Where is the Ark of the Covenant?

Being a history major in college and a lover of biblical archaeology, this topic has always fascinated me. The Ark of the Covenant was the most sacred and revered object of ancient Israelite worship. Built under Moses and housing the Ten Commandments, some of the Manna from heaven and the rod of Aaron that budded, we know for certain that the Ark was installed in the Temple by Solomon around 950 BC. Furthermore, we know that there is no further mention as to its whereabouts after this (except for two cryptic references, which I shall go into later). It is not mentioned among the articles returned to the Jews by Cyrus and it appears to have been absent from the Second Temple. It was certainly gone by the time of the Maccabees (there is a reference to it in II Macc. that I will discuss). So what happened to this most important of all Israelite religious items? And, more importantly, why are the Sacred Scriptures apparently silent on this event?

After the dedication of the Temple by Solomon, there are only three references to the Ark in the entire Old Testament. The first comes from II Chronicles 35:3, where good King Josiah says to the Levites: "Put the holy ark in the house which Solomon the son of David, king of Israel, built; you need no longer carry it upon your shoulders." It seems that he is telling the Levites to put the Ark back in the Temple. This insinuates that in the time of Josiah, the Ark was for some reason not in the Temple where is should have been. Thus, as he prepared to celebrate the Passover, the king found it necessary to instruct the Levites to put the Ark back in the Temple. Why would he have needed to command this? Why would the Ark be out of the Temple in the first place?

Josiah reigned from 640-609 BC. He is known as a good and pious king who tried to do away with Israelite idolatry and reinstitute the precepts of the Law at the Temple in Jerusalem. But if we look to his predecessors, we find two of Judah's wickedest kings, Amon (642-640) and Manasseh (697-642). The Bible says Manasseh was the wickedest king of Judah, in fact, the one because of whom the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon was decreed. His crime was that "he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And he burned his sons as an offering in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and practiced soothsaying and augury and sorcery, and dealt with mediums and wizards" (II Chr. 33:5-6). While normally we dwell on the sacrifice of children to Moloch in listing Manessah's crimes, in thise case we ought to focus on the fact that he "built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord." Now, knowing that the Ark was the holiest object in ancient Israel, is it likely that the priests and Levites would have allowed it to remain in the Temple in the midst of such sacriligious worship and abominations as those which Manessah was practicing? Is it not feasible to believe that the Levites and priests removed the Ark for safe-keeping during Manessah's idolatrous and wicked reign? This would make sense of Josiah's command to return the Ark once he came to power and restored worship of the Lord.

But did the priests ever return it? A verse from Jeremiah, written "in the days of King Josiah" (ie, prior to 609 and at least 25 years before the destruction of the Temple), seems to suggest that it was not. In Jeremiah 3, the prophet is speaking on the restoration of Judah following a period of chastisement and says in verse 3:16: "And when you have multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, says the Lord, they shall no more say, "The ark of the covenant of the Lord." It shall not come to mind, or be remembered, or missed; it shall not be made again." This is an amazing verse. It suggests that at the time Jeremiah was writing (sometime prior to 609, "in the days of King Josiah"), people were lamenting the fact that the ark was apparently gone. Hence the statement that it shall no longer be "missed." Why would it be "missed" if it were not missing?

This verse from Jeremiah 3:16, coupled with the verse from II Chr. 35:3, seems to give us the following scenario: During the wicked reigns of Kings Manasseh and Amon, where idolatry was practiced within the very Temple precincts, the Levites bore the Ark away for safe keeping. With the ascent of the righteous King Josiah (c. 640), the Ark was ordered by him to be restored to the Temple. But by that time it had been gone for at least fifty-five years and perhaps it had been lost during this period. Thus the lamentation of the people during Jeremiah's generation, who cried, "The ark of the covenant of the Lord." But Jeremiah promises them a future restoration in which the Ark will no longer be "missed."

All this is well and good, but all it does is set a chronology for when the Ark went missing; it does not say what actually happened to it. So where is it now?

There are four generally accepted theories on the whereabouts of the Ark of the Covenant.

1) The Ark was either destroyed or carried away to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in the destruction of the Temple in 586 (the secular archaeological view).

2) The Ark is buried under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem (believed by many Protestant Evangelicals).

3) The Ark was hidden by Jeremiah on Mount Nebo shortly before the Babylonian conquest (Jewish tradition, adhered to by many Catholics over the ages).

4) The Ark rests in St. Mary of Zion Church in Zion, Ethiopia (the claim of the Coptic Church in Ethiopia).

Each of these theories have merit, and it will take me more than one post to go into all of them. But here I will deal with simply the first theory, which I have dubbed the "Secular Archaeological View." According to this view, the dissappearance of the Ark is traceable to the Babylonian destruction of the Temple of Solomon in 586. The Ark was either (a) captured, or (b) destroyed.

It seems unlikely that the Ark was captured and carried away as booty for three reasons. First, the book of Jeremiah lists all the items that were carried away to Babylon: "The Babylonians broke up the bronze pillars, the movable stands and the bronze Sea that were at the temple of the LORD and they carried all the bronze to Babylon. They also took away the pots, shovels, wick trimmers, sprinkling bowls, dishes and all the bronze articles used in the temple service. The commander of the imperial guard took away the basins, censers, sprinkling bowls, pots, lampstands, dishes and bowls used for drink offerings—all that were made of pure gold or silver" (Jer. 52:17-19). It seems that if the Bible lists even the "wick trimmers" and "sprinkling bowls" that were taken, he would have mentioned the Ark as well, which was certainly more important than these minor articles.

Second, in the book of Daniel, chapter 5, we see the feast of Belshazzar, where the Babylonian king orders all of the vessels taken from the Temple to be brought out to him so that he and his lords could drink from them. The miraculous hand appears on the wall and decrees that the kingdom of Belshazzar will come to an end, because "the vessels of the [God's] house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have drunk wine from them" (Dan. 5:23). It seems that if the Babylonians had possessed the Ark, this would have been mentioned as well. If the kingdom of Belshazzar could be destroyed for sacriligious use of the Temple vessels, how much more for sacriligious possession of the holy Ark, which devastated the Philistines in the time of Saul? (see I Sam. 5).

Third, the Ark is not among the list of items returned to the Jews by King Cyrus of Persia for the rebuilding of the Temple. The Bible says: "Moreover, King Cyrus brought out the articles belonging to the temple of the LORD, which Nebuchadnezzar had carried away from Jerusalem and had placed in the temple of his god. Cyrus king of Persia had them brought by Mithredath the treasurer, who counted them out to Sheshbazzar the prince of Judah. This was the inventory: thirty gold bowls, one thousand silver dishes, one thousand silver pans, twenty-nine censers, two thousand four hundred ten bowls of silver, and a thousand other vessels. In all, there were five thousand four hundred sixty-nine articles of gold and of silver. Sheshbazzar brought all these along when the exiles came up from Babylon to Jerusalem" (Ezra 1:7-10). Surely, in this minute inventory, the Ark of the Covenant would have been mentioned were it present.

What about the possibility that it was destroyed by the Babylonians, as the Romans destroyed much of the Temple in a similar way in the year 70 AD? This seems unlikely mainly because it was not mentioned or even alluded to anywhere; it seems that the Jews would have written about it had it been destroyed, since it was the inner sanctum of their sanctuary.

Besides all of these points, the Secular Archaeological View fails in a very important area: the verses we looked at above indicate that the Ark went missing before the Babylonians ever came to Jerusalem, at least 25 years before. Therefore, the Babylonians never saw the Ark. The only way the Secular Archaeological View can hold water is if we assert that the prophecy of Jeremiah 3:16 was written retoractively after the Temple destruction to look like a prophecy (similar to the way modernists interpret the prophecies of Daniel). But such an interpetation depends on anti-supernatural bias and is inadmissable to any Catholic exegete.

I think we can say with confidence that not only did the Babylonians not take or destroy the Ark, but that it was missing long before they ever showed up. Next time, we can examine the second theory: perhaps the Ark is buried underneath the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Medjugorje Messages

The more I actually read about Medjugorje, the more I am shocked that anybody could possibly believe in it. Last time, I went into the dubious lifestyles of some of the seers, many of whom live in luxury driving custom BMW's and dwelling in palatial villas while making a fortune off of speaking on the alleged apparitions. This time, I'm going to give some excerpts from the messages themselves, which are not only trite and generic, but downright heretical in many instances. As Davies points out, this is just a symptom of the authority crisis within the Church. Without clear authority coming from the Magisterium, people will seek it elsewhere; even in fantastically incredible "apparitions."

"The Medjugorje messages are almost invariably of the utmost banality and could be put together by any ten-year-old familiar with a few traditional Catholic prayers and devotions, and at least a minimal knowledge of doctrine. A typical message published in the 6 October 1996 issue of The Catholic Times (England) reads:

Dear Children,
I wish to give you messages in a way unprecedented in history.

One can hardly deny that by the “apparition” making thousands of appearances whenever called upon by one of the seers, these messages are certainly unprecedented in history!

By praying you have helped me realize my plans. I shall implore my Son that all my plans will be realized.

Dear children, without you I cannot help the world.

Does this mean that the intercession of our most gracious advocate depends entirely on the seers of Medjugorje?

I shall leave behind a sign for the infidels.


This is an interesting development, because, as will be shown below, the promised sign was originally intended to prove the veracity of the apparitions to the faithful.

Dear children, I ask all of you to live and change all negativity within you, so that everything will become positive and living.

This message seems to have come straight from a New Age manual.

Some of the messages are of very dubious orthodoxy. On 1 October 1981 the apparition announced: “To God all religions are the same” using the Croatian word “iste” In a more detailed statement the apparition insists that all religions are equal:

There is but one God for all people, but people have conjured up several religions. My Son is the one Mediator and Saviour of all people, but, as I see it, people get on well if they live their own religion well, if they follow their conscience.

Is Our Lady saying here that the Catholic religion was conjured up by men? How can a religion founded by the incarnation of God the Son be put on the same plane as religions conjured up by men? This message certainly smacks of heresy."

It is claimed that on 25 July 1982 Our Lady said: “Pray for the sick! Fast for the sick! Lay your hands on them! Administer them charismatic anointings with oil! Any layman can do it!” Some have asked whether this does not suggest that a layman can administer the sacrament of the anointing of the sick which is reserved for priests. If so, this certainly would be heresy.

As one blogger said, anybody who is even familiar with one third of the evidence against Medjugorje cannot possibly continue to believe in it. Why is it dangerous to fall for such apparitions? Davies tells of the example of the supposed visions of Palmar de Troya: I recollect very clearly a decade or so ago that I scandalised some devout friends by maintaining that the alleged apparitions at Palmar de Troya in Spain were inspired by the devil. I was asked how I could make such a claim in view of the piety manifested there: all night vigils, heroic acts of penance, the rosary, and financial sacrifices of staggering proportions. How could Satan have been responsible for such good fruits? I knew one devout and highly educated English Catholic who sold everything he had and abandoned his profession to go and live in Palmar. Later, when Clemente, the self-styled seer, proclaimed himself to be Pope and "excommunicated" everyone who did not recognise him as such, this friend and others withdrew from Palmar in horror, and admitted that they had been deceived. But the tragedy is that there are thousands who did not. Their faith had become identified with the authenticity of the Palmar sect. Satan had amputated them from the mystical body of Christ.

Priceless!

1 Roman Hat - €220

1 Daily Roman Missal 1962 - $59.95
1 Pair custom made Clerical shoes - €400
1 Rosary - $5
1 Biretta - £22
1 Ferraiolo on order - €€€
Really upsetting the right people - PRICELESS!

Benedict on Mary

Excerpts from the Ratzinger Report on Mariology (this seemed appropriate in light of the upcoming Solemnity of the Assumption):

As a young theologian in the time before (and also during) the Council, I had, as many did then and still do today, some reservations in regard to certain ancient formulas, as, for example, that famous De Maria numquam satis, 'concerning Mary one can never say enough.' It seemed exaggerated to me. So it was difficult for me later to understand the true meaning of another famous expression (current in the Church since the first centuries when-after a memorable dispute-the Council of Ephesus, in 431, had proclaimed Mary Theotokos, Mother of God). The declaration, namely, that designated the Virgin as 'the conqueror of all heresies.' Now-in this confused period where truly every type of heretical aberration seems to be pressing upon the doors of the authentic faith-now I understand that it was not a matter of pious exaggerations, but of truths that today are more valid than ever.

Yes, it is necessary to go back to Mary if we want to return to that 'truth about Jesus Christ,' to 'truth about the Church' and the 'truth about man' that John Paul II proposed as a program to the whole of Christianity when, in 1979, he opened the Latin American Episcopal Conference in Puebla. The bishops responded to the Pope's propsal by including in the first documents...their unanimous wish and concern: 'Mary must be more than ever the pedagogy, in order to proclaim the Gospel to the men of today.' Precisely in that continent where the traditional Marian piety of the people is in decline, the resultant void is being filled by political ideologies. It is a phenomenon that can be noted almost everywhere to a certain degree, confirming the importance that piety which is nor mere piety" (Card. Joseph Ratzinger, The Ratzinger Report, pp. 105-106).

Michael Davies: Biographies of the Medjugorje Seers

 Many readers of this blog are familiar with Michael Davies book "Liturgical Timebombs" and have great respect for the author, now deceased. Recently I ran across a book by him that I had never heard of before called "Medjugorje AfterTwenty-One Years" Nobody familiar with Davies' other works can doubt his scholarship and credibility. In this book, he rips to shreds the claims that the Blessed Virgin has been appearing to six children (now all adults with children of their own) of the Yugoslav town of Medjugorje since 1981. There is so much evidence that Davies brings forth that by the end of the book the claims of Medjugorje look foolish and laughable.

One of things Davies brings up are the subsequent careers of the so-called "seers." St. Bernadette and Lucia both saw Mary only a few times, and it was enough to cause them both to want to dedicate their life to serving God in the convent. Supposedly, Mary has appeared to these seers collectively over 8,500 times since 1981 and there has not been a single vocation out of the six of them. Odd, isn't it? Of course, one retains freedom of will, and there is no guarantee that an authentic apparition will produce a religious vocation - but throughout the Church's history, this is usually the case.

Furthermore, most of the seers are now rich, having made fortunes off of giving talks about their alleged apparitions. Is this the way Sr. Lucia or St. Bernadette behaved?

Here is an excerpt from Davies' book on the biographies of the "seers." I have the book in its entirety linked on the sidebar under "Excellent Catholic Articles." The remainder of this article is entirely taken from Davies' book.

The six seers are, in order of age:

Vicka (Vida) Ivankovic, born on 3 September 1964 is the oldest of the seers. She has been receiving daily apparitions since 24 June 1981, although on some days there were no apparitions while on others she received five or more. She has received nine of the ten secrets and still receives daily apparitions. Vicka is always willing to speak to any large number of pilgrims who wish to meet her, and to put their questions to Our Lady and to transmit her answers to them.

She claims that for two years, from 7 January 1983 until 10 April 1985, Our Lady recounted her life story in great detail, and that this autobiography will be published in due course. She also stated in an interview for an Australian television network, which I have on video-cassette, that Our Lady took her on a guided tour of heaven, hell, and purgatory. Jakov Colo, the youngest visionary, was also invited on the tour. Our Lady took Vicka by the right hand and Jakov by the left and they floated off. Vicka wondered how long the journey would take, and was amazed to find that it lasted only one second. The tour itself took 20 minutes. Vicka did not explain how she was able to be so precise about the time taken. Heaven is a very large room in which people wearing grey, yellow, and pink gowns are walking, praying, and singing while small angels float above them. Purgatory is a big space in which no one can be seen, but it was possible to feel that the souls there were beating and thumping each other. There is a large fire in hell into which the souls enter and emerge as beasts.

Another of her stories is of a taxi driver who had been given a bloody handkerchief which he was about to throw in a river. A mysterious women in black, who, of course, turned out to be Our Lady, prevented him just in time, because, had he done so the world would have been destroyed (see May 1990, Part 6). No open minded person who reads Monsignor Zanic's account of Vicka (see May 1990—Parts 6-11), or of her attempt to defraud Dutch benefactors of Medjugorje by telling them that Our Lady wished them to finance the construction of a hotel by the father of one of her friends, can escape the conclusion that she is an habitual liar (see November 1997, Medjugorje Incredibilities.)

In January 2002 Vicka married Mario Mijatovic from the parish of Gradino. They live in the parish of Medjugorje.

Mirjana Dragicevic was born in Sarajevo on 18 March 1965. Her first vision was on 24 June 1981 and after receiving the tenth secret on 25 December 1982 she ceased to have daily apparitions. Mirjana said that parting from Our Lady caused her great sorrow, and they found it hard to part from each other even after being together for 45 five minutes. Our Lady assured Mirjana that she must return to a normal daily routine and live in future without her motherly advice. She warned Mirjana that the first few months without their daily meetings would be very hard for her, and this proved to be the case. Mirjana fell into a state of deep depression, avoided everyone, and locked herself in her bedroom weeping, hoping that Our Lady would appear to her, and calling out her name. Our Lady bestowed a great gift to her, that of promising to appear upon her birthday for the rest of her life. However, a year is a long time, visitors were coming from all sides, and so Our Lady had a change of mind. On 2 September 1987 Mirjana received an internal locution, and from then on, on the second of every month, she has received an internal locution or an actual apparition of Our Lady, and sometimes they pray together for unbelievers. From 2 January 1997 these visits ceased to be on a private basis. Mirjana is made aware of the exact time when Our Lady will appear, from 10am until 11am, and this monthly meeting is now open to the public.

Mirjana has received all ten secrets. She claims to have received them from Our Lady on a parchment which has been examined by “linguistic experts” who pronounced that it is written in an unknown language. This is fortunate as had this not been the case they would no longer have been secret. The only precedent for a document in an unknown language is that of The Book of Mormon. One wonders why Our Lady would have given the ten secrets to Mirjana, who speaks only Croatian, in an unknown language, and whether by some miracle she is able to understand it. It is also claimed that, having been carbon tested for date and substance, the parchment has been documented as made from an unknown substance. Mirjana was married to Marko Soldo on 16 September 1989 and has two children, Marija born on 8 December 1990, and Veronica born on 19 April 1994. She is married and lives in Medjugorje.

Mirjana has the distinction of being the only seer to have had an apparition of the devil. He appeared to her on 14 April 1982 while she was waiting for Our Lady to appear. He was wearing the same clothes worn by Our Lady, he had a terrible black face but with Mary’s features. He stared at her with burning black eyes and offered her all the pleasures of the world, but she refused. A little later Our Lady appeared and said: “I apologize, but you had to see him in order to know that he exists and that you will be tempted in this world.” To the best of my knowledge this is the only occasion when Our Lady has apologized to a seer, and no explanation is given as to why she did not command the devil to manifest himself to any of the other Medjugorje seers to prove to them that he exists.

Marija Pavlovic was born on 1 April 1965. She is married, to Paolo Lunetti on 1 April 1993, went for a honeymoon on the Côte d’Azur in France. The couple now have three children, Mikaele, born on 14 July 1994; Francesco Maria, born on 24 January 1996, and Marco Maria born on 19 July 1997. Mrs Lunetti now lives in Monsa, Italy, in a “palatial” six storey home. She has received nine secrets, and still has daily apparitions. She is on such good terms with Our Lady that the Blessed Virgin allows herself to be caressed if Marija requests it. A nun who was present while Marija was witnessing an apparition relates:

Marija asked me whether I desired to touch the Virgin. I said yes straight away. She then took my right hand and I lifted it to the Virgin's shoulder: she then guided my hand down telling me what I was touching. I myself neither saw nor felt anything. Thus I caressed her right down to her feet.

Surely this ludicrous and almost blasphemous nonsense is enough to deprive Pavlovic of any credibility. Marija receives and reveals Our Lady’s “Message to the Parish of Medjugorje and the entire World” on the 25th of each month.

Ivan Dragicevic, who is not related to Mirjana, was born in Bijakovici in the parish of Medjugorje on 25 May 1965. His secondary education took place in Citluk where he failed to pass the first year examinations. In August 1981 he entered the Franciscan seminary for Herzegovina where he claimed to receive daily apparitions and claimed that Our Lady always gave him the traditional Croatian greeting: “Praise be Jesus and Mary”. It is somewhat surprising that Our Lady, who is our model of humility, would bestow praise upon herself! He failed to pass his first year examinations after two attempts. It was thought that he might have more success at the seminary in Dubrovnik where he was sent in the autumn of 1982. On one occasion, during the recitation of the rosary, he informed his fellow seminarians that Our Lady had appeared upon a picture of Our Lord and said: “This is your father.” Our Lord did not once refer to Himself as our father in the Bible and is never referred to as such in the Tradition of the Church. Once again his academic progress was poor and he left the seminary in January 1983 and returned home. He spent, and still spends, a great deal of his time touring the world, addressing large audiences, and never fails to delight them with purported apparitions of Our Lady. On 23 October 1994 he married Laureen Murphy, an American beauty queen from Boston, and, of course, had a wedding day apparition. They have three children. He divides his time between his homes in Medjugorje and Boston. He has received nine secrets and by 2001 more than 7,000 daily apparitions, and still has a daily apparition wherever he is in the world. He is now extremely wealthy and drives a custom built BMW with “outside the series” wide sports tires.

Ivanka (Ivica) Ivankovic was born in Bijakovici on 21 June 1966. She married Rajko Elez on 29 December 1986, and has three children, Kristina, Josip, and Ivan. She has received ten secrets and ceased having daily apparitions on 7 May 1985. Ivanka claimed that in this final apparition Our Lady had never looked more sweet and beautiful, and was wearing the most beautiful dress that she had ever seen. It sparkled with silver and gold. The Virgin was accompanied by two angels with matching outfits, and asked Ivanka if she had a wish. The wish was to see her deceased mother, and then, after embraces and kisses, there was a final message: “My dear child, today is our last meeting. Do not be sad. I shall return on your birthday every year except for this one. My child, do not think that I am not coming because you have done something wrong. You have done nothing wrong. The plans which my Son and I had you accepted with your whole heart and you carried them out. Ivanka, the blessings that you and your brothers (the other seers?) have received have never previously been accorded to anyone on earth.” After the conversation had lasted an hour, Ivanka gave a farewell kiss to Our Lady who then rose aloft to heaven accompanied by the two angels.

She now has one apparition a year. She states that one apparition a year is sufficient for her as she has already received more graces than anyone else on earth. In 1997 the visit lasted for six minutes and the message was as follows:

Dear Children, pray from your hearts so that you will know how to forgive and to be forgiven. I thank you for your prayers and for the love that you give me.

Ivanka claimed that when she was preparing to celebrate the New Year at midnight in 1982 Our Lady paid her a surprise visit and wished everyone present a Happy New Year. Marija, Vicka, and Ivan claim to have had only nine secrets confided to them and hence still have daily apparitions.

Jakov Colo, born in Bijakovici on 6 March 1971, is the youngest of the visionaries. He was married on 11 April 1993 to Anna-Lisa Barozzi and has two children, Ariana Maria born in January 1995, and David, born in September 1996. He received daily apparitions from 25 June 1981 until 12 September 1998. Between 7 January 1983 and 11 April 1983 Our Lady told him the story of her life. During an apparition in 1993, at the height of the war, Our Lady asked him to pray for peace in the former Yugoslavia, and convinced him that his prayers could bring the war to an end. On 12 September 1998, after visiting the USA, he came to the parish office in Medjugorje saying that Our Lady had appeared to him for the last time on that day. The apparition lasted for 30 minutes from 11.15 to 11.45. He did, however, receive the promise of a regular visit on Christmas Day each year. The Virgin revealed the tenth secret to him with great sadness, but comforted him gently, saying: “Do not be sad, because like a mother I will be with you always, and like a true mother I will never abandon you.” Jakov has had the privilege of shaking hands with Our Lady:

On the feast of Our Lady's Nativity (8 September 1981), the Virgin appeared to Vicka and Jakov in Jakov's house. So Jakov held out his hand to the Virgin, saying: "Dear Holy Virgin, I wish you a happy birthday." Thus it was that the little boy had the great good fortune to see the Mother of God shake his hand.

It is claimed that "Jakov's face, eager and upturned, is one of the most external outward proofs we have of the authenticity of the events." If one reads the accepted criteria for discerning the authenticity of alleged apparitions, eager and upturned faces will not be found among them.

The situation, according to the June 1996 issue of the Medjugorje Herald is that: “Marija, Vicka, and Ivan have each received nine secrets and so continue to have daily apparitions.” This is very convenient in order to ensure that the pilgrims and the money continue to roll in. The Medjugorje pilgrims expect, as part of their package-trip, to see a seer going into ecstasy while experiencing an apparition. They are never disappointed.

Jelena Vasilj and Marijana Vasilj. In addition to the six seers already listed, there are two who do not claim to have apparitions but to receive inner locutions in which they hear the voice of Our Lady and see her inwardly with the heart. They are Jelena Vasilj, born on 14 May 1972, and Marijana Vasilj (no relation) born on 5 October 1972. They have established a prayer group which the Virgin not only attends but actually leads through the two locutionists. Our Lady leads another prayer group which she directs through Ivan and Marija.

Blame it on the ignorant laity?

I recently had a conversation with a priest who was asserting that Vatican II was a very necessary council and was very timely. I asked him why, and he said that the 1950's was no golden era for the Church in America; if things had been so good then and Catholics were so intelligent, why did everything go wrong in the 1960's? He was essentially saying the abuses and mass confusion that crept in after Vatican II happened because the American people were not well enough catechised in the 1950's to understand how to truly implement the documents of Vatican II (this is the same line the bishop's take with papal statements: you all are too stupid to understand these for yourselves; you need us to interpret them for you). If only the American laity had been intelligent enough to comprehend the grand vision of John XXIII, then everything would have went down a lot smoothly.

It was an interesting supposition. So, who is to blame for the gross abuses after Vatican II? (By the way, we are discussing here only the abuses, not the problems of the VII rites and documents themselves) Well, let's break it down Aristotelian style: (1) The Efficient Cause of the abuses were the confusing guidelines introduced by the bishops and the periti in the wake of the Council (2) The Formal Cause was the modernist doctrines that were infesting the theology of the Church in the first half of the twentieth century (3) The Final Cause was clearly the democratization of the Church and the rupture with Church Tradition.

The last question we have is "What was the material cause?" Who is to blame for actually allowing the abuses to take place? Since the Church is made up of people, we would have to say that the Material Cause is the people of the Church who actually instituted and performed the abuses; but which people? This priest in the discussion asserted that it was the laity who were so poorly catechized that they were unable to attain to the lofty vision proposed by Vatican II. Thus, the abuses are the fault of the stupid laity who misunderstood the Council. Is this a proper understanding of how the abuses crept in?

My answer is that the Material Cause is the priests and bishops who got on board with the "spirit of Vatican II" after the Council. If there was a problem with the laity in the 1950's, it was not that they were too poorly catechized but that they were catechized too well, especially in matters of obedience. For centuries, the Catholic faithful were taught the virtue of obedience to ecclesiastical superiors. It was drummed into their head (ever since the Reformation especially) that Father knows best and that obedience is due to the bishop in all things. Thus, when the time of the reforms came, the faithful (never dreaming that their pastors might be making a grave prudential error) followed their pastors into the land of abuse without so much as a thought. They were led by misguided shepherds and they, because of their obedience and docility (virtues, mind you!) to Church authority went wherever Father Get-With-It said they needed to be going. Thus, they reluctantly but obediently sat by while their altars were destroyed and while the music of Palestrina was replaced with the insipid guitar Masses of Marty Haugen.

It is always a virtue to obey an ecclesiastical superior in a prudential manner, even if their judgment may be wrong (so long as it does not lead you to commit sin, of course). The laity cannot be blamed for obeying their pastors; that is what the laity are supposed to do. But it is always a sin for a pastor or shepherd to deliberately lead his people astray. Furthermore, it is an even graver sin when the pastor exploits the faithful's sense of obedience to authority in order to compel their being led astray. The pastors gave the children a scoprion instead of a fish; this is the opposite of what a good pastor is supposed to do. They have the greater sin that whatever culpability an "ignorant laity" bear.

Therefore, the fault of the implementation of abuses certainly rests not with the laity who docily went along with what Father said, but with Father who got up there and told them that these reforms were going to "bring the Church into the 20th century", that they had to get on board with "the spirit of the Council", that fixed high altars were "medieval", that religious ought to discard their habits in order to "be more accessible." It is these who are the Material Cause of the abuses. If the American laity did have a problem, it was that they were too obedient.

Constitution of the Catholic Church?

Perhaps no attempt at democratization of the Church has been so blatant as the promulgation of a proposed "Constitution of the Catholic Church." This would be laughable if it was not serious; it was first proposed by Prof. Leonard Swidler (swindler?) of Temple University, Philadelphia, in 1998 and has gone through some revision since then. It is supported by the Association for Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC) and the International Movement We Are Church (IMWAC), both well known dissenting organizations that promote such foolishness as election of bishops by councils of lay people and term limits on the papacy.

"The intention of this Constitution" according to Prof. Swindler, "is to empower the Christian community." Okay, I don't like it already. What does he mean by that? Well, it means that "maximum decision-making authority is placed with the local christian community, as their responsibility, to develop their pastoral role without external interference or restrictions. The members of the community really are in control." I assume the phrase "without external influence" means without having to be accountable to the bishops or the pope. (By the way, why does the Church need to be "empowered"? Wasn't it empowered enough when Christ established it, promised it would never err, promised the gates of Hell would never destroy it, then gave it the gift of the Spirit and the sacraments for all time? Wasn't that enough empowering? I guess not; Prof. Swindler would have the people take the place of the Spirit. Anybody remotely familiar with Catholic theology knows that the Spirit is Who leads the Church. Prof. Swindler and ARCC would have us turn in our divine inheritance for a modernist bowl of pottage. But I digress.)

Section II of this proposed Constitution lists several rights that they assert every Catholic should have. Let's have a look at them (my commentary in red):

All Catholics have the basic human rights e.g., (a) freedom of action (ie, to sin without being told they are sinning) (b) freedom of conscience (to practice contraception) (c) freedom of opinion and expression (ie, the right to freely dissent from Church dogma) (d) the right to receive and impart information (ie, the right to have pro-Choice speakers disseminate propaganda at Church sponsored events), (e) freedom of association (the right to form dissenting organizations like Call to Action and Faith in Public Life), (f) the right to due process of law (ie, the right to freely disregard canon law), (g) the right of participation in self-governance (ie, the laity should elect their bishops), (h) the right to the accountability of chosen leaders (ie, the laity can impeach their bishops and even the pope if they don't toe the modernist Party Line), (i) the right to the safeguarding of one's reputation and privacy (ie, the Church should not be allowed to publicly excommunicate anybody), (j) the right to marry (ie, the right to gay marriage and to re-marriage), (k) the right to education and the corresponding duty to exercise them responsibly (the right for lay people to be in charge of education, versus the few pockets where priests and religious still handle it).

There is so much more where that came from: they propose a National Council that elects a pope who serves a term of ten years, and propose that each parish draw up its own individual constitution to be governed by, and that they "not to wait for action from above or below, but immediately start in motion a process bringing together all the ements of his parish to draw up a "parish constitution" by which the parish will be governed." I suppose this means to do it without permission. Even the preamble is insipidly trite: "We the people of the Catholic Church hold that because all men and women are created in God's image..." What a rip off from the Declaration of Independence! At least in the Declaration, those words "we the people" actually mean something substantial; here, in the context of the Catholic Church, it is the negation of meaning, the contradiction of what the Church has always taught about itself and its identity.

You can find the entire document here if you are looking for a good laugh. By the way, it might be nice to email ARCC and tell them what you think of this foolish attempt to rebuild the Tower of Babel. You can reach tham at mailto:facshaferi@mercur.usao.eduor ihs@ionet.net.

However, perhaps having a list of rights of Catholics delineated is not such a bad idea altogether. In fact, I have a few rights I wouldn't mind seeing codified. Here is a list of some of them:

1. The right to receive Communion on the tongue shall not be infringed


2. The right to receive Communion on the knees shall not be denied.


3. The right to receive Communion from a priest only shall be firmly established.


4. The faithful shall not be deprived of the Church's traditional holy music (chant).


5. Nor shall they be denied the liturgy in the Church's universal language.


6. The right of Catholics to not hear heresy preached from the pulpit.


7. Every Catholic must have a Traditional Latin Mass available for Sundays and Holy Days within 30 miles of his domicile.


8. The right of every Catholic to not be subject against their will to the music of Haugen and Hass, which is cruel and unusual punishment.

I could go on with many more, but I think these suffice. Keep an eye out for these groups like ARCC and IMWAC. They masquerade as Catholic organizations, but they are truly hotbeds of heresy.

Click here for "Why the phrase "We Are Church" should never be used, even in an orthodox sense."

Summorum Pontificum: Here Comes the Hoop

This is the Mass the bishops are trying to keep from us...

...they would rather give us this one instead!

Many supporters of the Traditional Mass of St. Pius V who (like myself) eagerly waited for Pope Benedict's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (by the way, it has been out one month tomorrow) predicted that unless the rights of the priest to say the Mass were very clearly dileneated, the bishops would find or invent hoops for any priests wanting to celebrate the TLM to jump through in order to frustrate the implementation of the motu proprio. This is now happening in the reactions of the world episcopate. This is the development of what Fr. Zuhlsdorf has amply called "The Party Line."

The biggest hoop being created for priests to jump through is the qualification hoop; this consists of a priest having to "prove" to his bishop that he is "qualified" to say the Tridentine Mass; in most cases, this means proving that he is competent in Latin. The bishop of Augsburg, Germany has mandated a "qualification program" before priests are allowed to say the old Mass; the bishop of Kalmazoo, MI requires that a priest demonstrate that he have a sound knowledge of Latin. Many other bishops have said that they would institute qualification guidlines that priests will have to meet.

It can easily be seen why this requirement can be used to prevent a wider application of the motu proprio: whether or not a priest is sufficiently knowledgeable in Latin is completely subjective. A bishop could turn down any priest whom he claimed was "unqualified." What determines how good a person needs to be in Latin to say the Mass? And are a bunch of bishops who despise the old Mass really the best ones to make the judgment?

Now, I believe that every single priest should know Latin (and at least have a working knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, too!). I would love for every priest to have a firm mastery of the Latin tongue and be as at home praying in the language of the Church as they are in the vernacular. But, I would like to point out one simple fact that all of these bishops who are requiring Latin qualifications seem to have forgotten:

The priest does not need to be proficient in Latin to say the old Mass!

What do I mean by this? Well, to offer a valid Eucharist, all that is necessary on the part of the priest (besides proper form and matter, of course) is to do what the Church intends when confecting the sacrament. Speaking in terms of strict validity, as long as he is intending to do what the Church does, his own disposition is irrelevant. This is the same principle that governs why anybody can baptize in case of an emergency, even an atheist, so long as he wills to do what the Church intends.

In the case of Latin, it is not necessary (though certainly preferable) that the priest have a sufficient knowledge of Latin. All he needs are two things: (1) to be able to pronoune the Latin words, and (2) to be able to memorize the Latin phrases he needs to have memorized. The priest could be completely ignorant of the Latin language and still offer this Mass so long as he was capable of doing these two things.

Since the Holy Father himself points out that a good liturgical formation and knowledge of Latin are lacking in many priests, I can forsee some bishops turning down requests for the TLM based on he assertion that the priest "doesn't know" Latin. But priests all over the country are now encouraged to say the Novus Ordo in Spanish, even in parishes where Spanish speaking people are the minority. Do you mean to tell me that every single priest who does the Novus Ordo in Spanish must be proficient in it to say the Mass? Is every priest saying a Spanish Mass proficient in it? I don't think so; the bishops in this case recognize that as long as the priest can pronounce the words, then he is able to muddle through. The same should apply to the provisions of the MP.

The fact of the matter is, this is just another hoop that those who hate tradition have created to make traditionalists jump through. I predict the next hoop will be a very restrictive definition of what constitutes a "stable group" of the faithful. I am thankful for the motu proprio with all my heart, but I will never tire of saying it: ambiguity in Church documents breeds chaos.

Fulton Sheen: "It's always a moral problem."

 Archbishop Fulton Sheen once told a story of a man he met on one of his many plane trips. As the archbishop settled down in his seat in the hopes of taking a nap, a man sat down next to him. The man saw the archbishop in his priestly attire and introduced himself as an ex-Catholic who used to be an usher at a local parish. The man immediately began tearing into the Church, attacking her doctrines, disciplines and culture with every attack that modernists typically throw at the Catholic faith. Bishop Sheen sat there quietly, listening to the man's many complaints and occasionally interjecting a question. Silently, he was praying the entire time for a way to get through to this man.

After several minutes of the long tirade, by a supernatural intuition, Fulton Sheen asked the man, "So tell me, how much did you steal?" The man was silent and began trembling; finally he broke down and admitted that when he was an usher he had stolen thousands of dollars from the collection plate at his parish. Archbishop Sheen said that he knew that there must have been something more substantial behind all of the petty gripes this man had been putting forward.

I do not know whether or not this man was reconciled to the Church, but Bishop Sheen's story brings out an excellent point: those who oppose the Church, or Christianity in general, seldom do so for intellectual reasons. Now, I know there are those who say it is because of intellectual reasons, but this is not usually the real case. Perhaps I am being biased because I am in fact a Catholic and an amateur theologian, but to me, it is not a difficult task upon study of the history and tenets of our faith to see their obvious truth. It is easy to say that from the inside, but the fact remains that anyone can come to a sincere faith in Christ and His Church by an honest appraisal of the evidence. But it is obvious that not everybody does. Why is this?

Behind every supposed "intellectual" or "scientific" objection of the atheist or anti-Catholic lies a moral objection. If one were to admit the theological truths of the faith, then one would have to bind themselves to the moral precepts of the faith that they profess intellectually. It is simple; the man's conscience condemned him for stealing and, rather than confess to sin, it was easier to come up with intellectual reasons to place himself outside of the Church. The agnostic ( in the Latin: ignoramus) does not disbelieve God because he really cannot make up his mind; he disbelieves because belief would imply an abjuration of sin and a bending of the knees and heart to submit to Christ and His Church, which the agnostic has already pre-decided that he is not willing to do. Therefore, he creates an intellectual front to justify his moral behavior, which is based on his feelings that stem from pride and attachment to pleasure.

As a former salesman, I was taught as a sales tool that "People make decisions emotionally and then justify them rationally." This is ever so true in the most important decision a person can make, that of what to do with Christ and His Church. After all, the original problem of the Reformation was not that Luther intellectually disbelieved the Church's doctrines, but that he would not submit to the moral authority of the Pope to correct a theologian. Only after he was excommunicated (1521) did he start to develop his doctrines of sola fide, sola scriptura and all the rest. So, next time somebody is attacking the Church, like Bishop Sheen listen and take objections seriously, but be congnizant that the real problem is probably much deeper than they are letting on.

Old Mass Is More Meritorious than the New!

I just read an excellent article by Fr. Chad Ripperger, F.S.S.P., entitled The Merit of a Mass. The article appeared in the Summer 2003 edition of the Latin Mass Magazine. I have always found Fr. Ripperger's work to be scholarly and compelling (see sensus traditionis for more of his work) and this article is no exception.

The import of the assertion that the Traditional Rite of Mass is objectively more meritorious than the new is frankly staggering:

"Since one of the primary obligations of those in authority in the Church is the glory of God through the salvation of souls, they have the obligation to encourage, and, in some cases, require the ritual of the Mass which is most efficacious."

Before anyone panics, let me add that Fr. Ripperger makes at the outset a clear distinction between the intrinsic and extrinsic merit of a Mass. The intrinsic value of any valid Mass is infinite, since it is Christ's own infinitely valuable sacrifice to the Father. Intrinsically, then, the New Rite of Mass is just as efficacious as the Traditional Rite or as any other valid Rite.

However, "the extrinsic value or merit of the Mass is finite. This is so because man, a finite creature, is incapable of receiving infinite effects." That is, the fruit of any particular Mass, the benefits derived from its being offered, can be more or less depending on a number of different things, which Fr. Ripperger goes on to enumerate.

A) The Church: the Mass is the public sacrifice of the Church as a whole, and since the holiness of the Church depends (in part) on the holiness of her members, the less holy the Church is in her wayfaring members in any given epoch the less (extrinsically) meritorious is the sacrifice She offers. "The moral and spiritual depravity of this moment in history has gravely affected this aspect of merit in the Church. This is why the pope and bishops have a grave responsibility for moral reform of the clergy and laity."

B) The Priest as Public Servant of the Church: the priest acting in persona Christi can gain fruit for those for whom he offers the Mass regardless of his personal sanctity.

C) The Priest as Private Person: neverthless, the holier a priest is the more efficacious will his prayers be. (cf. James 5:16). "This is why the holiness of the clergy has a direct impact on the life of the Church... This is also why the faithful have a certain sense that it is better to have a holy priest rather than an unholy priest offer the Mass for their intentions. The fact is that the Mass said by a good priest is better and more efficacious that the Mass said by a bad priest."

D) The Faithful: as for the priest as private person, so for the faithful. The holier the congregation, the more they will be able to benefit from the Mass. The reverse, though, is also true. "If [members of the congregation] are receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin, they detract from the goodness of the Mass extrinsically and in this way affect everyone else... The fact that the vast majority of Catholic couples are either using or have used contraception as well as the general moral and spiritual decay among the faithful in virtually all areas has left this aspect of merit regarding the Mass anemic, to say the least."

E) The Decora: "If we use objects that do not fit the majesty and the exalted nature of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we can actually detract from the extrinsic merit. Ugly things please God less and thus merit less." (See Fr. Ripperger's article God and Aesthetics addressing the cogency of the argument that the Old Rite is more pleasing to God than the New Rite based on its superior beauty. It is available in the Fall 2002 edition of the Latin Mass Magazine.)

F) The Merit of the Ritual Itself: one of the ways in which "one ritual can be more efficacious than another is that it is offered with greater solemnity or, as Gihr puts it, pomp. The solemnity and pomp give greater glory to God, and are eminently suited to Him since He is the Majesty or Ruler of the whole universe. He is greater than any earthly king and therefore deserves a greater ritual than any earthly king." Another way in which one ritual can be better than another is the degree to which it flows from the virtue of charity. "The ritual of the Mass ought to be ordered to God and not to man, except insofar as man is served in order to worship God. In other words, God is the end of the ritual, not man. This follows from the order of charity in which we love God and our neighbor for the sake of God. The ritual should not have man for its finality, but God, for if it has man for its finality, it goes contrary to charity, which has God as its end. It will also go contrary to justice since one will not render to God through the prayers of the ritual what is due to Him."

So, is the Traditional Latin Mass more meritorious than the Novus Ordo? I'll allow you to read Fr. Ripperger's article to see his conclusion, but I for one am convinced that it is.

P.S. I found it very easy to aquire back issues of the Latin Mass Magazine by emailing my request to them at latinmassmagazine@hotmail.com.

Beauty Will Save the World

Recently, my brother-in-law has been coming to Mass with me on Sundays. He was a Protestant, but through study and prayer he came to see the foolishness of the sola scriptura and sola fide positions and is now coming into the Church this Easter. Deo gratias.

Now, the Church we go to celebrates a regular Novus Ordo Mass. It does not have any of the more aggregious abuses (no drums, or guitars, or clowns, or dancing), but it does have the standard ones, like versus populum, all vernacular and so forth. There is no Haugen or Hass (usually), just regular organ music and traditional hymns. The priest generally uses Eucharistic Prayer 2 and there is an undue multiplicity of Extraordinary Ministers. Most people receive standing in the hand. So, all in all, I'd say that my parish is pretty standard. Of course, we have the unique blessing of being in a 175 year old building that fortunately managed to survive mostly intact the liturgical reformation of the 1960's, so I guess that is not standard; but all in all, we are a normal, American, post-Vatican II Novus Ordo parish.

After Mass the other day, my brother-in-law came out and said to me, "You know, I think the Mass is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen." I was amazed, because, having never seen a Traditional Latin Mass, all he had was a vernacular Novus Ordo, and still he was struck by the beauty of the liturgy (regardless of how reductionistic it might have been). As Martin Mosebach said, the tragedy of the reform of the 60's is that it has forced us all to become liturgical experts. I can no longer view a Mass with the virgin eye of somebody ignorant of the inner rubrics of liturgical worship and thus I am unable, unlike my brother-in-law, to see a Mass, any Mass, for the first time and be immediately struck by its beauty. For that, I have to use a great deal of concentration and try to forget the whole liturgical mess that the Church is in right now.

A dignified Novus Ordo can be beautiful; it really can. I criticise the Novus Ordo not because it is intrinsically bad but because it could be more good: it could be filled with more goodness, truth and beauty, like the Mass of St. Pius V. The thought that immediately came to mind was this: if my brother was so moved by a standard Novus Ordo, how much more would he be moved by a Traditional Latin Mass? Of course, the point of the Mass is not whether or not we happen to be "moved", but it cannot be denied that even the exterior beauty of the Old Mass was instrumental in converting both Protestant and heathen nations, like the Russians, for example, who said of the Mass they witnessed in Hagia Sophia (probably the litugy of St. John Chrysostom), "we did not know whether we were on heaven or on earth." Anyone who has ever read the account of Cortes' invasion of Mexico will recall the scenes where the native tribes stood in subdued awe as they watched the Spaniards celebrate a solemn Mass for the first time and how they reverenced the Gregorian Chant as if it were some sort of magical language, for (as Cortes historian Prescott says), "they did not know that such sounds could come from men." The Mass has an intrinsic beauty to it that attracts, as all beauty entails attraction because beauty reveals the good.

Furthermore, the entire reason why the Mass is so beautiful extrinsically is because of what is actually happening intrinsically. The beauty of the Mass is meant to call attention to the Sacrifice of the Mass, wherein God the Son offers Himself to the Father, which is the most beautiful act fathomable and one to which all our efforts of musical and artistic power must be turned in order to make its beauty more apparent and substantial to our weak minds.

One of my favorite quotes by Dostoevsky is "Beauty will save the world" (I think this is from The Idiot, but I'm not sure). Bringing the Mass down to the level of earth will not convert people, especially Protestants. But the Mass of St. Pius V, the Mass of All Ages, by its beauty already has a proven track record of converting thousands of Protestants. Please, for the sake of the Church and for the good of souls, unleash beauty, and it will perform its own work better than any liturgical committee ever could.

Stegosaurus in Cambodia?

What you are seeing is a relief from the great Khmer temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. This image has attracted the attention of scientists and paleontologists around the world because it bears a striking resemblance to a prehistoric Stegosaurus, which evolutionists claim went extinct 65 million years ago. How do we account for this image?

The magnificent jungle temples of Cambodia were produced by the Khmer civilization, beginning as early as the eighth and extending through the fourteenth century A.D. One of, if not the greatest monarchs and monument builders of this empire was Jayavarman VII, crowned supreme king in 1181. Portrait statues, depicting him meditating in the fashion of Buddha, have been found throughout the region. He built the beautiful temple monastery Ta Prohm in honor of his mother, dedicating it in 1186. These awesome temples were rediscovered by Portuguese adventurers and Catholic missionaries in the 16th century and many were restored in 19th and 20th centuries. Ta Prohm, one of the most picturesque, was left in its natural state.

This image, then, must date from arround 1186. Scientists have proposed that it may be a rhinoceros, or some other kind of large mammal. Others, however, assert that it is undeniably a representation of a Stegosaurus. The image appears on a wall with many other reliefs of scenes commonly found in Cambodia: large oxen, farmers working, images of meditating buddhist monks. And also a Stegosaurus. This seems to imply that the Stegosaurus was a common sight in medieval Cambodia.

Did dinosaurs really not go extinct as long ago as the evolutionists say? This seems to be pretty good evidence that whoever made this relief had at some point seen a living Stegosaurus.

Review: Gallipoli (1981)

Being a faithful Catholic, it is oftentimes difficult for my wife and I to find any movies to watch that do not offend us by their blasphemies, sexual impurity or anti-Christian agenda. When we go to the movie store (which is not often), looking at all of the videos is like taking a panoramic view of the cultural wasteland of America over the past several decades. We rarely go to the theater (probably abount once every four months). There is just nothing out there in Hollywood that is worth looking at.

That is why when it does happen that I come across a good movie, I like to trumpet about it. Last week, I rented the 1981 classic film Gallipoli, starring Mel Gibson when he was 25 years old and still had an Australian accent. The movie takes place during World War I and has to do with the tragic and stupid British assault on the Turkish city of Gallipoli and the disastrous outcome. What the movie demonstrates excellently, from a philosophical point of view, is the often trivial factors in wartime that can lead to a soldier's death and the futility of that death at times; the soldier rouses himself to make the complete sacrifice for his country and his comrades, but his death is often prompted by the stupidest miscalculations and errors at higher levels.

First off, in this movie, the main characters (Australian ranchers from the western side of the continent) are shown joining the Army for what would seem to be frivolous reasons: one in order to see a little bit of the world and another in order to impress others; neither seems conscious of the possibility that the decision could actually put their lives in jeopardy. The movie depicts how they idle their training time away, drinking and whoring with all of the other dissolute soldiers in apparent ignorance of the dire condition of the trenches that they are about to be plunged into (the drinking and whoring scenes are relatively mild and shouldn't concern you too much).

Meanwhile, the British command conceives an ill planned attack on the Turkish defenses at Gallipoli. Through the most insignificant human error, the watches of the high command not being synchronized and being off by five minutes, the infantry attack comes too late after the heavy artillery fire has ended, and the British find the Turks firmly entrenched in their positions. Nevertheless, the high command (who are ignorant of the true condition in the trenches and do not really care either way) orders the soldiers to "go over to top" to take the Turkish lines. Row after row of British boys are mowed down as soon as they get out of the trench. Yet the stubborn commander continues to order more assaults, and hundreds more are slain because of the blindness of one commander. A cut phone cable causes confusion in the ranks; a higher ranking general orders the attack to cease, but because the line is cut, the sergeant on the ground has not heard the message. In the final scene, Mel Gibson (who plays a message-runner) dashes to the front hoping to convey the orders to cease to the sergeant before the next attack. But he is just a minute too late, and the sergeant receives contradictory orders from another general to make another assault. The boys go over the top again into the Turkish machine guns, and the last scene of the movie shows Gibson screaming in anger as he hears the whistle sending all his company to death, and because of such stupid human error.

And what is the point of this movie? It amply demonstrates on so many levels how war is seldom rational: it is irrational in the motivation of the soldiers who enlist (for money, or prestige, etc.), in the plans for attacking a position (carried out in ignorance of the enemy's true strength and fortifications), in the irrational errors and tactical mistakes (like two watches that are not synchronized) and unplanned emergencies (the loss of the phone lines) that can directly lead to the deaths of hundreds of young boys in the prime of life, and for no good reason at all. The true, historical tragedy of this battle could have been easily prevented.

In the ultimate sense, it is no tragedy that men have to die in war; all men must die sometime, and the possibility of death is simply part of what war is. But it is a real tragedy when men have to die for no reason. That is the opposite of the traditional ideal, in which men make the supreme sacrifice for a cause greater than themselves. In Gallipoli, and in modern warfare in general, men often make the ultimate sacrifice for some stupid strategic or tactical blunder. This movie will definitely make you think.

Gallipoli is one of those movies that has a really profound message and impact, but the moral is not readily apparent until you really reflect on it. It teaches a lesson and makes you think without you realizing it - this is what truly great films do. With its excellent cinematography, its great plot, message and lack of any (substantial) cussing or sexual scenes, I give it three out of three papal tiaras.

Invitatory Fitting for Today's Church

Israel wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because of their "stubborness." Is the post-Vatican II Church in a similar siutation?

In praying the liturgy of the hours this morning, I was struck by the appropriateness of the Invitatory Psalm (Psalm 95) to the contemporary Church since the 1960's. Listen to this:

Today, listen to the voice of the Lord

Do not grow stubborn, as your fathers did in the wilderness,
When at Meriba and Massah
They challenged Me and provoked Me,
Although they had seen all of My works.

Forty years I endured that generation.
I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray
And they do not know My ways."
So I swore in My anger,
"They shall not enter into My rest."

Is this not an appropriate description of the post-Vatican II Church? God here warns us not to be stubborn "as your fathers did." Now, stubborness, in the Bible, always implies one who is determined to go their own way, despite what God has commanded. Classic biblical examples of stubborness are Pharoah "hardening" his heart against Moses and Saul hardening his heart against David and God. Could it not be said that the Modernists in the Church have "hardened their heart" against God and grown stubborn in preferring their own novel theological speculations and liturgical creativity to the Traditions of the Faith?

God describes these stubborn persons as "challenging" Him and "provoking" Him, although they had seen all His works. What was one of these provocations the congregation of Israel committed against the Lord? One of them was the rebellion of Korah (Num. 16:1-40), in which Korah asserted that the "whole congregation was holy" and had a right to participate in the priestly office. Korah and his followers were consumed by divine fire. Is this not the same provocation against God that happens everytime the laity is clericalized or the special role of the priest is downplayed?

The final verse is especially applicable: "Forty years I endured that generation. I said, 'They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know My ways.'" Forty years! A biblical generation. And how long have we been in this quagmire? About 40 years! In fact, if you start from 1969 (when the Novus Ordo was promulgated), then 40 years will be up in November 0f 2009. Perhaps by then, with the passing of this "wicked and adulterous generation", will we be out of our present mess? Reason says no, but Christian hope (which is hope against hope) must stand firm.

The one thing we can be happy about is that this decrepit generation, these children of the 60's, our "fathers," will not be with us forever. We know how the generation that came with Moses out of Egypt ended up. As St. Paul says, "Was it not those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness?" (2 Cor. 6:1-2) A generation can be as stubborn or as wicked as they like; but we know this from God Himself, that "they shall not enter into My rest." Let's get rid once and for all of this heresy of Modernism, this "synthesis of all heresies" so we can finally "enter into His rest."

St. Ignatius, St. Edmund Campion, and ecumenism

Ignatius, courtier and knight, was wounded at the siege of Pampeluna. During his long convalescence the reading of the lives of the Saints revealed to him that the Church militant needed an army of glorious soldiers to fight the forces of Satan: Pagans, Mohammedans, Protestants, etc. He founded the Society of Jesus and as first General of this new spiritual chivalry he moved to the attack under the motto: "Ad majorem Dei gloriam - To the greater glory of God!" He died with the Holy Name of Jesus on his lips in 1556.

It just so happened that this morning, on the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, my wife and I were reading Evelyn Waugh's biography of one of Ignatius's most glorious spiritual sons: Edmund Campion - A Life. This passage caught our attention as particularly noteworthy in today's ecumaniacal world:

"The next question [addressed by the Synod of Southwark] was one of vital importance to the laymen: the rule governing their attendance at Protestant services. A committee of the Council of Trent had already given a decision, but there had been no official promulgation of it (except to individuals here and there by Dr. Sanders) and many had found it convenient to profess ignorance. Theycould plead, with some reason, that there was nothing specifically anti-Catholic in the Morning Prayer, which would secure them immunity from persecution; it consisted of the recital of a creed identical with their own, readings from the scriptures, psalms and prayers mostly translated from Catholic sources... But no compromise was allowed. By the very importance which the Government attached to it, attendance at the new service constituted an act of adherence to the Elizebethan settlement; it was not merely participicio in sacris, but a formal admission of the spiritual supremacy of the State. Accordingly Persons pronounced an absolute prohibition which placed anyone observing the law outside the Catholic body, in the words, 'So public an act as is going to the church, where profession is made to impugn the truth and to deface, alienate and bring into hatred Christ's Catholic Church, is the highest iniquity that can be committed.'" (pp. 118-119)

O GOD, Who to spread the greater glory of Thy name, didst, by means of blessed Ignatius, srengthen the Church militant with a new army: grant that with his help and through his example we may so fight on earth as to become worthy to be crowned with him in heaven. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Mosebach on Veiling

The image above shows Adam and Eve, after their Fall from grace, attempting to veil their nakedness with fig leaves. Ever since this original covering, veils and veiling have had a long pedigree in salvation history and in the Catholic Church. Here is another execerpt from Martin Mosebach's book The Heresy of Formlessness on the proper understanding of liturgical veiling:

The real meaning of veiling is given to us by the earliest mention of a veiling-a covering-that we find in Holy Scripture. After the Fall, Adam and Eve discovered to their horror "that they were naked", and they made clothes from leaves. There is something profoundly disturbing about this passage, for, according to the teaching of Genesis, man was created perfect; his nakedness was, not a defect, but an expression of his likeness to God. After the breaking of God's command, the defect is suddenly there, although man remains outwardly unchanged. He has lost something; it is not there, and it awakens a sense of loss within him. Theology calls this defect the loss of grace. Man clumsily tries to make up for this loss. He puts clothes on to try to regain the radiance that had formerly surrounded him.

Veiling, therefore, becomes a visible sign of the nimbus of grace and holiness that has become invisible to human eyes. Veiling, in the liturgy, is the halo that is by nature appropriate to the sacred vessels and their even more sacred contents. This must never be forgotten if these vessels, signs, and Hosts are to be correctely understood. Veiling, in the liturgy, is not intended to withdraw some object from view, to make a mystery out of it, or to conceal its appearance. The appearance of the veiled things is common knowledge anyway. But their outward appearance tells us nothing about their real nature. It is the veil that indicates this.

If one wanted to formulate a theological doctrine of the veil, one could say that God's creation is real, but this reality, this ability to be real, is weakened because of original sin. Its lack of reality, its lost ability to radiate beyond itself and manifest itself as the Creator's thought is designated by the veil that represents this radiance...In this context, a liturgy that renounces all veiling has nothing to say. Presenting us with nothing but naked materiality, it takes account neither of creation's supernatural perfection nor of the world's need of redemption (Mosebach, 171-173).

In the Traditional Latin Mass, veiling was commonplace; everything was veiled in one way or another. The sacred vessels all had veils proper to them, and the communion rails were a kind of veil delineating the sacred space of the nave apart from the congregation. The liturgical vestments of the priest are a kind of veil; each vestment represented a certain virtue, and all of them together represented the "New Man" that the priest sacramentally becomes as he offers the sacrifice and that every Christian will become on the day of resurrection when our lowly bodies are clothed in resplendent glory. The priest's body itself, in the Old Mass, is a type of veil that hides the mystery of the sacrifice, like a living iconostasis.

In the Mass of Pope Paul VI, nothing is veiled. The only veiling left is (perhaps) the veiling of images on Holy Week, but this has often gave way to artificial and stupid practices like emptying the holy water fonts and putting sand in them (real nice emptying the fonts of their sacramental holy water during the season when we all need it the most!). As Mosebach says, when we remove the veils, we lose the mystery of what we are doing at Mass, of the holiness of the vessels and their contents, of the mystery of Christ's death and even of our own transformation in Him. It may just be a symbolic gesture, but a religious devoid of symbol is nothing but a cold mental abstraction, a religion of philosophers and professors, not the faith of the common man and certainly not the faith of the God-Man who so loved matter that he became it for our salvation and continues to become it every time the priest says the words of consecration.

Position Clarification

It usually that when one takes it upon themselves to be a commentator matters liturgical and (often times) takes the bishops and even the Pope to task for decisions that may not be in the best interest of the Church, people start to question your orthodoxy and wonder whether or not you are a schismatic, sedevecantist, or something worse. I thought, therefore, it prudent to put up a little statement about what the position of Anselm and I is regarding the liturgy, the Mass and the Second Vatican Council.

The way I see it, there are five possible positions one can take on the matter. They cover a broad spectrum, and all of these positions are found within the Church to one degree or another:

1) The Novus Ordo is wonderful, especially when it is a playground for liturgical creativity. Guitars, drums, Buddhist meditation, lay people giving the homily, feminist language, clowns; anything goes so long as the people are entertained. Anything prior to 1967 is suspect.

Liturgical abuse in Hawaii

2) The Novus Ordo, as it is celebrated in most parishes today, is acceptable. While clowns, guitars and Buddhism are seen as grave abuses, celebrating versus populum, in the vernacular, using Protestant hymns and sappy Haugen-Hass songs is deemed acceptable. I think most parishes fall in this category.

3) The Novus Ordo is the ordinary form of the Roman Rite and should be celebrated strictly according to the rubrics and in light of Church Tradition: this means ad orientam, in Latin, with communion rails, and so on. The abuses of positions 1 & 2 are condemned, but the Novus Ordo itself is upheld. An example of this position is Fr. Joseph Fessio.

4) The Novus Ordo, while being a valid form of the Mass validly promulgated by the legitimate Second Vatican Council, was nevertheless a terrible idea. Not only the abuses but the Mass itself are wrought with grave omissions and ambiguities. The Traditional Mass of Pius V should be the normative Mass of the Roman Rite and the Novus Ordo ought to be abolished, maybe gradually, maybe immediately, but in any case phased out. This position is in line with the concerns of the Ottaviani Intervention of 1967.

5) The Novus Ordo is an invalid Mass promulgated by a Council that was probably also invalid. Only the Mass of Pius V has any validity. The hierarchy has slipped into wholescale apostasy.

Now, position 1 is the one that attracts the most attention because the abuses are most grievous there. For this reason, most conservatives will expend most of their liturgical ire combating those in position 1. They are right to combat this position, for position 1 represents the most aggregious offense against God.

Position 2, the safe mainstream, is attacked also by conservatives, but not as vehemently. Most conservatives see no problem celebrating versus populum if the bishop has allowed it. For those in position 2, all options are equal in merit. They are in favor of girl altar servers if girl altar servers are allowed; but if tomorrow altar girls were forbidden, they would be ready with all of the reasons supporting the change. Whatever is the status quo is what they support.

Position 3 is that of what I would call the hardline conservatives, those who, like Fr. Fessio, want to see a strict implementation of the Novus Ordo. But the Novus Ordo itself, free from abuse, is just as good as the Traditional Mass; in fact, many will say it is better and will repeat the words of Paul VI and John Paul II that we needed a new rite of the Mass and that the liturgical renewal of Vatican II was somehow necessary.

Now, position 3 and position 4 are the difference between a conservative and a traditionalist, for a traditionalist sees the Novus Ordo itself, even in Latin and ad orientam, as problematic. If position 3 and position 4 is the difference bewteen a conservative and a traditionalist, then position 4 and position 5 is the difference between a traditionalist and a sedevecantist or a schismatic. Position 5 differs from position 4 not in its adherence to the old rite (which both positions share) but in its estimation of the validity of the Novus Ordo, of the Council and (sometimes) of the pope himself.

So then, back to our original question; where do we at Unam Sanctam Catholicam fall? We would hover between position 3 and position 4: that the Novus Ordo is a valid Mass and that Vatican II was an authentic ecumenical council, but that the implementation of Vatican II, many of the Council documents, and certainly the liturgical reforms are full of problems. The surest route to a true restoration of Catholic Tradition is to restore the Rite of St. Pius V (ie, of Gregory the Great) as the missa normativa of the Roman Rite. The Novus Ordo ought to be cast off as a failed experiment (for that's what it truly is: a liturgical experiment, an artificial creation in a liturgical labratory, a test-tube baby of the Church with no precedent in Tradition), and the sooner it is done away with the better.

Hope this clears things up.

Benedict on Evolution

Pope Benedict XVI recently gave a talk in which he brought up the pertinent point that belief in a Creator does not exclude belief in some kind of evolution, and evolution does not need to imply a rejection of a Creator. This is an important point to make, especially as the so-called opposition between creationism and evolution so often clouds the debate on human origins and the proper interpretation of Genesis 1. Benedict is here reminding us of what Pius XII taught in Humani Generis: that it is permissible to acknowledge that some sort of evolution of the form of the human body took place, so long as one asserts the unique creation of the human soul directly from God, the historicity of Adam and Eve and the reality of original sin.

However, this grudging admission of evolution as a possibility (Benedict says there are good scientific grounds for evolution, which I think he is dead wrong about) is something novel to the Church. While we may be allowed to believe in a limited evolution, Church Tradition clearly favors an immediate Creation (versus an evolutionary one) with fixity of species (versus an elasticity of species). Church Tradition is solidly behind species being fixed, and we ought not to rashly abandon 2,000 years of tradition just because the Pope tells us it is permissible to believe in evolution under certain circumstances. That is the problem with today's Catholics: we take what is granted permissively as an exception and make it the rule.

Just because the Pope says we may consider evolution a viable hypothesis does not mean we all need to jump to embrace it; indeed, the willingness with which so many Catholic priests, bishops and lay people accept the provisionary indult to believe in a limited evolution demonstrates how eager the current Catholic culture is to embrace modernism. And that certainly is a problem.

Click here to read the Pope's comments.

Loss of Liturgical Innocence

I have recently been reading "The Heresy of Formlessness" by German author Martin Mosebach. It is truly an illuminating book that puts the liturgical rupture of the past four decades in perspective from the point of view of the layman in the pew. One thing I found particularly fascinating is his notion that the liturgical problems since the 60's have caused us all to lose our "liturgical innocence." Liturgy, the expression of cult, for it to be authentic, must be natural, reflexive and unthinking. The reforms, because they are unnatural and non-organic, force those on either side of the debate to delve into liturgical matters and become "experts", thus robbing the liturgy of the mystery and sanctity that it formerly possessed (not objectively, of course, but in the mind and feelings of the layman). Mosebach says:

"Perhaps the greatest damage done by Pope Paul VI's reform of the Mass (and by the ongoing process that has outstripped it), the greatest spiritual deficit, is this: we are now positively obliged to talk about the liturgy. Even those who want to preserve the liturgy or pray in the spirit of the liturgy, and even those who make great sacrifices to remain faithful to it-all have lost something priceless, namely, the innocence that accepts it as something God-given, something that comes down to man as a gift from heaven. Those of us who are defenders of the great and sacred liturgy, the classical Roman liturgy, have all become-whether in a small way or a big way-liturgical experts. In order to counter the arguments of the reform, which was padded with technical, archaeological, and historical scholarship, we had to delve into questions of worship and liturgy-something that is utterly foreign to the religious man [ie, the man whose religion is so natural to him as to be unintentional and reflexive].

We have let ourselves be led into a kind of scholastic and juridical way of considering the liturgy. What is absolutely indispensible for genuine liturgy? When are the celebrant's whims tolerable, and when do they become unacceptable? We have got used to accepting the liturgy on the basis of minimum requirements, whereas the criteria ought to be maximal. And finally, we have started to evaluate liturgy-a monstrous act! We sit in the pews and ask ourselves, was that Holy Mass, or wasn't it? I go to church to see God and come away like a theatre critic. And if, now and again, we have the privilege of celebrating a Holy Mass that allows us to forget, for a while, the huge historical and religious catastrophe that has profoundly damaged the bridge between man and God, we cannot forget all the efforts that had to be made so that this Mass could take place, how many letters had to be written, how many sacrifices made this Holy Sacrifice possible, so that (among other things) we could pray for a bishop who does not want our prayers and who would prefer not to have his name mentioned in the Canon.

What have we lost? The opportunity to lead a hidden religious life, days begun with a quiet Mass in a modest little neighborhood church; a life in which we learn, over decades, discreetly guided by priests, to mingle our own sacrifice with Christ's sacrifice; a Holy Mass in which we ponder our own sins and the graces given to us-and nothing else; rarely is this possible any more for a Catholic aware of liturgical tradition, once the liturgy's unquestioned status has been destroyed" (Mosebach, 25-26).

I have this book linked on the sidebar if anybody wants to purchase it. I can't recommend it enough.