Crucem Tuam - Antiphon for Good Friday Liturgy-Latin Mass

Does the Catholic Church Teach that Hell Exists - Quick Answer YES

 

Medieval illustration of Hell in the Hortus deliciarum
manuscript of Herrad of Landsberg (about 1180). Wikicommons.

In his book The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Ludwig Ott distinguishes between the level of certainty a Catholic may have towards any teaching of  the Catholic Church :-

“1. The highest degree of certainty appertains to the immediately revealed truths. The belief due to them is based on the authority of God Revealing (fides divina), and if the Church, through its teaching, vouches for the fact it a truth is contained in Revelation, one's certainty is then also based on the authority of the Infallible Teaching Authority of the Church (fides catholica). If Truths are defined by a solemn judgment of faith (definition) of the Pope or of a General Council, they are "de fide definita."

2. Catholic truths or Church doctrines, on which the infallible Teaching Authority of the Church has finally decided, are to be accepted with a faith which is based on the sole authority of the Church (fides ecclesiastica). These truths are as infallibly certain as dogmas proper.

3. A Teaching proximate to Faith (sententia fidei proxima) is a doctrine, which is regarded by theologians generally as a truth of Revelation, but which has not yet been finally promulgated as such by the Church.

4. A Teaching pertaining to the Faith, i.e., theologically certain (sententia ad fidem pertinens, i.e., theologice certa) is a doctrine, on which the Teaching Authority of the Church has not yet finally pronounced, but whose truth is guaranteed by its intrinsic connection with the doctrine of revelation (theological conclusions).

5. Common Teaching (sententia communis) is doctrine, which in itself belongs to the field of free opinions, but which is accepted by theologians generally.

6. Theological opinions of lesser grades of certainty are called probable, more probable, well-founded (sententia probabilis, probabilior, bene fundata). Those which are regarded as being in agreement with the consciousness of Faith of the Church are called pious opinions (sententia pia). The least degree of certainty is possessed by the tolerated opinion (opinio tolerata), which is only weakly founded, but which is tolerated by the Church.

With regard to the doctrinal teaching of the Church it must be well noted that not all the assertions of the Teaching Authority of the Church on questions of Faith and morals are infallible and consequently irrevocable. Only those are infallible which emanate from General Councils representing the whole episcopate and the Papal Decisions Ex Cathedra (cf D 1839). The ordinary and usual form of the Papal teaching activity is not infallible. Further, the decisions of the Roman Congregations (Holy Office, Bible Commission) are not infallible.

Nevertheless normally they are to be accepted with an inner assent which is based on the high supernatural authority of the Holy See (assensus internus supernaturalis, assensus religiosus). The so-called "silentium obsequiosum," that is "reverent silence," does not generally suffice. By way of exception, the obligation of inner agreement may cease if a competent expert, after a renewed scientific investigation of all grounds, arrives at the positive conviction that the decision rests on an error.” ("Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" by Ludwig Ott, Roman Catholic Books, Fort Collins, 1954, pp 9-10)).

Hell is a DE FIDE DEFINITA DOGMA so it is “based on the authority of the Infallible Teaching Authority of the Church.” What does the Church infallibly teach regarding hell? Dr. Ludwig Ott states:-

“The souls of those who die in the condition of personal grievous sin enter Hell. (De fide.)

The Athanasian Creed declares: “Those who have done evil will go into eternal fire” (Denzinger 40)….Benedict XII declared in the Constitution Benedictus Deus: “According to God’s general ordinance, the souls of those who die in a personal grievous sin descend immediately into Hell, where they will be tormented by the pains of Hell” (Denz. 531)….
The Church Fathers unanimously attest to the reality of Hell. For example, St. Ignatius of Antioch states that those who corrupt the faith in God by erroneous teaching “will go into the unquenchable fire – as will those who listen to them.” St. Justin bases the punishment of Hell on the idea of Divine Justice, which demands punishment for those who transgress the law of God. ("Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" by Ludwig Ott, Roman Catholic Books, Fort Collins, 1954, pp 479-480).”

Furthermore, Ott teaches: -

“The punishment of Hell lasts for all eternity (De fide) 

Affirming the eternal nature of Hell, spoken of often in the Holy Writ, (7) the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declared: “Those [the rejected] will receive a perpetual punishment with the devil.” (Denz. 429) ("Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma" by Ludwig Ott, Roman Catholic Books, Fort Collins, 1954, pp 481)

The New Testament also speaks to us numerous times of the reality of hell: for example:-

• The wicked shall be turned into Hell, all the nations that forget God. (Ps 8:18) 

• Therefore hath Hell enlarged its soul and opened its mouth without any bounds, and their strong ones and their people, and their high and glorious ones shall go down into it. (Is 5:14)

• Let death come upon them and let them go down alive into Hell. For there is wickedness in their dwellings in the midst of them. (Ps 54:16) 

• I shook the nation with the sound of his fall, when I brought him down to Hell with them that descend into the pit. (Ez 31:16) 

• For they also shall go down with him to Hell to them that are slain by the sword: and the arm of every one shall sit down under his shadow in the midst of nations (Ez 31:17) 

• Thou shall make them as an oven of fire in the time of thy anger: the Lord shall trouble them in his wrath and the fire shall devour them. (Ps 20:10) 

In the New Testament we find these words: 

• If they hand scandalize thee, cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into Hell, into unquenchable fire: where the worm dies not and the fire is not extinguished. (Mk 9:42f) 

• And thou, Capharnaum, which art exalted unto Heaven, thou shalt be thrust down to Hell. (Lk 10:15) 

• God spared not the angels that sinned, but delivered them, drawn down by infernal ropes to the lower Hell into torments to be reserved unto judgment. (2 Pet 2:4) 

• Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. (Mt 25:41) 

• There came down fire from God out of Heaven and devoured them, and the devil, who seduced them, was cast into a pool of fire and brimstone, where both the beast and the false prophet shall be tormented day and night, forever. (Apoc 20:9-10) 

• They shall go into everlasting punishment. (Mt 25:46) 

By Xavier Tamesis.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Plan to bring Catholic language of Latin back into the Mass is set to be launched in April with the help of Bishop Alan Hopes.

Bishop Alan Hopes

Good News from East Anglia:-

"The launch of the Graduale Parvum by the Association for Latin Liturgy (ALL) will take place on Saturday April 21 at St Mary’s College, Oscott at an open meeting with Archbishop Bernard Longley, from the Archdiocese of Birmingham and Bishop Alan in attendance. Bishop Alan is advisor to the ALL

There will be a short explanation of the GP by Fr Guy Nicholls, after which he will present copies of the book and the CDs to the Archbishop and the Bishop.

It will be followed, at 12 noon, by a Solemn Mass of Our Lady in Paschaltide, celebrated by the Archbishop. The Proper chants will be sung from the Graduale Parvum.

Lunch and talks by Fr Paul Gunter and Mgr Andrew Wadsworth will follow along with a panel to answer questions and lead a discussion.

ALL Chair, Christopher Francis, said: “Graduale Parvum points the way to bringing the essentially Catholic language of Latin back into the Mass, whether as part of a mixture, with some chants in Latin and others in English, or in a fully Latin celebration.

“We hope that the Graduale Parvum and the recordings that have been newly made to accompany it will be a help and an inspiration to all choirs who want to bring to their parish liturgy the riches of this extraordinarily significant and uniquely beautiful form of sacred music. We warmly commend this enterprise to our members, to all choirs and choir directors, and indeed to the whole Church.”

As a follow-up in the Diocese of East Anglia, the ALL will be going to St John’s Cathedralin Norwich for a day of workshop sessions including using the Graduale Parvum, and singing Mass on Saturday September 29, organised by the ALL diocesan representative, Paul Henriksen."

https://lms.org.uk/

Is the Upcoming Vatican Youth Synod Being Rigged?

A member of the preparatory Young Adults Synod commission reflects:

"On the journey, I checked in with the online community in the Pre-Synod English group and discovered a very different dialogue going on to the one present to us. There was a huge online community asking for the Extraordinary Form to be represented in the document, and I realised going through these comments that we as a writing team had not been shown the wealth of online commenting. We were given only a summary of these comments, and so I was saddened to see that many in this group felt disheartened or not listened to. I had turned to my Lebanese and Latin American editing colleagues and had asked them if the phrases ‘Extraordinary Form’ or even ‘Latin mass’ translated for them. They both said that they did not know what I meant, so I included the phrase, ‘reverential liturgies’ hoping to express those things, but looking online, I really saw that the document would have been different had the online world been represented properly."

Taken from:-
http://www.chantcafe.com/2018/03/is-vatican-listening-to-young-people.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&m=1

Fr. Damian Sturdy O.S.B. Requiescat in Pace

+

Of your charity pray for the soul of

DOM DAMIAN STURDY O.S.B.

Monk of Prinknash

who died on Monday, 19^th March 2018

aged 70

R.I.P.

P

eter Sturdy was born on 23^rd September 1947 and brought up as an Anglican, in which Communion he thought of taking Orders. As a young man he worked for the BASF recording company in London, a city whose social life he much enjoyed.  At length, after a stay in Rome, he decided to enter full communion with the Catholic Church and was received by the late Monsignor Miles at St James's, Spanish Place.  Shortly afterwards, in 1980, he joined Prinknash as a postulant.  After making his Temporary Profession on 15^th August 1982, and his Solemn Profession on 15^th August 1985, he went forward for the Priesthood, and studied for a couple of years at St Benet's Hall, Oxford, being ordained priest, alongside Abbot emeritus Dom Francis Baird, on the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, 7^th October 1989 by Bishop Mervyn Alexander of Clifton.  Damian worked principally in the Sacristy (a task to which he brought great flair) and as Master of Ceremonies, Cellarer and Stipendiary (Mass Offerings).  His unforgettable charm meant that he was much in demand socially, had a wide circle of friends, and brought several people into full communion with the Catholic Church.  He will be particularly lamented by Prinknash's faithful group of lay Altar Servers (which he founded) and by devotees of the Extraordinary Form Mass, which he reintroduced to Prinknash on a regular basis in 2002.  The last 15 months of his life were spent at Nazareth House, Cheltenham, where he was devotedly cared for by the sisters and lay staff.

FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS

F

ather's funeral will take place at Nazareth House, 344 London Road, Charlton Kings, Cheltenham, on Wednesday, 4^th April at 10am followed by a private burial at Prinknash.  All are welcome, but those wishing to attend, or concelebrate at, the Funeral Mass, are asked to inform:-

fathermarkhargreaves@gmail.com

or text 07821 754243

It is intended, at some later date, to celebrate a Requiem Mass in the Extraordinary Form.

Open Day at Douai Abbey 30 June at 9:00–17:00

A day hosted by the English Benedictine Congregation for young adults (18 yrs +)
Join us for a day exploring the depth of our monastictradition. Come and discover a wisdom that helps you make better choices and offers a way to God.

For more details see the Facebook group:- https://www.facebook.com/events/361958550985188/
 

ASK FATHER: Effect of Sacrament of Anointing in someone in mortal sin

From Fr. Z

QUAERITUR:

"If a hospital patient that is able to confess still gets the sacrament of the sick does it just forgive venial sins or mortal ones too?

First, let’s be clear about something.   The sacrament of anointing is not to be given to just anyone.  There are conditions for reception of this sacrament.  I’m afraid it is poorly understood and sometimes abused.

The Sacrament of Anointing, is one the sacraments “of the living”, that is, they are to be received by one who is in the state of grace.

If a person is compos sui and can make his own decisions and understand what is going on, he must be given a chance to make his confession before being anointed.   Even if his communication is impeded, he should indicate by signs and respond to the priest’s questions.

If a person is not sui compos, cannot respond, and isn’t aware of what is going on, such a person can be anointed and, in that case, the sacrament can also impart forgiveness of mortal sins.

If a person in the state of mortal sin – who is able to confess and receive absolution – receives the sacrament of anointing, the sacrament will not be effective in them in the way Christ and the Church intend.   If a person is NOT able to confess, then the sacrament also forgives mortal sins so that the sacrament can be effective.

Also, it is good to review the law for the administration of this great sacrament:

Can.  1004 §1. The anointing of the sick can be administered to a member of the faithful who, having reached the use of reason, begins to be in danger due to sickness or old age.

This doesn’t say execution or about to engage in battle or some other activity like driving in a NASCAR race.

And there is the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1514 “The anointing of the sick is not a sacrament for those only who are at the point of death. Hence, as soon as anyone of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age, the fitting time for him to receive this sacrament has certainly already arrived.”

Common points?  Danger of death… sick and old age.

One can be in danger of death for many reasons.  For example, someone who is about to undergo surgery requiring a general anesthesia could be in danger of death.  People about to be executed or go into battle are in danger of death. Those are not really occasions for the sacrament because they are external to the person.  Once damage is inflicted through a wound and danger of death is obvious, that’s another matter.  Of course some people who are in need of surgery are in danger of death from the condition that requires the surgery.  However, if I need to have surgery to set a bone from breaking my wrist, I’m am not in danger of death.

Remember:

Danger of death… sick and old age.

And…

GO TO CONFESSION!

You don’t know when it is going to be your turn"

Young Catholics in the European Continent - the Shocking Truth by Dr. Stephen Bullivant

From the Catholic Herald:-

"The proportion of young adults identifying as Catholics varies wildly across our sample of countries: from four out of every five in Poland to too few to appear in the sample in neighbouring Russia (yes, Twitter pedants: Kaliningrad counts). Similar extremes exist elsewhere in post-communist Europe: Lithuania and Slovenia up near the top, Estonia and the Czech Republic down at the bottom.

While none of these cases are exactly surprising, the placing of a number of Western countries ought to be. That only seven per cent of Dutch young adults identify as Catholics, in a country that once had a strong and influential Catholic community, is certainly striking.

So too are the relatively small percentages of Catholics among Belgian, French and German young adults. At the other end of the scale, note the presence of Portugal and Ireland as the only western European nations to make the top five. (Not every western European country is included in the sample. Malta and – one hopes – Vatican City would also rank high.)

Religious identity is one thing. Its having some observable effect on a person’s life is, however, quite another. Accordingly, the second chart shows the proportion of Catholic young adults who say they attend church either weekly (or more), or never, outside of special occasions such as weddings and funerals. Only 15 countries are included here, owing to sample sizes.

Again, it is the sheer variation that is most notable here. Europe is not all that big as continents go, but to speak of “European Catholicism” as though it were a uniform thing is evidently mistaken.

In geographical terms, the distance from Brussels to Warsaw is about a thousand miles. In pastoral and evangelistic terms, it is more like a million. A Polish Catholic twentysomething is roughly 24 times more likely to be a weekly Mass-goer than is a Belgian one. The Belgian, vice versa, is 10 times more likely never to set foot in church than is her Polish co-religionist.

Poland and Belgium are, admittedly, extreme cases. By and large, though, the majority of countries in our sample are rather closer to Belgium than to Poland. This is true even of several countries where Catholic affiliation is very high.

Measured by identity, Lithuania and Austria are among Europe’s Catholic strongholds. But measured by young adults actually turning up at Mass on a regular basis, they’re as much mission territories as swathes of the rest of the continent (our little north-west corner – where one in 10 Catholic young adults is a weekly Mass-goer – included).

Once again, though, there are signs of genuine hope. Czech young adults, for example, have a strong claim to being the world’s least religious: fully 91 per cent say they have no religion, and 70 per cent say they never attend religious services. This religiously bleak backdrop does not, however, seem to deter the country’s young Catholics, a quarter of whom attend Mass at least weekly."

The whole article can be found at:- http://catholicherald.co.uk/issues/march-23rd-2018/the-scary-truth-about-young-europeans-and-the-church/

ASK FATHER: Absolution at Gaol through Glass, Phone in Visitor’s Room

From Fr Z :-

QUAERITUR:

I’m a priest who occasionally gets asked to hear confessions in a gaol where the only way to speak to a person is through glass and a telephone headset. Without using the phone, one can barely hear the other talking through the glass. It got me thinking about the validity of the sacrament. Is this valid, given the situation, to hear confession through the phone, with the person right there in front of me behind the glass?

Yes, it is valid.

Absolution long-distance via technology is invalid.  Many years ago there was a response given to a question about absolution communicated via telegraph (which shows how long ago it was).  Such an absolution would be invalid.  Some time later, I don’t have the reference, there was a question about telephone.  The answer was the same.  Invalid.

In your case, however, even though a telephone was used, you were face to face.  You were both physically and morally present.  The phone was only a means to amplify your voices to each other across the glass barrier.   You weren’t sending your voices across town.

The principle, however, is important: you cannot give or receive absolution via skype or internet chat or video phone calls, etc. That includes text messages.  INVALID.

There is a possibility of contracting marriage long distance, or even via proxy, but not any other sacrament.  And that is another and more complicated question which we will not delve into here.

No confession by long-distance.  It must be a real, and personal meeting of penitent and confessor.

Of course there are situations where people who are physically present to the confessor may have to use some artificial means to speak, as in the case of the jail meeting.  Also, a priest could use a sound amplifier for a person who is present who is also hard of hearing.  That’s not a problem.  Many old confessionals had hearing/speaking devices like phones. It also could be that the person is not immediately close to the confessor, but is still within view or earshot.  In that case the person is still “morally” present and absolution is valid, even by bullhorn.

However, it a penitent is both physically and morally completely separated from the confessor, artificial means cannot be used validly to impart absolution.

So, all things being equal, your absolution at the jail is valid.

For the rest of you out there, don’t wait until you are in jail… again…

GO TO CONFESSION!

YCA National Weekend at Douai Abbey 7th Sept- 9th Sept 2018 - Booking Now Open

Booking is now open for the Young Catholic Adults Douai weekend 2018! Please see:-


https://bookwhen.com/youngcatholicadults-douai2018

Hilaire Belloc - Proof that the Catholic Church is Divine

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Letter - the Real Story. UPDATED !

From Mark Lambert's blog -https://marklambert.blogspot.com :-

"So yesterday's weird story about Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI writing to the prefect for secretariat for communications, Mons. Dario Edoardo Viganò stating his pontificate and that of Pope Francis have an "interior continuity," albeit with "differences in style and temperament" has rapidly fallen into complete disarray....Key to developments is the fact that Vatican News only published a couple of lines of the full letter. This has turned out to be very selective quoting as everyone has rapidly discovered as soon as the full text of the letter has been released.

In short, it seems to me that what has gone on is quite clear. On 12th January, mons. Viganò sends Benedict XVI a series of booklets written by various theologians who have attempted to offer an appologia for Pope Francis "paradigm shift" of accompaniment and discernment. ....Benedict replies on February 7th, giving a little smile at the beginning, a slight doff of the cap if you like, but not in any way defending the theology of Bergoglio, rather only in compliance with the fact that "it is foolish" to compare the two. And then the icing on the cake: Viganò must have asked him to make a PREFACE to the operetta and here Ratzinger tells him NO! first because he did not read them, second because he took other commitments.

The Italians are all over this. Under the headline "The Half Fake News on Benedict....
The minimum professional correctness requires that if you publish a document, publish it in full. But this has not happened either on the website of the Holy See Press Office, nor, as we have seen, on Vatican News.Tosatti correctly asserts that the portal published the first two paragraphs of the message, but omitted the third one, which begins with "However ..." and says that Benedict has NOT read the eleven volumes, he does not intend to read them or write them down. And that consequently empties the kind sentences of the previous paragraphs, and the attempt to credit the endorsement. he closes his piece by asserting that this exercise is, in reality, the epitome of fake news... Moreover, Magister asserts the Pope Emeritus' true meaning is clear to anyone who bothers to read the full text of the latter."

UPDATED

Vatican admits blurring letter from Benedict XVI 

From the Catholic Herald:-

"The Vatican has admitted that it altered a photo sent to the media of a letter from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI about Pope Francis’s theological background. The manipulation changed the meaning of the image."

See:- http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2018/03/14/vatican-admits-blurring-letter-from-benedict-xvi/.

Countering Anti-Catholic Propaganda - the Myth that Dead Babies were Thrown into a Irish Septic tank

The atheist editor from "Spiked" Brendan O'neil, writes about a false story about nuns fromTuam, in the Republic of Ireland, which hit the headlines a while ago, but keeps resurfacing :-

"For proof of the maxim that ‘A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on’, look no further than the Tuam 800 dead babies story. Courtesy of a modern media that seems more interested in titillating readers with gorno than giving us cool facts, and thanks to a Twittermob constantly on the hunt for things it might feel ostentatiously outraged by, the story about babies being dumped in an old, out-of-use septic tank by nuns at a home for ‘fallen women’ in Tuam in Galway made waves in every corner of the globe."

He continues:-

"On almost every level, the news reports in respectable media outlets around the world were plain wrong. Most importantly, the constantly repeated line about the bodies of 800 babies having been found was pure mythmaking. The bodies of 800 babies had not been found, in the septic tank or anywhere else. Rather, Corless had speculated in her research that the 796 children who died at the home had been buried in unmarked plots (common practice for illegitimate children in Ireland in the early to mid-twentieth century) and that some might have been put in the tank in which two boys in 1975 saw human remains. The septic tank or the grounds of the former home have not been excavated. No babies have been ‘found in a septic tank’, as the Washington Post, Guardian and others claimed. The claim that the babies were ‘dumped’ into some kind of sewage system is wrong, too. Corless says the nuns ‘made a crypt out of the old septic tank’. She now says her research has been ‘widely misrepresented’ and that she ‘never used the word “dumped”’ to describe the possible placing of some dead children into a makeshift crypt (‘possible’ being the operative word).

More to the point, it’s actually not possible that all 800 dead babies are in this tank-cum-crypt, as pretty much every media outlet has claimed. Mainly because, as the Irish Times reports, the septic tank was still in use up to 1937, 12 years after the home opened, during which time 204 of the 796 deaths occurred - and ‘it seems impossible’, the paper says, ‘that more than 200 bodies could have been put in a working sewage tank’. Also, the Irish Times spoke to one of the men who in 1975, when he was 10 years old, disturbed the former septic tank and saw skeletal remains, and he says now that ‘there was no way there were 800 skeletons down that hole. Nothing like that number.’ He says there were ‘about 20’. Maybe his memory is fuzzy, but so far he is the only eyewitness we know of to this alleged pit of 800 dead babies in a tank in Tuam.

So the widely made claim that the bodies of 800 babies had been found in Tuam is not true; no excavation has taken place. The claim that the babies were ‘dumped’ in a tank is not true, according to Corless herself. And the notion that the babies were hurled in with sewage is not correct - apparently the tank had been turned into a crypt. Yet none of these recent revelations, or Corless’s public angst at the widespread warping of her findings, has put a stop to the Heart of Darkness-style coverage of Tuam’s evil, mysterious tank. Martin Sixsmith, former New Labourite hack turned author of The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, the story of a former inhabitant of a severe nun-run home in Ireland who was forced to give up her child for adoption, says the Tuam story reminds him of the ‘mass graves in far-flung locations in Eastern Europe and Russia’ that he once wrote about. In Tuam, ‘an ugly place’, we can see that ‘Western Europe [is not] immune from such horrors’, he says. A hysterical piecein the Irish Independent compared the Tuam home to the Nazi Holocaust, Rwanda and Srebrenica, saying that in all these settings people were killed ‘because they were scum’. You can almost hear the sound of the whip as yet another self-loathing member of the Irish chattering class makes an artform of public self-flagellation."

He concludes:-

" But the unhealthy obsession over the past 10 years with raking over Ireland’s past has little to do with confirming such facts and instead has become a kind of grotesque moral sport, providing kicks to the anti-Catholic brigade and fuel to the historical self-flagellation that now passes for public life in Ireland. There’s a terrible irony here: in desperately searching for demons that they can hate, in obsessing over evil and its capacity to destroy lives, in frequently substituting speculation for evidence, these history-combing Catholic-bashers employ the very same irrational tactics of demonology and mythmaking once beloved of Ireland’s old Catholic establishment."

For the full story goto:- http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/the-tuam-tank-another-myth-about-evil-ireland/15140#.WqjORL2nw0M.

Who Can Receive Holy Communion?

The Difference Between Mortal and Venial Sins