A short biographical sketch from SSPX.
"Tradition Will Triumph. We are at peace on this point. Whatever may be the hypocritical arms placed by modernism in the hands of the episcopal collegialities and even of the vicar of Christ, tradition will indeed triumph: solemn baptism, for example, which includes the anathemas against the accursed devil will not be excluded for long; the tradition of not absolving sins except after individual confession will not be excluded for long; the tradition of the traditional Catholic Mass, Latin and Gregorian, with the language, Canon and gestures in conformity with the Roman Missal of St. Pius V, will soon be restored to honor; the tradition of the Catechism of Trent, or of a manual exactly in conformity with it, will be restored without delay.
On the major points of dogma, morals, the sacraments, the states of life, the perfection to which we are called, the tradition of the Church is known by the members of the Church whatever their rank. They hold fast to it without a bad conscience, even if the hierarchical guardians of this tradition try to intimidate them or throw them into confusion; even if they persecute them with the bitter refinements of modernist inquisitors. They are very assured that by keeping the tradition they do not cut themselves off from the visible vicar of Christ. For the visible vicar of Christ is governed by Christ in such wise that he cannot transmute the tradition of the Church, nor make it fall into oblivion. If by misfortune he should try to do it, either he or his immediate successors will be obliged to proclaim from on high what remains forever living in the Church's memory: the Apostolic tradition. The spouse of Christ stands no chance of losing her memory." - Fr Roger-Thomas Calmel, OP
On the major points of dogma, morals, the sacraments, the states of life, the perfection to which we are called, the tradition of the Church is known by the members of the Church whatever their rank. They hold fast to it without a bad conscience, even if the hierarchical guardians of this tradition try to intimidate them or throw them into confusion; even if they persecute them with the bitter refinements of modernist inquisitors. They are very assured that by keeping the tradition they do not cut themselves off from the visible vicar of Christ. For the visible vicar of Christ is governed by Christ in such wise that he cannot transmute the tradition of the Church, nor make it fall into oblivion. If by misfortune he should try to do it, either he or his immediate successors will be obliged to proclaim from on high what remains forever living in the Church's memory: the Apostolic tradition. The spouse of Christ stands no chance of losing her memory." - Fr Roger-Thomas Calmel, OP
Fr. Roger Calmel-Forgotten Priest
oday we are going to remember this French priest, Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P.. He was one of the few who, after the Vatican Council II, who had the stones to speak the Truth and fight against the changes. Following are some thoughts concerning him and his belief; then, after that, is his statement about his faith and how he would continue to live it.
"Liturgical counter-revolution: the 'hushed' case of Fr. Calmel"
Cristiana De Magistris, "LITURGICAL COUNTER-REVOLUTION: The “hushed” case of Fr. Calmel" (ConcilioVaticanoSecondo.it, February 17, 2014) offers an intriguing look at what appears today as though it might have been an historical anomaly: a Dominican resistance fighter against the liturgical reforms under Pope Paul VI. For the research record [Advisory: Rules 7-9]:
Dominican religious and Thomist theologian of great importance, director of souls, esteemed and sought throughout the whole of France, Catholic writer of a convincing logic and unambiguous clarity, Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel (1914-1975) in the difficult years of the Council and the post-council period, was characterized by his counter-revolutionary action, through his preaching, writings and above all by his example, both on a doctrinal as well as a liturgical level.
But on a particular point the resistance of this son of St. Dominic reached heroism: the Holy Mass. The Catholic Faith is founded upon the Mass because it is in the Mass that our Redemption was wrought by Christ upon Calvary and this is perpetuated in the holy Sacrifice offered day after day.
1969 was the fateful year of the liturgical revolution, prepared for at length and finally imposed with authority upon a people who neither asked for nor desired it.
The birth of the new Mass was not peaceful. Against the hymns of victory of the novatores, there were the voices of those who did not want to trample upon the past––of almost two millennia––of a Mass which dated back to the apostolic tradition. This opposition was sustained by two Cardinals of the Curia (Ottaviani and Bacci), but remained completely unheeded.
The date upon which the new Ordo Missae became effective was fixed for 30th November, the first Sunday of Advent, and the opposition was not going to be placated. Paul VI himself, in two general audiences (19th and 26th November 1969), intervened, presenting the new rite of the Mass as the will of the Council and as a help to Christian piety.
On 26th November he said: “The New rite of the Mass: it is a change in a venerable tradition that has gone on for centuries. This is something that affects our hereditary religious patrimony, which seemed to enjoy the privilege of being untouchable and settled. It seemed to bring the prayer of our forefathers and our Saints to our lips and to give us the comfort of feeling faithful to our spiritual past, which we kept alive to pass it on to the generations ahead. It is at such a moment as this that we get a better understanding of the value of historical tradition and the communion of the Saints. This change will affect the ceremonies of the Mass. We shall become aware, perhaps with some feeling of annoyance, that the ceremonies at the altar are no longer being carried out with the same words and gestures to which we were accustomed—perhaps so much accustomed that we no longer took any notice of them. This change also touches the Faithful. It is intended to interest each one of those present, to draw them out of their customary personal devotions or their usual torpor…”. And he continued by saying that it was necessary to understand the positive meaning of the reforms and to make of the Mass “a school of spiritual depth and a peaceful but demanding school of Christian sociology.”
“We shall do well––he said in the same audience––to take into account the motives for this grave change. The first is obedience to the Council. That obedience now implies obedience to the Bishops, who interpret the Council’s prescriptions and put them into practice…”. In order to repress the opposition to the Pope, there remained nothing but the argument of authority. And it is upon this argument that the whole game of the liturgical revolution was played.
Fr. Calmel, who by his articles was an assiduous collaborator of the magazine Itinéraires, had already faced the subject of obedience, which had become, after the council, the main argument of the novatores. But he affirmed that it is precisely in virtue of obedience that it is necessary to refuse every compromise with the liturgical revolution: “We are not treating here of causing a schism, but of conserving the tradition.” With Aristotelian logic, he noted: “The infallibility of the Pope is limited, therefore our obedience is limited,” indicating the principle of the subordination of obedience to the truth, of authority to the tradition. The history of the Church has cases of Saints who were opposed to the authority of popes who were not saints. We call to mind St. Athanasius who was excommunicated by Pope Liberius and St. Thomas à Becket, suspended by Pope Alexander III. And above all we think of St. Joan of Arc.
On 27th November 1969, three days before the fateful day on which the Novus Ordo Missae came into effect, Fr. Calmel expressed his refusal with a declaration of exceptional importance, made public in the magazine Itinéraires. The first and last, as far as we know, of such clarity and most praiseworthy courage.
I hold to the Traditional Mass, that which was codified, but not fabricated, by St. Pius V, in the XVI Century, in conformity to a centuries old usage. I therefore refuse the Ordo missae of Paul VI.
Why? Because, in reality, this Ordo Missae does not exist. What exists is a universal and permanent liturgical revolution, permitted or desired by the reigning Pope, and which, for a quarter of an hour, puts on the mask of the Ordo Missae of 3rd April 1969. It is the right of every priest to refuse to wear the mask of this liturgical revolution. And I consider it my duty as a priest to refuse to celebrate the mass in an ambiguous rite.
If we accept this new rite, which fosters the confusion between the Catholic Mass and the protestant supper––as the two cardinals (Bacci and Ottaviani) sustain and as a solid theological analysis demonstrates––then we will pass over, without delay, to an interchangeable mass (as recognized, moreover, by a protestant pastor) to a mass which is completely heretical and therefore nothing. Initiated by the Pope, then diffused by him to the national Churches, the revolutionary reform of the mass leads to hell. How can we accept to become accomplices of this?
You will ask me: by keeping the Mass of ages at all costs, have you reflected upon what you have exposed yourself to? Certainly. I risk, so to say, persevering in the way of fidelity to my priesthood, thus rendering to the High Priest, Who is our supreme Judge, the humble witness of my office as a priest. I also risk being able to reassure the faithful who have lost their way, those who are tempted to scepticism or desperation. Every priest, in fact, who remains faithful to the rite of the Mass which was codified by St. Pius V, the great Dominican Pope of the counter reform, permits the faithful to participate in the holy Sacrifice without any possible ambiguity, to receive, without risk of being deceived, the incarnate and immolated Word of God, rendered truly present under the sacred Species. On the contrary, the priest who conforms to the new rite, composed of various pieces by Paul VI, collaborates on his part in progressively establishing a false mass where the Presence of Christ will no longer be authentic, but will be transformed into an empty memorial; therefore, the Sacrifice of the Cross will be nothing other than a religious meal where one eats a bit of bread and drinks a little wine, nothing else: just like the protestants. In not consenting to collaborate in the revolutionary establishment of an ambiguous mass, directed to the destruction of the Mass, to what temporal misfortune, to what difficulties in this world will this lead (those who will remain faithful to the Traditional Mass)? The Lord knows: therefore His grace is sufficient. In truth, the grace of the Heart of Jesus, coming to us from the holy Sacrifice and from the sacraments, is always sufficient. That is why the Lord tells us so calmly: “He that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.”
I recognize unhesitatingly the authority of the Holy Father. I affirm, however, that every Pope, in the exercise of his authority, may commit abuses of authority. I retain that Pope Paul VI committed an abuse of authority of an exceptional gravity when he constructed a new rite of the mass upon a definition of the mass which has ceased to be Catholic. “The mass––he wrote in his Ordo Missae––is the gathering of the people of God, presided by a priest, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.” This insidious definition omits a priori what makes the mass Catholic, which has never been nor ever will be reduced to the protestant supper. And that is because the Catholic Mass does not treat of any memorial whatsoever; the memorial is of such a nature that it truly contains the sacrifice of the cross, because the Body and Blood of Christ are rendered truly present in virtue of the twofold consecration. Now, whilst that appears to be so clear in the rite which was codified by St. Pius V so that one can not be deceived, in that which has been fabricated by Paul V1, it remains inconstant and ambiguous. Likewise, in the Catholic Mass the priest does not exercise any presidency whatsoever: signed by a divine character which introduces him into eternity, he is the minister of Christ who celebrates the mass by means of him; it is a completely different thing to liken the priest to any pastor whatsoever, delegated by the faithful to keep their assemblies in good order. Well, whilst that is certainly evident in the rite of the Mass prescribed by St. Pius V, it is dissimulated, if not completely eliminated, in the new rite.
Simple honesty, therefore, but infinitely more the priestly honour, does not permit me to have the impudence to barter with the Catholic Mass, received on the day of my ordination. Since we are treating here of being loyal, and above all of a matter of divine gravity, there is no authority in the world, even a pontifical authority, which can stop me. On the other hand, the first proof of fidelity and love which the priest must give to God and to men is that of guarding intact the infinitely precious deposit which was entrusted to him when the Bishop imposed his hands upon him. It is above all on this proof of fidelity and love that I will be judged by the supreme Judge. I trust that the Virgin Mary, Mother of the High Priest, will obtain for me the grace to remain faithful to death to the Catholic Mass, true and without ambiguity. Tuus sum ego, salvum me fac (I am all Thine, save me).”
In the face of a text of such importance, and the taking up of a position which is so categorical, all the friends and supporters of Fr. Calmel trembled, awaiting the toughest sanctions from Rome. All, except for him, the son of St. Dominic, who continued to repeat: “Rome will do nothing, it will do nothing…”. And in fact Rome did nothing. The sanctions did not arrive. Rome remained silent before this Dominican friar who did not fear anything but the supreme Judge to Whom he would have to give an account of his priesthood.
Other priests, thanks to the declaration of Fr. Calmel, had the courage to come out into the open and to resist the abuses of power of an unjust and illegal law. Against those who recommended blind obedience to the authorities, he showed the duty of the insurrection; “The whole conduct of St. Joan of Arc showed that she had thought in this way: For certain, it is God Who permits it; but what God wants, at least whilst an army remains to me, is Christian justice and that I fight a good battle. Then she was burned….
To abandon ourselves to the grace of God does not mean to do nothing. Instead it means, remaining in love, to do all that is within our power…. He who has not meditated upon the just insurrections of history, such as the war of the Maccabees, the riding into battle of St. Joan of Arc, the expeditions of John of Austria, the revolt of Budapest, to he who has not entered into sympathy with the noble resistances of history… I refuse the right to speak of Christian abandonment…abandonment does not consist in saying: God does not want the crusade, let the Moors go free. This is the voice of laziness.”
We cannot confuse supernatural abandonment with a servile obedience. “The dilemma which is placed before all––Fr. Calmel points out––is not to choose between obedience and the faith, but between the obedience of the faith and the collaboration in the destruction of the faith.” We are all invited to do “within the limits which the revolution places upon us, the maximum possible to live the tradition with intelligence and fervour. Watch and pray.”
Fr. Calmel had understood perfectly that the form of violence exercised in the “post-conciliar Church” is an abuse of authority, exercised by demanding unconditional obedience, before which the clergy and many laypersons submit themselves, without attempting any form of resistance. “This absence of reaction––said Louis Salleron––seems to me to be tragic, because God will not save Christians without themselves, nor His Church without Her.”
“Modernism makes its victims walk under the banner of obedience", writes Fr. Calmel––, "placing under the suspicion of pride any criticism whatsoever of the reforms, in the name of the respect which one owes to the pope, in the name of missionary zeal, of charity and of unity.” “To force one to remain silent out of fear,” wrote Cardinal Wyzynsky on 5th October 1954. It was necessary to paralyze or anesthetize under the pretext of the virtue of obedience, the holy Catholic resistance, to the point of accusing he who obeys the eternal tradition of disobedience. “But there are circumstances––Professor G. Chabot pointed out–– in which disobedience to an abusive use of authority is not only licit, but rather obligatory. In such circumstances it is a virtue to disobey.”
When they said to St. Athanasius: “You have all the bishops against you,” he replied: “This shows that they are all against the Church.” “The Catholics faithful to the Tradition, even if reduced to a handful of people, are the true Church of Jesus Christ.”
With regard to the problem of obedience in liturgical matters, Fr. Calmel stated: “The question of the new rites consists in the fact that they are ambivalent: therefore they do not express in an explicit manner the intention of Christ and of the Church. The proof is in the fact that also the heretics use it with a tranquil conscience, whilst they reject and have always rejected the Missal of St. Pius V.” “It is necessary to be either stupid or fearful (or both of these at the same time) to consider oneself bound in conscience by liturgical laws which change more often than the ladies’ fashions and which are even more uncertain.”
In 1974 at a conference he said: “The Mass belongs to the Church. The new Mass belongs only to modernism. I hold to the Mass which is Catholic, traditional, Gregorian, because it does not belong to Modernism…. Modernism is a virus. It is contagious and one must flee from it. The witness is complete. If I give witness to the Catholic Mass, it is necessary that I abstain from celebrating any other Mass. It is like the burnt incense before the idols: either one grain or nothing. Therefore, nothing.”
Notwithstanding the open resistance of Fr. Calmel against the liturgical innovations, no sanction whatsoever arrived from Rome. The logic of the Dominican father is too forceful, his doctrine too orthodox, his love for the Church and for the perennial tradition too sincere, for him to be attacked. Nobody did anything against him because it was not possible. Then they wrapped the case up in the most conspiratorial silence, to the point that Fr. Calmel––known, in part, to the traditional French world––is almost unknown to the rest of the Catholic world.
In 1975, Fr. Calmel died prematurely, crowning his desire of faithfulness and resistance. In his Declaration of 1969 he asked the Most Holy Virgin that he may “remain faithful to death to the Catholic Mass, true and without ambiguity.” The Mother of God granted the desire of this beloved son who died without ever having celebrated the new Mass, in order to remain faithful to the supreme Judge to Whom he would have to given an account of his priesthood. (Cristiana De Magistris)
His Declaration (It might be restating the above statements, but we ALL could learn something from him, and how we should respond to error):
Declaration of Fr. Calmel, O.P. against the Novus Ordo Mass
November 27, 1969
I hold fast to the Traditional Mass, the one which was not composed but codified by St. Pius V in the 16th century as a custom many centuries old. I therefore refuse the Ordo Missæ of Paul VI. Why? Because in reality the Ordo Missæ does not exist. What does exist is a universal and permanent liturgical Revolution, adopted or intended by the present pope, and which has momentarily donned the mask of the Ordo Missæ of April 3, 1969. It is within the right of every priest to refuse to wear the mask of that liturgical Revolution; I consider it my duty as a priest to refuse to celebrate Mass in an equivocal rite.
This new rite fosters confusion between the Catholic Mass and the Protestant “Lord’s Supper” — as two cardinals have stated in as many words, and as solid theological analyses have proven; if we accept it, we will quickly fall from an interchangeable Mass (as a Protestant minister has actually attested) to a Mass which is blatantly heretical and therefore null. Launched by the pope and then abandoned to the national churches, the liturgical reform will simply follow its infernal logic. How can we consent to be party to such a process?
You are going to ask me: do you realize what you are opening yourself up to, by taking this stand for the Mass of All Time? Indeed I do. To use your own expression, I am opening myself up to persevering in the path of fidelity to my priesthood, and therefore to rendering the humble witness of my priestly office to the Sovereign High Priest, who is our Supreme Judge. I am also opening myself up to reassuring the faithful, whose world has been turned upside down and who are being tempted to skepticism or despair. Indeed, every priest who holds fast to the rite of Mass codified by St. Pius V, the great Dominican pope of the Counter-Reformation, allows the faithful to participate in the Holy Sacrifice without the least ambiguity; to receive the Word of God incarnate and immolated, made really present under the holy species, without doubt of the sacrament.
On the other hand, the priest who yields to the new rite, pasted together by Paul VI, is collaborating in the gradual establishment of a counterfeit Mass which will have been transformed into an empty memorial with no longer a True Presence of Christ. By the very fact, the Sacrifice of the Cross will no longer be really and sacramentally offered to God; communion will no longer be anything but a religious meal where a little bread is eaten and a little wine is drunk. Nothing more. Just what the Protestants have.
By refusing to collaborate in the revolutionary establishment of an equivocal Mass, oriented toward the very destruction of the Mass, what temporal hardships and what difficulties in this world may one expect? The Lord knows, whose grace suffices. Truly, the grace of the Heart of Jesus will always suffice, and it comes to us through the Holy Sacrifice and by the sacraments. That is why the Lord tells us with such tranquility," he who loses his life in this world for My sake will live eternally.
" I recognize the authority of the Holy Father, without hesitation. I affirm nonetheless that it is possible for any pope to abuse his authority. I maintain that Pope Paul VI commits an exceptionally grave abuse of authority in building a new rite of Mass on a definition of the Mass which is no longer Catholic. He writes in his Ordo Missæ that, “The Mass is the sacred assembly or congregation of the people of God gathering together, with a priest presiding, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.” This insidious definition deliberately omits what makes the Catholic Mass Catholic, absolutely irreducible to the Protestant “Lord’s Supper.”
For the Catholic Mass is not just any memorial; it is a memorial which really contains the Sacrifice of the Cross, because the body and the blood of Christ are made really present by virtue of the double consecration. The rite codified by St. Pius V permits of no misunderstanding on this point, but the rite invented by Paul VI leaves the question floating and equivocal.
Likewise, in the Catholic Mass, the priest does not preside in just any manner; he is marked with a divine character which sets him apart for all eternity and thus he acts as the minister of Christ, who performs the Mass through him; he could never be likened to a Protestant minister, who is delegated by the faithful to ensure the good order of the assembly. This role is obvious in the rite of Mass established by St. Pius V; it is obscured if not suppressed entirely in the new rite.
Simple integrity, therefore, and priestly integrity infinitely more, demand that I not have the impudence to tamper with the Catholic Mass, received on the day of my ordination. Since it is a question of honesty, and especially in such a matter of divine gravity, there is no authority in the world which may stop me, be it the authority of a pope.
Moreover, the primary proof of fidelity and love which the priest must give to God and men is to maintain intact the infinitely precious deposit which was confided to him as the bishop imposed his hands upon him. It is first on this proof of fidelity and love that I will be judged by the Supreme Judge. I have entire confidence that the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Sovereign High Priest, will obtain for me the grace to remain faithful until death to the Catholic Mass, true and unequivocal. Tuus sum ego, salvum me fac.
Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P.
Now, Father Calmel warns, because this trust in the invisible Head of the Church is so profound as to exceed all possible deficiencies of His Vicar on earth, it is necessary that our spiritual life "is referring to Jesus Christ and not to the Pope; that our interior life, which embraces - no need to say it - even the Pope and the hierarchy, is based not on hierarchy and the Pope, but on the divine Pontiff [...] from whom the visible supreme Vicar depend even more than other priests ".
And for good reason, obvious to all as well as very basic: "The Church - writes this illustrious son of St. Dominic - it is not the mystical body of the Pope. The Church, with the Pope, is the mystical body of Christ. When the interior life of Christians is increasingly oriented to Jesus Christ, they do not fall into despair, even when they suffer unto agony from the shortcomings of the pope, be it an Honorius I or the antagonist popes at the end of the Middle Ages; or be it, in the extreme case of a pope who is lacking according to the new possibilities offered by modernism. "Even if a pope had come to the extreme limit to change the Faith ", or blindness or spirit or fantasy (chimera) or to a mortal illusion " (among many offered by modernism), well, "the pope who could come to this point would not deprive the Lord Jesus His infallible government, who holds him in His hand, the pope mislead, and He would prevents him from committing to the perversion of faith, the authority received from above. "
But even in these unfortunate cases, the interior life of Christians cannot exclude the Pope, without ceasing to be Christian. A real interior life, necessarily centered on Jesus Christ, always includes his Vicar and the obedience due to him, but "this obedience, far from being unconditional, is always practiced in the light of theological faith and natural law."
And here comes the thorny issue of obedience to the Vicar of Christ. Thorny, notes once again Father Calmel, only for those who want to ignore or disregard the articles of the Catholic faith regarding the Supreme Pontiff. It should be recalled that every Christian lives "through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ, through His Church, which is governed by the Pope, to whom we obey in all that is within his competence. We do not live totally, by and for the Pope, as though it were he that had purchased eternal redemption; that's why Christian obedience can neither always nor in all things identify the Pope with Jesus Christ. "
A Christian who wants to be unconditionally acceptable to the Pope, always and in everything "has necessarily abandoned himself to human respect" and he "demonstrates much superficiality and complicity." It is also true, recognizes the Dominican theologian, he who often preached obedience to the Vicar of Christ, which has more than the stench of servitude than the perfume of virtue, sometimes to make a career, or to prepare his head for the cardinal's hat, or to give luster to his Order or to his Congregation. But note well, "neither God nor the service of the Pope are in need of our lie: Deus non eget nostro mendacio." We must always remember the subordination of obedience to the truth and authority of Tradition. The Pope, like all men of the Church, cannot legitimately use of his authority if not to define or clarify the truth that has always been taught. If one depart from this path, it would cease the duty of our obedience and would be worth the admonition of St. Peter: "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). [1]
The Pope – in as much as he is Pope - it is not always infallible, and - as a man - is never flawless. "We should not be shocked if trials, sometimes very cruel, came upon, the Church precisely by its visible head. We should not be shocked if, although subject to the Pope, we cannot follow him blindly, unconditionally, always and in everything. "But what can we do if a situation of this kind become the sad and unfortunate reality? In this case it should even more strongly orient one's interior life to the only Savior and Lord of the world, feeding of the Apostolic Tradition, with its dogmas, its immortal Missal and the Catechism, as well as prayer and penance.
On the other hand, Revelation has never taught that the Vicar of Christ is immune from inflicting on the Church such trials of this sort. And modernism, reigning for fifty years, it is certainly a fertile ground for them to sprout. But, if that happens - as seems to be happening - even though a sort of bewilderment and vertigo assail the souls of the faithful, we must remember that the Church is the Bride of Christ and it is He who - despite the human failures – guides us in His ineffable and often to us, incomprehensible providence. Father Calmel compares the state of our interior life overwhelmed by such a test to the prayer of the Lord Jesus in Gethsemane, when he said to the apostles while the soldiers were advancing: Sinite usque huc (Lk 22,51). "It's as if the Lord said: Scandal can get to this point; but leave it be, and according to my recommendation, watch and pray ... With my consent to drink the chalice, I have merited all grace for you, while you were asleep and you left me alone; for you in particular I have obtained a grace of supernatural strength, that will be the measure of all your trials, also of the trials that could come to the Holy Church by the part of the Pope. I've now given you the ability of escaping this vertigo. "
The Christian soul that founds their interior life on the perennial Tradition has nothing to fear, even in what Father Calmel believes the worst of the trials for the Church: the betrayal of the Vicar.
With the optimism of the holy souls, while recognizing the immense tragedy that grips the Bride of Christ, he holds it to be, however, a grace to live in these times of trial, in which the greatest suffering of the children of the Church is precisely that it cannot follow the Pope as they would like. "We are docile children of the Pope, but we refuse to enter into complicity with the papal directives that lead to sin." Cardinal Cajetan does not hesitate to say that "We must resist the Pope who publicly destroys the Church." It is, in these cases, of a kind of "eclipse of the Papacy". This test, however, notes Father Calmel, cannot be "neither entire nor too long" and - above all - "we have the grace to sanctify ourselves" in this eclipse in which the Church is the Bride of Christ, despite everything. As was his habit, to elevate his gaze toward heaven and said, "We have the grace to suffer and endure without making it a tragedy. The Holy Virgin defends us.“
So, what to do?
The true children of the Church, as most wish to again see their Mother clothed in her glorious splendor, beginning with the visible Head, all the more they must put their lives, with the grace of God and preserving the Tradition, in the wake of the Saints. "Then the Lord Jesus will ultimately grant to His flock the shepherd of which he will endeavored to render himself worthy. To the Insufficiencies or the defection of the Head, we must not add our own personal negligence. That the apostolic Tradition will live at least in the hearts of the faithful, even if, at the moment, languishing in the heart and in the decisions of those who are responsible at the level of the Church. Then surely the Lord will have mercy.” The true kind.
Cristiana De Magistris, "LITURGICAL COUNTER-REVOLUTION: The “hushed” case of Fr. Calmel" (ConcilioVaticanoSecondo.it, February 17, 2014) offers an intriguing look at what appears today as though it might have been an historical anomaly: a Dominican resistance fighter against the liturgical reforms under Pope Paul VI. For the research record [Advisory: Rules 7-9]:
Dominican religious and Thomist theologian of great importance, director of souls, esteemed and sought throughout the whole of France, Catholic writer of a convincing logic and unambiguous clarity, Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel (1914-1975) in the difficult years of the Council and the post-council period, was characterized by his counter-revolutionary action, through his preaching, writings and above all by his example, both on a doctrinal as well as a liturgical level.
But on a particular point the resistance of this son of St. Dominic reached heroism: the Holy Mass. The Catholic Faith is founded upon the Mass because it is in the Mass that our Redemption was wrought by Christ upon Calvary and this is perpetuated in the holy Sacrifice offered day after day.
1969 was the fateful year of the liturgical revolution, prepared for at length and finally imposed with authority upon a people who neither asked for nor desired it.
The birth of the new Mass was not peaceful. Against the hymns of victory of the novatores, there were the voices of those who did not want to trample upon the past––of almost two millennia––of a Mass which dated back to the apostolic tradition. This opposition was sustained by two Cardinals of the Curia (Ottaviani and Bacci), but remained completely unheeded.
The date upon which the new Ordo Missae became effective was fixed for 30th November, the first Sunday of Advent, and the opposition was not going to be placated. Paul VI himself, in two general audiences (19th and 26th November 1969), intervened, presenting the new rite of the Mass as the will of the Council and as a help to Christian piety.
On 26th November he said: “The New rite of the Mass: it is a change in a venerable tradition that has gone on for centuries. This is something that affects our hereditary religious patrimony, which seemed to enjoy the privilege of being untouchable and settled. It seemed to bring the prayer of our forefathers and our Saints to our lips and to give us the comfort of feeling faithful to our spiritual past, which we kept alive to pass it on to the generations ahead. It is at such a moment as this that we get a better understanding of the value of historical tradition and the communion of the Saints. This change will affect the ceremonies of the Mass. We shall become aware, perhaps with some feeling of annoyance, that the ceremonies at the altar are no longer being carried out with the same words and gestures to which we were accustomed—perhaps so much accustomed that we no longer took any notice of them. This change also touches the Faithful. It is intended to interest each one of those present, to draw them out of their customary personal devotions or their usual torpor…”. And he continued by saying that it was necessary to understand the positive meaning of the reforms and to make of the Mass “a school of spiritual depth and a peaceful but demanding school of Christian sociology.”
“We shall do well––he said in the same audience––to take into account the motives for this grave change. The first is obedience to the Council. That obedience now implies obedience to the Bishops, who interpret the Council’s prescriptions and put them into practice…”. In order to repress the opposition to the Pope, there remained nothing but the argument of authority. And it is upon this argument that the whole game of the liturgical revolution was played.
Fr. Calmel, who by his articles was an assiduous collaborator of the magazine Itinéraires, had already faced the subject of obedience, which had become, after the council, the main argument of the novatores. But he affirmed that it is precisely in virtue of obedience that it is necessary to refuse every compromise with the liturgical revolution: “We are not treating here of causing a schism, but of conserving the tradition.” With Aristotelian logic, he noted: “The infallibility of the Pope is limited, therefore our obedience is limited,” indicating the principle of the subordination of obedience to the truth, of authority to the tradition. The history of the Church has cases of Saints who were opposed to the authority of popes who were not saints. We call to mind St. Athanasius who was excommunicated by Pope Liberius and St. Thomas à Becket, suspended by Pope Alexander III. And above all we think of St. Joan of Arc.
On 27th November 1969, three days before the fateful day on which the Novus Ordo Missae came into effect, Fr. Calmel expressed his refusal with a declaration of exceptional importance, made public in the magazine Itinéraires. The first and last, as far as we know, of such clarity and most praiseworthy courage.
I hold to the Traditional Mass, that which was codified, but not fabricated, by St. Pius V, in the XVI Century, in conformity to a centuries old usage. I therefore refuse the Ordo missae of Paul VI.
Why? Because, in reality, this Ordo Missae does not exist. What exists is a universal and permanent liturgical revolution, permitted or desired by the reigning Pope, and which, for a quarter of an hour, puts on the mask of the Ordo Missae of 3rd April 1969. It is the right of every priest to refuse to wear the mask of this liturgical revolution. And I consider it my duty as a priest to refuse to celebrate the mass in an ambiguous rite.
If we accept this new rite, which fosters the confusion between the Catholic Mass and the protestant supper––as the two cardinals (Bacci and Ottaviani) sustain and as a solid theological analysis demonstrates––then we will pass over, without delay, to an interchangeable mass (as recognized, moreover, by a protestant pastor) to a mass which is completely heretical and therefore nothing. Initiated by the Pope, then diffused by him to the national Churches, the revolutionary reform of the mass leads to hell. How can we accept to become accomplices of this?
You will ask me: by keeping the Mass of ages at all costs, have you reflected upon what you have exposed yourself to? Certainly. I risk, so to say, persevering in the way of fidelity to my priesthood, thus rendering to the High Priest, Who is our supreme Judge, the humble witness of my office as a priest. I also risk being able to reassure the faithful who have lost their way, those who are tempted to scepticism or desperation. Every priest, in fact, who remains faithful to the rite of the Mass which was codified by St. Pius V, the great Dominican Pope of the counter reform, permits the faithful to participate in the holy Sacrifice without any possible ambiguity, to receive, without risk of being deceived, the incarnate and immolated Word of God, rendered truly present under the sacred Species. On the contrary, the priest who conforms to the new rite, composed of various pieces by Paul VI, collaborates on his part in progressively establishing a false mass where the Presence of Christ will no longer be authentic, but will be transformed into an empty memorial; therefore, the Sacrifice of the Cross will be nothing other than a religious meal where one eats a bit of bread and drinks a little wine, nothing else: just like the protestants. In not consenting to collaborate in the revolutionary establishment of an ambiguous mass, directed to the destruction of the Mass, to what temporal misfortune, to what difficulties in this world will this lead (those who will remain faithful to the Traditional Mass)? The Lord knows: therefore His grace is sufficient. In truth, the grace of the Heart of Jesus, coming to us from the holy Sacrifice and from the sacraments, is always sufficient. That is why the Lord tells us so calmly: “He that hateth his life in this world, keepeth it unto life eternal.”
I recognize unhesitatingly the authority of the Holy Father. I affirm, however, that every Pope, in the exercise of his authority, may commit abuses of authority. I retain that Pope Paul VI committed an abuse of authority of an exceptional gravity when he constructed a new rite of the mass upon a definition of the mass which has ceased to be Catholic. “The mass––he wrote in his Ordo Missae––is the gathering of the people of God, presided by a priest, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.” This insidious definition omits a priori what makes the mass Catholic, which has never been nor ever will be reduced to the protestant supper. And that is because the Catholic Mass does not treat of any memorial whatsoever; the memorial is of such a nature that it truly contains the sacrifice of the cross, because the Body and Blood of Christ are rendered truly present in virtue of the twofold consecration. Now, whilst that appears to be so clear in the rite which was codified by St. Pius V so that one can not be deceived, in that which has been fabricated by Paul V1, it remains inconstant and ambiguous. Likewise, in the Catholic Mass the priest does not exercise any presidency whatsoever: signed by a divine character which introduces him into eternity, he is the minister of Christ who celebrates the mass by means of him; it is a completely different thing to liken the priest to any pastor whatsoever, delegated by the faithful to keep their assemblies in good order. Well, whilst that is certainly evident in the rite of the Mass prescribed by St. Pius V, it is dissimulated, if not completely eliminated, in the new rite.
Simple honesty, therefore, but infinitely more the priestly honour, does not permit me to have the impudence to barter with the Catholic Mass, received on the day of my ordination. Since we are treating here of being loyal, and above all of a matter of divine gravity, there is no authority in the world, even a pontifical authority, which can stop me. On the other hand, the first proof of fidelity and love which the priest must give to God and to men is that of guarding intact the infinitely precious deposit which was entrusted to him when the Bishop imposed his hands upon him. It is above all on this proof of fidelity and love that I will be judged by the supreme Judge. I trust that the Virgin Mary, Mother of the High Priest, will obtain for me the grace to remain faithful to death to the Catholic Mass, true and without ambiguity. Tuus sum ego, salvum me fac (I am all Thine, save me).”
In the face of a text of such importance, and the taking up of a position which is so categorical, all the friends and supporters of Fr. Calmel trembled, awaiting the toughest sanctions from Rome. All, except for him, the son of St. Dominic, who continued to repeat: “Rome will do nothing, it will do nothing…”. And in fact Rome did nothing. The sanctions did not arrive. Rome remained silent before this Dominican friar who did not fear anything but the supreme Judge to Whom he would have to give an account of his priesthood.
Other priests, thanks to the declaration of Fr. Calmel, had the courage to come out into the open and to resist the abuses of power of an unjust and illegal law. Against those who recommended blind obedience to the authorities, he showed the duty of the insurrection; “The whole conduct of St. Joan of Arc showed that she had thought in this way: For certain, it is God Who permits it; but what God wants, at least whilst an army remains to me, is Christian justice and that I fight a good battle. Then she was burned….
To abandon ourselves to the grace of God does not mean to do nothing. Instead it means, remaining in love, to do all that is within our power…. He who has not meditated upon the just insurrections of history, such as the war of the Maccabees, the riding into battle of St. Joan of Arc, the expeditions of John of Austria, the revolt of Budapest, to he who has not entered into sympathy with the noble resistances of history… I refuse the right to speak of Christian abandonment…abandonment does not consist in saying: God does not want the crusade, let the Moors go free. This is the voice of laziness.”
We cannot confuse supernatural abandonment with a servile obedience. “The dilemma which is placed before all––Fr. Calmel points out––is not to choose between obedience and the faith, but between the obedience of the faith and the collaboration in the destruction of the faith.” We are all invited to do “within the limits which the revolution places upon us, the maximum possible to live the tradition with intelligence and fervour. Watch and pray.”
Fr. Calmel had understood perfectly that the form of violence exercised in the “post-conciliar Church” is an abuse of authority, exercised by demanding unconditional obedience, before which the clergy and many laypersons submit themselves, without attempting any form of resistance. “This absence of reaction––said Louis Salleron––seems to me to be tragic, because God will not save Christians without themselves, nor His Church without Her.”
“Modernism makes its victims walk under the banner of obedience", writes Fr. Calmel––, "placing under the suspicion of pride any criticism whatsoever of the reforms, in the name of the respect which one owes to the pope, in the name of missionary zeal, of charity and of unity.” “To force one to remain silent out of fear,” wrote Cardinal Wyzynsky on 5th October 1954. It was necessary to paralyze or anesthetize under the pretext of the virtue of obedience, the holy Catholic resistance, to the point of accusing he who obeys the eternal tradition of disobedience. “But there are circumstances––Professor G. Chabot pointed out–– in which disobedience to an abusive use of authority is not only licit, but rather obligatory. In such circumstances it is a virtue to disobey.”
When they said to St. Athanasius: “You have all the bishops against you,” he replied: “This shows that they are all against the Church.” “The Catholics faithful to the Tradition, even if reduced to a handful of people, are the true Church of Jesus Christ.”
With regard to the problem of obedience in liturgical matters, Fr. Calmel stated: “The question of the new rites consists in the fact that they are ambivalent: therefore they do not express in an explicit manner the intention of Christ and of the Church. The proof is in the fact that also the heretics use it with a tranquil conscience, whilst they reject and have always rejected the Missal of St. Pius V.” “It is necessary to be either stupid or fearful (or both of these at the same time) to consider oneself bound in conscience by liturgical laws which change more often than the ladies’ fashions and which are even more uncertain.”
In 1974 at a conference he said: “The Mass belongs to the Church. The new Mass belongs only to modernism. I hold to the Mass which is Catholic, traditional, Gregorian, because it does not belong to Modernism…. Modernism is a virus. It is contagious and one must flee from it. The witness is complete. If I give witness to the Catholic Mass, it is necessary that I abstain from celebrating any other Mass. It is like the burnt incense before the idols: either one grain or nothing. Therefore, nothing.”
Notwithstanding the open resistance of Fr. Calmel against the liturgical innovations, no sanction whatsoever arrived from Rome. The logic of the Dominican father is too forceful, his doctrine too orthodox, his love for the Church and for the perennial tradition too sincere, for him to be attacked. Nobody did anything against him because it was not possible. Then they wrapped the case up in the most conspiratorial silence, to the point that Fr. Calmel––known, in part, to the traditional French world––is almost unknown to the rest of the Catholic world.
In 1975, Fr. Calmel died prematurely, crowning his desire of faithfulness and resistance. In his Declaration of 1969 he asked the Most Holy Virgin that he may “remain faithful to death to the Catholic Mass, true and without ambiguity.” The Mother of God granted the desire of this beloved son who died without ever having celebrated the new Mass, in order to remain faithful to the supreme Judge to Whom he would have to given an account of his priesthood. (Cristiana De Magistris)
His Declaration (It might be restating the above statements, but we ALL could learn something from him, and how we should respond to error):
Declaration of Fr. Calmel, O.P. against the Novus Ordo Mass
November 27, 1969
I hold fast to the Traditional Mass, the one which was not composed but codified by St. Pius V in the 16th century as a custom many centuries old. I therefore refuse the Ordo Missæ of Paul VI. Why? Because in reality the Ordo Missæ does not exist. What does exist is a universal and permanent liturgical Revolution, adopted or intended by the present pope, and which has momentarily donned the mask of the Ordo Missæ of April 3, 1969. It is within the right of every priest to refuse to wear the mask of that liturgical Revolution; I consider it my duty as a priest to refuse to celebrate Mass in an equivocal rite.
This new rite fosters confusion between the Catholic Mass and the Protestant “Lord’s Supper” — as two cardinals have stated in as many words, and as solid theological analyses have proven; if we accept it, we will quickly fall from an interchangeable Mass (as a Protestant minister has actually attested) to a Mass which is blatantly heretical and therefore null. Launched by the pope and then abandoned to the national churches, the liturgical reform will simply follow its infernal logic. How can we consent to be party to such a process?
You are going to ask me: do you realize what you are opening yourself up to, by taking this stand for the Mass of All Time? Indeed I do. To use your own expression, I am opening myself up to persevering in the path of fidelity to my priesthood, and therefore to rendering the humble witness of my priestly office to the Sovereign High Priest, who is our Supreme Judge. I am also opening myself up to reassuring the faithful, whose world has been turned upside down and who are being tempted to skepticism or despair. Indeed, every priest who holds fast to the rite of Mass codified by St. Pius V, the great Dominican pope of the Counter-Reformation, allows the faithful to participate in the Holy Sacrifice without the least ambiguity; to receive the Word of God incarnate and immolated, made really present under the holy species, without doubt of the sacrament.
On the other hand, the priest who yields to the new rite, pasted together by Paul VI, is collaborating in the gradual establishment of a counterfeit Mass which will have been transformed into an empty memorial with no longer a True Presence of Christ. By the very fact, the Sacrifice of the Cross will no longer be really and sacramentally offered to God; communion will no longer be anything but a religious meal where a little bread is eaten and a little wine is drunk. Nothing more. Just what the Protestants have.
By refusing to collaborate in the revolutionary establishment of an equivocal Mass, oriented toward the very destruction of the Mass, what temporal hardships and what difficulties in this world may one expect? The Lord knows, whose grace suffices. Truly, the grace of the Heart of Jesus will always suffice, and it comes to us through the Holy Sacrifice and by the sacraments. That is why the Lord tells us with such tranquility," he who loses his life in this world for My sake will live eternally.
" I recognize the authority of the Holy Father, without hesitation. I affirm nonetheless that it is possible for any pope to abuse his authority. I maintain that Pope Paul VI commits an exceptionally grave abuse of authority in building a new rite of Mass on a definition of the Mass which is no longer Catholic. He writes in his Ordo Missæ that, “The Mass is the sacred assembly or congregation of the people of God gathering together, with a priest presiding, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.” This insidious definition deliberately omits what makes the Catholic Mass Catholic, absolutely irreducible to the Protestant “Lord’s Supper.”
For the Catholic Mass is not just any memorial; it is a memorial which really contains the Sacrifice of the Cross, because the body and the blood of Christ are made really present by virtue of the double consecration. The rite codified by St. Pius V permits of no misunderstanding on this point, but the rite invented by Paul VI leaves the question floating and equivocal.
Likewise, in the Catholic Mass, the priest does not preside in just any manner; he is marked with a divine character which sets him apart for all eternity and thus he acts as the minister of Christ, who performs the Mass through him; he could never be likened to a Protestant minister, who is delegated by the faithful to ensure the good order of the assembly. This role is obvious in the rite of Mass established by St. Pius V; it is obscured if not suppressed entirely in the new rite.
Simple integrity, therefore, and priestly integrity infinitely more, demand that I not have the impudence to tamper with the Catholic Mass, received on the day of my ordination. Since it is a question of honesty, and especially in such a matter of divine gravity, there is no authority in the world which may stop me, be it the authority of a pope.
Moreover, the primary proof of fidelity and love which the priest must give to God and men is to maintain intact the infinitely precious deposit which was confided to him as the bishop imposed his hands upon him. It is first on this proof of fidelity and love that I will be judged by the Supreme Judge. I have entire confidence that the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Sovereign High Priest, will obtain for me the grace to remain faithful until death to the Catholic Mass, true and unequivocal. Tuus sum ego, salvum me fac.
Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P.
Now, Father Calmel warns, because this trust in the invisible Head of the Church is so profound as to exceed all possible deficiencies of His Vicar on earth, it is necessary that our spiritual life "is referring to Jesus Christ and not to the Pope; that our interior life, which embraces - no need to say it - even the Pope and the hierarchy, is based not on hierarchy and the Pope, but on the divine Pontiff [...] from whom the visible supreme Vicar depend even more than other priests ".
And for good reason, obvious to all as well as very basic: "The Church - writes this illustrious son of St. Dominic - it is not the mystical body of the Pope. The Church, with the Pope, is the mystical body of Christ. When the interior life of Christians is increasingly oriented to Jesus Christ, they do not fall into despair, even when they suffer unto agony from the shortcomings of the pope, be it an Honorius I or the antagonist popes at the end of the Middle Ages; or be it, in the extreme case of a pope who is lacking according to the new possibilities offered by modernism. "Even if a pope had come to the extreme limit to change the Faith ", or blindness or spirit or fantasy (chimera) or to a mortal illusion " (among many offered by modernism), well, "the pope who could come to this point would not deprive the Lord Jesus His infallible government, who holds him in His hand, the pope mislead, and He would prevents him from committing to the perversion of faith, the authority received from above. "
But even in these unfortunate cases, the interior life of Christians cannot exclude the Pope, without ceasing to be Christian. A real interior life, necessarily centered on Jesus Christ, always includes his Vicar and the obedience due to him, but "this obedience, far from being unconditional, is always practiced in the light of theological faith and natural law."
And here comes the thorny issue of obedience to the Vicar of Christ. Thorny, notes once again Father Calmel, only for those who want to ignore or disregard the articles of the Catholic faith regarding the Supreme Pontiff. It should be recalled that every Christian lives "through Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ, through His Church, which is governed by the Pope, to whom we obey in all that is within his competence. We do not live totally, by and for the Pope, as though it were he that had purchased eternal redemption; that's why Christian obedience can neither always nor in all things identify the Pope with Jesus Christ. "
A Christian who wants to be unconditionally acceptable to the Pope, always and in everything "has necessarily abandoned himself to human respect" and he "demonstrates much superficiality and complicity." It is also true, recognizes the Dominican theologian, he who often preached obedience to the Vicar of Christ, which has more than the stench of servitude than the perfume of virtue, sometimes to make a career, or to prepare his head for the cardinal's hat, or to give luster to his Order or to his Congregation. But note well, "neither God nor the service of the Pope are in need of our lie: Deus non eget nostro mendacio." We must always remember the subordination of obedience to the truth and authority of Tradition. The Pope, like all men of the Church, cannot legitimately use of his authority if not to define or clarify the truth that has always been taught. If one depart from this path, it would cease the duty of our obedience and would be worth the admonition of St. Peter: "We must obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). [1]
The Pope – in as much as he is Pope - it is not always infallible, and - as a man - is never flawless. "We should not be shocked if trials, sometimes very cruel, came upon, the Church precisely by its visible head. We should not be shocked if, although subject to the Pope, we cannot follow him blindly, unconditionally, always and in everything. "But what can we do if a situation of this kind become the sad and unfortunate reality? In this case it should even more strongly orient one's interior life to the only Savior and Lord of the world, feeding of the Apostolic Tradition, with its dogmas, its immortal Missal and the Catechism, as well as prayer and penance.
On the other hand, Revelation has never taught that the Vicar of Christ is immune from inflicting on the Church such trials of this sort. And modernism, reigning for fifty years, it is certainly a fertile ground for them to sprout. But, if that happens - as seems to be happening - even though a sort of bewilderment and vertigo assail the souls of the faithful, we must remember that the Church is the Bride of Christ and it is He who - despite the human failures – guides us in His ineffable and often to us, incomprehensible providence. Father Calmel compares the state of our interior life overwhelmed by such a test to the prayer of the Lord Jesus in Gethsemane, when he said to the apostles while the soldiers were advancing: Sinite usque huc (Lk 22,51). "It's as if the Lord said: Scandal can get to this point; but leave it be, and according to my recommendation, watch and pray ... With my consent to drink the chalice, I have merited all grace for you, while you were asleep and you left me alone; for you in particular I have obtained a grace of supernatural strength, that will be the measure of all your trials, also of the trials that could come to the Holy Church by the part of the Pope. I've now given you the ability of escaping this vertigo. "
The Christian soul that founds their interior life on the perennial Tradition has nothing to fear, even in what Father Calmel believes the worst of the trials for the Church: the betrayal of the Vicar.
With the optimism of the holy souls, while recognizing the immense tragedy that grips the Bride of Christ, he holds it to be, however, a grace to live in these times of trial, in which the greatest suffering of the children of the Church is precisely that it cannot follow the Pope as they would like. "We are docile children of the Pope, but we refuse to enter into complicity with the papal directives that lead to sin." Cardinal Cajetan does not hesitate to say that "We must resist the Pope who publicly destroys the Church." It is, in these cases, of a kind of "eclipse of the Papacy". This test, however, notes Father Calmel, cannot be "neither entire nor too long" and - above all - "we have the grace to sanctify ourselves" in this eclipse in which the Church is the Bride of Christ, despite everything. As was his habit, to elevate his gaze toward heaven and said, "We have the grace to suffer and endure without making it a tragedy. The Holy Virgin defends us.“
So, what to do?
The true children of the Church, as most wish to again see their Mother clothed in her glorious splendor, beginning with the visible Head, all the more they must put their lives, with the grace of God and preserving the Tradition, in the wake of the Saints. "Then the Lord Jesus will ultimately grant to His flock the shepherd of which he will endeavored to render himself worthy. To the Insufficiencies or the defection of the Head, we must not add our own personal negligence. That the apostolic Tradition will live at least in the hearts of the faithful, even if, at the moment, languishing in the heart and in the decisions of those who are responsible at the level of the Church. Then surely the Lord will have mercy.” The true kind.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are subject to deletion if they are not germane. I have no problem with a bit of colourful language, but blasphemy or depraved profanity will not be allowed. Attacks on the Catholic Faith will not be tolerated. Comments will be deleted that are republican (Yanks! Note the lower case 'r'!), attacks on the legitimacy of Pope Francis as the Vicar of Christ (I know he's a material heretic and a Protector of Perverts, and I definitely want him gone yesterday! However, he is Pope, and I pray for him every day.), the legitimacy of the House of Windsor or of the claims of the Elder Line of the House of France, or attacks on the legitimacy of any of the currently ruling Houses of Europe.