By John F. McManus - 244 pages PB - EBOOK - PDF, Kindle, & EPUB
This book, written by a prominent and well known Catholic American, isthe product of almost seventy years of close observation and deep study in aturbulent world of rapid change and degradation of church and society.Recently, the courageous Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò published an acknowledgmentof the problems discussed in this book in his now world famous Open Letter toPresident Trump where he spoke of Freemasonry and the ‘deep church’. Becausethat letter appeared as this book was going to press, The Deep Church Revealedwas added to the original title as a fitting description of its content.
The revealing begins with a description of the Enlightenment philosophersand their anti-Catholic hatred, and the author proceeds from there to detail inforty-one astonishing chapters the story of how those men and the organizationsthey inspired grew and and spread their pernicious doctrines throughout theworld and the Church.
The plans that these Freemasonic organizations laid were remarkably successful,even though vigorously opposed by every Pope for over 200 years. “Anenemy hath done this” Our Lord said in the parable of the wheat and the cockles.Truly, this can be said today of the situation in His Church. The holy andvigilant Padre Pio told Fr. Luigi Villa in 1963 when he assigned Fr. Villa the taskof exposing these enemies “Courage, courage, courage! For the Church is alreadyinvaded by Freemasonry that has already reached the Pope’s slippers.”We are thankful to Mr. McManus for telling this story briefly, succinctly,and with unbounded love for our Holy Mother the Church. He advises us,like Saint Peter, “Be sober and watchful, for your adversary the devil goethabout like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Whom ye shouldresist, fortes in fide.”
Don Pietro Leome - PB 246 pages - EBOOK - PDF, Kindle, & EPUB
In our days the war against God and His Church has become deeper and broader than at any time in history. No longer are the powers of darkness content to attack only the institutional Church that God founded. The truth is that the human nature that God the Father created is now the subject of the adversary’s most violent persecution, and through the undermining of the very concept of human nature and the natural law enshrined in it the enemies of God hope to make any consideration of the concept of ‘super-nature’ and super-natural life disappear from the minds of men.
The Church has always been the true guardian of not only supernatural life, but of the natural law as well. Since the natural law is the law that God put into our nature and it is discernible in the light of reason, the Church, speaking for God, is the champion of sound reasoning. With the natural law as well as supernatural law governing human sexuality and family life under attack, Don Pietro Leone has risen to defend (and to properly distinguish) those areas, so that those who wish to defend the Church and human society in our age may have sound teaching upon which to base their actions.
In the course of this treatment of these topics he makes a detailed critique of certain novel presentations of themes found in the Magisterium from the time of the Second Vatican Council onwards. Amongst these doctrines is one he terms ‘Magisterial Personalism’ and another called the ‘Theology of the Body.’ Drawing upon scholastic philosophy and the perennial teaching of the Church, Don Pietro brings light to a subject recently plunged into obscurity and darkness that is not currently being dispelled sucessfully, even by the guardians of Truth themselves.
The Three Pillars of Faith in the Real Presence: Ordination, Offertory, Consecration - EBOOK - PDF, Kindle, & EPUB
Edward Snyder -146 pages
Since the introduction of the Novus Ordo liturgy in the 1960s, Catholic belief in the Real Presence and the essential sacrificial nature of the Mass and of the priesthood has declined precipitously. In addition, the number of men entering the priesthood and the percentage of Catholics regularly attending Mass has also fallen off dramatically. When seeking answers to why these facts are so, the author of this treatise, Edward Snyder, has undertaken a substantive study of the words used in both the ancient and the new liturgy and arrived at some startling discoveries and conclusions.
Since belief in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and Christ’s true presence in the consecrated host are beliefs central and essential to the Catholic religion, it is important to understand why these beliefs are no longer held by so many. Certain core doctrines believed by the first Christians were supported by the linguistic evidence they left in the New Testament. What does this linguistic evidence consist of? Specifically, about the year 325 B.C. the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek. This translation was done by seventy Hebrew scholars and it is known as the Septuagint. The Greek and Latin New Testament texts contain many semitisms—that is words that were used based on the Aramaic spoken and written by the Church when the original Christians were primarily Aramaic speaking—that can only be properly translated into English, or any other vernacular language, if the Hebrew roots are understood.
This philological study of the root of words used in the scriptures and the liturgy will be most useful as an aid to understanding why clarity of belief is disappearing so rapidly in the Church of our day.
We are indebted to Brian Kranick for this illuminating exposition of the Book of Exodus. One who reads this book will have amuch clearer understanding of the four Gospels because Exodus, along with the prophecy of Isaias, is the best and clearest revelationin the Old Testament of the Savior to come and his mission.
The typology that the Fathers and Doctors of the Church have spoken of is here collected and examined and presented for ouredification. One glance at the table of contents will be enough to convince you that this book is crucial for understanding theGospels and the history of God’s people both in the Old and New Testaments.
He specifically reminds us of the fact that God himself designed all of the liturgical seasons and feasts and that he alsogave explicit directions for every minute rubric and prayer of all of the liturgical rites, sacrifices, and architecture. Our Lord and hisapostles carried on these rituals in the new and eternal sacrifice, not only the one on Calvary, but also in the continuing sacrificeof the Mass as given to us by Our Lord himself. That ritual had for almost 2000 years been called the Roman Rite.After reading this book you will re-read the Gospels, especially the descriptions of the Passion, with new “eyes to see.” But ifthe Gospels are newly enlivened for you, just wait until you assist at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Roman Rite once again.It becomes a deeper and more contemplative experience because now, the Book of Exodus, through this work will have beenopened to you, and the phrase from Luke 24:32; “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way andopened the scriptures to us?” shall amaze you with its immanent relevance to each of us in today’s increasingly perfidious, andtherefore confusing, world.
By M. L. Cozens - 118 pages - EBOOK - PDF
This most concise and helpful reference work was first published in 1928. It was reissued in 1945 by Sheed & Ward publishers and is presented by Loreto again in 2016 because we feel it will be very useful for students, seminarians, priests, and Catholic laity of all walks of life, since so many of these heresies are once again rearing their ugly heads in these most troubling times. Therefore, we must be not only quick to recognize their manifestation in the era in which we live, but we should also be capable of the refutation of these death-dealing errors for those who would look to faithful Catholics for guidance. Saint Paul in 1Cor. 11:19 says “For there must be also heresies: that they also, who are approved, may be made manifest among you.” Now at first impression that might seem an odd thing for Saint Paul to say— that there must be heresies? Yet the verse gives its own explanation. It is so that truth (those approved teachers and believers) may be made clear among you. It is often the case that truth or light stands out more clearly when contrasted against untruth or darkness and that is one very fine reason why those seeking the truth in more depth of understanding may wish to study heresies. It is so that truth may be made more manifest!That is exactly what the author does in this book. Not only does heexplain and state clearly the errors but he does three other things that are most helpful to the reader: 1) he describes how and why the heresy arose, and 2) he shows the true teachings in opposition, and 3) he draws out the logical conclusions and implications for thought and behavior that flow from the acceptance of the error. This is a great teaching tool for high schools, colleges and seminaries, or adult study groups.Saint Anthony - Hammer of Heretics - Pray for us!
Sister Catharine Goddard Clarke, M.I.C.M.
For those who have enjoyed Sister Catherine’s Our Glorious Popes, this work is an equally worthy production from the pen of an historian gifted in the art of scholarly composition. Its theme is a song of gratitude to Our Savior Jesus Christ and to His Blessed Mother for so plentiful a redemption. The author exudes both her own joy in living the sacramental life within the Catholic Church, and her holy indignation over the fact that liberal Catholic clergymen in the United States were teaching that one’s personal sincerity of conscience was an acceptable substitute for the one and only means of salvation given by Christ. Sister Catherine demolishes all the ambiguous subterfuges that in her day (and far more so today) were undermining the doctrinal clarity that in centuries past left no doubt as to the whereabouts of the only way of salvation.
25 Essays by Robert D. Hickson - HC - 640 pages
Archbishop Vigano's Preface
Memory is a fundamental element of a people’s identity, civilization andculture: a society without memory, whose patrimony consists solely of apresent without a past, is condemned to have no future. It is alarming thatthis loss of collective memory affects not only Christian nations, but alsoseriously afflicts the Catholic Church herself and, consequently, Catholics.This amnesia affects all social classes and is not the result of chance, but ofsystematic work on the part of those who, as enemies of the True, Goodand Beautiful, must erase any ray of these divine attributes from even themost marginal aspects of social life, from our idioms, from memories ofour childhood and from the stories of our grandparents. The Orwellianaction of artificially remodeling the past has become commonplace in thecontemporary world, to the point that a class of high school studentsare unable to recognize an altarpiece depicting a scene from the life ofChrist or a bas-relief with one of the most revered saints of the past. Dr.Robert Hickson calls this inability “deficiency of dogmatic understanding”,“Catholic illiteracy of pestilential proportions”.Tabula rasa: millions of souls who only twenty or thirty years ago wouldhave immediately identified the Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan orSaint Jerome or Saint Mary Magdalene are capable of seeing only two menalong a river, an old man with a lion and a woman with a vase. Readingthe pages of Dante, Manzoni or one of the great Christian writers of thepast, many Catholics can no longer grasp the moral and transcendentsense of a culture that is no longer their common heritage, a jealouslyguarded legacy, the deep root of a robust plant full of fruit.In its place we have a bundle of the confused rubbish of the myths of theRevolution, the dusty Masonic ideological repertoire, and the iconographyof a supposed freedom won by the guillotine, along with the persecutionof the Church, the martyrdom of Catholics in Mexico and Spain, theend of the tyranny of Kings and Popes and the triumph of bankers andviii Gratitude, Contemplation, and the Worth of Catholic Literatureusurers. A lineage of kings, saints, and heroes is ignored by its heirs, whostoop to boasting about their ancestors who were criminals, usurpers,and seditious traitors: never has falsification reached the point of suchincomprehensible perversion, and it is evident that the desire to artificiallycreate such ancestry is the necessary premise for the barbarization of theoffspring, which is now practically accomplished.We must also recognize that this removal has found significantencouragement also among those who, within the Catholic Church,have erased two thousand years of the inestimable patrimony of faith,spirituality and art, beginning with a wretched sense of inferiority instilledin the faithful even by the Hierarchy since Vatican II. The ancient apostolicliturgy, on which centuries of poetic compositions, mosaics, frescoes,paintings, sculptures, chiseled vases, illuminated chorales, embroideredvestments, plainchants and polyphony have been shaped, has beenproscribed. In its place we now have a squalid rite without roots, bornfrom the pen of conspirators dipped in the inkwell of Protestantism; musicthat is no longer sacred but profane; tasteless liturgical vestments andsacred vessels made of common material. And as a grey counterpoint tothe hymns of St. Ambrose and St. Thomas, we now have poor paraphraseswithout metrics and without soul, grotesque paintings and disturbingsculptures. The removal of the admirable writings of the Fathers of theChurch, the works of the mystics, the erudite dissertations of theologiansand philosophers and, in the final analysis, of Sacred Scripture itself –whose divine inspiration is sometimes denied, sacrilegiously affirmingthat it is merely of human origin – have all constituted necessary stepsof being able to boast of the credit of worldly novelties, which beforethose monuments of human ingenuity enlightened by Grace appear asmiserable forgeries.This absence of beauty is the necessary counterpart to an absence ofholiness, for where the Lord of all things is forgotten and banished, noteven the appearance of Beauty survives. It is not only Beauty that hasbeen banished: Catholic Truth has been banished along with it, in all itscrystalline splendor, in all its dazzling consistency, in all its irrepressiblecapacity to permeate every sphere of civilized living. Because the Truthis eternal, immutable and divisive: it existed yesterday, it exists todayand it will exist tomorrow, as eternal and immutable and divisive as theWord of God.Certainly, behind this induced amnesia, there is a Trinitarian heresy. Andwhere the Deceiver lurks, the eternal Truth of God must be obscured inorder to make room for the lie, the betrayal of reality, the denial of the past.In a forgery that is truly criminal forgery, even the very custodians of thedepositum fidei ask forgiveness from the world for sins never committed byour fathers – in the name of God, Religion or the Fatherland – supportingthe widest and most articulated historical forgery carried out by theenemies of God. And this betrays not only the ignorance of History whichis already culpable, but also culpable bad faith and the malicious will todeceive the simple ones.Rediscovering memory, even in literature, is a meritorious and necessarywork for the restoration of Christianity, a restoration that is neededtoday more than ever if we want to entrust to our children a legacy to bepreserved and handed down as a tangible sign of God’s intervention inthe history of the human race: how much Providence has accomplishedover the centuries – and that art has immortalized by depicting miracles,the victories of the Christians over the Turk, sovereigns kneeling at thefeet of the Virgin, patron saints of famous universities and prosperouscorporations – can be renewed today and especially tomorrow, only if wecan rediscover our past and understand it in the light of the mystery ofthe Redemption.This book proposes the noble purpose of restoring Catholic memory,bringing it back to its ancient splendor, that is, the substance of aharmonious and organic past that has grown and still lives today, just asthe hereditary traits of a child are found developed in the adult man, oras the vital principle of the seed is found in the sap of the tree and in thepulp of the fruit. Robert Hickson rightly shows us, in the restoration ofmemory, the way to rediscover the shared faith that shapes the traits of ashared Catholic culture.In this sense it is significant – I would say extremely appropriate, even ifonly by analogy – to have also included Christian literature among theSacramentals, applying to it the same action as that of blessed water, theglow of the candles, the ringing of bells, the liturgical chant: the invocationof the Virgin in the thirty-third canto of Dante’s Paradiso, the dialogueof Cardinal Borromeo with the Innominato, and a passage by Chestertonall make Catholic truths present in our minds and, in some way, theyrealize what they mean and can influence the spiritual life, expandingand completing it. Because of this mystery of God’s unfathomable mercywe are touched in our souls, moved to tears, inspired by Good, spurredto conversion. But this is also what happens when we contemplate analtarpiece or listen to a composition of sacred music, in which a ray ofdivine perfection bursts into the greyness of everyday life and shows us thesplendor of the Kingdom that awaits us.The author writes: “We are called to the commitment to recover the life andfull memory of the Body of Christ, even if in our eyes we cannot do much torebuild that Body”. But the Lord does not ask us to perform miracles: Heinvites us to make them possible, to create the conditions in our souls andin our social bodies so that the wonders of divine omnipotence may bemanifested. To open ourselves to the past, to the memory of God’s greatactions in history, is an essential condition for making it possible for us tobecome aware of our identity and our destiny today so that we may restorethe Kingdom of Christ tomorrow.+ Carlo Maria ViganòTitular Archbishop of UlpianaApostolic Nuncio28 August 2020Saint AugustineBishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church