Restore Tradition

This past weekend I spoke at the sold out 5th annual Restore Tradition Women’s Conference in Littleton, Colorado. The sellout was not surprising considering the speaker lineup which included Fr. Chad Ripperger, Abby Johnson, Matt Gaspers, and keynote speaker Michael Matt. Not only were they tremendous speakers but I found them to be warm, delightful individuals, a far cry from the ‘rigid’ stuffy caricature that is often applied to devout, traditional Catholic types. In fact one of the more enjoyable aspects of these personalities seemed to be their great and spontaneous senses of humor. Joyful people love to laugh and these indeed were a very joyful bunch along with the many women attendees, some of whom hailed from distant Maine to California and from British Columbia to North Carolina. The conference was a rousing success, and I understand that it will be available online if you would like to view any or all of those marvelous talks.

My own contribution was to speak on Freemasonry as a Luciferian Revolution, and what amazed me was the unexpected interest shown by these ladies in such a rather heavy topic. After each presentation numerous women came up and expressed that they had fathers, grandfathers, or various family members who had been or were still involved in Masonry, something I did not expect to hear at a Catholic women’s conference. Most were concerned about generational curses and other effects being passed down through the family tree, even to their own sons and daughters. The problem is that Masonry is so secretive that very often the wives of Freemasons have no idea what is being said or done behind the Lodge doors even after decades of their spouse’s involvement. Not being a cleric or and exorcist the best I could do is to recommend Fr. Ripperger’s little black book, “Deliverance Prayers for the Laity.”

Primarily I see my own role as that of making others aware of the diabolical nature and agenda of a firmly entrenched Masonic network which I fear is controlling the modern world. Their war for the past 300 years has always been against the Throne and Altar, that is any kind of Christian monarch, president, etc., and the Catholic Church. Freemasonry is essentially an outgrowth of the Protestant revolution of the 16th century, seizing upon that fundamental Protestant tenet, “Private Judgment.” As I explained in my talk, Private Judgment undermines objective truth by affording every opinion, good, bad, or indifferent, a kind of parity with divinely revealed Truths as taught over the centuries by the perennial Magisterium of Christ’s Church.

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Vatican II and the Traditional Roman Rite

October 11, 1962 is a day I well remember. It was the day Pope John XXIII opened the vaunted Second Vatican Council in Rome, but that is not why I remember it. October 11 was my parents’ silver wedding anniversary and our family held a joyous, and for me unforgettable, celebration of that momentous event. I was a ten year old product of a staunchly Catholic family just beginning the fifth grade in parochial school. My world was family, neighborhood, and St. Vincent de Paul parish where I had been baptized and received the sacraments. Though I was only dimly aware of it, in far off Italy the Pope and 3,000 bishops were assembled and talking excitedly about a new “springtime in the Church.”

At the time such a promise seemed plausible enough. After all Masses were packed every Sunday, Catholic schools were bursting at the seams, seminaries couldn’t handle all the new vocations – all attested to by relentless parish building campaigns. Religious communities were flourishing and missionaries around the world were making tremendous strides in bringing the Gospel into remote regions which had never been evangelized. In the United States the first ever Catholic president was bravely standing down the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis. Among Catholics there was every reason for optimism. The Church had never been stronger or more sure of her divine mission, or so it appeared.

Ten years later a far different picture had emerged, that of a Church in crisis. Priests and religious were leaving their vocations in droves. Catechesis had fallen off a cliff along with Mass attendance. Seminaries were closing for lack of vocations even as the Pope himself was under siege by many of his own clergy for daring to restate the Church’s timeless teachings regarding openness to human life in Humanae Vitae. Catholics were struggling to adapt to a new, diluted Liturgy promulgated by that same Pontiff, Paul VI, and which seemed to be enervating Catholicism across the board. The Holy Mass somehow no longer felt as holy as it had been before 1962. The Council’s oft stated goal of a more active lay participation had instead manifested as restless boredom in the pews and indifference towards fulfilling one’s Sunday obligations.

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