Bonaventure and Lombard on CD-R

I recently completed the first English translation of St. Bonaventure's Commentaries on the First Book of Sentences of Master Peter Lombard.

You can obtain a copy of the work, with the original Latin texts on a CD-R for $25. For more information see:

http://www.franciscan-archive.org/publications.html

A Christ-Mass Appeal from Br. Alexis Bugnolo

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

The season of Christmas is nearly upon us, and I beg you to consider helping some poor franciscans who have no place to live.

I am speaking about the franciscans and the vocations who want to live the traditional observance of the Rule of St. Francis, but who cannot do so in the Order of Friars minor because this is a very hateful thing to the superiors of the Order.

Since the time of Vatican II there have been a constant program of disassembling the observances of the order, of denying the traditional virtues, of omitting and then forbidding the traditional rules and regulations.

Since that time too, nearly all the centers of formation and religious orders in the Church have been overcome by modernism and vile immorality. The Order has not been exempted either from this.

For this reason the Order of Friars Minor today is not a welcoming place nor a safe place for vocations.

For franciscan brothers like myself, and for franciscan priests and vocations, we have no place to go.You can read more about this through the link on the Right, entitled, "Help Save St. Francis' Order".

I ask you to read that link and make a donation of whatever you can to the non-profit which is helping me establish a new monastery where the Traditional observances of the Rule of St. Francis can be faihtfully kept, along with the Traditional Latin Mass.

Sincerely in Christ,

Br. Alexis Bugnolo

"Pro Multis" means "for Many", says Vatican Directive to Bishops

(POSTED Nov. 20, 2006, www.RemnantNewspaper.com) For traditionalist Catholics nothing is more symptomatic of the crisis in the Church than the deliberate mistranslation of pro vobis et pro multis—for you and for many—as “for you and for all” in vernacular renderings of the Latin typical edition of the Mass of Paul VI by local episcopal conferences and the ICEL. This error, which falsely suggests the universal application of the fruit of the Mass to the elect and non-elect alike, was rightly described as “truly scandalous” by Monsignor Klaus Gamber in his Reform of the Roman Liturgy, to which the current Pope wrote an approving French language preface when he was Cardinal Ratzinger.

For nearly forty years the Vatican tolerated this abuse, while both lay and clerical traditionalists objected to it as a blatant falsification of the very words of Our Lord at the Last Supper—a novelty not even Protestant versions of the Bible had dared to venture. Yet, over the past forty years, neo-Catholic apologists for the postconciliar novelties in the Church, such as James Likoudis, Karl Keating and James Akin, have consistently defended the error, even though no command of Paul VI or John Paul II had actually imposed it on the Church and the error was plainly open to criticism.

Now, it seems, Pope Benedict XVI has ordered that the error be corrected at long last. On November 18, 2006 Catholic World News reported that “The Vatican has ruled that the phrase pro multis should be rendered as ‘for many’ in all new translations of the Eucharistic Prayer.” The operative word is ruled. According to CWN, Cardinal Francis Arinze, the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, “has written to the heads of world’s episcopal conferences, informing them of the Vatican decision” and further directing “the bishops to prepare for the introduction of a new translation of the phrase in approved liturgical texts ‘in the next one or two years.’”

Bogus Miracles

There is a very great misunderstanding today about what constitutes an authentic miracle, sufficient for the determination of whether a deceased Catholic is a saint.

A miracle strictly speaking is any divine intervention which manifests itself as such by the accomplishement of that which is beyond the order of nature. There are miracles which are beyond the order of nature, inasmuch as they accomplish what nature rarely does, never does, could never do; miracles which any nature rarely does, no nature ever does, and no nature ever could do.

Here we have 2 classes of miracles and 3 subcategories for a total of 6 genera of miracles.

What human nature rarely does: Thus we can say that the works of Shakespear are miraculous, or the writings of Einstein. Each require nothing extraordinary per se, since human nature itself without grace is capable of such art or science. Such miracles are not proof of holiness.

What human nature never does: Thus we can say that if someone's skin would turn the color of silver or gold, or if someone could see a shoe print left by an astronaut on the Moon, while himself remaining on earth, we could say that it was miraculous. But though nature never does it, it is not beyond the power of nature, per se, to do. Such miracles are not proof of holiness.

What human nature never could do: Thus we can say that if someone can turn into liquid and turn back into himself, that it would be miraculous. But human nature can never such such a thing. However, such is not a sign of holiness.

What any nature rarely does: Thus we can say that if any living thing lived twice as long as the oldest known member of its species, or had some other unique quality, that was singular in all of creation, that it would be miraculous: but such is not the proof of divine intervention, since the order of nature itself being a divine handiwork, we can presuppose that it contains such extraordinary perfections. Such miracles are not proof of holiness.

What any nature never does: Thus if a living thing never died, such as would have happend if Adam did not sin, he would not have died, we could say that it is miraculous, though in reference to Adam, it would only be such in comparison to the present state of man, after the fall, since before the Fall there was no death. Such miracles are not proof of holiness.

What no nature could ever do: Thus neither an angel nor a man nor anything natural or created, would do or ever could do: such as to be in 2 places at the same time or to transmute one thing into another in an instant. Such miracles are not always proof of holiness.

Why?

Because God can give Catholics extraordinary graces to elicit the faith of others, such as the working of miracles, which can be had even if the one having them is not in the state of grace.

What then are miracles which are certain signs of a Saint?

Traditionally these would be considered those things which occured after the death of the Saint, which also occured after invoking the Saint explicitly and in cases where there were no other active causes, and in which that which occured (the miracle) was essentially supernatural, such that no human nature nor any angelic or lesser nature ever could do.

Some Examples of What is not a Certain Miracle:

Some of the recent miracles alleged for recently canonized or to be canonized individuals do not meet the traditional criteria for Sainthood.

E.G. the miracle attributed to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in which a miraculous medal was placed on her tomb, and then touched to a patient suffering cancer, who was undergoing medical treatments for cancer. These other causes or the intervention of Our Lady are sufficient explanations. Therefore since there were other active possible causes, the cure is not a sure sign nor the requisite kind of miracle.

E.G. the recent miracle attributed to John Paul II, in which a man with cancer from Salerno Italy was entirely cured after his wife had a dream in which she saw the last Pope holding a baby. There being no correlation to the dream, nor any apparent signification to it, and the man having been under medical care for the treatment of cancer, the remission of his cancer, even suddenly, could be attributed to that care or to nature itself, since the immediate cure of cancer is possible by nature, it having been proven that the body does have a power, howeverso minimal, which can kill cancer cells.

E.G. many of the miracles alleged at Medjegorgie, such as rosaries turning the color of gold. Most rosaries are made from metal links which are plated; when the plating wears off you can see the gold colored undercoat; such a plating can naturally dissolve in just a short time, since it is only one-atom in thickness. Such an event can occur naturally or by the intervention of a devil. It is not clear sign of divine intervention.

E.G. the alleged miracle of John XXII, in which after his death a nun who was gravely ill with a disease that was not clearly diagnosed, invoked Our Lady and John XXIII and was eventually cured. Since the disease had no clear origin or form, it could well have been a diabolic manifestation, which is always of the most obscure or undeterminate form, especially since when Our Lady was invoked the nun got more sick, which does not seem reconcilable with what we know about God's love for the Virgin, or Her Power over all nature, granted to Her by Her Son.

Modernism vs. the Primacy of Christ: The Battleground of Limbo

The recent assault upon Limbo's existence is at its root an attack upon the Primacy of Christ.

At first sight it does not appear thus.

The Modernists want to overthrow the exclusivity of salvation proposed by authentic Catholic Doctrine, because they hold, according to St. Pius X (Pascendi Dominici gregis) a notion of the supernatural which is in fact a interior religious sense, that is a natural movement present in every man — or for those modernists who are gnostically inclined, a supernatural movement present in the nature of every man — and hence, being the property of every man, he has an entire right to its fulfillment.

But if modernists do not believe in Heaven or Hell, why do they assault the existence of Limbo?

It is quite immaterial to Modernists whether Heaven or Hell exists, what is important for them is that one has the right to desire or feel worthy of Heaven, and to expunge as unnatural and unwholesome all feeling of guilt so as to avoid entirely the notion of Hell.

Limbo is one Catholic Doctrine which stands in the way of the assault of Modernism.

It sticks them in the face like a stake in the forehead of a beast.

For the mere assertion of the existence of Limbo contains implicitly several key doctrines, which if their objective signification is obscured, and faith in these in souls shaken, they will progress in their war to overthrow the only objective religion, the True Faith of the Catholic Church.

The affirmation of the existence of Limbo, being the upper part of Hell, necessitates the affirmation of the existence of Hell. Which in turn necessitates the affirmation of eternal objective Justice, specifically as it regards the moral sphere, which directly contradicts the primacy of immantism which underlies Modernism.

But the affirmation of the existence of Limbo, also contains the authentic affirmation of the Primacy of Christ, especially as Redeemer.

Modernists would not have you think it so: they will say that to insist that "all men be capable of salvation inasmuch as God offers in Christ all the opportunity for salvation" is rather an exaltation of the universality of the Redemption in Christ.

But hidden in this facile assertion is a problem.

If all those who died before reason and without baptism receive an opportunity for salvation, which they must if there is no Limbo, then the absolute universality of the offer of salvation in Christ seemingly obtains a right for all men to be offered salvation. For otherwise there is no objective basis for saying that all men are not due the offer of salvation, and hence, the offer of salvation is no longer a grace, for “grace” means "given freely", as a gift, and a gift given to all, cannot be distinguished from a given which all have the right to be given. And this detracts from God’s Glory, which no man has a right to, for in Adam we all have sinned and are deprived, justly, of God’s glory. Hence we have no right to it. And hence if Christ merits an opportunity of salvation for all men, without exception, then prior to our justification we all obtain a universal, positive, title or right to God’s Glory, which is a contradiction in terms. The Catholic Faith has never asserted such a novelty; rather it has only asserted that in Christ, that is in baptism, do we obtain such a title, and such a right only by sanctifying grace, which comes normally in the justification worked by baptism.

It also seemingly includes a denial. For in traditional Catholic theology, Christ is the Redeemer of All, both of those who lived before Him and of those who lived in His own age and of all those unto the end of time. But He is Redeemer inasmuch as He merited the forgiveness of all sins and obtained all graces that God intended ever to give men. The Modernist attack on Limbo contains the implicity denials that the grace first given to Adam, and all the subsequent graces that would have been given to all men prior to Christ on that basis, are under the headship of Christ, and therefore presupposes that Christ’s Redemption is lesser in scope than the graces given to Adam: which denial posits the necessity of asserting an absolute universality of Christ’s Redemption for all human persons, after the Redemption, even those who never by faith or reason come under the mediation of Christ, so as to establish an comparative universality of the Redemption to the graces lost by Adam.

In this sense the denial of Limbo’s existence is a false solution to the denial of the Absolute Primacy of Christ.

For following Bl. John Duns Scotus, Franciscan theologians avoid this problem, by affirming that Christ merited all grace, even those graces prior to the Redemption which if Adam had not sinned would have been given to men, because on the basis of what God intended from all eternity, namely that the Son of God would be the Incarnate King of Creation, all grace is predestined to be ordered to Christ, and hence is capable of merit by Christ as Redeemer. And thus there is no necessity that Christ merit other graces, such as would provide the opportunity of salvation for all without exception, because those have already been given in Adam, though he lost them. And after loosing them, there is only the necessity of saving the Elect, and hence no necessity of Christ meriting over and above those graces for those who are not of the Elect.

The denial of the existence of Limbo on the basis of an absolute universality of the Redemption in the order of grace in regard to all human persons, such that all who are conceive are offered salvation by ordinary and extraordinary means, contains seemingly another denial: namely, a denial that God elects some, and reproves all others; that He elects some prior to the prevision of their merits, and hence offers them grace without and prior to all merit; and that he reproves others after the prevision of their demerits, though he does offer some of these grace. Hence since God elects some, He is not bound in the Redemption, even though He merits as God-Man all grace, to offer all grace to any other, nor to offer at least one grace to all.

Why?

Because in redeeming men after the Fall, God never really intended the salvation of all, even though he preferred it. And if, as the Modernists say, He offers the opportunity of salvation to all after the Redemption is won, then it would follow that those who died without reason either must be offered an extraordinary miraculous vivification of their reason so that they may believe, and hence be justified, or that they are offered a salvation not founded in a human act, and thus are either damned for rejecting what they did not reject, or saved for accepting what they never accepted, both which are absurd.

It is also unfounded and tendentious to assert that Christ’s merits require that for the greater part of humanity, all those who died before birth, God work a miracle in the natural order by vivifying their reason so that they can accept Christ as their savior.

Surely if there are any Elect among such, God does do this. But there is no necessity that He do this for those who are not elect. Indeed it is fitting that being not of the Elect, they are not due an extraordinary means of being offered salvation, just as Christ teaches: do not throw pearls to swine. Indeed for those who reject extraordinary means, the punishment in Hell is all the worse. So if this unreasonable mercy is posited, then one must of necessity also posit that it is the cause of a greater damnation for those whom God knows will reject His grace, and thus He is made to appear neither merciful nor just, but a tempter of souls.

And thus the denial of the existence of Limbo, puts in doubt central truths of the True Faith, the affirmation of which, requires the affirmation of Limbo.

Otherwise, God actually either saves all the never born, and thus being born is a curse, or He actually damns some unborn to the fires of Hell, they who suffered the ill fate on account of Adam’s sin or the sin of their parents or others, to die before birth.

Thus, the affirmation of the existence of Limbo it at once the affirmation of the Mercy and Justice of the God who is at once, Creator, Redeemer, and Judge.

We must confess with Christ that God prefers the salvation of all, but calls the many, not the all, and only elects the few; and hence there is no necessity that He offer salvation to all by extraordinary means, when He has already offered it to all in the grace offered to Adam and lost by his sin, and in Christ through faith and the Sacraments. And therefore there is the necessity of positing Limbo, to save God’s Mercy and Justice for those who in Adam lost the opportunity of being saved by other ordinary means, and who were never elected to eternal life.

Von Balthasar's Historicism

In 1939 Hans urs Von Valthasar, S. J., published "Patristik, Scholastik und wir": Theologie der Zeit (English translation by Edward T. Oakes, S.J. : Communio, n. 24, September 1997). In it he set forth his own theory of theological historicism, in which he undermined the objective basis of theological inquiry taught by the Fathers and great Scholastic Theologians, so as to advance the cause of Modernism in the Church.

Historicism is a philosophical error which is akin to Nominalism. For Nominalists hold that every name is univocal and that therefore man cannot know universals. For example, Nominalists deny that apple, orange, and bananna are fruits. They assert rather that each is unique, and any inference to a generic universal erroneous.

Historicists hold that men in any given age cannot know an eternal truth. They assert rather that the limitations of human reason or languge prevent any authentic grasp of an eternal truth, by the mere fact that being eternal, it is unboundable by categories which are themselves timebound.

Thus Historicists will praise thinkers in every age for their attempts at expressing the truth, but at the same time Historicists will deny that thinkers in any age authentically grasped any given eternal truth.

Historicism leads to Modernism by undermining the confidence of scholars and students in the method of theological inquiry. Because if no man in any age can obtain an authentic comprehension of an eternal truth, it follows that no thinker in any age can know the truth in a manner that would make discipleship virtuous. And hence every uncritical acceptance of the intellectual achievements of any man leads inevitably to falsehood. Applied to theology, it undermines of necessity the authority of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church and of the Saints.

Von Balthasar's own historicism is a rather crafty exposition of this general error of Historicism. He won't come out and say what he means directly, but by means of affirming half heartedly a certain modicum of respect for the Fathers, Doctors and Saints of the Church, he insinuates little by little the principle of Historicism.

I will leave it to the reader to asses his article (above) and note point by point how he does this.

Here, however I would mention for now, only the contrary truth which itself destroys the error of Historicism.

God the creator is the Author of Man's rationality. Therefore, since the Creator is also God the Revealer, the Author of the Deposit of the Faith, and God the Holy Ghost, it follows that men, who by grace are made disciples of Jesus Christ (God the Revealer), thereby receive a grace to know and comprehend authentically and faithfully eternal truths.

This grace is the Faith, eternal but come in time, and thus perennial, unalterable and incommutable and yet living.

And since the Faith comes to a man through hearing, it is precisely in the Divine Precept to make disciples of every nation unto the consummation of time, that Our Lord Jesus Christ teaches infallibly that men who are time bound by nature can know eternal truths faithfully and authentically accross the expanse of time and despite the mediation of differing languages and cultures. The corrollary of Christ's Precept is that every man and every time and every culture can be faithful to Christ by being transformed by His Magisterium and Example and Grace. A secondary corrollary is that since He who graces men throughout time is One, the Holy Ghost, it follows that He who assists the disciples of Christ to understand the Deposit of the Faith, speaks through all Saints, Fathers and Doctors the same truth, which is the authentic understanding of the Faith.

If Von Balthasar were correct the Social Reign of Jesus Christ would be a non-sequitur, because no age or culture or people could every so authentically submit to Christ that there could be a just social order, founded upon Christ's Techings, in reality.

And this error of Von Balthasar we see in the Conciliar rejection of the perennial Catholic teaching regarding the primacy of Christ in all orders of being, even that of politics.

Historicism in theology leads to a rejection of Scholasticism by denying that it was an authentic and faithful expositor of the Fathers or of the Deposit of the Faith. It thus leads ultimately to the rejection of reason and to the position of the Nominalists, who deny that words have a meaning that transcends the particular.

It also leads in the practical order to the rejection of the Church's Mission, and to replacing it with a theology of dialogue. It does this by rejecting the goal of the Church to christianize the age by decisive and resolute programs to sanctify and evangelize, and substitutes, by denying the p0sssibility of attaining an authentic conception of eternal truth in any particular time, the goal of seeking a pragmatic concord or cessation of hostilities to serve the particular utilitarian interests of differing parties, since the good of the particular is that good which Historicism alone does not deny.

False Charity

by Father Garrigou Lagrange O.P.,

professor of Dogmatic and Mystical Theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas, Rome, writing in his book, The Three Ages of the Interior Life, translated from the Italian version published by LICE, Turin, 1949, vol. 1, p. 180, footnote 2, in his discourse on the Theological Virtue of Charity:

"There in fact exits a false charity, which arises from culpable indolence, from weakness, like the sweet reproof of those who do not want to hurt anyone because they have fear of all. There is also the pretended charity, which arises from a humanitarian sentimentalism, which seeks approval as true charity, and which often contaminates it by its contact.

"One of the principal conflicts of our present age is that which rises up between true and false charity. This causes one to think of the antichrists of which the Gospel speaks; these are much more dangerous when they hide themselves than when they unmask themselves and make themselves known as the true enemies of the Church.

"Optimi corruptio pessima. The worse corruption is that which attacks in us that which is the best, the most elevated of the Theogical Virtues. The apparent good which attracts the sinner is in fact a much more dangerous temptation the more elevated is the good of which it is the likeness.

"Such is the ideal of the Panchristians, who seek a union among churches to the detriment of the Faith which is necessary for any true unity. Therefore, if through a stupidity or wickeness, more or less culpable, those who ought to represent the true Charity approve here or there what contains the false charity, an incalculable evil will result, much greater than any which has ever been worked by the declared persecutors of the Church, with whom it is manifest that we cannot have anything in common . . ."