Return to The Reign of Mary No. 160
The Reign of Mary
Vol. XLVI, No. 160: Letter from the Editor
March 19, 2016
Feast of St. Joseph
Dear friends in Our Lady,
Praised be Jesus and Mary. Have the “gates of hell” prevailed against the Church? Our instinctive answer to that question is: “Of course not, for Our Lord promised that this tragedy could not occur.” Surprisingly, however, members of the “R & R” camp accuse us of this very folly. They seemingly are unable to understand the simple fact that the chair of Peter can be vacant, even for an extended period, without this reality endangering the veracity of Our Lord’s promise.
Since many of you may be confronted with that very accusation, we bring you in this issue an excellent article from the website www.novusordowatch.org in order to provide you with more information to enlighten those who are deceived by the notion that one can accept Francis as pope and then entirely ignore or disobey his teachings. Indeed, the widespread fallacy of the “recognize but resist” error has deceived many.
But this erroneous teaching not only leads its adherents to a faulty position on the pope issue, it inevitably develops a heretical concept of the papacy. Much like the errors of Gallicanism and Conciliarism, previously condemned by the Church, the R & R view leads to an entirely un-Catholic contempt of “papal” teachings. Priests and lay writers who adopt this position will pride themselves on their strident condemnation of all things Francis, while their deluded followers applaud their ever more caustic rhetoric. Sadly, children who attend such parishes grow up thinking that every papal utterance must be subjected to their criticism and, at best, taken with a cautious skepticism. As long as they have the picture of the papal pretender in the vestibule of their church, all is well.
How utterly un-Catholic all of this is! It flies in the face of 2,000 years of Catholic teaching and practice, of the examples of the saints, and of Sacred Scripture itself. As time goes on, the poor souls imbibing this poison drift farther and farther from a true Sensus Catholicus, and closer and closer to a Lutheran mind-set. Let us pray for them.
As we celebrate the feast of St. Joseph this month, we are reminded of his powerful patronage, so much needed in these days. Let us never cease to pray to him for the welfare of the Church and for the enlightenment of those being led astray. And as we celebrate the glorious feast of the resurrection of Our Lord, the cornerstone of our Faith, let us pray for the restoration of the Church. And let us never lose faith in Our Lord’s promise that the gates of hell will never prevail against His Church. Surely, this modern apostate structure, with its Novus Ordo, its Second Vatican Council, and everything else, is anything BUT His Church!
In the service of Jesus and Mary
Fr. Benedict Hughes, CMRI
(Email Father)