In this episode of the akaCatholic Podcast, we’ll consider some of the prayers that the faithful are being encouraged to pray in preparation for the upcoming conclave. The ones I have most in mind have been penned by popular conciliar clerics, and guess what: They are gravely deficient and even dangerous.
[NOTE: For the benefit of those who would prefer to read an article as opposed to taking the time to view a video, a script is provided below.]
As always, my hope is that regular readers will consider passing this along to those friends and family members who, in their confusion, are unaware of the nature of the current crisis.
SCRIPT
Perhaps you’ve noticed. Some of the prayers that are circulating on social media for the upcoming conclave – mainly as they concern the desired qualities of the next pope – are laced with no small amount of anti-Catholic poison.
Prayers of this sort are even being offered in some “traditional” churches that exclusively celebrate the Latin Mass.
Lurking beneath whatever sacred sounding verbiage these petitions may contain, their core message all-too-frequently reflects the absurd presumption that if, God forbid our prayers go unanswered, the next pope may not embrace, much less care to safeguard, the Holy Catholic faith.
You do see the problem here, no?
HINT: Not only is it every Catholic’s duty to embrace and profess the true faith – all of it –this is a necessary requirement of membership in the Church. What’s more, every member of the Church has an obligation to defend said faith, with prudence, in a manner consistent with one’s station in life, whether that person be a cleric, a religious, a parent, etc.
This being so, many of these prayers for the next pope could be well summed up as pleading:
Dear Lord, may it please Thee to grant Your Church a Catholic pope!
To which the Lord may well respond:
O ye of little faith!
None of this should come as a big surprise given that the authors of these senseless supplications firmly believed that Jorge Bergoglio (of all perfidious people) was not only a Catholic, but also the Holy Roman Pontiff, and this despite more than a dozen years of tirelessly giving witness to his disdain for the true Faith.
One of the most disturbing examples comes to us from Bishop Athanasius Schneider courtesy of 1P5:
Appeal for a Worldwide Crusade of Prayers for the Upcoming Conclave
He writes:
May through a new Pope, burning with the zeal for the glory of Christ and the salvation of souls, the Lord defend the flock of Christ from the intruding wolves of unbelieving and worldly churchmen who unabashedly are burning incense before the idols of the ideologies of the age, spiritually poisoning thereby the life of the Church, which resembles to a storm-lashed ship, in which “the bilgewater of the vices increased, and the rotten planks already sound of shipwreck,” as Pope St. Gregory the Great upon assuming the Papal office described the state of the Roman Church in his time.
Let me begin by saying that I am pleased to assume that Bishop Schneider penned his prayer in good faith, i.e., I’m not suggesting that he intentionally set about to deceive anyone. Even so, the above is most certainly deceptive.
First of all, it cannot be said that unbelieving churchmen are spiritually poisoning the life of the Church.
Why not?
Well, because unbelievers and those at war with the Church and her children are not to be numbered among her members, much less her sacred pastors, including and especially the Holy Roman Pontiff as we will discuss momentarily.
There can be no doubt that Francis is chief among the “unbelieving churchmen” to which Bishop Schneider is referring. This much is clear in light of his public commentary over the last dozen years.
More to the point, it is reasonable to understand that he has Bergoglio in mind in a particular way when he mentions burning incense before idols, i.e., this seems to be, at least in part, an allusion to the Pachamama debacle.
More striking still is that Bishop Schneider, in his veiled criticism of the Bergoglian Reign of Terror, chose to level an accusation of spiritual poisoning.
One wonders if he had the following from Pastor Aeternus of the First Vatican Council in mind as he wrote:
This gift of truth and never-failing faith was therefore divinely conferred on Peter and his successors in this see so that they might discharge their exalted office for the salvation of all, and so that the whole flock of Christ might be kept away by them from the poisonous food of error and be nourished with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine. [Emphasis added.]
As I’ve written in the past, despite the common use of the word “might” in the translation above, this does not mean maybe they will, maybe they won’t. The Latin text is more properly translated to say that the divine gifts given to the popes is what enables them to carry out their duties faithfully.
And what is the result? The council plainly teaches:
And since that saying of our lord Jesus Christ, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, cannot fail of its effect, the words spoken are confirmed by their consequences. For in the Apostolic See the Catholic religion has always been preserved unblemished, and sacred doctrine been held in honor. [Emphasis added.]
There is exactly no ambiguity here.
Pastor Aeternus leaves no room whatsoever for the idea that a day may come when the Chief Shepherd of the Church may actually be a ravening wolf, that the flock needs to be protected from the pope, as if the Vicar of Christ himself just might be guilty of dispensing the poisonous food of error.
So, I wonder, why did Bishop Schneider choose to employ the phrase spiritually poisoning?
Was he deliberately calling attention to Pastor Aeternus? Is it merely coincidental? Is he hinting, albeit subtly, that he has finally come to conclude that Bergoglio could not have been a true pope insofar as he bore no resemblance whatsoever to the teaching of Vatican Council One? Or is he furtively voicing his disagreement with the dogmatic teaching of that venerable councilncil?
Only he can say for sure.
In any event, his prayer for the upcoming conclave, in addition to all that has been said thus far, includes a factual error as well.
Pope St. Gregory the Great most certainly did NOT suggest that the Roman Church was being battered at the hands unbelieving churchmen intent on wrecking the Barque of St. Peter.
The quote offered by Bishop Schneider comes from a letter of Pope St. Gregory to one Bishop Leander of Hispalis (now known as Seville). In it, the saintly pope described the difficulties he was facing in his role as Holy Roman Pontiff, saying:
I am in this place [at the helm of the Church on earth] tossed by such billows of this world that I am in no wise able to steer into port the old and rotten ship of which, in the hidden dispensation of God, I have assumed the guidance … I feel that through my negligence the bilgewater of vices increases, and, as the storm meets the vessel violently, the rotten planks already sound of shipwreck.
To be certain, by no means was Pope St. Gregory negligent in his papal duties, on the contrary, he met the demands of his high office with heroic virtue and, obviously, with great humility.
So how might one understand what he wrote?
First and foremost, the reader gets a sense for the true nature of the Petrine Office. As evident in the Holy Father’s humble words, he felt (and rightly so) singularly responsible for defending the Church. He understood well that the papacy was established by Christ for this very purpose, to safeguard the Church and her children, to see to it that the “bilgewater of vices” to which he referred never overtakes them.
The Holy Father also expressed confidence that he found himself on the Chair of St. Peter, despite his humble sense of unworthiness, due to “the hidden dispensation of God.” In other words, he was underscoring the reality that it is the Lord Himself who exercises care for His Church, albeit through the man who is pope.
Pope St. Gregory the Great is often depicted in art with a dove (representing the Holy Ghost) either on his shoulder or on his head. [See photo at the top of this post.]
The Catholic Encyclopedia explains:
A dove is his special emblem, in allusion to the well-known story recorded by Peter the Deacon (Vita, xxviii), who tells that when the pope was dictating his homilies on Ezechiel a veil was drawn between his secretary and himself. As, however, the pope remained silent for long periods at a time, the servant made a hole in the curtain and, looking through, beheld a dove seated upon Gregory’s head with its beak between his lips. When the dove withdrew its beak the holy pontiff spoke and the secretary took down his words…
Understanding, as he surely did, that the Vicar of Christ enjoys the assistance of the Holy Ghost, his words to Bishop Leander, “I am in no wise able to steer into port the old and rotten ship,” can only be understood to refer to the Lord’s divine guidance, the same that would be described by the First Vatican Council in Pastor Aeternus some twelve-hundred years later.
More importantly, one notes that Pope St. Gregory was very clear about the source of the storms that afflicted the Church in his day. It was not, as Bishop Schneider suggests, due to the actions of “unbelieving churchmen,” but rather was it the “billows of this world” that were causing the Barque of Peter to be tossed about.
The same is true in our day. The nearly thirteen yearlong Bergoglian war against the Church and her holy doctrine was launched, not from the Chair of Peter – an idea that is preposterous on its face – but rather was it launched from outside of the Church’s visible bonds.
Bishop Schneider’s “Crusade of Prayers” went on to ask the Lord to:
Free the Apostolic See from the chains of the alignment with the materialistic, morally depraved and anti-Christian globalist agenda of this world.
This prayer cannot possibly be reconciled with the abovementioned citation from Pastor Aeternus reaffirming that the Catholic religion has always been preserved unblemished in the Apostolic See.
The suggestion that the See of Rome is in some way aligned with the morally depraved anti-Christian globalist agenda – as if the Holy Mother Church is at war with herself – is tantamount to a denial of the Church’s indefectibility such as it has always been understood.
The Catholic Encyclopedia explains indefectibility well and in detail. Its treatment is worth reading in its fullness. Here, I will paraphrase:
Indefectibility does not merely mean that the Church will persist to the end of time, unimpaired its essential characteristics. It also means that the Church “can never become corrupt in faith or in morals.”
It goes on:
Only to the See of Rome is indefectibility assured. “To Peter, and in him to all his successors in the chief pastorate, Christ committed the task of confirming his brethren in the Faith (Luke 22:32); and thus, to the Roman Church, as Cyprian says, “faithlessness cannot gain access.”
This is what the Holy Catholic Church teaches about herself, infallibly and most assuredly, a truth of the faith that cannot be reconciled with Bishop Schneider’s prayer suggesting that the Church is aligned with the morally depraved anti-Christian globalist agenda.
This, however, is where one ends up by insisting that the conciliar counterfeit church is the Catholic Church, and a man like Jorge Bergoglio is the Holy Roman Pontiff.
Bishop Schneider’s prayer goes on:
May all true sons and daughters of the Church implore the grace of the election of a new Pope, who will be fully Catholic, fully Apostolic and fully Roman.
Bishop Schneider evidently believes that a pope just might be partially Catholic, partially Apostolic and partially Roman. This is utter and complete nonsense, it’s a version of the “partial communion” heresy, one of the rotten fruits of Vatican II.
In truth, one is either fully Catholic or not Catholic at all.
Schneider’s prayer goes on to say, “We believe that the Lord will come to the assistance of His Church.”
Sounds lovely until you realize that he speaks as if we are awaiting Divine assistance, as if Our Lord has been on sabbatical for more than a decade.
The reason Bishop Schneider’s prayer isn’t Catholic is simple: Despite any truths he may preach, he’s a man-of-the-Council, and that council simply isn’t Catholic.
This being so, he’s far from alone. Other men-of-the-Council are also urging the naïve to offer non-Catholic prayers in advance of the conclave.
Not surprisingly, Bishop Joseph Strickland is doing the same. His Novena for the Next Conclave includes the following meditations:
Pray for a pope who will uphold the fullness of truth without compromise, in charity and courage … Reflect on the need for a pope who will boldly defend the perennial teachings of the Church … Pray for a pope who treasures the sacred traditions of the Church and hands them on whole and unaltered.
How can a view of the papacy that allows for a Successor to the St. Peter who compromises on the truth, fails to defend the infallible teachings of the Church, and adulterates the sacred traditions of the Church be reconciled with the previously cited portions of Pastor Aeternus?
The answer is that these disparate views concerning the nature of the papacy and the Apostolic See over which he reigns are mutually exclusive.
All things work together unto good for those who love God. (Romans 8:28)
The beauty of these non-Catholic prayers for the upcoming conclave is the degree to which they present the sincere seeker of truth with a clear choice between a false religion built upon conciliar novelties and the perennial faith of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.
Choose this day who you will serve… (Joshua 24:15)
