Video Of Pope Leo XIII

This is the earliest recording of a pontiff.  Taken in 1896, this takes place in the Vatican Gardens.  What you hear is the pope chanting the Ave Maria.  It was Pope Leo XIII who composed the Prayer to St. Michael and the other prayers that at one time were prayed after Low Masses prior to Vatican II.

Pope Leo XIII - Oldest Vatican Film (Rome, 1896)
Pope Leo XIII in the Vatican Gardens in 1896. This is the oldest known video footage of a Pope and the oldest Italian film in existence. Pope Leo XIII chanting Ave Maria in Latin is the oldest known audio recording of a Pope (Rome, 1903)."Sua Santità papa Leone XIII" è un film del 1896. Oltre ad essere il primo filmato in cui compare un papa è anche la più antica pellicola italiana tuttora esistente. Leone XIII recitando l'Ave Maria in latino è la più antica registrazione della voce di un papa (Roma, 1903).
Posted by This is Christian Italy on Friday, February 5, 2016

Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae

In 1899, Pope Leo XIII wrote a letter to James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore.  It's entitled Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae.  In it we see that the current push to accommodate Church teaching to secular culture goes back at least 115 years.  In the fourth paragraph down, we see that Pope Leo addresses that quite directly - and rightly condemns it.

What do we see coming from the sin-nod?  What did we see in that pathetic homily, when Pope Francis scoffed at disciplines instituted by his predecessors?  Besides the blasphemy therein, we saw evidence of trying to "make the Church relevant to the culture".  No!  We must conform the culture to Jesus Christ and His Church.  We will be hated for it, but that is how Jesus Himself was treated.  We can expect no different treatment for ourselves.

Let's stop coddling the culture and get going.

We Are Born For Combat- Pope Leo XIII

So much for the huggy-kissy, gentler-kinder namby-pamby faux katholycism that was the fad of the 1960s kumbaya crowd.  Pope Leo XIII laid it on the line.  His encyclicals are linked in the sidebar on the right..  Click here if you cannot see embedded video.

American Catholic Church - Too "American", Not Enough "Catholic"

Today's Vortex talks of nothing new.  This wrongly-placed emphasis in too many parishes and chanceries is a problem foreseen (and probably budding) during the pontificates of Leo XIII and Pius X.  Both popes wrote extensively about Americanism and Modernism (and progressivism).  A blogger names Brother Andre Marie delves into a bit about the relationships and contrasts of these problems.  On the sidebar I link to the Vatican site that contains the writings of the modern popes; the writings cited by Brother Andre can be found therein.

Click here if you can't see embedded video.

Pope Leo XIII - "Christians Are Born For Combat"

Thus wrote Pope Leo XIII in his encyclical Sapientiae Christianae. In this work, the late Pontif spells out the duty of Catholics to evaluate the doings and promulgations of civil authority - including resistance to that authority, should civil law contradict Divine Law.  The blog "Catholic Thing" analyzes it in great detail.  Please read it, as well as the encyclical itself.  The next time you hear anyone talking about a "kinder, gentler Church", remember that we are the Church Militant.  We are not the "Church Milquetoast", we are not the "Church Mediocre", we are not the "Church Mellow" - but the CHURCH MILITANT.

Contributing Factors to the Church's Problems

In order to address the problems currently facing the Church, it behooves us all to try to examine just how these problems came to be.  Quite a few people point to the Vatican II Council in the mid 1960s as the start of the Church's problems.  Many sedevacantists seem to be of that opinion.  Some deeper thought into the matter makes plain the illogic behind that somewhat simplistic theory.  While the misapplications of the proceeds of the Council may have made the problems apparent, by no means did the problems originate from the council.

Common sense only makes that clear.  The same crowd that blames Vatican II claims that a number of mefarious bishops undermined the Church via that council.  Well think about it for a minute.  I tend to concur that some bishops were clearly off the wall.  But when did those individuals become bishops?  Clearly they weren't ordained the day before the Council started.  Many of them were occupying high positions in the church long before the start of the Council.

Quite a few of the pre-conciliar but modern popes saw problems on the horizon.  Pope Leo XIII, to address the problems, wrote prayers for the protection of the Church and directed that they be said after every Low Mass; the very familiar Prayer to St Michael is one of those prayers.  Pope St Pius X wrote Pascendi Dominici Gregis and Lamentabili Sane to address specifically the growing threat posed by modernists.

Clearly modernism was a threat and it had made footholds within the Church.  How?  I came across a book put out by TAN Publishing.  It's called Christ Denied and was written by Rev Paul A Wickens.  The author delves into what he believes were the origins of the problems with clerical formation in Europe during the early 1900s.  He focused on three priests who embraced modernism and who were influential teachers.  The first was George Tyrrell, a British Jesuit.  He had profound influence over the second, Teilhard de Chardin.  I've attempted  to read one of the works of the latter - talk about a convoluted mess.  But that's how he got away with spreading error.  He influenced many, including American seminarians sent to Europe to "study" - and lose their faith.  A German pupil of Chardin's was Karl Rahner.  I do recommend that you read it.  Go to the website of TAN Books and search the title and author.  I don't believe Father Wickens supplied the entire picture, but I suspect he supplied a crucial part.

Prayers of Pope Leo XIII After Mass

Remember the Leonine Prayers? Pope Leo XIII had a vision in which he saw the Church being attacked by the devil in the 20th century. He was dead-on correct. To call down God's graces on the Church, he directed that certain prayers be prayed after all Low Masses. After Vatican II, those prayers were dropped - with no official directive to do so.

I suggest that these be resumed as soon as possible (click on the link above for these prayers). Even if it doesn't happen in your Church, stay after Mass a few minutes longer and recite them by yourself or with companions. As an added benefit, you will be a witness for reverence to the rest of the congregation who will undoubtedly be carrying on as though the nave of the Church was a social hall.