Return to The Reign of Mary No. 147
The Reign of Mary
Vol. XLIII, No. 147: Letter from the Editor
August 11, 2012
St. Philomena
Dear friends in Our Lady,
Praised be Jesus and Mary. Our table of contents page states as the purpose of The Reign of Mary magazine “to preserve the teachings and practice of traditional Roman Catholicism and to promote the message of Fatima.” This simple statement implies a number of additional purposes. To list in greater detail the mission of this apostolate, we can include the following goals: 1) to educate the faithful on the truths and practice of our Faith, and to encourage them to live fervent Catholic lives, 2) to particularly enlighten traditional Catholics as to the correct understanding of the current crisis the Church is facing, so as to avoid the errors into which so many have fallen, 3) and to promote a greater love and devotion to our Blessed Mother and her message.
In keeping with these goals, we continue to print our regular columns, including a sermon, church history, news of the Vatican II Church and of our modern society, an aspect of devotion to our Blessed Mother, the study of the liturgy, Catholic family life, and an article particularly written for our Confraternity members on striving for perfection, but which can be read with great profit by all our readers. (Not every column is represented by an installment in a given issue of In this issue, we begin a new series in our liturgy column, aimed at explaining the beauties of the liturgy to the faithful. We hope these articles on the liturgy will increase your knowledge and love of the sacred liturgy and help you to draw many graces from this sacred font.
Our feature articles primarily deal with issues facing us today. In particular, we wish to inform our readers as to the correct Catholic attitude toward the heretical Conciliar Church and its leaders. This is all the more important, as many otherwise good publications adopt and promote what has been called the “recognize but resist” attitude. This means that they “recognize” the heresies of Benedict XVI and his bishops but still claim they are lawful authority. Their Catholic sense tells them they cannot follow the false teachings, which would eviscerate their faith, so they “resist.” They then develop an attitude of “picking and choosing” which laws of the new Code to follow, which teachings to adopt, which devotional practices to employ.
This attitude is extremely dangerous and is utterly un-Catholic. It has no basis in traditional Church teaching. It is detrimental to the Faith and causes one to become, in effect, his own “pope,” deciding what he or she will do. True Catholic teaching is quite simple: determine whether or not someone is a Catholic authority, based on traditional Church teaching. If he is, obey him; if not, reject him — entirely. There can be no cafeteria Catholicism, either in practice or in belief. The widely promoted attitude of “recognize but resist” is dangerous. However well-intentioned its adherents are, they are dead wrong and we must pray for them. It is for this reason that we continue to print articles (such as the one by Fr. Barbara in this issue) that explain the proper Catholic attitude on the question of authority.
I also want to encourage you to consider attending our annual Fatima Conference. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the disastrous council of Vatican II, and so we will have lectures explaining in detail why it must be completely rejected. We hope to see you there at Mount St. Michael in October.
May God bless you all.
In the service of Jesus and Mary
Fr. Benedict Hughes, CMRI
(Email Father)