Often, those of us who work in so-called “traditionalist” (aka Catholic) media are accused of simply preaching to the choir; getting the base riled up over a crisis they already recognize while providing very little in the way of content that will serve to attract those outside the fold.
Over the years, I’ve received many notes of thanks, some even from priests, who once held a neo-conservative view of the Church, but now thanks to our efforts here have come to embrace tradition. Even so, there is a dash of truth to this criticism.
Ultimately, it is the Lord who opens the eyes of the blind, but He often does so by using sinners like us as instruments of His grace.
To the extent that neo-conservatism is comprised of sincere individuals who genuinely want to follow Christ but have been hoodwinked into accepting both the Council and the Novus Ordo as authentically and thoroughly Catholic, this is prime mission territory for traditionalists.
I consider finding a way to engage this audience one of my biggest challenges. It’s tough!
It is my hope and prayer that The Catholic Inquisitor will somehow make headway in meeting this challenge more effectively that this blog does, at the very least, by providing traditional readers with something of value to that can be handed to conservative friends and family members.
Thanks to the train wreck known as “Francis,” the time, and the harvest, has perhaps never been riper. Even so, this crowd remains an incredibly tough nut to crack as denial runs very deep within it.
Consider, for example, a well-educated, intelligent, and by all indications genuinely sincere conservative Catholic who holds to the following:
– Francis manipulated the Synods on the family
– With Amoris Laetitia, he isn’t simply being imprudent in the expressions that he employs; rather, it is a deliberate effort to create confusion
– At stake is not just discipline or pastoral practice, but rather the Church’s perennial teachings
– In short, Francis is actively engaged in a deliberate effort to change what the Church teaches
In spite of these opinions (with which one is hard pressed to disagree), this same individual insists that even though Francis is deliberately trying to change the Church’s perennial teachings (i.e., the Universal Ordinary Magisterium of the Church, which is infallible), he isn’t preaching heresy! In fact, the man is unquestionably Catholic!
Unfortunately, even though this scenario is almost too ridiculous to believe, it isn’t just a hypothetical case – these are the near verbatim opinions of Phil Lawler, author of the book, Lost Shepherd: How Pope Francis is misleading his flock.
For the first four years of the “so-called pontificate of Francis” (to quote dear Fr. Gruner yet again – who, by the way, even after having died more than three years ago, still doesn’t have a headstone as of a few weeks ago!), Mr. Lawler tried his level best to defend the man.
Eventually, according to Lawler:
I could no longer pretend that Pope Francis is merely offering a novel interpretation of Catholic doctrine. No; it is more than that. He is engaged in a deliberate effort to change what the Church teaches.
That was in March of 2017 – before the Filial Correction which has since been ignored; before Francis ordered the guidelines for interpreting Amoris Laetitia crafted by the Bishops of Buenos to be enshrined in the AAS; before yet another fourteen months had passed without a formal answer to the dubia...
And yet, he still insists that Francis is not only a Catholic in good standing; he is the pope!
Future generations will likely find all of this so hard to believe as to be amusing, but diabolical disorientation is no laughing matter; it’s… well, diabolical.
Bottom line, please pray and fast – both for this blog and for The Catholic Inquisitor.
The harvest is great, the laborers are few, and though the neo-conservative fruits are growing riper by the day thanks to the Bergoglian menace, there are no easy pickins.
Praying for all your holy efforts. Praying that God will end all this soon, so you don’t have to haul this massive cross. What an undertaking. Perhaps it is time for God’s Mercy as Pope Francis is now hinting about his “retirement.” Q did say that he would have a “terrible May.” Hopefully it’s hitting the fan for him now, and he’s sent running. I hope they catch him.
Only God Knows. Praying here for your perseverance in this vocation of yours. God speed.
I don’t believe he is anywhere near retiring… In fact, it’s very sad to say, but many more Protestants seem to see Bergoglio for what he clearly is: the False Prophet who will point the way to the Antichrist.
Bergoglio’s major effort will be to change the words of consecration to bring about the “abomination of desolation” when Our Lord is no longer present in the Eucharist.
I am aware that there are posters here who say that has already happened. I, on the other hand, hold to the apparition of Our Lady of Akita who would have alerted us if this had occurred.
I also contend that the messages of Pedro Regis are valid– no decision has been made yet on this, nor should we ever expect it from the present pervasive evil in Rome– but he does talk about a divided papacy among other things, as well as to hold onto the True Magisterium, to receive our Lord in the Holy Eucharist and to go to Confession.
The “desolation” is first necessary for the Antichrist to come to power.
Richard, how do you know that Our Lady of Akita is true? Was it officially approved by the Church?
I heard that it was: the last Marian apparition to be approved.
A strategy to reach Catholics is sorely needed. The denial is astounding. Even if they listen and want more info, they will simply go to a NO priest, and guess what advice they’ll get there
Louie, I read who will be contributing to , The Catholic Inquisitor and I can’t wait for the first issue. It will be a truly Catholic view, which is so rare these days. Keep fighting, my friend.
In the years following the close of the Second Vatican Council, it is understandable that Catholics, even if all of these changes were confusing, put their faith and trust into what they believed to be Holy Mother Church. Now, however, it is crystal clear that the intent of the council was not to “open the windows to the world”, but to throw the Church out of the window. What more proof could we possible need to convince ourselves that the V2 “church” is a total abomination and that the person who is supposed to be Visible Head of the Church (the Pope) is a diabolical impostor. It is time for the neo-conservatives to wake up and smell the coffee. I’m tired of reading articles that call Bergoglio for what he is but still say he is the Pope.
Let’s get real!!! God bless The Catholic Inquisitor.
The choir needs preached to. Desperately. The choir is under unrelenting assault from all sides and from top to bottom. Those of the choir thus need constant reminding that they aren’t alone and that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
Preaching to the choir is vastly underrated.
It doesn’t look like it was:
https://www.osv.com/Article/TabId/493/ArtMID/13569/ArticleID/4568/Is-Japans-Our-Lady-of-Akita-apparition-worthy-of-belief.aspx
How do we know that what Our Lady said was accurately revealed to the public. You would have to trust modernist that the whole message was accurately revealed. I trust nothing out of Rome since 1958. How can anyone trust any of the conciliar hierarchy?
Akita is kosher. Approved by the local bishop. Pope Benedict endorsed. Said its message and Fatima are essentially the same.
Interesting.
I personally didnt know that there was a vatican 2 church, as opposed to the Catholic Church, until the vatican 2 church (FSSP), played a large part in totally destroying my life. It wasnt until then….and even then it took me a year to figure things out….that I fully realized how depraved and un-Catholic Rome had become. It wasnt until then, after I had lost everything, that I understood that the Catholic Church and Rome were two entirely different entities. One adored Christ and the other rejected Him (and this is when I came to sedevacantism….through this pain…and this was about 5 years ago now).
My point here is this: it took unbearable personal pain to wake me up. I think that most Catholics are ok with the status quo….as long as they feel no pain they will not see what is truly going on. Like some fairly big supporter of the FSSP once told me, when I questioned him on how they (FSSP) can back a pope who seemed to reject Catholic dogma: “I dont care what they teach, I just go there for the sacraments”.
I agree with you regarding Akita with this caveat, 1958 was not some magic year. The message of La Salette was suppressed by church authorities after Pius X’s death. They said Melanie was crazy or mentally unstable. Fortunately, those with the message had the presence of mind to publish it in spite of official condemnation. I am convinced the freemasons were in charge of Vatican policy in the early teens of the 20th century after the murder of Pope Pius X , and the Vatican’s reaction to LaSalette is a perfect example of such control. You sedes are so wedded to the agenda that all was goodness and light prior to 1958, that you are willing to ignore history and clear indications of masonic control in the Vatican that indicate you are not being objective in your historical assessment.
It was never officially approved according to the link I posted.
Mary, not sure where us sedes said all was fabulous before 1958. All we say is that before 1958, the Popes were actually Catholic and taught the Catholic Faith. Far cry from anything out of Rome since 1958. The three Popes after Pope St Pius X were very weak in the governance of Church affairs and let the modernists run amok. So 1958 is not some magical year that we all pine for.
It was never officially approved according to the link I posted (and others I have seen). But TomA has a good point. Even if it was, it’s still post-Vatican II.
Rich–I am sorry you had to endure this pain. I realize that this experience has brought you and your family to the Truth of Our Lord’s Church, not the “church of Rome” which is the enemy of Christ. Your last comment “I go there for the sacraments” really hit home for me. Should Catholics be held hostage by Traditional Priestly Societies who pander to the V2 pseudo -church simply because “they have the sacraments?” If their preaching and actions don’t demonstrate any fight against the enemy, are they really on the side of Christ and His Church? Where is the charity for Catholic Faithful who need warriors willing to get into battle? It’s a torturous question. God help us all.
It’s not surprising to hear that Our Lady of Akita has had doubts cast upon it, for She prophetically stayed that “cardinals would oppose cardinals and bishops against bishops.” It calls to mind Our Lady of La Salette, an approved apparition. That message also dealt with problems in the clergy and confusion still abounds today about the actual messages given to the children.
That should be “stated” and not “stayed.”
Personally, I don’t understand why so many traditional Catholics focus so much energy on private revelations.
“I don’t care what they teach, I just go there for the sacraments”…
Ah, the smells and bells “traditional Catholic”.
Modernism, modernism, It is the Traditional and conservative Catholic assertion of the importance, by itself, of this theology post-VII with which I dissent. Pope Pius X condemned modernism as the amalgamation of all previous heresies, and certainly all previous heresies must be condemned, but he did not come out forcefully enough against the one heresy, which needed to be constantly condemned and put down in the Church and outside of it, namely Freemasonry and it’s mother, Talmudic and Cabbalistic Judiaism. Pope Leo XIII never tired of condemning it, despite the fact that he really needed to clean his own house of that filth. It was Leo XIII’s lack of oversight that led directly to the disasters during the reign of Pius X. I know Pius X tried to enforce an Oath against Moderism and even instituted a kind of CIA type organization to that effect, but none of that then or now would have much effect against a secret society sworn to destroy the Church.
I don’t care how weak a pope is. He is still pope, if he is Catholic. It is in that belief that we part company, I emphatically do not believe Benedict XV or Pius XII were Catholic, because they had known close associations with freemasons and I believe they very likely were masons themselves. Pius XI also had the same close associations, but I don’t believe he was a mason himself. At Fatima, Our Lady mentioned one pope and asked the children to pray for him, that pope was Pius XI.
Back in the late eighties and early nineties , a friend of mine owned a Catholic book store .Since she was a convert she asked me to go through her new inventory with her. She bought books on Akita and the publisher told her the ones printed in English left out one key point. The pain in Sr Sasagawa’s hand when she went up for Communion increased to where she had to receive on her tongue because she clasped her painful hand tightly near her chest The explanation given to her was that Our Lord is offended by reception in the hand.
I recall it was a bishop Ito who approved the apparition.However, the US Bishops rejected the mention of he hand incidents and would not allow it to be printed in the English translation for distribution.
A frend of mine , Solange Hertz (RIP), called me in the early 2000s after she had investigated every communication she could find in France concerning LaSalette. She assured me Melanie always said the same thing regarding her apparitions. she said that it was the Bishops in France who would not approve the entire message for publication melenie’s correspondences that Solange was able to track down written prior to the publication Impramatured by the Bishop of Lecci, also stated the same messages. “Rome will become the Seat of the AntiChrist” and what sounds like the 72 hours of Darkness at the conclusion prior to a restoration.
For some reason Fr Rene Laurentine and an anonymous monk who claimed he was doing his Thesis , stated they discovered in the Vatican Secret Library, a shortened version which corresponds with that of the alleged message from the shrine at LaSalette. I believe that revelation is what sparked Solange to investigate. when she called she said ,”I want you to know………”and then told me Melanie was in her opinion a saint and that she suffered terribly also having the stigmata. she said she was terribly persecuted by the French Freemason Bishops.
Well, when you can’t find actual Church teaching to back up what you’re preaching, you cherry-pick things from (often very questionable) private revelations to “prove” your point. After all, Mary and Jesus don’t lie, so who can argue with you? If the revelations still don’t back up your thesis (Fatima), you claim that there are parts of them that were suppressed and quote third party folks who say stuff that backs up what you believe. Or you just make up what you claim is “missing”. There are hundreds, if not thousands of videos on YouTube that do just this. The ones from pre-2017 are what you need to see. Because they’re all predicting calamity due to the 100-year anniversary. Yet here we are in 2018.
This private revelation trap is aggressively promoted by the lunatics (e.g., Fr. Kramer) and sadly also often ensnares the devout (e.g., Fr. Gruner).
But I think you have to consider the context. Discerning Catholics have sensed a growing feeling of spiritual unease, I myself have felt it and have read so often other Catholics sense it too, something different about our times. When you consider that, it is easy to see why people are so interested now in prophesy. Scripture, Jesus himself, told us to watch for signs, so it’s not magical or hocus-pocus to do just that, and to be basically trying to gain some wisdom on what might happen, because it feels like a crazy free for all, and people are designed to want security of some kind. We are living out what appears to be apocalyptic times, very much, so it seems natural to want to understand what might be coming. In the end, clinging to Jesus Christ and the faith is all we really have, but that is enough. We should try to help as many people as possible to understand why we need to stay close to Jesus in these days, but I admit, this is profoundly difficult, and I have utterly failed, in my own family.
And I might add too, why shouldn’t we be looking at apparitions and prophesy more closely, now that we see after 2000 years our foundation, the Church, is being actively dissembled by destroyers with virtually no impediment or even criticism. That alone is enough to rock anyone and send them looking for answers.
The true history of the 19th and 20th centuries, I believe, will ultimately be revealed in the light of apparitions. Heaven was trying to get the message out but the enemy was thwarting that. Thanks for the info, Sweep, on the French bishops. I believe I had heard that they were deeply infiltrated by freemasonry in the 19 century.
Louie, will you be interested in selling this paper in a newstand? Speaking of messages.
sweep–It was my understanding that Sr. Sasagawa was hearing impaired, yet she repeated the “Jesus Prayer” ( O My Jesus, forgive us……)given to the visionaries of Fatima. It was not known how she could have repeated this prayer word for word. Does anyone have any info about this?
Thank you. And yes….the ability of a priest to give legitimate, Catholic spiritual instruction is EXTREMELY important. Many people dont see that until they deal with a real problem. Choose your priests wisely.
Yep, exactly.
Considering/looking at private revelations is different than the inordinate focus I see with certain trads. Some look to them as if they were (at least) on equal footing with Church dogma despite the fact that the Church teaches that no Catholic is required to believe in private revelations.
They ascribe virtually doctrinal weight to these visions because the visions can be interpreted – as can many visions of many faiths – to relate to our times and feed man’s (Catholic or otherwise) inexplicable obsession with the Apocalypse. And this extends well beyond people of faith – look at 2012 and the Mayan calendar secular hysteria. It’s definitely ok to consider these revelations. But when you start digging into them with a truly open mind, you’ll find that what is represented by “interpreters” or those who aggressively promote them is often very different from the primary sources. And these promoters use tertiary sources and speculation to make the revelation fit their agend and worldview.
La Salette is a great example. Cut-and-dried revelation, published and approved, obviously refers to the Apocalypse and our times, right? According to its promoters, yes. But if you go to the original predictions, it said that the Antichrist was born 150 years ago and I don’t see anyone of that age leading armies to destroy Paris.
Read, take what you can from the visions. Don’t listen to false prophets who claim to interpret them. A healthy dose of skepticism is always a good thing.
Blunder, I often disagree with you on issues but on these apparitions I fully agree. You said it perfectly. Some people seem to attach some sort of doctrinal weight to them and thus starts a cottage industry. I will say that perhaps the only thing the NO sect has done so far that I agree with is to not approve Medjugorje.