“Better Than Blogging…A Prayer for the Pope” (thread title)

from Chris Johnson
   
February 15, 2013
      
to the members of the SJBMA

Quote

O Lord, we are the millions of believers, humbly kneeling at Thy feet and begging Thee to preserve, defend and save the Sovereign Pontiff for many years. He is the Father of the great fellowship of souls and our Father as well. On this day, as on every other day, he is praying for us also, and is offering unto Thee with holy fervor the sacred Victim of love and peace.

Wherefore, O Lord, turn Thyself toward us with eyes of pity; for we are now, as it were, forgetful of ourselves, and are praying above all for him. Do Thou unite our prayers with his and receive them into the bosom of Thine infinite mercy, as a sweet savor of active and fruitful charity, whereby the children are united in the Church to their Father. All that he asks of Thee this day, we too ask it of Thee in unison with him.

Whether he weeps or rejoices, whether he hopes or offers himself as a victim of charity for his people, we desire to be united with him; nay more, we desire that the cry of our hearts should be made one with his. Of Thy great mercy grant, O Lord, that not one of us may be far from his mind and his heart in the hour that he prays and offers unto Thee the Sacrifice of Thy blessed Son. At the moment when our venerable High Priest, holding in His hands the very Body of Jesus Christ, shall say to the people over the Chalice of benediction these words: "The peace of the Lord be with you always," grant, O Lord, that Thy sweet peace may come down upon our hearts and upon all the nations with new and manifest power. Amen.

(For the uninitiated, the SJBMA, or Saint Joseph's Businessmen's Association, is a Traditional Catholic men's group founded for the purpose of educating Catholic heads of families in the Church's social doctrine and the duties relating to their businesses. (Take the epithet "Traditional Catholic" with a grain of salt!) Members have access to an electronic mailing list with all the members on it, and can email them with questions, concerns, advice, et cetera. Before receiving this email, I neither "blogged" nor saw any reason to do so. The reason I answered it was that I received the garbage in the "sanctuary" of my inbox, and saw that my Catholic Faith was under fire. So I shot back! (Now, of course, I am an active member of Cathinfo).

from Chris Johnson

to the members of the SJBMA
   
February 15, 2013
      

Mr. Govan,

The "scandalous prayer that reeks of Liberalism" to which you refer was composed by Pope Leo XIII in 1896 and is taken from The Raccolta, page 525 (link and image below).

You are certainly well aware of one side of the crisis: liberalism within the Church. However, we should all be aware of another danger of the crisis: Trads who begin to think outside the mind the Church, where we start to smell a hint of a Protestant odor. We should be careful.

Since you have called by courage into question, I stand ready to correct any mistake I have made. However, the only mistakes you have identified are those of the Vicar of Christ.

In Christ,
Chris Johnson

O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all Thy faithful people, look mercifully upon Thy servant Benedict, whom Thou hast chosen as shepherd to preside over Thy Church. Grant him, we beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the flock committed to him, may he attain everlasting life.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

http://books.google.com/books?id=aJHKTdv3gncC&lpg=PA525&ots=3xOiHwAiYY&dq=%22Do%20Thou%20unite%20our%20prayers%20with%20his%20and%20receive%20them%20into%20the%20bosom%20of%20Thine%22&pg=PA526#v=onepage&q=%22Do%20Thou%20unite%20our%20prayers%20with%20his%20and%20receive%20them%20into%20the%20bosom%20of%20Thine%22&f=false

from Sean Govan

to the members of the SJBMA

February 15, 2013


Gentlemen,

As a final thought, I'm going to say the collect posted by Mr. Johnson for the next nine days to pray for the conversion of the Pope. If anyone wishes to join me, here it is:

O God, Shepherd and Ruler of all Thy faithful people, look mercifully upon Thy servant Benedict, whom Thou hast chosen as shepherd to preside over Thy Church. Grant him, we beseech Thee, that by his word and example, he may edify
those over whom he hath charge, so that together with the flock committed to him, he may attain everlasting life.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Here's my last reply to the attacks of Mr. Riddle and Co. :

I apologize to Mr. Johnson for calling his courage into question, for such was not my intention - I said what I said in the heat of the moment, without thinking of people's feelings. But let me be very clear: I am sorry that I hurt people's feelings, and very happy that I have shocked people into thinking about the issue, rather than mindlessly accepting whatever appears in their inboxes and is labeled "SJBMA." What scares me is that many people seem less shocked by the fact of indiscriminately taking a prayer composed for a good Pope and applying it to an evil Pope than by someone pointing out that fact. We have been opposed to the last several Popes and to their errors for a long time. Are we no longer opposed to them? I applaud Mr. Johnson for posting the collect for the Pope at the bottom of his reply, for this collect is clearly applicable to all Popes, even the most evil of them. All it asks for is that the Pope receive the grace to fulfill his duties and to reach Heaven, and that is precisely what we must pray for in regard to the current Pope as well.

Mr. Johnson, you seem to misunderstand the nature of Protestantism, whose essence is to reject the true authority in favor of an authority of one's own choosing. In withdrawing obedience from Benedict XVI, I am obeying God, Who commands that we have no other gods besides Him. Those who support or diminish the errors of the current Pope (be their motive false charity, false obedience, or actual agreement with his liberal principles) are the ones who exhale the odor of Protestantism that you speak of. They choose to obey man rather than God. True Catholics obey God rather than man.

Mr. Riddle, I appreciate your effort to make distinctions. Unfortunately, all or nearly all of the distinctions you make are based on the argument from authority, which is the weakest of all arguments, and - when it goes contrary to our Faith - is worse than useless, because it is the most apt to deceive simple souls, as it did in the years following Vatican II. If the Pope can be wrong, then please explain what makes you think that Bishop Fellay can't be. Or maybe you think that we were wrong before? Perhaps Archbishop Lefebvre was wrong to condemn John Paul II's errors, and John Paul II himself, so strongly after Assisi I and the consecrations - more strongly than he ever had?

In spite of your comment, Mr. Riddle, about the scandalousness of stating that Benedict XVI has "to all appearances" been preparing a place for himself in hell, it is hard to believe that a man whose email address is at angeluspress.org could fail to admit that breaking the first commandment publicly is a public mortal sin. Yet this is what you (hopefully involuntarily) imply when you qualify a remark said in passing as "not Catholic." The point is that the Supreme Shepherd is leading souls to hell and that we need to pray for him, lest he lead even more to hell and afterwards jump in himself. In your haste to make distinctions favorable to the conclusions you have already drawn, you miss the essential: the Pope, leader of the new Conciliar religion, is taking Catholics away from the Faith and leading them to hell by his evil example and evil teaching. Again in your haste, you neglect to explain why it is "scandalous" and "not Catholic" to cry out against the eternal damnation of millions, including the Pope. The reason didn't exactly seem obvious when I read it.

Furthermore, Mr. Riddle, to answer some questions you perhaps thought would be rhetorical, no, I have not contacted Menzingen - nor would it do any good. Shepherds may listen to other shepherds, but they rarely listen to sheep. You, on the other hand, are all sheep like me. If some poor sheep lets itself get influenced by liberal ideas, and begins to bleat about how wonderful the shepherd is and how much we agree with him ("all his defects acknowledged," of course) as that same shepherd gently ushers sheep over the cliff with perfect goodness in his heart, then the sheep who see clearly have a duty to bleat a warning - even if they are only sheep. When the Pope said that it's not that bad at the bottom of the cliff, traditional Catholics used to reply, "It is wrong to offend God. We will not follow you." If Bishop Fellay says, "That cliff can't be that bad. After all, the Pope wants us to jump off of it," then Traditional Catholics must continue to make the same reply that faithful Catholics, always and everywhere, have made. It doesn't matter who preaches error. What matters is the error that is preached.

As for the gratitude of Menzingen for the current Pope's "strength" and "constancy," yes, that gratitude reeks of Liberalism. Strength in what exploit? Helping to invent a Council that caused millions of souls to die in mortal sin? Constancy in what endeavor? That of convincing everybody that one can be saved in any religion? I am ashamed of Menzingen for saying such things.

Again, it is incredible that a man with "angeluspress" in his email address should ask what basis we have for claiming that the Pope wants peace between the religions rather than peace in the True Religion. We are led to believe, Mr. Riddle, that you are not very well informed at all, considering that you work for a (Traditional) Catholic printing press. Since blogging and email wars both tend to take people away from their duties of state, as Mr. Johnson so justly reminded us, I refrain from enlightening your amazing ignorance, equaled only by your Liberal attitude, and refer you instead to the acts of the Pope made public by the world press over the course of his pontificate, and to the traditional catechisms published by your organization, especially the Catechism of the Crisis in the Church.

You, Mr. Riddle, unabashedly minimize the Pope's errors, by putting them in subordinate clauses and sandwiching them between no doubt's and but's. Let me remind you of your statements:

Regarding traditional Catholic teaching, it is fine to discuss objective sin, but for a Catholic to be so bold, no [sic] so scandalous, as to state that the Sovereign Pontiff, all his defects acknowledged, has, "been preparing for himself during his many long years of destroying the Catholic Church" for a "rather warm eternity" boggles the mind. To say your statement is not Catholic would be an amazing understatement.

No doubt, the Holy Father has expressed a modernist conception regarding the doctrine that "outside the Church there is no salvation," but your argument is still a caricature of the Holy Father's thought; at least read what the various scholars in the Society say about it...you'll notice some distinctions being made.

Again, you have more insights than Bishop Fellay who seems to assert that the Holy Father, despite his clearly liberal mind, wants to fix the crisis in the Church, even if he can't bring himself to understand the real cause (the Council) and so is unable to take the measures necessary?

When you minimize the gravity of errors that destroy the Faith, do you not endanger the Faith of others? We could almost ask you, Mr. Riddle, if you are a Liberal or a Catholic, but I am afraid that you have already made the answer abundantly clear. It doesn't matter who you work for. If you endanger the Faith of others and spread Liberalism among your friends, then you are a Liberal. Please, for the good of everyone on this mailing list, have the humility to admit that you are wrong.

To answer your question as to the whereabouts of my charity toward the "Sweet Christ on earth," it is in the words I have been writing to you all. Is there anything better that we can do for a man that is in error than to fight against his errors and ask that others pray for his conversion - a topic which you overlook in your zeal to "make distinctions"?

To conclude, I request that the SJBMA remove me from the association. The association can hardly suffer from my expulsion, as both my friends and my enemies would agree, and I believe that my soul could suffer harm if I deliberately continue to expose myself to Liberal garbage, which is probably a great occasion of sin for ex-Liberals like me.

Many thanks to those who have defended the Truth, both in public and in private, and pointed out the uncharity of those who criticize me for being uncharitable. Farewell, and keep the Faith.


In true charity,

Sean Govan

from XYZ

to the members of the SJBMA

Dear Sirs,

I could write a lengthy agreement or disagreement here, but I could not have said it more clearly and succinctly than Brian McCall's response...100% correct, and totally in line with how Archbishop Lefebvre spoke of the place of the Holy Father, furthermore the same for Bishop Fellay, but most importantly it is the position of Holy Mother Church, and part of our TRADITION. Bravo!
 
--
Sincerely

XYZ

From ABC to the members of the SJBMA

XYZ:
 
I think you are going too far with you remarks on where judgement ends, and Mr. McCall has also stretched some points. Are you willing to give Bishop Williamson the same consideration? Or, are there more detailed aspects that need to be considered: When is the Pope infallible? Under what conditions may a Pope lose the Faith? These are not simple questions and are not subject to simple answers...We judge the Holy Father every time we do not follow him on a matter of the Faith - it is the reality of the situation and making our own realities will not suffice...it appears that on these questions contradictions abound among us all.
 
Respectfully,

ABC

discussion on SJBMA list (thread title)

From Father John McFarland [SJBMA Chaplain]

to Sean Govan

February 16, 2013

Dear Sean,

I have stopped the discussion you have begun on the SJBMA email list. Permit me to explain why.

Like praying for the intentions of the Holy Father, an indulgenced prayer such as the one sent to the list by Mr. Johnson may be said regardless of who the pope is and his public and private sins, errors, etc. We may also continue to call him "Holy Father" by virtue of his office; it is not a judgment of his personal sanctity.

Mr. Johnson was simply trying to encourage prayer for the pope (sorely needed, as you pointed out yourself) and you jumped down his throat. This rather naturally makes him and his friends get defensive.

Perhaps the terms of the prayer sound strange or even dangerous in our ears, when we consider who the Holy Father is and what he has done. But that does not give you the right to issue thundering denunciations of people who you do not know, or to pass judgment upon the state of Pope Benedict's soul. You might easily have expressed your misgivings in more measured terms, and we could have had the sort of discussion better suited to reasonable, Catholic men. This mutual hurling of anathemas has absolutely nothing to do with charity. I am not claiming that all the blame is on your side, but you did start it.

You do not know Mr. Johnson or Mr Riddle. I do. Neither of them is a liberal, nor have they espoused liberal positions in their exchanges with you. No one was trying to canonize the pope or his errors. Frankly, you saw what you wanted to see, liberalism, and did what you wanted to do, attack.

This is a disease of our internet age. We all think we know everything and are authorized to tell whoever we want, savage them mercilessly if they disagree with us, and then bail out forever if things seem not to be going our way. This is not Catholic, Sean; this is the Revolution. Democratization at its worst, it drags us down to the level of savages. Everyone poses as an oracle of truth and no one observes even the barest minimum of Christian decorum in controversy.

If you're tempted to write me a refutation, please save your time and spend it better elsewhere. I'm not looking to pick a fight with you. I would simply like to point out that what you've written so far is not at all in the spirit that I want for discussion withing the SJBMA. If you'd like to engage in some real, human discussion with some very good traditional Catholic men, you're welcome to stay. This will, however, require a willingness to listen, and accepting the fact that you do not have all the answers.

Anyway, I hope that you will not take any of this in bad part. It is certainly not my intention to belittle or embarrass you, which is why I am sending this directly to you and not to the list.

Please be assured of my prayers. May God bless you and Our lady keep you close.

Yours in Christ,
Fr. J.M. McFarland
Chaplain
St. Joseph's Businessmen's  Association

The General House of the Society of St. Pius X in Menzingen recently stated that they thank this Holy Father for his "strength" and "constancy." Does this to, Mr. Govan, reek of liberalism to you? Have you sent your letter to Menzingen asking them to correct their "huge mistake" as you accuse Mr. Johnson of?

And when you assert that the Holy Father sought to make the SSPX "an ingredient of the liberal soup last year" you are basing that on what? Bishop Fellay never said this; he said the Holy Father, rather than having a totally infected mind, as you put it, has a split mind, that he's a man divided against himself.

Molded from the top down. So scary.

An interesting exchange, thank you.