Bad Fruit from a Bad Tree - remnantnewspaper.com 08.07.24
These words brought to mind the sentiments expressed by a modernist rector of a diocesan seminary many years ago. He was lamenting the ever-increasing numbers of conservative Catholic candidates entering the seminary, despite his best efforts to bar their entry or vet them out. In exasperation he once said that it would be better to have no seminarians at all rather than have conservative Catholic priests.
At first glance this view seems to be counter intuitive. After all, without seminarians there really is no reason for a seminary to exist, along the lines that there is no purpose for an airport if there are no planes. But, if your ultimate goal is not filling the seats in a seminary classroom but rather replacing the Church with a counterfeit, that prefers facilitators and feminists to priests, then it makes perfect—satanic—sense.
That false shepherd in the Vatican, who prefers empty churches over the rights of the faithful, is known by his bad fruit, which in this case are his own damning words. But we know that he is just one of many false shepherds who have infiltrated the Church and are destroying Her from within and at the very top.
But we do not have to go back many years in memory to find such sentiments expressed by a modernist. Neither do we have to confine ourselves to an obscure rector of a diocesan seminary. Rather, we can go to the very top of the modernist heap in Rome itself, wherein a senior prelate recently stated that he would prefer an empty church to a cathedral of young people who are attached to a traditional form of the Mass.
This cynical comment made by a Vatican prelate was made public by Cardinal Gerhart Müller in a recent interview and was also alluded to in a recent sermon. The context of the conversation between the Vatican prelate and Cardinal Müller is revealing. His Eminence was relating the spiritual joy he had experienced at witnessing 20,000 young traditional Catholics participating in the Chartres Pentecost pilgrimage. The pilgrimage culminated in a Pontifical Solemn High Mass which was offered by Cardinal Müller himself.
The sentiments of this unnamed official in the Vatican should be no surprise to traditional Catholics. We have felt the heavy hand of exclusion from the mainstream institutional church for sixty years now and his words lend credibility to rumors that there is a document in waiting which would further restrict the traditional Mass and the Sacraments. Increasingly, cathedrals are being emptied of traditional Catholics.
And while traditional Catholics prefer to have traditional churches and cathedrals for the Holy Mass, we know from personal experience of the recent past and/or the experience of our spiritual ancestors from long past that the evil persecutors of true religion can take the buildings, but they cannot take the Faith.
Such was the case for the Apostles themselves and the Apostolic Church. Jerusalem had been the center of true religion since the time of King David and it remained so for a few years after the Crucifixion of the Son of David, just outside its walls. In fact, the first Church Council was held in Jerusalem in 50 AD. But the apostate Jewish leadership, the first to persecute the Church, made it increasingly difficult for the Apostles and the faithful. They had them barred from the Jewish temple and the synagogues. They added a curse upon Christ as part of the 18 benedictions recited every Sabbath. They took away the buildings.
But it’s high time that there be a recognition and acknowledgement that it is not only individuals who bear bad fruit but that it is a bad tree that is the source of much the bad fruit: The Second Vatican Council. For sixty years conservative Catholics have been insisting that the Council was fundamentally good and all the bad fruit that has arisen since then is incidental to Vatican II and not rooted in the Council itself.
Such has been the case throughout the history of Christianity, though persecution since the time of the Apostles was principally at the hands of some secular power rather than by apostate wicked shepherds. Until now, that is, when once again we have the shepherds themselves persecuting the Church, or rather wolves in sheep’s clothing. But as in the time of Christ, so now, the faithful recognize them by their fruit.
Speaking of which, let’s take a look at the remainder of that Sunday Gospel reading that we started with:
Do men gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them.
That false shepherd in the Vatican, who prefers empty churches over the rights of the faithful, is known by his bad fruit, which in this case are his own damning words. But we know that he is just one of many false shepherds who have infiltrated the Church and are destroying Her from within and at the very top. Many Catholics will point at this shepherd or that shepherd and acknowledge that they bear bad fruit.
But it’s high time that there be a recognition and acknowledgement that it is not only individuals who bear bad fruit but that it is a bad tree that is the source of much the bad fruit: The Second Vatican Council. For sixty years conservative Catholics have been insisting that the Council was fundamentally good and all the bad fruit that has arisen since then is incidental to Vatican II and not rooted in the Council itself.
Such a premise becomes more and more implausible as the bad fruit becomes more and more plentiful. Especially since it is the wicked shepherds themselves who claim that their fruit comes from the Council. It is preposterous to maintain that the ground under a good tree is covered with nothing but bad fruit and yet it must be a good tree. That reminds me of a scene from the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz, in which angry apple trees spring to life and start throwing their rotten apples at poor Dorothy and her companions.
It is clearly not the case that bad fruit falls from and lies beneath a good tree but just the opposite. But for sixty years, wicked shepherds have been gathering the thorns and thistles of the Second Vatican Council and offering them to us as grapes and figs. Many Catholics have fed on these and now find them wanting and others have always recognized them for the bad fruit that they are. It’s time to cut down that bad tree!
Saint Boniface, you who felled the oak tree of pagans, pray that the VII tree may soon be cut down and burned!
Bad Fruit from a Bad Tree