In Festo Omnium Sanctorum

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui nos omnium Sanctorum tuorum merita sub una tribuiste celebritate venerari: quaesumus; ut desideratam nobis tuae propitiationis abundantiam, multiplicatis intercessoribus largiaris.

Almighty, everlasting God, Who hast granted us to venerate in one solemnity the merits of all Thy Saints, we beseech Thee, that as our intercessors are multiplied, Thou wouldst bestow upon us the desired abundance of Thy mercy.

The Fact of Death

by

Archbishop Alban Goodier, S.J.

Catacombes de Paris
(Photo: munichphoto)

If there are many platitudes written in the effort to explain life, there are many more written about death; indeed it would seem that there is nothing that can be written about it but must in the end be resolved into one or two obvious remarks. There is nothing new to be said; we are no wiser now on this point than was the first man who had to face it; when the last man comes to die he will know no more about it than ourselves. Philosophers have analyzed it, and have ended where they have begun. Poets have attempted to sing of it, and they have sung nothing more striking than that "Death once dead, there's no more dying then"; surely an obvious truism enough. Spiritual writers and preachers have discussed it more, perhaps, than they have discussed any other subject; yet, however impressive they may have been, all they have had to say has been summed up in some such statement as, that death is certain, that the time and manner of death are uncertain, that a man only dies once, that death is the end of this life and of all that is in it, and so forth. It is true that we can cover these dry bones with fancies of our own. We can guess at death and imagine what it will be like. We can do the very opposite, and leave it solemnly alone. Still the platitudes remain, severely cold and bony, neither to be hidden beneath the trappings of a silken dress, nor to be kept out of the way in a cupboard.

And this is precisely the crux of the whole matter; these platitudes will not be silenced. At other obvious remarks we may yawn in weariness, or we may laugh them out of countenance. If we laugh at these, the grinning skull does not blush for shame; its hollow sockets do not show any indignation, the rows of teeth grin none the less; if we yawn, the bones do but rattle and awake us. To be irritated with them, to question their truth, is mere foolishness; from the fact of death we have not even the escape that we had from the fact of God or the fact of sin. We cannot deny that we shall die, that we shall one day cease to count upon this earth, and all the rest. Even when we shrug our shoulders and pretend to have no care or fear of the spectre, we dread all the time that the cold, clammy finger-bones may at any moment be about our neck, perhaps all the sooner because we have turned our back upon it. We may defy it, and say that death is nothing to be feared, that it is nothing but an everlasting sleep; it does but echo, and they are ears of a wise man that catch the words: "To sleep, perchance to dream." We may declare that death brings only dissolution; it answers: "What of the soul?" We may say we will be men, and will be content to take our chance; it asks, are we sure whether this is manliness or cowardice, it hints that this refusal to face the fact may itself be our condemnation. We may mount our horse and ride away, galloping in a wild career that we may forget it; we turn our head and find that it has got up behind us, biding its time until we choose to give it our attention, or until it can claim us for its own.

So whichever way we turn, whatever we may say or do, we are haunted by the endless platitude. "Everything," we read in a daily paper this morning, "can be escaped except death." There was not much news in that, yet more than one reader will have dwelt upon it. The certainty is there, and everyone must face it. The only question is: How may it best be faced? Not many ways are possible. There is the way of despair; the acknowledgment that death is the one great curse and evil in this world, and on every account and by every means to be avoided and deferred. Along such a road, death is indeed a weird spectre; the lives of those who go along that road are indeed haunted lives, very nightmares in which the poor dreamer flies on without ceasing, knowing that in the end he must be overtaken. Of this we need say nothing; common as it is, it is not the attitude of a man but of a craven. Then there is the way of ignoring. We hate unpleasant facts; if we cannot escape them we ignore them; any fallacy suffices to justify our leaving them alone. Whatever may be in store, men tell themselves, at all events here and now life spreads out before them. Death may be tomorrow, today we are alive; let us then eat and drink today, tomorrow shall look to itself. So it is assumed that death will always be tomorrow, not today, and life is lived on that assumption. When at last tomorrow becomes today, it is accepted as an accident which has taken us unawares. Or, again, there is the attitude of bravado. We can face it, and defy it, and fight it, and be beaten by it, assume that we have met it like men and soldiers, and trust that this will atone for all the rest. This, too, is very bitter; it is close akin to despair.

But there is another attitude. There is the attitude that has been taken up by man from the beginning - the attitude which the world itself accepts as alone consistent with the present life. Man in his heart does not think he is made to be annihilated; to come to the belief that he is, even to the profession of it, whatever he may really believe, demands a forcing of intellect and will that Nature itself can scarcely stand. The very fear that haunts a man when he ignores the solemn fact is alone telling evidence against him. He knows that death is the end, but he also thinks it is a beginning. He knows that the present life is good, but he also feels sure that if he dies aright that which follows will be better. If he dies aright - that is the whole matter. Whether he believes or whether he affects the opposite, he knows it is vital that the verdict should be found in his favour. He will insist that he has lived up to his lights, he will have us reckon only the good done; he has a fellow-feeling for those who are already dead, and hopes that if he treats them with condoning, so he will be treated in his turn. So he says So-and-so was a good man, take him altogether; or, at all events, that he served his country well; or that he was a good friend; or that he prospered and helped others to prosper; and for the rest it is better left alone. We do not blame him. De mortuis nil nisi bonum - "of the dead let us only speak well" - is a good proverb. But it has reference to this side of the grave alone. On the other side, there must be the whole thing or nothing - and there is not nothing.

Then why not face the facts as they are? Whatever men may see about me or may say, whatever outward show I may make, that will remain, and may indeed suffice, on this side of the door. But it is not what appears, it is what I am that will pass through - the good in me, the bad, and the indifferent. And when I accept this and make it a factor in my life, at once it alters my perspective. It alters my ideas of right and wrong. It alters my observance of the same. The fact of life-in-death acts at once as a stimulus and a warning, where nothing else will avail. Indeed, if it were not for the fear of the life beyond, the life on this side would soon bring about its own corruption. And if that is so, or even if it is a half-truth, then death, and the thought of death, cannot be the spectre that men make it. Dark as are the wings of the angel of death, they are yet tipped with gold, lit from the sun that shines beyond, which for the moment he hides from us. And to look death in the face is worth while; it is the only manliness. Not as the ancient pagan, who would drink his hemlock or open his vein at command, and calmly, stoically, await the issue; not even as the modern pagan who can boast, but with a strange metallic ring in his laughter, that he will "go to his death like a soldier," as to a doom he cannot avoid; but as those who have kept their eyes toward the light, and have so found joy in their sacrifice.

"It is appointed unto men once to die," and He who has appointed it can do only good; He alone can raise the dead to life. And here at last we have come to a statement about death which is not an obvious platitude. He who has made the dry bones can also make the dry bones live. He can clothe them again with sinews and flesh and skin, can breathe into them the spirit, and make them "stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army." He can, and He has done it. St. Paul was no dreamer, yet he saw and understood that which for him turned death into life and life to death. For him this life was living death; death was the beginning of life. "Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" he cries; and he adds elsewhere : "I desire to be dissolved and to be." He desired to be dissolved, not that he might end but that he might begin; not that he might rest, but that he might labour; not that he might look back on what he had done, but that he might look forward. No wonder he could cry in triumph: "Death, where is thy victory? Death, where is thy sting?" For death had been swallowed up in his conquest: Absorpta est mors in victoria. And the same is true of very many. We have all watched them striding down the plane of time, laughing as they went, enjoying this life as only those can enjoy it who have no misgivings about the next. We have seen them nearing the goal, with their eyes fixed on the light beyond; when the time has come they have been ready, and we have felt that indeed they were men.

Of every one, young and old alike, death makes either a friend or an enemy. To his enemy he is an abiding terror, to his friend he is a friend indeed; warning in danger, in trial encouraging with strong hope, reconciling in misfortune, stirring when action is called for, stimulating to every sacrifice.

In Festo Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Regis

Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui in dilecto Filio tuo, universorum Rege, omnia instaurare voluisti: Concede propitius, ut cunctae familiae Gentium, peccati vulnere disgregatae, eius suavissimo subdantur imperio.

Almighty, everlasting God, who hast willed to restore all things in Thy beloved Son, the King of the universe, mercifully grant that all the nations of mankind who are torn asunder by the wounds of sin, may submit to His most sweet rule.

Catholic Dissidents: A Case of Stalking the Bride

It's no secret that the Catholic Faith is divisive. It was Our Lord Himself who said, "Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword" (St. Matthew 10:34). History is littered with people who took exception to some part of the teaching of Our Lord and His Church, set themselves against it, and were eventually broken upon the rock that is the Catholic Faith. We traditionally referred to such people with terms which, though accurately describing their situation, have been largely dropped from our vocabulary due to their "judgmental" tone: schismatic, heretic, apostate. Today, we often refer to such people with something far more innocuous-sounding: dissident. Despite the change in labels, however, the thing in question remains the same: disagreement with and/or rejection of some part of the Catholic Faith.

In times past, the Church was careful to expel from its body any members which did not accept the Catholic Faith whole and entire. This was commanded by the Apostle Paul:

But now I have written to you, not to keep company, if any man that is named a brother, be a fornicator, or covetous, or a server of idols, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner: with such a one, not so much as to eat. For what have I to do to judge them that are without? Do not you judge them that are within? For them that are without, God will judge. Put away the evil one from among yourselves. (1 Corinthians 5:11-13)

That this teaching was stressed repeatedly by countless Fathers, Doctors, Saints and Popes is so commonly known as to need no citation. Surprisingly, however, precisely this well-known teaching has fallen into disfavor today. Instead of expelling dissidents from amongst our midst, we are called to enter into "dialogue" with them, to "walk" with them, to "meet them where they are". Indeed, St. Paul would not have fared well in today's ecumenical climate.

The dissidents themselves have picked up on this change in approach. No longer do they fear censure or reproach for their now open dissent. Not only are they permitted to remain in the Church despite their rejection of one or more teachings of her magisterium, but they are allowed to propagate their dissenting ideas, teach them in Catholic institutions, and publish them in Catholic publishing houses. If anyone raises an objection that such things are inappropriate for the Bride of Christ, they are scorned as "judgmental", "narrow", "pharisaical". "Division," we are told, " is diabolical." It would seem that Christ's sword has, as a matter of principle, been replaced with the sending of peace upon earth.

Nonetheless, the question is often asked: Why don't Catholic dissidents leave the Church? Mark, gentle reader, this is not the same as saying they should leave the Church. Rather it is to inquire as to why it is that, given the fact that they openly and often fiercely disagree with the official teachings of the Catholic Church - teachings which are definitive and not liable to change - they choose to remain in her - if only nominally - instead of joining some other community which shares their beliefs and/or approves of their behavior? 

To answer this question, we must learn to see things from the dissident Catholic's perspective. Virtually all Catholic dissidents base their choice to remain in the Church upon a dichotomy they see as existing between the "institutional Church", sometimes also referred to as the "hierarchical Church", and the "People of God" as the "true Church" of Christ. This dichotomy was described well by the dissident Catholic priest Fr. Geoffrey Farrow, now a full-time "gay rights" activist: 

As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, if you think of the Catholic Church as the hierarchy then, there is very little reason to remain a Catholic. On the other hand, if you see the Church as the People of God, a living community of faith, then there are many reasons for hope. Catholics in the pews disagree sharply with their bishops on a host of social issues and tend to be far more progressive than their protestant counterparts. Eventually, the bishops will get it, or will die off and be replaced by bishops who do get it.

That, in a nutshell, is why dissenting Catholics do not leave: they are convinced that they are the "true Church". The visible hierarchy is, in short, an impostor Bride.

If you're still having problems understanding the dissident view, perhaps the following case study will help to clarify things:

In the Spring of 1988, a 36 year-old woman was arrested at Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey for failing to pay the $3 toll fee. She was driving a $45,000 Porsche that she said belonged to her husband, talk show host David Letterman. The police ran the license plates and found that the car did, in fact, belong to David Letterman. The woman behind the wheel, however, was not David Letterman's wife. She was his stalker. 

Margaret Mary Ray wasn't simply lying when she claimed to be Letterman's wife; she actually believed she was Letterman's wife. She had not confused her identity with Letterman's actual wife, whom he had divorced several years prior. She, Margaret Mary Ray, was Letterman's one and only wife. Ray was so convinced that she was happily married to Letterman that she even claimed him as the father of her three-year-old son. No amount of direct confrontation with the truth - she went on to be arrested for trespassing on Letterman's property on eight different occasions - was able to dissuade Ray. In her mind, they were married, they were in love, and they belonged together.

The case of Margaret Mary Ray is one of the more famous examples of the increasingly common phenomenon known as stalking, i.e. unreciprocated obsessive attention which often includes monitoring, intimidation and/or harassment. Unlike Margaret Mary Ray, most stalkers do not suffer from hallucinations or severe delusions. It is common, however, for stalkers to display other forms of mental illness, such as depression, substance abuse and various personality disorders. While commonly exhibiting above average intelligence, stalkers often suffer from low self-esteem combined with erotomania and mild to severe paranoia. In rare cases, stalking can be accompanied by grave psychological disorder and can lead to tragedy - something which has inspired numerous films, such as the 1987 psychological thriller Fatal Attraction.

Some might object to the analogy, but it does serve to shed some light on the situation of dissenting Catholics when they pit themselves in the role of the "People of God" against the "institutional Church": it is a case of the "true Bride" versus the "impostor". In the view of dissident Catholics, the Bridegroom, Our Lord, is actually joined to the prophetic "People of God"; the "institutional Church", for which the dissidents have nothing but contempt, has simply taken advantage of some technicality to assert her nearly 2,000 year-long control over the helpless Bridegroom. If she could only be exposed as the impostor she is, or - if necessary - be eliminated from the equation, the two lovers could be finally united, to live happily ever after....

And so the dissenting Catholics set about to monitor the Church, placing her every move under scrutiny, noting with great pleasure the failings of her loyal members; to intimidate her by putting political, financial and media pressure upon her; to harass her by spreading lies about her past and making veiled threats on her continued existence; and all the while telling everyone that they are the "true" faithful, the "true" lovers of Christ - some even going so far as to dress up for the role.

In short, they stalk the Bride.

Sanctity and Temptation

by

Archbishop Alban Goodier, S.J.

St. Joseph
Patron of Workers

It is a strange thing how little we Catholics, who make so much of devotion to the Saints, really understand of the secret of sanctity. We read the lives of Saints, and we are filled with reverence and admiration. We see their statues in our churches, and we honour them as we might honour some great man who is otherwise no concern of ours. We look at their figures in our stained-glass windows, and we are induced to fancy them to have been different creatures altogether from ourselves; not men and women of living flesh and blood as we are, but some kind of privileged being, some kind of angel in human form, sent on earth to win our esteem, it may be, but scarcely one of ourselves, scarcely near enough to us to be seriously taken as our friends. And yet, when we come to understand them better, how very like our own we find their lives to have been! The same kind of trials and temptations, the same sense of failure and shortcoming, the same unceasing disappointments. They, too, knew all the weakness of human nature; and they knew it as much from their own experience of themselves as from what they saw around them. "You do not the things that you would," says St. Paul, writing a word of pity and encouragement to his children in Galatia; but of himself he says no less spontaneously: "I do not that good which I will; but the evil which I hate, that I do." Again, in another place he says, bearing witness to the sense of his great weakness: "I see another law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me in the law of sin that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

What a tale do all these words tell us of a man who, with all his chosen sanctity, had first-hand knowledge of temptation! And the same may be said of all the Saints. All of them who have left any record of their lives in writing tell us how they realized their own great weakness, and how they feared for themselves in the face of their temptations. "Life spends itself in sorrowing, but, indeed, there is no amendment." So writes the great St. Augustine, a man who in his early life had drunk deep of the cup of sin, who had found it so hard to recover, and who to the end of his days felt the consequences of his early misdeeds press hard upon him. Every morning of his life we are told that the great St. Philip Neri, that most happy because innocent of Saints, added this to his daily prayer: "Have a care of me, Lord, or I shall certainly betray Thee today." St. Teresa, who stands so high because of her intimate union with God in prayer, yet confesses that for seventeen years she was so beset with every temptation that she could scarcely hope to be able to persevere. St. Alphonsus Liguori, who has written about sin and its nature as has no other doctor in the Church, was to the end of his days so overcome with scruples and temptations as to be almost persuaded that God had foredoomed him to hell.

No, in this at least the Saints were more like ourselves than we imagine, more like ourselves than the written lives sometimes let us see. For the written lives tend to dwell on the golden harvest; they do not always tell us either of the seed-ground or of its tilling. There is no royal road to Heaven, not even for the innocent Saints of God. "Man's life on earth is a warfare," says Holy Scripture; it does not say that the Saints are excepted. Everyone, whether Saint or sinner, whether innocent or guilty, whether priest, or religious, or layman, has his particular battle to fight, his particular temptation to conquer, and in that fight, in that conquest, lies precisely the secret of his sanctity. Men and women have worked miracles before today, and in the end have been found wanting. Men and women have been raised to great heights of contemplation and prayer, and at the last have failed. Men and women have apparently lived lives and died deaths of peace and security, and yet the Just Judge has been compelled to pronounce on them the sentence: "Amen, I say to you, I know you not." But no man and no woman yet has fought on against crushing trial and temptation, and has failed to win a crown of glory; has stood up and gone onward in spite of past misdeeds, and has not been received into the company of the Saints. This it is that makes the basis of sanctity, this never giving in, this constant resisting, this refusing to accept the dead level of one's own failures ; the rest is the structure that is built upon it.

So very human a thing is sanctity, so very ordinary; when the apostle addresses his disciples as those "called to be Saints," he makes no selection, he does not seem to think that he is asking something quite extraordinary. It does not demand special notice; it does not require that a man should live any other life than that which he is living. In every rank of life, under every condition, true sanctity has been and yet can be found. St. Onesimus was a slave; St. Genevieve was a simple shepherdess; St. Isidore was a country farmer; Marie Lataste was a servant-girl, St. Benedict Joseph Labre was a common tramp. And yet we tell ourselves that this can mean nothing for us. In theory it may be very well; in practice it is not possible. We must earn our daily bread, we must endure our circumstances; we are crushed beneath temptations that are inconsistent with sanctity. My own household is against it - a wild and reckless son or brother, a careless, irreligious father or mother, a systematic persecution that is roused to madness by the very shadow of a holy deed. St. Stanislaus was the most innocent of Saints, yet for years he lived with, and was in everything subject to, a restless, selfish brother, who would kick the poor child to the ground, and trample him beneath his feet, because he would not join in his nightly revelry. Is our lot worse than that? St. Elizabeth was a great Saint, though she was turned out of house and home by her brother-in-law to starve with her children in the street, while he sat drinking in his palace. Is it worse for us than that? And if we speak of our temptations, which one of us will dare to say that we have one particle of the trials, interior and exterior, that some of the Saints have been compelled to endure? Nay, more than that; to go no farther than our own immediate surroundings, if we had but the sight of the Angels, perhaps if we had but the knowledge of some confessor, if we could but see the battles, far greater than our own, which many close about us are fighting, and fighting with success, though they may not know it, we should be shamed into silence when we would complain, and into greater bravery in action.

"Why cannot I do what these and those have done!" This is a question that has turned two sinners into two of the greatest Saints in the Church. Before St. Augustine and St. Ignatius of Loyola put it to themselves, no one would have suspected they were the material of which Saints are made; and even if they were, no one would have thought that they would have paid the price. What it cost the first we know, at least in part, for he has told us himself, and his story is of the kind that is understood by every human heart. What it cost the second we do not know; but if any master "knew what was in man" he did, and he learnt it from his experience of himself. Indeed, that is the value of it all. The more difficult our particular trial, the greater our particular temptation, so much the more shall we know when our turn comes for action, so much the deeper shall we see into the hearts and lives of others. We have, most of us, courage for other things that are hard; if we would only have a little courage for this! If, when temptation is pressing most upon us, we would only not turn cowards and give up! If we would only keep always in mind the words of St. Paul: "God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted beyond that which you can endure, but with the trial will also give the means to overcome it." It is just the little more that we want; it is just because we fail to give the little more, to hold out a very little longer, that all the rest comes to grief. It is just that little more that makes the difference between ourselves and the Saints; that little more of spiritual character, not less of trouble and temptation.

To The Depths They Will Sink

There's been a bit of chatter regarding a tweet made by Salt and Light's Fr. Thomas Rosica regarding a particularly nasty bit of writing. In Fr. Thomas Rosica's defense, it has to be said that he is not the originator of the nastiness; he's actually paraphrasing the last line of the article to which he linked: What Is a Catholic Family? by Peter Maneau, which appeared a few days ago in the Opinion Pages of the New York Times. At the same time, however, it's hard not to see the paraphrase as an open endorsement of the comparison itself. Which, with all the charity I can muster, is positively horrid.

We are first met with the tired ad hominem argument that priests, bishops and cardinals are unable to speak from experience when it comes to matters of sexuality and family life. Does anyone actually give credence to such twaddle? Each and every one of these men were raised - contrary to popular belief, apparently - in a human family, and witnessed first-hand the tests and trials of dedicated parents in raising their often large families. I'd wager that most if not all of them have numerous brothers and sisters, many of whom did not enter religious life but instead went on to start families of their own. And is there anyone who is not by now aware of the fact that a considerable number of priests and even bishops struggle with the temptation of succumbing to inherently disordered sexual behavior? (Bishop Kieran Conry, anyone?) These men know exactly what a life of dedicated chastity means. So, yes, they are perfectly well-qualified to speak with authority on matters pertaining to the proper use of human sexuality and healthy family life.

Furthermore, the author willingly ignores the well-known truth regarding the paragraphs pleading for "valuing the homosexual orientation" in the first Relatio, i.e., that they were introduced secretly by one man: Bishop Bruno Forte. Given this fact, it should not surprise us in the least that the overwhelming majority of bishops and cardinals strongly objected to the paragraphs, as they were in no way a truthful representation of the discussions of the first week. The real news here is not that the participants "backtracked" on their previous statements, but rather that one very sneaky bishop tried to pull a fast one on the whole world and suffered zero consequences for his shameful actions.

The author goes on to imply that the Church, by spending more time discussing the importance of marriage in the life of Catholics today, is somehow breaking with her past, which placed the state of consecrated virginity above that of married life - as though the two are now to be seen as equals. On the contrary, it is a defined canon of the Council of Trent (Session 24, Canon 10), that "if any one saith, that the marriage state is to be placed above the state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be united in matrimony: let him be anathema." The 2015 Synod could shower reams of flowery praise upon marriage, and it wouldn't change a thing regarding the rightfully elevated status of consecrated virginity.

In what one could be forgiven for assuming would be the apex of this particular article's malicious obtuseness, the author flatly labels what has been the historical norm regarding marriage, i.e., the lifelong union of one man and one woman in mutual, loving support for the procreation and rearing of children, as "an unattainable ideal". I'll be sure to pass on the note to my spouse that our marriage has officially hit "mythical" status.

If you think we've reached the bottom of the barrel, gentle reader, brace yourself. The author shows us that he is prepared to dig well beyond the barrel floor and into the filth beneath it. He proceeds to produce what has to be one of the most stunningly perverse and utterly sacrilegious comparisons ever made: the Holy Family was the forerunner of modern "irregular unions". 

Yup. He went there. He just equated this:

with this:

And this:

with this:

There is obviously no limit to the depths people will sink to promote the disorder of human sexuality in the Church. Even if it means digging their way to hell.

The Example of a True Prince

As this year's undoubtedly remarkable Synod slowly begins to fade from our collective memory - though only to rear its unseemly head yet again in a mere twelve month's time - I invite you, gentle reader, to pause for a moment to reflect upon the truly dramatic events which transpired in those two brief yet momentous weeks.

There are, of course, the many documents and speeches which will, no doubt, be examined, weighed and dissected like exotic cadavers over the course of the coming year. Important business, to be sure. Yet it is not to the tangible fruits of the Synod that I wish to direct your attention; rather, it is to those of a more fleeting nature, for, though their appearance was but ephemeral, they shall, I assure you, remain long after the starry heavens above have been curled up like so much blackened parchment in the hands of Him who stretched them forth.

And though there were, indeed, several valiant and intrepid guardians of that most beautiful and spotless Bride of Christ who, not unlike Lot unto the depraved of Sodom, through impassioned admonitions urged their wayward brethren to leave off from their errors and return to sanity, whereby making themselves worthy of the title of "Princes of the Church," there is one Prince in particular whose actions deserve our special consideration: His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke.

Penetrating the many-layered darkness, cutting through the wailing din and commotion of those days were the calm and measured words of His Eminence, soothing in their compassion, assuring in their wisdom, and, above all, pleasantly startling in their familiarity, as though hearing again the voice of one loved and feared lost. With the sword of ecclesiastical exile and public humiliation hovering above his noble head, he bared his neck obediently and spoke the truth of Christ Our Lord, plainly, with candor and in genuine humility. Of course, we take our supreme example from none other than Our Blessed Lord Himself - He who, though faced with brutal torment unto death, forgave those who persecuted Him. Yet have we not seen something of that same gentle patience, that same steadfastness, that same persevering fidelity in the person of His Eminence Cardinal Burke throughout the trial of the Synod? What we heard from his lips was not a collection of mere human words; what we heard was the living Word.

It is not necessary, gentle reader, that we conquer the world. We need only submit in humility to the will of Our Lord, remaining loyal regardless of personal cost, and He will conquer through us.

His Eminence Raymond Cardinal Burke