Where has a man-centered liturgy taken us?

Albert Drexel, in Ein Neuer Prophet? (Stein am Rhein: Christiana, 1971) explains that: "The modernism or neo-modernism within Christianity, and especially within the Roman Catholic Church after the Second Vatican Council, is above all characterized by a turning away from the supernatural and an exclusive predilection for this world, the Aggiornamento of Pope John XXIII interpreted one-sidedly and hence misapplied. Teilhard's ideology was was a definitive precondition for this. Inasmuch as he turned his back to the past, fused God and the supernatural with the process of a universal evolutionism, and proclaimed religion to be an active participation in a progressive development ending in Point Omega, the basis was given for a humanist cult of the secular." (p. 115).

In the New World Order, man will no longer believe in a God whom he cannot control. Man will worship himself and his new leader who will, like Hitler, be deified: the man spoken of by Saint Paul as the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition. 

The new worship which is emerging is man-centered.  And it is reflected in various liturgical actions such as banal pop-style music "concerts" and spontaneous applause over human achievement.  Pope [Emeritus] Benedict XVI - while still Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger - wrote a book entitled "The Spirit of the Liturgy," in which he warned that, "Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment.  Such attractiveness fades quickly - it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation...Liturgy can only attract people when it looks, not at itself, but at God, when it allows him to enter and act.  Then something truly unique happens, beyond competition, and people have a sense that more has taken place than a recreational activity." (The Spirit of the Liturgy, Ignatius Press, pp. 198-199).

Since Vatican II, we have entered the time of wretched idolatry prophesied by the Fathers of the Church - for they emphasized the corruption of the liturgy which would prevail just prior to Antichrist during the last days.  The Holy Mass is valid in her essence.  But years of reckless tinkering with sacred realities has produced a mediocrity-ridden liturgy, a shallow show which has distracted from the holy while driving the faithful out the doors or so weakening their faith that they find themselves paralyzed before the current zeitgeist.  Emptied churches, convents and seminaries does not a reform make.

This past Saturday, while at the Easter Vigil Mass at Our Lady Immaculate in Athol, Massachusetts, I witnessed spontaneous applause some 5 times during the liturgy.  The entire atmosphere was more akin to a circus than a solemn liturgy.  I am reminded of the words of the Psalmist:

"Why, God, have you cast us off forever? Why does your anger burn against the sheep of your pasture? Remember your people, whom you acquired of old, the tribe you redeemed as your own heritage, Mount Zion where you dwell. Direct your steps toward the utter destruction, everything the enemy laid waste in the sanctuary.Your foes roared triumphantly in the place of your assembly; they set up their own tokens of victory. They hacked away like a forester gathering boughs, swinging his ax in a thicket of trees. They smashed all its engraved work, struck it with ax and pick. They set your sanctuary on fire, profaned your name’s abode by razing it to the ground. They said in their hearts, “We will destroy them all! Burn all the assembly-places of God in the land!” Even so we have seen no signs for us, there is no prophet any more, no one among us who knows for how long. How long, O God, will the enemy jeer? Will the enemy revile your name forever? Why draw back your hand, why hold back your right hand within your bosom? Yet you, God, are my king from of old, winning victories throughout the earth. You stirred up the sea by your might; you smashed the heads of the dragons on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan, gave him as food to the sharks.You opened up springs and torrents, brought dry land out of the primeval waters. Yours the day and yours the night too; you set the moon and sun in place. You fixed all the limits of the earth; summer and winter you made. Remember how the enemy has jeered, LORD, how a foolish people has reviled your name. Do not surrender to wild animals those who praise you; do not forget forever the life of your afflicted. Look to your covenant, for the recesses of the land are full of the haunts of violence. Let not the oppressed turn back in shame; may the poor and needy praise your name. Arise, God, defend your cause; remember the constant jeering of the fools. Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the unceasing uproar of your enemies." (Psalm 74).

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"Only a robustly, unapologetically evangelical Catholicism..."

It was Jacques Maritain who said, “Christianity must inform or, rather, transpenetrate the world; not that this is its principal aim (although it is an indispensable secondary end), and not in order that the world become right now the kingdom of God, but in order that grace may be more and more effective in it, and in order that man may better live there his temporal life.”


If grace is to be more and more effective in the world, if a new Christendom is to arise from the ashes of our morally-bankrupt, sin-sick society which subjects mankind to constant and ever-growing threats of degradation and destruction, then saints will have to arise in the midst of our broken world. These saints will be, according to St. Louis de Montfort in his classic treatise True Devotion to Mary, “..like thunder-clouds flying through the air at the slightest breath of the Holy Spirit. Attached to nothing, surprised at nothing, troubled at nothing, they will shower down the rain of God’s word and of eternal life. They will thunder against sin, they will storm against the world, they will strike down the devil and his followers and for life and for death, they will pierce through and through with the two-edged sword of God’s word all those against whom they are sent by almighty God.” (True Devotion, 57).

Such disciples will not be “part-time Catholics” or “Chicken-Catholics,” devoting only one hour a week to their Creator and Redeemer while retreating in fear from any and all conflict during the spiritual battles ahead. St. Montfort insists that, “..we know they will be true disciples of Jesus Christ, imitating his poverty, his humility, his contempt of the world and his love. They will point out the narrow way to God in pure truth according to the holy Gospel, and not according to the maxims of the world. Their hearts will not be troubled, nor will they show favor to anyone; they will not spare or heed or fear any man, however powerful he may be. They will have the two-edged sword of the Word of God in their mouths and the blood-stained standard of the Cross on their shoulders. They will carry the crucifix in their right hand and the rosary in their left, and the holy names of Jesus and Mary on their heart. The simplicity and self-sacrifice of Jesus will be reflected in their whole behavior.” (True Devotion, 59).

George Weigel, weighing in on the supreme crisis which faces the Catholic Church in the United States in the wake of President Obama’s re-election, asserts (correctly) that: “..the opportunity embedded in this crisis..is nothing less than to be the Church of the New Evangelization, full-throttle. Shallow, tribal, institutional-maintenance Catholicism is utterly incapable of meeting the challenges that will now come at the Catholic Church from the most aggressively secular administration in American history. Only a robustly, unapologetically evangelical Catholicism, winsomely proposing and nobly living the truths about the human condition the Church teaches, will see us through the next four years. Radically converted Christian disciples, not one-hour-a-week Catholics whipsawed by an ever more toxic culture, are what this hour of crisis..demands.” (The crisis of a second Obama administration).

Sadly, the militant evangelical Catholicism described by George Weigel is not encouraged - or even tolerated - in some corners of the Catholic Church here in the United States. In some dioceses, the Cult of Softness has all but crippled an authentic, militant evangelization and replaced it with a sacharrin-spirituality which sugar-coats sin while leaving Zebulun and Naphtali in the shadow of death.  As part of the Ecclesia Militans, I am persona non grata in my own diocese - the Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts.  New Age advocates, dissidents who rail against the Magisterium and those who engage in radical homosexual agitprop are welcome.  But an orthodox Catholic who vigorously promotes and defends the teaching of the Magisterium is deemed "rigid" and "too pre-Vatican II."

This is our moment as Catholics: We can choose to take a courageous stand for the Faith of our Fathers, witnessing to Gospel truths with the whole of our lives and even unto death; or we can fall back into the shadows and thereby cooperate in the spiritual destruction of a once-great nation.

Along with the Church’s other martyrs, St. Thomas More was confronted with the same choice. While remaining a loyal servant of the King, he chose to be God’s servant first. Will we?

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Richard Wagner wants us to know (gasp) that there have been homosexual priests and religious throughout the Church's history

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Sonja Corbitt wants to convince us that Antichrist is not near

In an article for Catholic Online, Sonja Corbitt acknowledges that, "We know to watch for particular signs, and the signs of the times are not good."  She then asks "Could Antichrist be iminent?" while citing the words of Our Lord, "No man knows the day or hour."  But after acknowledging Our Lord's warning, she writes: "Uprising after uprising in the Middle East; sexual and intellectual scandal in the Church; earthquakes in Chile and Haiti; tsunamis in Indonesia and Japan; and financial collapse in almost every market: given the startling increase in the frequency of global crises - political, religious, financial, natural - one is tempted to begin looking for Antichrist and despair for the future.


The pervading anxiety and fear is exacerbated by non-Catholic proliferation of end times fiction and even some Catholics who erroneously promote the imminent arrival of the Antichrist and the Second Coming. This idea has distinct emotional appeal in our troubled times, since one way or another, it would all end soon, and possibly without our having to "do" anything.

Although the prospect relieves us of our sense of personal responsibility to become or remain involved in an immoral world which despises a Christian moral message, according to the historic Tradition of the Church and the direction of her leadership, it would be a tragic error for several reasons. First, the Antichrist is not here, or even just around the corner..."

But not everyone shares Ms. Corbitt's view.  For example, Cardinal Giacomo Biffi has warned that the Antichrist is already among us.  And the late (great) Archbishop Fulton John Sheen said, shortly before he died, that, "We are living in the days of the Apocalypse - the last days of our era...The two great forces of the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of Antichrist are beginning to draw up the battle lines for the catastrophic contest."


With all due respect for Ms. Corbitt, she's no Fulton Sheen.  And never will be.  While the idea that Antichrist is imminent may have emotional appeal for some who wish to evade "personal responsibility to become or remain involved in an immoral world which despises a Christian moral message," it may also be said that there is emotional appeal for others in believing that the Antichrist is not near.  For, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us:

"Before Christ's second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the 'mystery of iniquity' in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh." (675).

The idea that such a persecution may be close at hand is disturbing.  But the answer is not to be found by sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that "all is well."  The message that Antichrist is near need not fill us with dread or despair.  For again the Catechism explains that, "The Church will enter the glory of the kingdom only through this final Passover, when she will follow her Lord in his death and Resurrection. The kingdom will be fulfilled, then, not by a historic triumph of the Church through a progressive ascendancy, but only by God's victory over the final unleashing of evil, which will cause his Bride to come down from heaven. God's triumph over the revolt of evil will take the form of the Last Judgment after the final cosmic upheaval of this passing world." (677).

Does that sound like a message of despair?  Or could it just be that Sonja Corbitt's faith in the Lord Jesus is not very strong?  The Church assures us that God's victory over the final unleashing of evil will result in a new heavens and a new earth where righteousness is at home.  How is this a message of despair?  We have a courageous example given to us in Sacred Scripture as to how to face persecution even unto death.  And this from a mother and her seven sons.  See here.

Read this passage from Maccabees and ask yourself, "Did these people of faith despair?"  Or did they believe in the Lord's promises?

At any rate, getting back to Ms. Corbitt's assertion that the Antichrist is not near, let's hear from Father Charles Arminjon in his book "The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life":

"It is undeniable that all governments at the present time are at work accomplishing this abominable operation of apostasy, and that they are striving to banish Jesus Christ from the school, the army, and from the very abode of justice!  Are not His Cross and His adorable name blasphemed and held up as a symbol of ignorance and fanaticism?  Has not the Church been outlawed and excluded from the councils of governments and deliberative assemblies?  Are not all the laws that are formulated marked with the seal of odious intolerance toward her, and have they any other purpose than to diminish her authority and influence?  Blasphemy is raised to the level of a privilege and a right.  Parallel with the destruction of Christianity, we see the reappearance of paganism, in the form of base materialism, marked by the exaltation of all that flatters the senses, and the glorification of the basest and most brutish instincts; a paganism that pervades industry, the arts, and literature, and predominates in all public institutions.  Christianity is declared to be the enemy, and at the same time, materialism is presented to the aspirations of peoples as the moving force of progress, and the god of the future.  Now, if the extremes of evil do not meet with a prompt and vigorous response, if the defection continues on its course, it may be predicted that this war on God must inevitably end in total, consummated apostasy.  It is but a small step from the cult of the state - that is, the utilitarian spirit and the worship of the god-state which is the religion of our time, to the worship of the individual man.  We have almost reached that point...and, proceeding from these facts and observations, we must conclude that the hypothesis of the proximity of the Antichrist's coming is more probable than the hypothesis that considers his coming as remote." (pp. 71-72).

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Will not Our Lady do for us what she did for eight Jesuits in Hiroshima?

Michael Brown, in an article which may be found at Spirit Daily today, is noting how even the governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, views the events in Japan - Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis - as a chastisement.  Indeed radioactive iodine is now showing up in rainwater samples across the United States as well.


When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, destroying that city, it somehow spared a building a mere eight blocks away from ground zero. In this building were eight Jesuits who were unharmed by the blast, heat, and radiation.

Some 200 scientists have examined the priests, trying to determine why they were unharmed by the nuclear blast and its fallout. Speaking on American television, the German Jesuit Father Hubert Shiffner provided viewers with an answer:  "In that house, the Rosary was prayed every day. In that house we were living the Message of Fatima," he said. Indeed it was Sister Lucia who explained in a statement in 1977 that,  "Our Lady will protect all dear dear ones."

Our Lady has shown us that her mantle is far more powerful than even an atomic blast.  Let's respond with trust and strive to live the Fatima message.

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