Cardinal Cupich Appointed as Anti-Trad Enforcer

The editor of 1P5, Timothy Flanders, reacts to the appointment of the ferocious enemy of Catholic Tradition, Blase Cupich, to the CDW. 

From One Peter Five

By Timothy Flanders

The Fall of Cardinal Sarah

On the fifth of July, 2016, Cardinal Sarah, then prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship, gave a speech in which he lent official support to the so-called “reform of the reform” which had been undertaken by Ratzinger. This movement had included the freedom for the Latin Mass and the promotion of reverence in the liturgy, which helped inspire our friends at New Liturgical Movement to produce their good work.

But within a week, Pope Francis contradicted Cardinal Sarah and said that “to speak of ‘the reform of the reform’ is an error!”

And so Cardinal Sarah’s plan did not last long under this pontificat. His influence was marginalised by Francis’ passive aggressive comments and his appointments.

The struggle came to a head in 2020 when Cardinal Sarah condemned the sacrileges against the Holy Sacrament during the COVID crisis and confirmed the long-standing right of the faithful to receive on the tongue. But this official position was undermined after United States Bishop Stika attempted to ban communion on the tongue which was confirmed in Sarah’s name, without his signature. A few months later, Pope Francis accepted Sarah’s resignation in early 2021.

Arthur Roche was appointed as his replacement in May, 2021.

Two months later, Pope Francis released Traditionis Custodes, which was condemned by Cardinal Sarah in strong terms:

The sacred cannot be decreed, it is received from God and passed on… What is at stake is therefore much more serious than a simple question of discipline. If she were to claim a reversal of her faith or of her liturgy, in what name would the Church dare address the world? Her only legitimacy is her consistency in her continuity.

 The Rise of Cupich

Meanwhile, while Cardinal Sarah was falling from power and influence under this pontificate, a different man was rising in influence. Only a few months after Cardinal Sarah made his official endorsement of the “reform of the reform” in 2016, Bishop Cupich was raised to the cardinalate by Pope Francis in November 2016.

He had already made a name for himself as an anti-Trad enforcer.

As bishop of Rapid City, South Dakota, he prohibited a Latin Mass community from celebrating the Triduum by locking their doors, forcing them to celebrate it on the sidewalk (Rapid City Journal, May 27, 2002).

As if in reaction to Summorum Pontificum (2007), he wrote the manifesto The New Roman Missal: A Time of Renewal, which praised the Novus Ordo against then Pope Benedict’s Latin Mass decree and his advocacy for a reverent Novus Ordo Mass.

In September, 2014, not two years into Francis’ pontificate, Bishop Cupich was transferred to the archdiocese of Chicago, a major see of influence in the United States and the world. It is here that the canons regular of St. John Cantius have promoted their work of liturgical renewal by means of their parish and the Latin Mass resources at sanctamissa.org. This parish is one of the few parishes in Chicago which has seen a massive revival:

St. John Cantius does not have a free-standing altar. Thus, when Cardinal Cupich visited there to ordain a deacon, he erected an altar table to celebrate towards the people.

Credit: Rorate Caeli

While Sarah condemned Traditonis Custodes, Cardinal Cupich praised the cruel decree as an opportunity to continue the same liturgical destruction. Thus in the decree of Cupich implementing TC in his diocese (a move coordinated with Vatican News), he banned the Latin Mass entirely on the first Sunday of every month, and stipulated that Mass facing the people must be “ordinarily” done to “make manifest the unity of this local Church” and “the acceptance of the teaching of the Second Vatican Council and its liturgical books.” (This provoked the faithful Catholics of Chicago to stage monthly rosary rallies outside the cathedral, the next of which is this Sunday.)

This of course shows his ignorance of the Second Vatican Council and its reforms. Thankfully, this ignorance can be remedied by watching the recent documentary:

The Anti-Trad Enforcer Brought In

In the most recent consistory of new cardinals, Francis announced that Archbishop Roche would be given the red hat, and now we have the news of Cardinal Cupich joining him as anti-Trad enforcer at the Congregation for Divine Worship (soon to be renamed “the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments” effective Pentecost Sunday).

In this new move we see a continuation of the enemies of Tradition having their way under the current pontificate. The curia is stacked to elect Francis II at the next conclave, and the men in Rome who hate the ancient Roman Rite have gained virtually all the influential posts. Expect new decrees like Roche’s Christmas Massacre and Cupich shutting out the little ones from their Mass on Good Friday.

Some say the biological solution will save the Church, as the traditional, faithful Catholics have more children and produce more vocations. This is true, I think, to a degree. But we are also living under the Third Pornocracy where a tiny minority of men in the Vatican can use the machinery of Roman bureaucracy to perpetuate their spawn of the devil into the next generation.

As Msgr. Gomulka observed today, the homosexual mafia perpetuates itself by corrupting younger seminarians by means of unnatural sins of the flesh. The same can be said of the generative, iconoclastic ideology, since it surrenders to the spirit of Antichrist present in the world. Until this pipeline of power is destroyed – which has successfully gained control over the last few generations – the biological solution is only half the battle.

Therefore let every man of God turn to the face the Anti-Trad enforcer gaining his ground in the Vatican. We forgive him for what he is about to do, because we will fight as Christians and love our enemies. But we will face him with the full zeal of our crusading forefathers who already fought this fight and won:

As long as we keep fighting with this same zeal, we will win this. Therefore we call upon Our Lady of Fatima and Blessed Emperor Karl to pray for us, forming our battle lines with the sign of the cross as we face every enemy.

I will not fear thousands of the people surrounding me: arise, O Lord; save me, O my God (Ps. iii. 7).