buchanan's and it is worth reading and - in your case John - using in your debate. If I may offer some advice for the latter occasion, it would be the following:

Do not make this primarily a faith issue or you will likely not have the convergence needed to (at a minimum) split the ticket to divide your opposition. Winning is of course nice but must be seen as an additional perk to playing the saboteur against the liberals and (at a minimum) striving to divide their house. (The old adage "taking them down with me if I am going down" applies here.)

For that reason, I would recommend the tactical approach of making the faith part of this fight a secondary prong to the equation. Primarily I would advise fighting this battle based on the anthropological implications the gay "marriage" idea will have for society. (As such an approach will more readily convince those of good will who are not of faith and only more solidly confirm the view that those of faith already have.) Here is the Wood article for assistance in your debate:

Sex and Consequences - by Peter Wood

And an epilogue quote for pondering from the above text:

Anthropology—hometown to cultural relativists and all-night diner for disaffected intellectuals—may not be where you would most expect to find good reasons to defend traditional American family values. But anthropology, in fact, guards a treasure house of examples of what happens when a society institutionalizes other, arrangements.

Want to know what it really means for a society to recognize “gay marriage”? Or for a society to permit polygamy? Or when the stigma on out-of-wedlock birth disappears? Care to know what happens to a human community that tolerates sexual experimentation among pre-adolescents and teenagers? Are fathers and mothers really interchangeable? Anthropology actually has a large amount of empirical evidence on all these matters—and many others that are now on the table in the United States thanks to various advocacy movements.

The Leftist political convictions of many of my fellow anthropologists tend to keep them silent about some of the scientific findings that have accumulated over 150 years or so of systematic ethnographic study. But these findings strongly suggest that the family is a bedrock institution and that the kinds of modifications to the family advocated by gays, feminists, and others who speak in favor of relaxing traditional restrictions on sexual self-expression will have huge consequences.

Let’s take an anthropologically informed look at two of these proposed changes to the family: gay marriage and polygamy.

For more, see the article link above. Oh be warned though, it is not suitable reading for children.

Note:

{1} In 1996 I was selected as an alternate at one of our state caucuses to represent Buchanan at the state party convention. Though I repudated the Republican party after this point, I did not follow Buchanan whom it became clear to me was a better policy analyst or point man than an actual leader. (In retrospect I think this may also have been in part because I was entering into the first throes of challenging my radtrad weltanschauung and Buchanan's connection there is known to all.)

Upcoming Apostolic Exhortation:

Pope John Paul II will be promulgating on October 16, 2003 (twenty-fifth anniversary of his pontificate) an Apostolic Exhortation on the figure of the bishop. According to Zenit this is a post-synodal exhortation which will gather the conclusions of the synod of bishops, held in the Vatican from Sept. 30 to Oct. 27, 2001, on "The Bishop: Servant of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the Hope of the World." See HERE for more on this subject.

Hopefully this time after many of them have been humiliated by their negligence in the fallout of 2002 that they will finally start paying attention to what they are supposed to be doing: teaching, governing, and sanctifying their flocks not being a bunch of paper-pushing bureaucrats.

A Significant Oversight By Yours Truly:
(But one which *will* be corrected soon)

[This entry was also blogged today at The Lidless Eye Inquisition due to (i) its importance on a commonly misunderstood subject amongst radtrads and (ii) the note it contains about an oversight in one of my writings that will be tended to - ISM]

It was brought to my attention recently that I overlooked a part of the statements of Cardinal Alfons Stickler in the section of my treatise which dissects piece by piece the stock "we are not in schism" pamphlet by the SSPX.

Now those who have read that section of the treatise before already know that all of the SSPX's "experts" who supposely vindicate them in reality explicitly condemn them as schismatics and their bishops as excommunicates - except Cardinal Stickler.{1} But the reason for the former not being posted by me as a condemner of their position was that they quoted Cardinal Stickler on the subject of the Tridentine mass, not on the SSPX's illegal and criminal consecrations or other elements pertaining to their schism. (Which was what I focused exclusively on when drafting that section in November of 1999.) Nonetheless, one small point slipped under my radar and it is the ellipse (and the lack of some ellipses) in the following part of the pamphlet:

Pope John Paul II, in 1986, asked a commission of nine cardinals two questions. Firstly, did Pope Paul VI, or any other competent authority legally forbid the widespread celebration of the Tridentine [Latin] Mass in the present day? The answer given by eight of the cardinals in '86 was that, no, the Mass of Saint Pius V has never been suppressed. I can say this, I was one of the cardinals. There was another question, very interesting. 'Can any bishop forbid any priest in good standing from celebrating a Tridentine Mass again?' The nine cardinals unanimously agreed that no bishop may forbid a Catholic priest from saying the Tridentine Mass. The nine cardinals unanimously agreed that no bishop may forbid a Catholic priest from saying the Tridentine Mass. We have no official prohibition and I think that the Pope would never establish an official prohibition... because of the words of Pius V, who said this was a Mass forever." (Latin Mass Magazine, May 5, 1995)

Now I have gone into detail on other occasions about why it was not allowed for celebration of the Tridentine liturgical usage prior to 1984 except in very rare cases where there were exceptions made. Pope Paul VI granted Indults to Cardinal Heenan and Archbishop Lefebvre in 1970 - though Lefebvre by his suspension could no longer lawfully utilize it. There was also an exception made for elderly priests who were viewed as either too old to learn the new rite or who wished to celebrate the older usage in private. So while it is true that there was no suppression of the older usage, at the same time prior to 1984 it was funcionally almost non-existent.

And since then with the Indults it has been the responsibility of the bishops to allow or not allow it as the pope has not (yet) ordered that they have to. So I note this here because it is clear from the rare allowances Pope Paul made for the use of this liturgical form that he has not forbid it. He had cancelled out the law that prescribed that liturgical usage universally and gave any priest throughout the world the right to say that particular mass though.

Currently the only Missal that has this right throughout the world is the Revised Roman Missal of Pope Paul VI. The Tridentine liturgical usage is regulated by derogation from the law prescribed by Pope Paul with Missale Romanum - a derogation put in place by Pope John Paul II in 1984 with a limited Indult - followed by a wider Indult in 1988 which abrogated the Indult of 1984.

I will not go into further details of the 1984 and 1988 Indults here as this has been done elsewhere. And of course the church law which prescribed the Missal of Pius V for usage throughout the Church was quite clearly cancelled out{2} and my intention at this time is not to go over why appeals to immemorial custom will not work in this case - at least not at this time. In summary, while Pope Paul never forbid the older mass form, at the same time it was not allowed under Church law prior to 1984 except in the rare cases where Pope Paul granted a privilege for its celebration - and those granted such a privilege had not been suspended of their faculties as Archbishop Lefebvre was in July of 1976. I note that here so that the reader does not misunderstand what Cardinal Stickler's words actually convey.

Having been brought to my attention another blatantly dishonest quoting of sources by the SSPX, I tracked down my Spring 1995 copy of The Latin Mass with the Cardinal Stickler piece in it. There is his essay which I have already written a detailed confutation of back in early 2001. (See my Writings url for details.) But the quotes from the SSPX come from another section which runs on the same pages of the essay but underneath it in gray colour titled Cardinal Stickler Speaks Out.

Ironically, I completely forgot about this section as I had not read this issue for about six years. (Even when I wrote my rebuttal piece I used a web version so that I would not have to type out the piece at all.) And as I forgot I had the issue until very recently, the issue played no role in my treatise where I treated on this subject matter. (The intention there was to point out that Stickler had nothing whatsoever to say about the schism subject so the SSPX could not cite him as an ally.) Anyway, I repost the SSPX quote and will add in purple font what they "conveniently" do not mention - the one word omission intrigued me to track down my hardcopy of the magazine and many other forgotten goodies presented themselves in that section.

Any notes in brackets were added to His Eminence's comments by Latin Mass Magazine and I decided to leave them in despite not agreeing with the terminology used (i.e. traditional mass). The Cardinal's words as quoted by the SSPX will be in blue font. I will add words and paragraphs in purple which are either not included in that pamphlet or disingenuously excised to manipulate the words of His Eminence. All bold and underlined parts for emphasis are also courtesy of yours truly. But without further ado, let us get to it.

Did Pope Paul actually forbid the old rite?

Pope John Paul II, in 1986, asked a commission of nine cardinals two questions. Firstly, did Pope Paul VI, or any other competent authority legally forbid the widespread celebration of the Tridentine Mass in the present day? No. He asked Benelli explicitly, "Did Paul VI forbid the old mass?" He never answered - never yes, never no.

Why? He couldn't say "Yes he forbade it." He couldn't forbid a mass which was from the beginning valid and was the Mass of thousands of saints and faithful. The difficulty for him was he couldn't forbid it, but at the same time he wanted the new Mass to be said, to be accepted. And so he could only say, "I want that the new Mass should be said." This was the answer all the princes gave to the question asked. They said: the Holy Father wished that all follow the new Mass.

The answer given by eight of the cardinals in '86 was that, no, the Mass of Saint Pius V has never been suppressed. I can say this, I was one of the cardinals. Only one was against. All the others were for the free permission: that everyone could choose the old Mass. That answer the Pope accepted, I think; but again when some bishops' conferences became aware of the danger of this permission, they came to the Pope and said, "This absolutely should not be allowed because it will be the occasion, even the cause, of controversy amongst the faithful." And informed of this argument, I think, the Pope abstained from signing this permission. Yet, as for the commission -I can report from my own experience- the answer of the great majority was positive.

There was another question, very interesting. 'Can any bishop forbid any priest in good standing from celebrating a Tridentine Mass again?' The nine cardinals unanimously agreed that no bishop may forbid a Catholic priest from saying the Tridentine Mass. The nine cardinals unanimously agreed that no bishop may forbid a Catholic priest from saying the Tridentine Mass. We have no official prohibition and I think that the Pope would never establish an official prohibition not because of the words of Pius V, who said this was a Mass forever. Those words of Pius V were common for an important decision of the Pope. He always said, "This is valid forever." But this was not a theological, it was not a dogmatic statement, this decree of the Pope promulgting his Tridentine Mass order. And so it could be changed by his successors....

In Italian, they say that one pope gives the bull and another takes the bull again, that is, he can change the disposition of his predecessor...

So what about a bishop forbidding the Mass in the case of a priest or a whole dioceses? You must realize that a bishop is the only one who has responsibility for his dioceses....Bishops have no jurisdiction over their collegues. A bishop in his dioceses, for his dioceses and his subjects, can find the arguments to forbid it. He can say, "This is disturbing to the peace in the dioceses."

It is necessary to notice that the privilege [of saying the traditional Mass, under the papal indult of 1984] is given to the bishops, not the faithful. So a bishop can use the privilege or not. [Latin Mass Magazine Summer 1995]

And of course if the bishop does not use the privilege, then those under him cannot either. Hence the argument that any priest anywhere can say the Tridentine mass without recourse to their local ordinary - a position that the SSPX deliberately misrepresented Cardinal Stickler as a proponent of - goes down in flames along with the other "proofs" decimated by yours truly in that section of the treatise.

Oh, and I *will* be adding this material to that url in the coming days so yet another lie of the SSPX and radtrads who mimic their lies stands refuted. And by an ally of the Tridentine movement no less.


Notes:

{1} While Cardinal Cassedy also does not explicitly condemn them as schismatics, he does nonetheless imply it in his comments about the Society being "not another Church or Ecclesial Community in the meaning used in the [Ecumenical] Directory." However, to explain that would be beyond the scope of that project as it delves into intricacies of Canon Law which are beyond the competence of this writer to adequately handle. In short, ask Pete Vere about it.

{2} The general allowance to celebrate the Missal of Pius V was cancelled out when Pope Paul promulgated the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum in place of the previous Apostolic Constitution Quo Primum. The latter was either abrogated (annulled) or obrogated (replaced) depending on which canonist you ask. But the functional effect is the same in both cases.

The Conspiracy of Sandra Meisel!!!

One of the links I was contemplating for the next weblog update was Sandra Meisel's December 2002 article on Swinging at Windmills. However, a scheme was uncovered by your mentally-exhausted-but-still-able-to-sniff-out-a-conspiracy blog host which has quashed this idea. But before I explain the details of this abomination, it is worthwhile to note first that even the title much too closely resembles my reference to tilting at windmills in an essay I wrote in 2001. If that was all there was then chalking it up to coincidence would be possible. But that is not all gentle reader ohh no, we are just getting started.

Consider that the piece she has authored - a piece on conspiracies - has quite possibly had a role in a conspiracy itself!!! This is a bold assertion gentle readers but we will supply the evidence. It will then be up to you to acknowledge the fact that she has hoodwinked you and that Crisis Magazine is clearly in on it as well.

A subtitle of her longer essay is titled The Protocols of Paranoia. This subtitle for some reason did not jump out at me the first time I read the piece earlier this year; however now after reaquainting myself with my old conspiracy paradigm from years back, now it so clearly does. For you see, I find it intriguing that this so eerily comes close to a section of my treatise titled Protocols and Paranoia and which - like Ms. Meisel's section - happens to discuss the Protocols of Zion. The following quotes from Ms. Meisel's piece will be in black while quotes from my treatise will be in darkblue. Without further ado, let us get to it. First we quote from Ms. Meisel's piece:

In the 1890s, the decade of the Dreyfus Affair, czarist Russian secret agents adapted a French satire on Napoleon III into the infamous Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

Now from my treatise section Protocols and Paranoia:

The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion document was shown to be a hoax over eighty years ago. It was a known forgery even in the early 1920's. (The authorship has been established to have been someone or a group within the Tzar's secret police.) It was written at the earliest in the closing decades of the nineteenth century and based on a French satire.

Now then, what are we to make of this??? I suppose we could simply claim that it is a "coincidence," that Sandra and I happened to seize on and utilize almost the exact same section title. Of course people who say this would probably dismiss as "coincidental" the fact that we both referred to the Protocols as not the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" but instead as the "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" rather than as it is commonly referred to. And I suppose both references to a French satire were mere "coincidence" too??? Or was there instead a...deliberate and...premeditated.......borrowing.......by Ms. Meisel.......of my work as part of a..............grand conspiracy to.......................... undermine..............other potential conspiracies??? Oh we are not done yet, here is yet more proof:

cabals of Jewish financiers

cabalistic...Jewish.

These are simply too close to the following from Protocols and Paranoia:

an elite cabal of Jews

And yet we have more...

denied the...Holocaust.

Holocaust denial

Will it never cease???

Jews...Freemasons in the basement? Reds under the bed? Black helicopters in the sky? Answer: A surprising number of otherwise sensible people. Even under the new shadow of terrorism, old fears live on, breeding bogeys that knot together in a vipers’ tangle of menace.

...Judeo-Masonic-Communist conspiracy and/or the imminent arrival of the Antichrist to rule over the New World Order. Their anxieties are often fueled by anti-Semitic screeds, polemical histories, eccentric economics, and even heavenly messages.

the 'traditionalist' movement is home to every kooky fringe theory that you can possibly imagine. There is a whole cornucopia of them from Masons running the Vatican to Jews running the world to Holocaust denial...

And finally, this tidbit:

The protocols provided the foundation for many of the worst anti-Semitic theories in the 20th century, influencing even Hitler.

There was virtually no revisions made to the Protocols and Paranoia section in late December 2002 and early January of 2003 when the treatise was revised, expanded, and made easier to download and read. However, one sentence was deleted from the Protocols and Paranoia section from how it read since 2000 and it was the following one:

Of course this is the same "logic" that Adolph Hitler used in Mein Kampf (written in 1923) when he addressed the fact that the "Protocols" were known to be a forgery even in his day.

Now since Sandra Meisel wrote her article *before* that sentence was excised out of the current treatise section, it would seem to be obvious that the excerpt from her essay was based on the above sentence. I mean come on, the fact that we *both* mentioned the Protocols in relation to Hitler??? Can the evidence be any more convincing???

How anyone cannot so clearly see what all of this adds up to is a mysery to me. Now I suppose that someone could argue that 99% of Meisel's piece shows no potential borrowing of any kind - and even the above are not verbatim bits but you see...that is the whole point: the 99% is a mere *distraction* to allow for the 1% to be snuck into the piece undetected. And the reason they are not verbatim is because Sandra Meisel is much too clever to do that lest her machinations be detected by the untrained eye.

In summary, that there is a conspiracy here is evident to all who can read the tea leaves. Exactly what that conspiracy is will require more research but it is there......."undisputedly" I say!!!

It is a couple months old now but Michael Medved's commentary on Mel Gibson's upcoming movie The Passion is worth reading.

It seems that the more abridged catechism aimed at young people spoken of in October of 2002 by Bishop Donald Wuerl is almost ready for approval by the US Bishops Conference. (Bishop Wuerl last year specified November of 2003 for the approval of the US Bishops.) So I figured that notifying the readers of this upcoming development would be a good thing to do now. See the link above for more details.

While I can (and do) concur with a lot of what Brian Preston notes HERE about anti-war protesters in general, at the same time I seem to be detecting a bit of a Manifest Destiny outlook in Bryan's words:

Reality is what the anti-war people don't want to face. They don't want to acknowledge that we have enemies who will not be placated with nice talk. They don't want to acknowledge that our enemies hate us no matter what we do, because in their minds if all this is our fault it's easier to fix. Fix ourselves and the bad guys will break bread with us. They don't want to acknowledge that the world is a nasty, brutish place that occassionally spawns monsters that good men and women must fight. They just don't want to look evil in the eye, fearing that they will quail and give in to it rather than confront and defeat it. And on that last, they have proven themselves right. Having looked evil in the eye on 9-11, they bent knee and wanted us all to sue for peace. They still don't understand why we didn't.

Well, in some respects this is true but there is more to it than just that. For example, if America were to (i) outlaw abortions (ii) stop promoting a utilitarian mentality that dehumanizes innocent life (iii) cease trying through its courts to expunge God out of the public conscience (iv) stop trying to assimilate them into these and other egregious errors via media industrial forms of imperialism, then yes: there would be a hell of a lot less bad guys who thought of us as The Great Satan.

We deceive ourselves into thinking we are a moral people when we endorse either explicitly or tacitly what is outlined above. And as heinous as the terrorist attacks were, at the same time we need to in part look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we are really as lily white and innocent as many war partisans seem to want to pretend that we are.

"Miller Time" Dept.
(A Rerum Novarum Seven Part Update)

A movement is accomplished in six stages...
And the seventh brings return...

Danger: Potential Parodies Ahead!!!

Apparently they sell "Pope Innocent III" action figures up here in Seattle. I am wondering if he comes with (Hans) Kung Fu grip as well.

In other news, here is more evidence of society's decline.

With regards to a recent blog on Microsoft in the schools, I am wondering if Jeff's outlining of Microsoft enabled student is supposed to be a joke or not. I mean, all humour has to have some grains of truth to it to be funny but there is much more than mere grains of truth in this one.

In other news, The Curt One has also put the pieces together on the mysterious relationship between Elvis Presley and Pope John XXIII. In the words of The Monkees, "now I'm a believer." (Or was it "daydream believer"???)

Following the tradition of the "For Dummies"™ instructional series, Jeff gives us Liturgy for Ignoramuses. Thankfully with Blessed Sacrament I do not have to worry about the problems he outlines - not to say that things are perfect of course.{1}

In a breaking newsstory, Jeff Miller has in a rare digital archeological find discovered Adam's BLOG.That is right folks, the fellow known as The First Adam. Click HERE for details.

And finally, as there appear to be a number of "Jeff Miller's" running around, The Curt One wants us all to be properly informed; hence this disclaimer to clear up certain potential confusions. (And possibly create even more but that is another story.)

Note:

{1} There is still the "grip and grin" of course but I have had some thoughts the past few months on this practice and am beginning to see both a biblical as well as practical reason for it if properly conducted. (And yes that means it will be blogged on when I am in the mood to do so.) That the majority of parishoners do not properly exchange the kiss of peace is hardly a thesis that I would defend; however that is another story altogether...