Crusade: Our Response to Traditionis Custodes

Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil (Eph., 6:11), and prepare for battle!

From One Peter Five

By Timothy Flanders

In the history of the crusading movement we can observe certain factors which contributed to success or failure, whether in the early crusades of the so-called “Byzantine Empire,” or in the Reconquista, the Eastern Crusades and the Northern Crusades of Western Christendom.[1] One of these factors is rootedness about which I spoke last week.

The other critical factor is freedom from earthly attachments. In the various crusading movements, those crusaders which were truly free from worldly attachments succeeded in their war against the enemies of Holy Church. But those that fell into fighting flesh and blood, that is, fighting in an earthly way (a fight that the Blessed Apostle condemns), ultimately were beaten by the enemies of Holy Church, and may have lost their immortal souls.

The fact is, the enemies of Christ are weak and are easily beaten if only we fight on the side of the angels and saints. As the Prophet says:

Our God is our refuge and strength: a helper in troubles, which have found us exceedingly. Therefore we will not fear, when the earth shall be troubled; and the mountains shall be removed into the heart of the sea…Be still and see that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, and I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of armies is with us: the God of Jacob is our protector (Ps. xlv. 2-3, 11-12).

 

A soul must be free from attachments to things of this world in order “take the cross” and make a vow to go on a crusade.[2] Only then can he truly fight for an eternal kingdom according to the postcommunion Advent prayer (censored in the Novus Ordo):

We who have been refreshed by the food of spiritual nourishment, humbly beseech thee, O Lord, that through partaking of this sacrament thou wilt teach us to despise the things of earth and love those of heaven.

 

A true crusader must have an ordered charity, so he may have perfect hatred according to the words of the Prophet (Ps. cxxxviii. 22).[3] And this is nothing less than perfect detachment from this world.

This is the zeal which seeks to take up the cross and die only to give God greater glory.

This “hatred” for the world accords with the words of Our Lord in Luke XIV. 26, yet Bugnini and his followers could not endure such words and ideas from Jesus Christ and His zeal for the glory of the Father. They were embarrassed by this in the modern world.

It was just too Catholic.

So they created the Novus Ordo. At best, the Novus Ordo is an attempt to restore certain old customs and then water down the faith in order to create a renewal (against the admonitions contained in Leo XIII’s Testem Benevolentiae).[4]

As we know, it is has not created the intended renewal. To say the least.

In fact, against the very essence of crusade (and the hope for the vitam venturi saeculi of which the Creed speaks), it has created greater attachment to earthly things. This is because of the “anthropocentric turn” of Karl Rahner et al., manifested in turning the altar toward the people in imitation of the Protestant heretics (not in imitation, as it turns out, of the early Church). As Weimann writes in a mainstream theological journal:

The celebration versus populum has become the most visible sign of the anthropocentric turn. This has far-reaching consequences, especially since the Church lives from the Eucharist.[5]

 

The Sacrament of Baptism lost exorcisms against the Devil and the Sacrament of Confirmation removed the “slap on the cheek” for spiritual combat. The prayer book of the Church militant – the Holy Psalter – was also censored from its spiritual violence, even though Bishop Spülbeck from Marxist East Germany begged the Concilium to retain these prayers “against the Devil.”[6]

As a result of these things, the Novus Ordo rites – the Mass, Sacraments and the reformed Liturgy of the Hours – took away so much of the militant spirituality which animates the Church in its “eternal war with those implacable enemies, the world, the flesh and the devil” (Roman Catechism). This is at the heart of the spirituality of the New Testament, particularly manifested in the Desert Fathers and St. John Cassian. It has literally disarmed our front-line soldiers – the priests and religious – from their most potent weapons of prayer.

The effeminate (and sometime sodomitical) clerics who reign over the Third Pornocracy created rites which confirm them in their own sin and comfort.[7] They don’t talk about hell because they want to believe they can continue their lives of sin and still go to heaven without penance.

Yet God will not be mocked.

Pope Francis falsely claimed that chanting the readings in Latin, as all our fathers and many saints did, was “like laughing at the Word of God.”

If Latin readings are laughing at the Word of God, what does it mean when the priest physically turns his back on God, faces the people, then fails to preach the Gospel of penance for the remission of sin? As it is written, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel (II Cor. ix. 16). What is the point of turning to the people if you are preaching a false gospel of psychology? But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema (Gal. i. 8).

What is this except laughing at the Word of God?

Or what is it when a cleric avoids the subjects of hell and damnation in order to cover his own life of sin? Or, more commonly, what if a cleric fails to protect the children from liturgical abuse which destroys their faith in the Real Presence, for fear of the parish council?

What is this except laughing at the Word of God? The Word of God is not human fraternity. On the contrary, says the Apostle, The word of God is living and effectual, and more piercing than any two edged sword; and reaching unto the division of the soul and the spirit, of the joints also and the marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. iv. 12).

What is the response of a Catholic to the mockery of God within the very temple of His Majesty?

And he found in the temple them that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting. And when he had made, as it were, a scourge of little cords, he drove them all out of the temple, the sheep also and the oxen, and the money of the changers he poured out, and the tables he overthrew. And to them that sold doves he said: Take these things hence, and make not the house of my Father a house of traffic. And his disciples remembered, that it was written: The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up (Jn. ii. 14-17).

 

Now few of us have the holiness of the saints, which alone can channel this anger to imitate the pure, spiritual violence of Jesus Christ, as it is written: the anger of man worketh not the justice of God (Ja. i. 20).

Yet unless we channel our hurt, resentment and anger into the weapon of the cross we will lose this war. We must first take all of our zeal and offer it to God through the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. This is the essence of what reparation means, as the rest of that quoted passage in St. John says: For the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up: and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me (Ps. lxviii. 10).

Reparation. This is what will free us from all earthly attachment to fight this crusade for the Kingdom of God. This will allow us to fight for the Latin Mass and God’s greater glory with purified, spiritual violence. This will allow us to fight by means of the weapon of the cross, and not with the weapons of man, which would make us lose this war.

God has been mocked. God’s honor has been detracted by sinners. Let us hasten to offer due reparation for their sins in a spirit of penance and humility, crying out the prayer of the Angel at Fatima:

My God, I believe, I adore, I trust, and I love you!
I ask pardon for those who do not believe, do not adore, do not trust and do not love you.

 

This is the part of Fatima that we want to promote at OnePeterFive. Other traditional outlets promote other important aspects of Fatima. We believe we can contribute to this effort to spread the message of Fatima in particular by Eucharistic reparation.

And this becomes our deepest and most important response to Traditionis Custodes. This is the crusade that was begun by His Excellency, Bishop Schneider when the Blessed Sacrament was being abused during COVID. Now he has confirmed to me that he intends to add “a new intention to the Eucharistic crusade.” What is this? “The full restoration of the entire liturgy of the Old Roman Rite in the Church.”

Eucharistic reparation is in many ways the heart of Christ for the modern period, from the message of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque (1647-1690) to Our Lady of Fatima in 1917. We must find refuge for our wounded hearts in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and make reparation to God against the dishonor shown to him by sinners. This spirit of reparation will help us fight against the enemies of Holy Church and win.

And we will win, if only we fight on the side of the angels and saints.

Every month we will promote this crusade ahead of the First Friday. What does this crusade consist in?

It means making a commitment to God to do one or all of these things:

1. One hour Adoration per month in reparation for the sins committed against the Blessed Sacrament.
2. Pray regularly the Prayer of the Crusade of Reparation to the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus.

To these two practices outlined by His Excellency we add a third according to the new intention, as OnePeterFive columnist Fr. John Zuhlsdorf has outlined:

3. Become a “Custos Traditionis” by praying the Memorare daily with weekly penance for the reversal of Traditionis Custodes.

Once you have committed to one or all of these prayers and penances, then do one or all of the following:

1. Promote, plan and execute a weekly, monthly, and/or annual reparation Mass and devotions in your parish and diocese. His Excellency suggests a “Day of Reparation for Crimes Against the Most Holy Eucharist” in each diocese as the octave day of Corpus Christi.
2. Gather a group in your parish or diocese to pray regularly these prayers for your bishop to restore the Latin Mass in your diocese.
3. Read Kwasniewski’s manifesto of Eucharistic Reparation: Holy Bread of Eternal Life: Restoring Eucharistic Reverence in an Age of Impiety.
4. Read Bishop Laise’s treatise against Communion in Hand (Holy Communion), and His Excellency’s Dominus Est and buy all these books for priests and bishops.
5. Send me an email (editor[at]onepeterfive.com) to join our mailing list so that we can coordinate the promotion and spread of this crusade to as many souls as possible.
6. Send us submissions on this topic! We will publish every month to promote this. What are you doing in your local parish or family that has worked to spread Eucharistic devotion and reparation? What can you write to promote this cause?

And this is only the beginning of the crusade.

Remember: a crusade is called by a cleric, but it is primarily led by lay leaders. In our age of clericalism, the lay order must take back its role as a ruling body in the Church. And not in the pseudo-Marxist sloganeering of false “synodality.” I mean in the traditional Gelasian dyarchy of mutual help between the lay and clerical orders. This crusade has been called. It is ours to take the cross and fulfill our oaths.

Deus Vult!

T. S. Flanders
Editor
Feria Tertia post Octavam Nativitatis Domini

[1] We refer here to the Crusade of Empress St. Pulcheria and that of Emperor Herakleios, as well as the lesser known crusades of Scandinavia. We will treat all these in a future article.

[2] For a review of modern scholarship and an apologia for the Eastern crusades, see Steven Weidenkopf, The Glory of the Crusades.

[3] For an introduction to the spirituality of the Holy Psalter, see T. S. Flanders, Introduction to the Holy Bible for Traditional Catholics (Our Lady of Victory Press, 2019), 41-90.

[4] It should not be denied that certain customs – such as the intercessions, retained in the Greek rite, or antiphonal singing by the people – are, at least in theory, a restoration of old customs that had been lost. However, it is also indisputable that the architects of the Novus Ordo were committed to the iconoclastic principles of antiquarianism, which Pius XII had condemned as “the exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism to which the illegal Council of Pistoia gave rise” (Mediator Dei, 64).

[5] Ralph Weimann, “The Crisis of Faith and the Crisis of the Church,” Nova et Vetera (Summer 2021), vo. 19, no. 3, p. 705. “The [anthropological turn] has quickly gained great influence in its effort to think of God from the human perspective and has become the mainstream of Catholic theology. It has taken on ever more radical traits and has ultimately become an anthropocentric turn in which man is at the center. Wherever such turning to the subject ‘man’ is consistently applied, a turn away from the revealed faith is the necessary consequence, because the new criterion for ‘faith’ is the human person with his/her ideas and preferences” Ibid., 700.

[6] Yves Chiron, Annibale Bugnini, trans. Pepino (Angelico: 2018), 154.

[7] In fairness to the clergy, this effeminacy in the modern period certainly had origins among the lay revolutions of Liberalism, Communism and Feminism.