Vatican City, Mar 1, 2018 / 05:57 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A new letter issued by the Vatican’s doctrinal office has reaffirmed that Christian salvation can only come through Christ and the Church, and highlighted modern expressions of Pelagian and Gnostic thought which contradict this belief.
Signed by Archbishop Luis Ladaria SJ, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on the Feb. 22 feast of the Chair of St. Peter, the letter is addressed to the world’s bishops.
It clarifies how the ancient heresies of Pelagianism and Gnosticism are diffused in modern culture, and urges Christians to evangelize while engaging with those from other religions in a spirit of genuine dialogue.
The four-and-a-half page letter consists of six points, including an introduction and conclusion, outlining the errors of Pelagianism and Gnosticism in light of Christian doctrine, and reaffirming Christ as the only means of salvation, which is offered through the sacraments.
According to the letter’s introduction, the aim in writing it is to “demonstrate certain aspects of Christian salvation that can be difficult to understand today because of recent cultural changes,” incorporating Pope Francis’ reflections on the issue.
Modern expressions of Pelagianism and Gnosticism
The letter pointed to the difficulty many have in accepting the teachings of Christianity in today’s society, noting that on one hand, “individualism centered on the autonomous subject tends to see the human person as a being whose sole fulfillment depends only on his or her own strength.”
In this view, Christ is seen as “a model that inspires generous actions with his words and his gestures,” but is not recognized as the one who transforms the human condition by incorporating mankind into a new, reconciled life with the Father.
On the other hand, the letter noted that “a merely interior vision of salvation is becoming common, a vision which, marked by a strong personal conviction or feeling of being united to God, does not take into account the need to accept, heal and renew our relationships with others and with the created world.”
Pope Francis, the letter said, has often spoken of these two tendencies, identifying them with the ancient heresies of Pelagianism and Gnosticism.
Pelagianism gets its name from the monk Pelagius, who lived in the 400s and taught that the human will, as created by God, was enough to live a sinless life. Gnosticism, on the other hand, was a widely diffused belief in the 2nd century that the material world is the result of error on the part of God.
Since the beginning of his pontificate Francis has spoken out about the two heresies, and in 2015 during his pastoral visit to Florence, told participants in the Fifth Convention of the Italian Church that Pelagianism and Gnosticism are two of the greatest temptations that lead the Church away from humility and beatitude.
In the speech, he said Pelagianism “spurs the Church not to be humble, disinterested and blessed,” and does so “through the appearance of something good. Pelagianism leads us to trust in structures, in organizations, in planning that is perfect because it is abstract. Often it also leads us to assume a controlling, harsh and normative manner.”
Norms, he said, “give Pelagianism the security of feeling superior, of having a precise bearing,” while Gnosticism “leads to trusting in logical and clear reasoning, which nonetheless loses the tenderness of a brother’s flesh.”
The attraction of Gnosticism, he said, is “a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feeling.”
Likewise, in Cardinal Joseph Ratzingers’ 1986 spiritual exercises, the future Pope Benedict XVI also condemned the Palegian trend in modern society, calling it a “vice” and saying those who accept Palegianism “do not want forgiveness and in general they do not want any real gift from God either. They just want to be in order.”
“They don’t want hope they just want security,” he said, adding that “their aim is to gain the right to salvation through a strict practice of religious exercises, through prayers and action. What they lack is humility which is essential in order to love; the humility to receive gifts not just because we deserve it or because of how we act.”
In Thursday’s letter, Ladaria said a “new form” of Palegianism is spreading in today’s culture in which the individual, “understood to be radically autonomous, presumes to save oneself, without recognizing that, at the deepest level of being, he or she derives from God and from others.”
According to this thought, salvation “depends on the strength of the individual or on purely human structures, which are incapable of welcoming the newness of the Spirit of God,” the letter said.
However, a new form of Gnosticism is also widely diffused, promoting an understanding of salvation which is “merely interior, closed off in its own subjectivism.”
“In this model, salvation consists of improving oneself, of being intellectually capable of rising above the flesh of Jesus towards the mysteries of the unknown divinity,” the letter said. “It presumes to liberate the human person from the body and from the material universe” in which God is no longer found, “but only a reality deprived of meaning” and “easily manipulated by the interests of man.”
Comparing the two heresies is intended as a simple recognition of “general common features, without entering into judgments on the exact nature of the ancient error,” the letter said, emphasizing that there is a vast difference between modern, secularized society and the social context in which the heresies were born.
However, “both neo-Pelagian individualism and the neo-Gnostic disregard of the body deface the confession of faith in Christ, the one, universal Savior,” the letter said, and reaffirmed that “salvation consists in our union with Christ.”
Man’s search for salvation and Christ as Savior
The letter noted that each person, in their own way, seeks happiness and tries to obtain it through the means they have available.
Yet this desire is not always explicitly expressed, and is frequently “more secret and hidden than it may appear,” revealing itself only in situations of crisis, the letter said, noting that this desire can often be manifested as a desire for better health or economic well-being, and can be expressed as a need for interior peace and peace with others.
It also takes on the character of endurance and the desire to overcome pain, fighting off the “evil” of error, fragility, weakness, sickness and death.
Faced with these aspirations, faith, the letter said, teaches that in rejecting all attempts at “self-realization,” these desires “can be fulfilled completely only if God himself makes it possible, by drawing us toward Himself.”
“The total salvation of the person does not consist of the things that the human person can obtain by himself,” such as wealth, reputation or knowledge, the letter continued, noting that if redemption were judged solely according to the needs of mankind, “how could we avoid the suspicion of having simply created a Redeemer God in the image of our own need?”
The letter then emphasized that God has never stopped offering salvation to his people, and that this redemption has a concrete name and face in Jesus Christ.
Salvation, it said, doesn’t occur in just an interior manner, because Jesus was made flesh in order to communicate with mankind. And by becoming part of the human family, Jesus “has united himself in some fashion with every man and woman and has established a new kind of relationship with God, his Father, and with all humanity.”
Each person can be incorporated in this new relationship and participate in Jesus’ own life, the letter said, adding that Christ’s incarnation, “rather than limiting the salvific action,” allows him “to mediate the salvation of God for all of the sons and daughters of Adam.”
Given this understanding, when faced with the “individualist reductionism of Pelagian tendency, and the neo-Gnostic promise of a merely interior salvation,” Christians have to remember “the way in which Jesus is Savior.”
“He did not limit himself to showing us the way to encounter God, a path we can walk on our own by being obedient to his words and by imitating his example,” but instead opened the door to freedom and pointed to himself as the way.
This path, the letter said, “is not merely an interior journey at the margins of our relationships with others and with the created world,” but consists of a “new and living way” that Jesus inaugurated for mankind in his own flesh.
“Therefore, Christ is Savior in as much as he assumed the entirety of our humanity and lived a fully human life in communion with his Father and with others.”
Salvation is through the Church, the Body of Christ
The letter reaffirmed that the place where humanity receives the salvation of Jesus “is the Church,” beginning with baptism and continuing through the other sacraments.
“Both the individualistic and the merely interior visions of salvation contradict the sacramental economy through which God wants to save the human person,” the letter said.
Salvation cannot be achieved by one’s own individual efforts alone, as neo-Pelagian thought would argue, but is instead found “in the relationships that are born from the incarnate Son of God and that form the communion of the Church,” the letter said.
Likewise, it stressed that the grace of God leads us to concrete relationships that Christ himself formed, and of which the Church is an image.
Salvation, then, “does not consist in the self-realization of the isolated individual, nor in an interior fusion of the individual with the divine,” but rather means being incorporated “into a communion of persons that participates in the communion of the Trinity.”
While Gnosticism has a negative view of creation, seeing it as a limitation of man’s freedom and therefore implying that salvation means freeing oneself from the body and concrete human relationships, true salvation offered by Christ includes the sanctification of the body, the letter said.
With the sacraments, “Christians are able to live faithful to the flesh of Christ and, as a result, in fidelity to the kind of relationships that he gave us,” the letter said, explaining that under this rationale, care for those who are suffering is especially important, particularly through the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.
The letter closed urging Christians to advance in announcing the “joy and light of the Gospel,” while also establishing a “sincere and constructive dialogue” with those from other religions, believing that God can lead all men of goodwill toward salvation in Christ.
“Total salvation of the body and of the soul is the final destiny to which God calls all of humanity,” it said, and urged believers to look forward to the coming of Christ, who will “change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.”
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Ofcourse the Franciscan-Vatican-spokepeople would like to find a place to hide to keep quiet. That’s exactly what happens when Truth is revealed to previously have been made a lie. Liars will squirm, worm, and slither within their swamp, where it remains perpetually dark. God have mercy.
You nailed it.
I’ll add this only makes Bergoglio look worse. If that’s possible.
The trads are making a full-court press to try to coerce Pope Leo into giving them back their TLM. I think they should just go to the SSPX. If they won’t accept the reformed liturgy, we don’t need nor want them. There have to be standards and limits. The TLM definitely is related to anti-Vatican 2 sentiment. That’s what motivated Lefebvre. If he hadn’t seceded from the Church to continue celebrating the TLM, we wouldn’t be having this conversation; the TLM wouldn’t exist anywhere. The TLM is now inherently separatist and isolationist, and it foments an anti-Vatican 2 mindset.
So much falsehood in Donald’s statements. I know a HUGE number of people, many associated with the John Paul II Institutes and MANY other places, that accept and study the documents of Vatican II yet also love the Latin Mass. Some people think there are only two groups – the post Vatican II people who think an entirely new Church came into being in the 1960s, or those who wish us to be frozen in the 16th century. There are SO MANY theologians, living and dead, such as John Paul II, Benedict XVI, David Schindler, Tracey Roland, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Larry Chapp, and scores and scores more who accept Vatican II, development of doctrine, understand the hermeneutic of continuity, etc. They understand that as Aquinas had to deal with Aristotle, so the current Church had to deal with Heidegger etc. We have NO INTEREST AT ALL in schism. People really embarrass themselves by not acknowledging these theologians, saints, popes, etc. As for “we don’t want them”, who are you to kick people out of the Church? Do you feel the same way about devotees of OTHER older rites, such as the Maronite or Dominican (I went to one of their masses a few weeks ago), or newer but different ones like the Anglican Ordinariate? Who gets to decide that the Mass attended by everyone who went to Vatican II, every day, and all the great saints and theologians throughout history, should now be thrown into the dustbin of history? What foments division are those who throw hatred at the Mass of the Ages. There is no reason for it; there are many forms of the Roman Rite and this hatred is obscene.
“There have to be standards and limits.” You attend the Novus Ordo and can actually say this? That is hilarious.
His standards and limits.
As for me, I grew up in the Latin Mass till 17. I was so happy to see it go and not have to depend on my Missal for translation despite having a year of church Latin. I like watching the priest’s face to know the extent of his personal passion for Christ especially at the moment after communion when he is cleaning the fragments of Host. Is it a labor of love or a nuisance? These nuances bleed through the priest’s countenance.
I like taking non-Catholics to Mass to dispel their crazy notions of Catholicism. Can’t do it successfully if the Mass is in Latin.
“I like watching the priest’s face”
It’s not about you.
“know the extent of his personal passion for Christ especially at the moment after communion when he is cleaning the fragments of Host”
This is an astounding absurd take. What if that priest just received bad news day before-that a family member was seriously ill or dying? What if he’s in pain from some chronic ailment?
We shouldn’t be conducting the Mass to provide for the rash judgments of the Rebozos in the pews.
Are you aware that Scott Hahn, one of the greatest living lay evangelists and a Protestant convert himself, attends the Traditional Latin Mass? I see him there almost every week (unless I am attending a Byzantine Divine Liturgy, which I do from time to time). I also grew up with the TLM, and everything you have said about it here is malarkey.
Donald: A friend of mine once had a favored expression. It went like this: “Hate destroys the hater.”
“If they won’t accept the reformed liturgy, we don’t need nor want them.”
Who are you trying to say is “we?” Sounds like Donald thinks he is the arbitrator of the Mass.
So, I guess what Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his letter accompanying the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.” means nothing to you? 🤦♂️
Your point of view on those who worship using the TLM under Summorum Pontificum separates yourself from the judgement of the Synod of Bishops.
How can a Mass that is more reverent, possibly be considered divisive?
“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.” Certainly does ring True.
Not all of a sudden entirely forbidden, but step by step gradually and entirely phased out because it has been supplanted by a reformed version of the Mass by order of Vatican II and decree of Pope Paul VI.
Vatican II and Pope Paul ordered no such thing.
There is a schism which is vertical: the refusal of union with the Holy Father. Most people attached to the TLM do not do this. Some do.
There is also a schism which is horizontal: the refusal of union with others who are united with the Holy Father. Those who refuse union with those attached to the TLM do this.
This a bizarre comment. If you were in Tim Kaine’s Virginia parish, where the staunchly pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ+ “catholic” politician received a standing ovation from parishioners, would you even WANT to be in “horizontal communion” with all the people around you? I don’t have any doubt that the statistical studies are accurate: 70% of those who attend the Novus Ordo do not even believe in the Real Presence in the Eucharist. I can assure you that would NOT be the result of any polling in a TLM parish.
How would being in union with a Pope hostile to the Catholic religion constitute being in union with the Catholic religion?
Vatican Press Office secretary Bruni speaks for Cdl Arthur Roche, prefect Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. That assures it was run by the Cardinal, who has full knowledge of Traditionis Custodes because it was issued from his office likely written at least in part perhaps with assistance from Cdl Victor Fernandez prefect DDF. A typical snow job to protect themselves and the originator Pope Francis.
Can we reasonably presume this brief write off was not brought to Pope Leo’s attention? He’s the one who has ultimate say on how to deal with, not simply the authenticity of Diane Montagna’s collage of excerpts – rather with the crux of the matter. How does Pope Leo wish to address this in context of Cdl Burke’s request? Sadly, the entire snow job write off scenario apparently answers the question.
meiron, you said it best so all I can do is repeat what you’ve written, “Ofcourse the Franciscan-Vatican-spokepeople would like to find a place to hide to keep quiet. That’s exactly what happens when Truth is revealed to previously have been made a lie. Liars will squirm, worm, and slither within their swamp, where it remains perpetually dark. God have mercy.”
In fairness to Pope Leo perhaps he had no choice, assuming he was consulted except to agree to the Press Office secretary’s dismissive explanation. He may on his own time frame an address to the matter more favorably toward the TLM. An indication may be the recent announcement that the Rupnik case judges have been selected.
If that were the case, why didn’t Hagen-Leo just tell his Vatican flacks to stand down and be silent? Instead, it is Hagen-Leo who is silent while his flacks deploy clouds of Bergoglian blather to cover their posteriors as they “squirm, worm, and slither within their swamp.”
That’s been running through my mind too indicated in my initial comment.
Indeed, when a pope, or one who purports to be, is discovered in the act of dissembling, it is not merely a personal failing, or a private stumble in the moral dark. No, it is a cataclysm. I fear for the fledgling soul, barely past the threshold of belief, such a revelation is often a crushing blow. How can one trust in the divine, when its earthly shepherd proves himself a charlatan? The tender shoots of nascent faith, so carefully nurtured, are not merely bruised; they are torn from the very soil of conviction. The young believer, once perhaps drawn by the promise of steadfastness and truth, is left with a gaping wound where his faith once resided, a wound that festers with cynicism and doubt.
Nor are the faithful veterans immune, those seasoned followers who have weathered many a storm of doubt and celebrated countless triumphs of the spirit. For them, the lie from a leader is not a sudden, fatal strike, but rather a slow, insidious erosion. It is akin to a crack appearing in the very foundation of a grand cathedral they have long revered. Each falsehood, each twisting of the truth, however small, drips like acid upon the stone of their enduring faith, weakening its integrity, making them question the very edifice they have spent decades defending. The bedrock of their conviction, once seemingly unshakeable, begins to crumble, and with it, the quiet confidence that once sustained them. For if the very stewards of truth cannot be trusted, then what truth remains? It is a question that gnaws at the soul, a bitter fruit born of betrayal.
So let it be known, and let it be stated with the utmost clarity: the lie, from the mouth of a pope, is not a minor transgression. It is a betrayal of the highest order, an act that not only defiles the speaker but, far more grievously, wounds the very heart of the faithful, both old and new. It is a deed that, far from building the Kingdom, actively dismantles it, brick by painstaking brick.
Brilliant and even poetic analysis, Michael B. Thank you.
Alas , we find that a pope is merely a man after all. It’s like pulling back the curtain and finding the true wizard of Oz. Is it relief or disappointment? Are we so uncomfortable because he looks too much like us?
Popes have “looked like us” since St.Peter. Plus ca change.
If Pope Leo XIV allows the war against the Vetus Ordo Mass to continue, then that would reveal a lot of very bad things about his turn as Pontiff.
“Matteo Bruni…said…the leaked information ‘presumably concerns part of one of the documents on which the decision [to restrict the Latin Mass] is based.’”
So we are led to believe that there were other documents—presumably with more compelling reasons to restrict the Latin Mass—which we are not privy to. Sure! So where are these other documents!?
Oh what a tangled web we weave– when first we begin to deceive!!
Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we “practice” to deceive.
– Sir Walter Scott –
The irony of the whole matter is that the very people who decry the Church becoming more democratic are now
complaining that it not more so! 🤭
The irony of the whole matter is that the very people who proclaim the Church to be a listening, “synodal” Church, reaching out to those on the “margins,” now show themselves to be malevolent totalitarians demanding conformity. There. I fixed it for you.
Nicely done, Stephan. You’re absolutely right.
Synodal schmynodal.
Stephan Williams has decisively answered “Br. Jaques” and his observations about irony.
Oh what a tangled weave they will continue to weave; as we speak, The True Church Of Jesus The Christ is illuminating the darkness of the counterfeit magisterium, which cannot overcome The Way, The Truth, and The Light (Life) of Perfect Divine Eternal Love Incarnate, Our Savior, Jesus The Christ, although it will continue to do some serious damage , if this counterfeit magisterium is not charitably anathema for The Salvation of Souls. Division is not of The Holy Ghost, nor is the counterfeit magisterium of The Holy Ghost, as it serves to accommodate those who deny The Sanctity and Dignity of the marital act within The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, and The Sanctity and Dignity of human life from the moment of conception to natural death. Without the use of The Charitable Anathema, Instituted by Christ for The Salvation of Souls, this counterfeit magisterium will continue to deny The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, and is thus anti Filioque and anti Pope.
“You cannot be My Disciples if you do not Abide In My Word.” – The Charitable Anathema of Jesus The Christ.
https://www.catechism.cc/articles/Pope-Paul-IV-Ex-Apostolatus-Officio.htm
Is it possible to have a copy of the Holy Mass in latin. I sudied in school where we daly Mass and must answer in latin. Now I have forgoten many parts of them and I will appreciate very much to get a copy. Regards.
Jorge, you can order a Latin Missae on Amazon.
Traditional Latin Mass (red booklet)
Latin/English for $12.60
If you’re OK with an online version: https://extraordinaryform.org/index.html
Mateo Bruni is speaking falsely, whatever his “intentions” might be.
Dianne Montagna has disclosed the conclusion of the majority of Bishops: Summorum Pontificicum was ‘a success,’ and waging a new-liturgy-war against the Vetus Ordo “would cause more harm than good.”
Link:
https://substack.com/inbox/post/167259174?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
Therefore, the Pontiff Francis and His Eminence Roche are caught in their lie.
Reject “the ideological lie,” and liberate tradition, or continue to decay unto death.
Only those who are disordered are going to sacrifice themselves for a lie…
Is it true that only 14 pages were leaked out of some 220? Where are the other 200 pages? What do they say?
The 14 pages includes the summary (“Overall Assessment”)of the survey report, similar to an executive summary, along with a collection of quotations from tne survey respondents. (Not just 14 random pages). The Vatican has not released the full report, but the Overall Assessment should contain all of the key points. If the full report says something different, that would be unusual, but the ball is in the Vatican’s court. They can release the full report whenever they want to..
You can read the Overall Assessment on Diane Montagna’s Substack, in the links at the bottom of her first article (there’s a followup). I just searched for “Diane Montagna Substack” and found it quickly. I always like to read these documents, when they are available, rather than relying on bits and pieces in articles and posts.
As in the Paul Newman movie “Cool Hand Luke” (1967): “What we have here is a failure to communicate!”
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, liturgical innovations poisoned the well on the legitimate reform of THE Liturgy. Clown masses and masses of clowns. In the eyes of many and in many locales, the Novus Ordo today still reminds of such early experimentation.
Three questions:
FIRST, is the symmetrical comparison no longer between TLM and Novus Ordo, but rather between the Altar and now the synodal Roundtable? Why are we even reminded that another symmetrical comparison is not between the Bible and the Qur’an, but between the incarnate Jesus Christ (“the Word made flesh”) and the Qur’an (“the word made Book”)?
SECOND, might another symmetrical comparison be between early mismanagement of the liturgical reform (1963) and more recent mismanagement of the sexual abuse crisis? What did Sacrosanctum Concilium actually say about liturgical reform? How about this:
n. 40 (1) “The competent territorial ecclesiastical authority mentioned in Art. 22, 2, must, in this matter, carefully and prudently consider which elements from the traditions and culture of individual peoples might appropriately be admitted into divine worship. Adaptations which are judged to be useful or necessary should then be submitted to the Apostolic See, by whose consent they may be introduced [!].” https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html Can’t remember much about submittals and consents!
THIRD, today, how for the Church to leaven itself ever more as communio and the “ecclesial assembly” around and then beyond the Altar? Instead of as a Roundtable too much replacing Altar—the sacramental Real Presence (CCC 1374)?
SUMMARY: Councils and Synods are what the Church DOES, not what the Church IS.
Perhaps Pope Francis felt a need or saw a need to emphasize and promote a human virtue of getting along with others -as that seemed to him and certain others; however it would still make no sense to enjoin human virtues or any particular human virtue in a synodalism?
Synodalism corrupts the Church’s sacred character, consecrated and lay, cloistered and parochial, active and passive, teaching and apostolic.
My experience with people who lie is that it’s unwise to trust anything they say. The best predictor of future behavior is one’s past actions.
According to Francisca Javiera del Valle in her tome About the Holy Spirit, Christ on the Cross was mediating with the Father to win the Holy Spirit for us, at some moment purely as man when he was moved to cry out about his abandonment. The Father gave answer and it was only then that Christ would admit -surrender,- “It is consummated”, the work upon the Sacrifice.
Well now, just what are some of these priests talking about, sometimes!
In Bible study I was told that Christ was speaking the first verses of Psalm 22. You need to read the entire psalm to see how it applies to Christ’s Crucifixion. I was also told that the Last Supper was an incomplete Passover Seder. Four cups of wine are consumed during the Passover Seder. The third cup, the Cup of Blessing, was used when the Institution of the Eucharist was enacted. The Last Supper then ended before Christ drank the fourth cup. The common wine vinegar that Christ was given on a sponge when He said “I thirst” was the fourth cup. I’ve heard it called the Cup Of Consummation. The Last Supper and Christ’s Passion and Death were one continuous event. This was Christ’s hour.
That’s in keeping with Scott Hahn’s take on the Passover.
But Jesus gave us the New Covenant of the One Cup of His Blood.
It’s possible to suffer through many “cups” more than “4” or “5” and still be in the Communion. Also to suffer a mere “2 cups” yet have the fullness of Communion. Or suffer an inexplicable sudden death with no “cup”.
Many “cups” can vie but Christ focused us on the One.
GregB, a guy could have 40, 50 even 80 cups of suffering and it would account for nothing beyond the One Cup of Salvation shared in Our Lord Jesus Christ.
I believe we should be helping Hahn get away from the Spectral Tru_k-Lo_d of Cups that is stalking him around everywhere. At CWR I have made some entries about that already. See my comments in the first 2 links below; in particular the first one on St. Jerome, Elias Galy October 2, 2024 at 3:10 pm.
In another place in CWR I mentioned that following on the Christ Event, Judaism tried adapting experiences from during that time, into its own ways, to try to overtake it. This would be to maintain interest for the Jews but also “outshine” and diminish and refute the Christ Event and secure “Jewish supremacy”.
See my comment in the third link on Valtorta, Elias Galy September 23, 2021 at 6:36 am, first two paragraphs.
Protestants are reacting to Hahn’s “4 cups” in their own instincts, see the third link Hahn’s Hersey: The Four Cups? at THIRD MILL . ORG. In this example of objections they accuse Hahn of heresy over necessity of Eucharist, which of course is quite wrong; however they raise a number of other reasonable points. Among the points coming up is a reference to evidence that “four cups” only appeared in Passover tradition from the 2nd Century A.D.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/09/30/about-that-brilliant-and-difficult-saint-jerome-of-stridon/
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2019/04/18/when-was-the-last-supper/
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/09/14/a-monument-to-pseudo-religiosity-a-case-against-the-poem-of-the-man-god/
https://thirdmill.org/answers/answer.asp/file/45629
I was an altar boy in the 1940’s. We said the Confiteor (I Confess) in Latin at the start of Mass. We knew the words in English.
It was a good start (I Confess) at the start of Mass.
The words were changed in Vatican 11 and the Mass then encountered
many changes (not for the better). Some charlatans and others raised
havoc with the Mass.
It is time (2025) for rebirth of the original Mass.
Look, when you have people like Peter Kwasniewski publishing books and articles and making speeches that the novus ordo Mass needs to be abolished and the church return to celebrating only the TLM (as it was before 1955, no less), then trad world has a big problem with the modern church. That’s the root of their love of the TLM and their hatred of the novus ordo and of Pope Francis: they don’t like modernity and want to go back in time.
Mr. Wright if an individual expresses those views they speak for themselves. They do not speak for everyone who attends the TLM. Nor for someone like me who visits it.
Seems, Mr. Wright, that you have insight into the inner workings and motivations of just about everyone who thinks differently than you. Question: Do you spend much time examining your own mind and heart?
These days many aee inclined to weigh the merits of the men who have most recently occupied the Chair of Peter. I have a challenge to all of us. Think of the recent Popes in terms of which ones would have made a good husband to a wife and a good father to his children. I would assert that only a man who would have made a good husband and father is worthy to be Pope (Abba, Father). As a corollary to this challenge, think of whichcrecent Popes you would have liked to have had as YOUR biological father. I’d suggest applying the same standard to your bishop and your pastor.