Hard to explain, but ...
The Pope has been talking about Freemasons and the Knights of Malta. What does it mean?
Over the years I pretty much dismissed the threat of Freemasonry and the Church, and all the infiltration stories on anti-Christian movements of the 20th century - but lately, these things seem to be making more sense. Like I said - it's hard to explain.
Except: New Age spirituality - Theosophy - goes hand in hand with Freemasonry, that fact I did recognize ... but what does it mean in the wider view of things? Universally - in a Catholic sense? Globally - in a political sense? Bigly - in an American sense?
This year there is much talk online about the Leonine vision and subsequent prayer to St. Michael. I now wonder if I was too dismissive of that? Especially since Fr. Scanlon and Monsignor Pope have been discussing it's significance as regards the Fatima Centenary? Is an era ending? Is something going to happen? What about the Knights of Malta and Freemasonry? The Pope instructed Cardinal Burke to purge them from the Order. The Pope has discussed Freemasonry. I can't recall that his immediate predecessors had ever done so. I could be wrong.
So. Freemasonry, the occult, the New Age, the Golden Dawn, Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, and all things related have been brought to my attention again. It may not be just a conspiracy theory after all, huh? Undoubtedly it has played a big role in forming the so-called 'New World Order' and cultural mindset ... going back, way back - but most stridently and significantly to the mid-20th century - and for sure, pretty much realized by the 1960's. Remember Sr. Lucia said she chose the date 1960 to reveal the final part of the secret, 'because then it would seem clearer' - we would understand it better. I think we must.
I may have been too dismissive then? Perhaps something will happen by the end of the Fatima Jubilee year? Perhaps this is the conclusion of the Leonine prophecy? I don't know.
Pop cultures has been deeply influenced by all of this - no doubt about it. Rock especially. Consider The Beatles, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin - on and on. A friend sent me an interesting link on David Bowie and the influence of Kabbalah, Gnosticism, and Crowley in his life and work. (Link)
It's nothing to be afraid of - but it may explain what has happened and the times we are living through.
"Things are getting desperate in our keep."
Ooh ... it makes me wonder.
Humans want predictability. Seeing/knowing the future is a part of that I think. The NWO theories are interesting. There is something to it. I just do not know how much. Madam Blavatsky, Freemasons, And all the others seek power. I do not know why the Pope is going after the Knights of Malta. When will he release a statement on Medjuorgie? Fatima at 100 may be significant. Maybe not. We really have no choice but to ride it out and see where it takes us.
ReplyDeleteAll kinds of gossip and speculation are swirling about regarding the Knights of Malta and our Holy Father. Who says he's going after the Knights when it is being reported that Burke is the one who asked him to intervene in the first place? It seems everything went downhill after that but what do I know? I don't and glad for it. I leave it to our Lord Jesus Christ to sort it all out. May the innocent be cleared, those who have committed an injustice be charged.
DeleteI am praying the novena that Terry shared with us last week and trust our Lord.
In the meantime, the world rages and burns while those of us who should know better are talking more than we are praying.
Over and out!
WH - I wonder about all those things too, and agree we have to ride it out.
DeleteYaya - yayaya. Kidding. It's certainly ironic though - Burke asked the Pope to intervene and now the Pope is the bad guy. LOL! I don't get it at all.
I will stay with the surrender novena too.
"Burke asked the Pope to intervene and now the Pope is the bad guy. LOL! I don't get it at all"
DeleteI know! Maybe this was planned by Burke and his cohorts to bring Papa down even more. Ah well ... we got his back with prayer aside from the millions who love him the world over. ^^
I think the occult has long been an influence in popular culture, going back to the Renaissance and beyond - though the more overt, the more it should be avoided. I still love the Beatles, and Zeppelin and Bowie from time to time though ;)
ReplyDeleteSometimes I get the feeling that ours is a uniquely godless age, but then I remember that the African slave trade, the destruction and enslavement of the Indians, the depredations of the 30 Years War - these all took place in the apparently more "godly" age. So maybe there's nothing new under the sun.
Good points. Yep - I love the Beatles ... forever! Haha! This is Abbey Roads after all. Plus, I always knew Stairway to Heaven was occultish - but my mind followed it back to the Church in the day. Never a big fan of Bowie though. When I trail off on these things, all I have to do is look closely at the work of Hieronymous Bosch and I realize things haven't changed much ... LOL!
DeleteCheck out the Stations of the Cross in Our Lady’s Cathedral, Antwerp. There are references to Freemasonry in almost every station. The stations were painted in the 1860s, a time when the Catholic Church in Belgium (and Europe generally) was under great pressure from liberal groups and Freemasonry.
ReplyDeleteHow so? I could only find a couple examples but the Freemasonry influence is lost on me. In the United States we aren't familiar with Freemasonry in the same context as Europe - they have hospitals here and drive clown cars in parades - otherwise they are not very significant.
DeleteWho is the hierarch in the post photo?
ReplyDeleteHa! Annibale Bugnini. ;)
DeleteI worked side-by-side for 4 years with a man who was a Mason. He was a nice guy, very much seeing America as sacred. He was always interested in engaging me, because he knew I was a devout Catholic. He was very into seeing religion as a useful thing to knit America together. In that vein - he was always appreciating the useful elements of Chritiamity in general. For instance, brotherhood, tolerance, a pursuit of a "national religious sensibility" of all reasonable men as a common denominator.
ReplyDeleteWhen the movie "The Passion" came out - he was very animated and concerned about the film. He repeatedly engaged me on what the story was really about. I could sense that he was pitching the Masonic view.
The discussion came to a head, when he raised a point about the 4th station scene, when Mary meets Jesus. He suggested that Mary began to doubt at this very point, and is losing faith, and it was clear that he was suggesting that she was right to doubt, and that he did so himself, and intended to sow that doubt.
I responded the film-maker was showing 2 people strengthening one-another: 1st Mary as Mother bravely going to her son who is suffering the brutality of his crucifixion. And then the astonishing moment of faith and artistry, which was a great gift by the Jesuit priest and scholar of Aramaic - who contributed perhaps the ultimate gift to the screenplay. Jesus - strengthened by his poor Mother - lifts himself to his feet - and Isaiah's suffering servant reassures his Mother with these brave words of Isaiah's God-Hero "Behold Mother - I am making all things new."
My friend the Mason dismissed that as the unacceptable part of Christianity.
Masons - from their beginnings in the Voltaire and the French Revolution - want "Christian ethics" without faith in Christ. What is repulsive to them is believing that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God and Lord of all. That is not the new "enlightened" natural religion they want. They want ethics - but prohibit faith. They want the immanent - but outlaw the transcendent.
Similar to Cdl. Kasper, who in his work "God in History" (1967) rejected the immutability of God as "an offense to man" and stated that the Gospel accounts of Jesus' power over nature, sickness and death are Christian "mythologizing."
Per your photo of Bugnini, it is worth knowing what Fr. Louis Bouyer, who worked with him on the "reform" of the Mass, disclosed about Bugnini: that he was known to have shuttled lies back-n-forth btw Pope Paul and the priest theologians on the liturgy committee, thus cutting off the desired direction and fruitful communication, and misleading each about the intentions of the other. In the end - it forced (if I recall the memoirs correctly) Pope Paul himself to intervene - and order Bouyer and 1 other colleague to go to a cafe with Bugnini's Eucharistic Prayer #2 - and within 24 hrs- add in the necessary Catholic theology of the Eucharist - so it could pass muster the next day with the Pope.
ReplyDeleteBouyer - who had asked to resign from the committee because of Bugnini's manipulation, and his ignorance and disregard of Catholic liturgical heritage, called Bugnini: "a man as bereft of culture as he was of basic honesty."
Not good...
So he really was a bad guy? I wonder why he was tolerated at all? My photo is not intended to make him look saintly.
DeleteFrankly -
DeleteIt is a real mystery - a man twice deposed by 2 different popes - after winning and losing the trust of both. I was depressed to learn that Bugnini was not only dishonest but generally ignorant of and uninterested in Catholic liturgical history. In addition to the critique from Davies et al, there are numerous negative critiques from many others who are not of the same bent as Mr. Davies. Chief among this group is the great Catholic musician Lazslo Dobszay of Hungary, who wrote extensively on the reform and its failings - primarily in terms of the loss of Roman Catholic cultural content. Another is Msgr. Klaus Gamber of Germany - with the same general explanation - that there was a loss of continuity and content. Both men were favorably inclined to a reform of the Mass - but primarily from the view of recovering more from the liturgical endowment (the resourcement approach), and found the NO Mass to have largely been driven to away from resourcement by Bugnini.
I recently read that Pope Paul, when he found out from Bouyer (whom the Pope knew and revered) that Bugnini had been lying to him, showed his mean streak by promoting Bugnini to Bishop, and then swiftly assigning him to oblivion as Nuncio to Iran. Something similar had happened under Pope John, and yet Bugnini survived, because he had a relationship with Cardinal Montini, the future Pope, whom he later mislead.
A strange story of s very strange character, who in his autobiography, called his work on the Mass "a conquest of Rome." Not good.
In any case - I hope that the church can increasingly grow to see the beauty of the things passed down to it. Being in my 60s - and having served as an altar boy in the Latin Mass using John XIII's Missal - it has been a long, strange trip. There are some beautiful new things in the NO Mass - I particularly love Pope Paul's offertory prayer - which he penned himself ... "Blessed are you Lord God of all creation ..." very Jewish liturgically...
But much is lost - to our deficit - and needlessly so.
Alas...but...all will be well...as Julian of Norwich says...
Some good and very readable books by profoundly learned men: The Mass - A Study of the Roman Liturgy by Fr. Adrian Fortescue (1912) who among other things - shows that yes in fact - the Kiss of Peace was part of the ancient endowment of the Mass; The Reform of the Roman Liturgy - It's Problems & Background by Msrg Klaus Gamber; Looking at the Liturgy by Fr. Aidan Nichols; and The Reform of the Reform - A a Liturgical Debate (Fr. Kocik).
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