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| Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury |
It's not, in fact, a new tactic. During the regency of Edward VI, son of Henry VIII, those in power used Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, to weaponize the Mass in order to force recusant Catholics into the Anglican services. After the brief reign of Queen Mary, the tyranny escalated. The brutal and cruel punishment of the English population for the crime of attending the Latin Mass was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. Thank God we don't face that! Punishment for refusing to attend the new mass was economic ruin! They rapidly turned the country into an apostate nation hostile to the pope and to the Church.
Read the stories of the English priests and laity martyred at Tyburn Tree to weep and lament the evil being resurrected in our own time using softer persecution. Be thankful that the most that will ultimately happen to us is likely to be accusations of schism. After all, as Francis so famously said, "I pray that there will not be schisms, but I am not afraid." In that same airplane interview, he implied that those who disagree with him have mental problems:
“When you see rigid Christians, bishops, priests, you know there are problems there. We need to be gentle with these people and accompany them."
Good grief! These people? Is he being "gentle" and "accompanying" us? If this is gentle, I'd sure hate to see his harsh! And can you be more rigid than our papal tyrant in white robes?
I pray for Francis every day; I urge you to do the same! I hope he has mental problems, because that would diminish his responsibility for the damage to the faith! What a legacy!
”Michael Davies wrote extensively about the experience in Elizabethan England and related it to the attack on the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) after Vatican II. In his 1976 book, Cranmer's Godly Order, he wrote:
The Church is at present undergoing what is certainly the greatest crisis since the Protestant Reformation, quite possible the greatest since the Arian heresy. Pope Paul himself speaks of the smoke of Satan having entered the Church . . . vocations continue to decline . . . Mass attendance is plunging throughout the Western world; the most outlandish beliefs are put forward as Catholic teaching. There is hardly a traditional belief or a traditional practice which has not been questioned or reversed. Priests who for decades had been telling their people why the Mass must always be in Latin now appear to believe that any of the parishioners who ask for a Latin Mass may be of dubious orthodoxy. Priests who for decades had been explaining why we could never take part in non-Catholic services now insist that taking part in such services is the prime duty of a Catholic. Not only that but our own [practices] . . . are coming to resemble those of Protestants more closely, with each successive stage of the liturgical reform. ...the new Catholic Mass has been changed in a way which comes close to what Cranmer did, and for which he has been censured by Popes, theologians, and Catholic historians. How can changes which have been regarded as reprehensible for centuries suddenly become admirable.
Exactly! And how can attending the TLM illustrate a "dead" faith and a "pagan" mindset as Francis believes (if he has any real beliefs)?
I have never questioned the validity of the NO. I have never even suggested that one Mass was more pleasing to God than the other. I certainly don't believe people who attend the TLM are holier than those attending the NO! How could I when I know so many really holy people in the pews who may never go to the TLM?
Up until March of 2020 I rarely went to the TLM myself. Since the time I was a teenager, I almost exclusively attended the NO. Even recently, I only occasionally traveled to Christendom or St. John the Baptist in Front Royal or to St. Peter's in little Washington to attend a TLM. It was a significant time commitment for weekdays. I could only occasionally manage it.
COVID changed all that. When the only Masses were being offered by the SSPX at the fairgrounds in Warren County, my husband and I chose to take the Sunday Mass obligation seriously and continued attending at the only place available. Most Catholics did not have that blessed option. We did. So we drove to the fairgrounds every Sunday and sat in the car participating in the Mass via cell phone connection and got out of the car by invitation to receive the Body and Blood of Our Lord. On weekdays we went to our local parish every day at the regular Mass time and prayed the NO Mass in the Magnificat and received spiritual Communion in an empty church.
Months later, after things returned to "normal," we felt we could not abandon the priests who traveled five hours round trip from the SSPX seminary near Charlottesville to minister to us. So, in gratitude, we attached ourselves to the chapel that continued to meet in various indoor locations and now celebrates at a small office building in Linden, VA.
We've never looked back.
Up until the bishop's "brutal and cruel" implementation of the illegitimate motu proprio, Traditionis Custodes (TC), and the even more illegitimate dubia which expanded TC to a ridiculous extreme, we also continued to attend our local church for the daily NO Mass.
We are now praying and discerning whether we should cease participating in a weaponized NO Mass being used to bludgeon and coerce the faithful who attend the TLM into bending the knee to our modernist pope and Church leaders. The tipping point for me was reading Bishop Burbidge's policy statement. He implied in paragraph nine that, since many attend both forms of the Mass, what he's doing will be easily accepted over time:
Pastors of parishes in which the Mass in usus antiquior is celebrated...must develop a pastoral plan "to lead the faithful who are attached to the antecedent liturgy towards the celebration of the liturgy according to the liturgical books reformed by decree of the Second Vatican Council and which form the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite." Already it is the reality that our faithful who participate in the usus antiquior also frequent the reformed liturgy interchangeably for daily, Sunday, and Holy Day Masses.
The intent is clear. They will wean those who attend the TLM and move them into the new Catholic world order where only the Protestantized NO will be allowed. The elimination of the Mass is scheduled for two years out.
At present the FSSP has an exception. For how long? Last month the Institute of Christ the King was thrown out of Chicago by Cupich, our own Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth. The lying Cardinal said this:
“On July 31, the Shrine of Christ the King communicated to the archdiocese that they would stop offering Mass and other sacraments at the Shrine. It was their choice to do so.” [See Fr. Z for more.]
Right! Cranmer Cupich gave the Institute an ultimatum. Sign a statement that the NO is the only expression of the Roman rite and you can stay. You can almost hear his maniacal laugh. They could no more sign such a statement than St. Thomas More could sign the Oath of Supremacy. A particularly sad element of this story is that TLM advocates have donated over $4 million (so far) to rebuild the Institute's shrine church after a fire in 2015.
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| Sanctuary of the shrine church before the fire. |
And so...here we are...on the horns of a dilemma. Shall my husband and I continue to bend the knee to our modern head of the Church who more and more resembles Henry VIII? Can we follow our pathetic bench of enabling bishops, including our own, as they condemn the faithful for the crime of loving the Mass of the Ages that made so many saints and martyrs?
We can't any more.
I will always be a loyal daughter of the Church, just as faithful Catholics remained loyal during the Arian heresy when Arian heretics occupied the highest magisterial positions. But I will not bend the knee to their modernist sins and errors. And so I've begun to pray the TLM in my own little home chapel each morning and make a spiritual Communion. I do it with sadness because I love my parish family and will miss the fellowship of joining with them in prayer. My hour of adoration at the parish is Wednesday from 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. I will continue to worship Jesus there in the tabernacle and pray the Stations of the. Cross for my bishop. But I will not lend my presence to a weaponized liturgy. It would be like giving ammunition to a terrorist with a machine gun.
It's ironic that such a small percentage of Catholics are such a thorn in Francis' side. It's head-shaking. Like the early Christians, our tiny group must be forced to offer the pinch of incense to the new Mass. Frankly, that is one more sign to me that what is happening is so evil I can no longer participate as if it is normal and good.
May God give us all courage to persevere in these times of trouble, especially our clergy.
O Lord, give us many holy priests!
Our Lady, Queen of the Clergy, pray for us.
Thomas Cranmer had been executed for heresy by Queen Mary before Elizabeth ascended the English Throne as Mary's successor. Cranmer was the ecclesiastical propagandist of King Edward's Reformation, not Elizabeth's.
ReplyDeleteTlm is the mass where the name of the holy father is not mentioned audibly.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction Anonymous. I should have caught that mistake when I was reading about Cranmer. Your comment sent me back to the history books. Thank you for setting me straight. It made me want to read more about Edward VI and his short reign. If what I read is accurate, a longer life would have completely changed the history of England since he planned to cut out his sisters and set the Seymours in the line of succession. What would have happened then I wonder. Since he was the first monarch raised as a Protestant, stamping out the Catholic Mass was just as likely to be the royal agenda. But wouldn't a novelist have a fine time, creating an alternate history with Edward growing to adulthood, marrying, and changing the entire future of England.
ReplyDeleteSuch an alternate history would be a very interesting read indeed! Edward was most definitely a Protestant but, surprisingly, Eluzabeth was a true enigma given that her private beliefs seem to have been Catholic whilst her public religious policy was, of course, Reformed.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth is an enigma, but those "advisers" of hers are not. Whether she had Catholic sensibilities or not, policy was managed by the heirs of the men who were gifted the wealth of Henry's pillaged monasteries. They opposed Mary, not because she was Catholic, but because hey feared she'd return their ill gotten wealth to the monasteries. They worked HARD in Elizabeth's reign to ensure England remained in heresy and schism.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the advisors to Elizabeth did quite so direct her domestic and foreign policies, especially her religious policies, with William Cecil and Francis Walsingham at the lead. Modern England was built on the spoils of the monasteries with Protestant, Anglican, and Catholic all beneficies of that stolen wealth.
DeleteWill NEVER go back to a NO mass. If Bergoglio wants to destroy it, I consider it CATHOLIC.
ReplyDeletePF is an anti-Pope permitted by God to bring clarity - to reveal hearts and the true divine value of things. One of the things revealed is that the NO is significantly, doctrinally divergent from the Catholic faith.
ReplyDeleteI once could assist happily at either an NO or TLM in the Arlington diocese. After the events of this anti-pontificate, I will never again assist at an NO. If such evil men as Bergoglio and Cupich want so desperately to herd us into the NO and crush the TLM, then there must be something gravely wrong in the NO form and something gravely galling to wickedness in the TLM.
Yet, even after everything he’s said and done— including recently participating in a demon summoning ceremony in Canada!—you continue to call him an actual pope. Incredible. Absolutely incredible. Astonishing. Will those of the R&R crowd ever get really real?
ReplyDeleteHow is it that you don’t yet know that actual popes must be actually Catholic, and that it takes no legal authority whatsoever to recognize the manifest reality that Francis cannot possibly be an actual pope because he isn’t an actual Catholic? One need not be a coroner to recognize a dead body. Francis cannot possibly be an actual pope, because he isn’t an actual Catholic.
As long as you continue enabling this evil man by calling him an actual pope and thereby legitimating him, you’re complicit in both his evil and that of the entire Novus Ordo Antichurch. Wake up, sleeper!
Funny. You fail to use the title Pope for Pope Francis.you give the impression that you refuse to believe that Pope Francis is the Pope. I'd call that a mental issue!
ReplyDeleteCarrying weapons to the Latin Mass is a mental issue as well.
dxv515, how is it that you’re unaware that actual popes must be actually Catholic, and that if there’s one thing Francis has made crystal clear, it’s that he hates actual Catholicism with the white-hot hatred of a thousand burning suns? Thus he participates in demon-summoning ceremonies, he tries to obliterate the actual Roman Rite, and on and on and on….
ReplyDeleteIn short, Francis says and does things that an actual pope would never say or do; indeed, we’re assured by the infallible prayer of Christ that actual successors of Peter are divinely protected from saying or doing such things (Lk. 22:32).
And it’s not just that he’s a bad father. Rather, as a manifest non-Catholic and indeed rabid anti-Catholic, he’s not a father, not a pope, at all. This unholy anti-father feeds his supposed children nothing but stones, serpents, and scorpions, yet again we’re divinely assured that a true father feeding his children would never substitute stones for bread, serpents for fish, or scorpions for eggs (Mt. 7; Lk. 11)
Again, just as one need not be a coroner to recognize a dead body, one need have no legal authority whatsoever in order to simply recognize the factual reality spitting in our faces daily. Legal authority is needed only to establish legal reality. Meanwhile, the present objective reality spits in our faces daily. Any future legal judgment will simply be an acknowledgment of this present manifest reality.
It’s time to get real; really real. Start regularly reading sites like the WM Review, akaCatholic, and the superb Novus Ordo Watch. Wake up.
We cannot “rethink the papacy,” as Kwasniewski and the rest of the R&R crowd are desperately doing in order to accommodate Francis. Rather, we must understand the papacy as it really is, as it’s been divinely given to us, and therefore how it excludes every possibility of Francis being an actual pope (and not because of any electoral irregularities, but because he’s not a Catholic.) Start by reading this June 8, 2022 entry over at Novus Ordo Watch:
“Rethinking” the Papacy? A New Narrative for the Semi-Trads
It's a process Jeremiah. As a recent convert to SVism I totally understand the fear.....EENS. The first time I attended a Sede Church it was during Lent for Stations and Benediction. I was scared and kept asking Jesus and Mary if it was ok....as I approached the Church a most glorious double rainbow appeared.
ReplyDeleteI would encourage anyone considering SVism to start by visiting novusordowatch.org and just read/listen to their sound, Catholic arguments. Since many will sooner or later lose their TLM it is important to know the Sede Mass is ok to attend....not just ok, but better...imo. Oh, and I've just recently learned of a SSPX priest who is converting to the Sede position.
Yes, Debbie. Novus Ordo Watch is golden. I used to blow it off, but then I started to actually read it. A superb site.
ReplyDeleteRelated, see my new video:
Sedevacantism: 100% Safe, 100% Catholic
As for SSPX priests, no doubt many are crypto-sedes.