Um, then in 19, excuse me, 1986, I started to work for Cardinal Stickler as his private secretary. And in 1988, Cardinal Stickler was retired, so was I. And 1989, 1991, I went back to Vienna after having finished my doctorate in theology after a previous doctorate in canon law. Well, and so here I am.

And you will see a nice picture, silver, in the glass and I want to quote to you one of Gilbert Keith Chesterton’s most beautiful poems on this subject where he says, „Feast on wine or fast on water, and your honor shall stand sure. God Almighty’s son and daughter, he the valiant, she the pure. If an angel out of heaven brings you other things to drink, thank him for his kind attention. Go and pour them down the sink.‟

When I gave one of my talks last year in Los Angeles, there was a very, very, very, very, very Victorian lady there who questioned me on my habit of drinking wine. I said, „Uh, well, madam, remember? What was the first miracle that Christ worked? He made sure they had enough wine for a feast. And what was the first thing our lady did? She asked him to produce some more wine.‟ Never forget that. We don’t want to be more godly than God, right?

When you talk about something in an objective way, you are referring and concentrating to the object. As the Romans would say, „Res.‟ You’re talking about the thing itself. When you pronounce subjective judgment, you’re talking about something from a subjective, a personal viewpoint. For example, there can be no discussion that the wine I’m drinking right now is objectively a good wine. I’ve had gallons of it. I’ve had probably truckloads of it so far, but and I’ve never had a headache, never gave me a headache. So it must be a good wine, objectively. However, you might not like it, so that’s a subjective judgment. It is objectively a good thing, like objectively, onions, garlic, red peppers, and all kinds of things are good for you, but you might not like them, so subjectively, you reject something, which is your right to do. You reject something that objectively is good for you. So objectively means actually talking about an object, not about your personal viewpoint on the object. Subjectively means you are referring to your personal viewpoint. And the same thing is true for objective and subjective judgment. If you call somebody a murderer, you might be pronouncing an objective judgment. You say, „Okay, this guy murdered, who knows what? His neighbor. Now he’s in jail and I’m quite glad if he gets fried.‟ But then subjectively, he might not be a murderer at all. You do not know. Subjectively, he might be a maniac who didn’t know what he was doing. Subjectively, it might have been an accident, but the poor guy can’t prove it. Objectively, he’s a murderer. So if you cannot distinguish the two, then you’re really not fit for a theological discussion because when we talk and we will talk about our dear present Holy Father, I will have to pronounce objective judgment. But if any one of you afterwards says that Father Hess condemned the person of the present pope, then he’s a liar, because I told you explicitly that this is what I will not do. I refuse any personal judgment whatsoever on anybody. I’m not even saying that Clinton will go to hell. What more do you want? I don’t know. The probability speaks for it, but I don’t know. I cannot pronounce subjective judgment on either Clinton or her husband. And I will not. Objectively, she’s a criminal, a traitor to the country, so is her husband. You have to distinguish the two.

Then you have to be able to distinguish the term material and formal. Material is just what it means, it’s there. The matter of something is there. But it might not be intentional or declared as such. You can talk, if I was to say to you, after five of those pitchers, which even for me is a little bit too much, and I was going to tell you our Father Trinity really has six persons. This is quite obviously material heresy. I mean, the heresy’s pronounced. It’s there. But I guess you will still trust me and say, „He didn’t want to say this.‟ So formally, it’s not there. It’s not formal heresy. But if one of you would say, „Excuse me, Father, now that I’m sober and all right and listening and at attention,‟ would ask me, „Is it true, Father, that Our Lady was not immaculately conceived?‟ And I will say, „I don’t care what Vatican I says. Definitely she was not.‟ Formal, declared, intentional, sinful heresy. But if you ask me, „Is it true that Our Lady was not immaculately conceived?‟ And I don’t hear the term not immaculately conceived, or immaculately conceived, I don’t hear it well, I think I heard it well and I say no or yes and it’s the wrong answer, then it’s material heresy. I just pronounced something that in itself is heresy, but obviously don’t want to do so. And you ask me, „What?‟ And I will get the idea. I will realize that you said something obviously in a way that I could not really hear well and I must have given the wrong answer and say, „Excuse me. Say again. Repeat the question.‟ And then the thing will be cleared up. But you have to understand that sometimes heresy can be there. It can even be repeated heresy, could be there 50 times over, and yet because the guy’s an imbecile, an ignoramus or a philosophical pervert, he might not realize this is heresy. He might not want to speak heresy, but at the same time do it all the time.

Then we have to talk about the difference between act and potency. That’s a term very rarely used in English everyday language, but it is very necessary to understand in today’s crisis. You see, when I tell you right now that I am Pope, you will say, „Oh, oh, oh, oh. Father Hess is going off the rocker.‟ And yet I just said the truth. I am Pope. Oh, not right now, not actually. Possibility. The probability is zilch, but I could be Pope. So in Thomistic philosophy, you speak about act and potency. In act, I am a man, a priest, a Catholic. In potency, I am father of children, bishop, cardinal, pope, heretic, all kinds of things. That’s in potency, the possibility is there. I could still become one, but I’m not right now. And it is, of course, intrinsically dishonest to say something that is only true in possibility, which means in Latin, in potentia, in potency, and not say so. That’s dishonest language, and it’s crazy language, as you realize the moment I say to you, „I am Pope.‟ In conventional English language, I cannot say, „I am Pope.‟ Only as far as philosophical language is concerned, and this is what you have to understand. When the present pope says that all men have been saved by Christ on the cross, full stop, period, that’s heresy. He should have said, „In potency, in possibility, when Christ died on the cross, he gave every human being the possibility to be saved.‟ But we know Our Lady showed to the children in Fatima that hell is really crowded, so many did not make it. Many are not saved actually in act. They had the possibility, and for some reason they did not use it. So if you say that Christ on the cross saved everybody, you better add, „As far as possibility is concerned,‟ not actually. We do not know, the Church refuses judgment on who is in hell. We don’t know that. Church has not even said that Judas Iscariot is in hell. But we know that there are many people in hell. We have had enough privileged saints and apparitions of Our Lady and other things that prove to us that there are many people in hell. We don’t know who, but there are. So therefore, the statement that everybody has been saved by Christ on the cross is not only heretical, it’s also patently absurd.

And there’s another distinction that we have to keep, licit and valid. Every time I talk about going to the Novus Ordo Mass or not going to the Novus Ordo Mass, whatever I say, somebody will come up and say, „Father Hess just said it’s valid or not valid,‟ depends on what I said. People leave my lecture and say, „You see? Again he said it’s valid, it’s valid,‟ or the other way around, whatever their mood is like and their funny brains are like. Licit and valid talk about two different things. Validity means it takes place. The sacrament is confected. It comes about. Licitness means if you’re allowed to do it or not. The Russian Orthodox Church, according to the judgment of the Catholic Church, has only valid sacraments. All seven sacraments are recognized by the Catholic Church as far as the validity is concerned. Needless to say, as the Russian Orthodox Church is in heresy and schism, in heresy because they refuse the papal infallibility, they reject the papal infallibility and they reject, so that’s heresy, and they reject the papal primacy, which makes them schismatics. So obviously the Russian Orthodox do not celebrate and administer the sacraments licitly. They are not allowed to, but they do it all the same. However, their sacraments are valid. The Anglicans, and Pope Leo XIII judged that infallibly forever, the Anglicans do not even have valid mass, let alone licit. So you have to understand licit means allowed. Valid means it works or it doesn’t work. When an Anglican, so-called Anglican priest celebrates the weird Anglican liturgy, which is a little bit better than Novus Ordo but not much, nothing happens, period. Nothing happens. When he communicates after at the end of the service, he eats a cookie and he drinks wine. Not body and blood of our Lord. Nothing happened. So it’s invalid. With the Russian Orthodox it’s valid, but it is not licit. It is not allowed. They don’t have the right to do that because they’re in schism with the church.

These distinctions declared, and I want you to remember that if whatever I’m going to say, there’s something that you apparently cannot agree with, then I can tell you either you don’t accept the doctrine of the church or you mistook one of these distinctions. And as the benefit of doubt for you, I would presume that you mistook one of those distinctions.

The greatest problem in the church crisis today is a lack of understanding of the concept of church tradition. Tradition has many meanings in modern English. It has a very, very limited meaning in theology and church doctrine. The first Vatican Council gave the most precise definitions of tradition ever. In the document Dei Filius, the Son of God, it says, „Tradition is written tradition as far as sacred scriptures is concerned.‟ And then he gives a list of all the books to be included in the New Testament and the Old Testament and oral tradition. That is what the apostles heard from Jesus Christ’s own mouth and handed down to the successors of Peter. Tradition was concluded, that is church doctrine, with the death of the last apostle, which was Saint John.

I like those so-called coincidences in the liturgical year. In the Roman breviary, which all priests have to recite, today for vespers, the antiphon reminds us that Christ did not have the time, divine decision, not lack of possibilities, did not have the time to give all necessary doctrines to the apostles. He says, that’s the antiphon of today’s vespers. He says, „There’s so many things that I would like to tell you, but you cannot bear them yet. The Holy Spirit will give them to you,‟ referring to Pentecost Sunday. So the apostles heard a lot more of what Christ told them during his lifetime and presence on Earth after his resurrection. They had the inspiration of the Holy Spirit from Pentecost on and after. And then of course just think of Saint John living together with Our Lady for quite a while. That must have revealed a lot of things. Some of the things he mentions in his gospel, but at the same time in his gospel he says, „There are so many other things that Christ did and said, and I do not have the time and the space here to tell you.‟ All of these things the apostles kept in a memory that we could only envy them for, because nowadays we do not have the type of memory anymore with all the books and all the help that we get for studying, be it the people had most days who were illiterates and were entirely dependent on their memory. And at the same time, we certainly do not have the inspiration from the Holy Spirit. Matter of fact, it’s something to be very careful with when people come up and says, „Our Lady talked to me.‟ Usually I know that’s a case for the nuthouse because Cardinal Siri of Genova said very well, „I have been a bishop now for 43 years and I’ve never had anything remotely connected with an inspiration.‟ And he was one of the best theologians in the new church, one of the most conservative and traditional. So the apostles had it though. The apostles had the inspiration. The four people who wrote down the four gospels had the inspiration. They had absolute safety on truth and error, and we’re going to believe what they said.

Anyway, back to Vatican I. Vatican I says, „Tradition is therefore what is written down in the gospel and the Old Testament and in the letters of the apostles and the Apocalypse, and tradition is what the apostles heard out of the very mouth of Christ.‟ And then Vatican I, for this part, was quoting the Council of Trent. Then Vatican I adds the incredibly intelligent and wise words of Saint Vincent of Lerins, who said, „Tradition knows indeed a deepening of understanding.‟ With the passage of time, the popes, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, will come to a deeper understanding of the truth revealed through the apostles either in writing or words. „But,‟ Saint Vincent Lerins says, „that is a deeper understanding eodem senso et eademque sententia, a deeper understanding in the same sense and in the same judgment. Therefore, there is no progress and change in tradition.‟ That is impossible. For 1,854 years the church believed in the Immaculate Conception. It was defined only in 1854. That was nothing else but the clarifying of terms. As Pope Pius VI says in his famous bull, Auctorem Fidei, which is not just directed to the bishops as usual, but to everybody, condemning the Pseudo-Synod of Pistoia. That was when a crazy prince in Northern Italy gathered bishops together for a synod and they wrote out decrees which of course were null and void and only because of political circumstances it needed some 13 years until Pope Pius VI finally got around to condemn them. And you will find some of those statements that Pope Pius VI condemned in 1799 printed in Vatican II. Well, we come back to that. And in Auctorem Fidei, the pope says, „The purpose of a synod is not to issue ambiguous terms but to clarify the language and the understanding of a doctrine.‟ And therefore the Dei Filius of the First Vatican Council is to be understood as clarifying terms, actually restricting the understanding of a doctrine, not adding to it or changing it.

But then Vatican II in Dei Verbum VIII says, „Tradition knows progress. The understanding of the things and words handed down to us grows in the thoughts and study of the faithful who ponder these doctrines in their heart, through an inner vision that comes from spiritual experience.‟ I need a gulp of wine after that. That means the faithful gather together and they have meditated on all these things, and they’ve had their religious experiences and now they share and they decide that the doctrine really has to be understood in the following sense, and then they usually come up with something entirely contradictory to church doctrine. So this concept, and I was just quoting Ecclesia Dei number four, for those who take notes. Ecclesia Dei number four, and I accuse Ecclesia Dei of heresy. Ecclesia Dei number four says, „The root of this schismatic act…‟ Ecclesia Dei talks about the historical circumstances which I should’ve mentioned before. On June 30th, 1988, Archbishop Lefebvre of the Society of Saint Pius X against the explicit will of the pope consecrated four bishops for his society, not in order to give them jurisdiction as he himself said, but in order to perpetuate the Catholic priesthood because you very well know that it needs a bishop to get a priest. It needs a village to raise a child, but it needs a bishop to get a priest. Okay? And so the pope reacted with something. I don’t know who wrote it up, but I don’t care because the pope signed it, so at the Last Judgment he’s responsible for every word in this document. „The root of this schismatic act…‟ That’s an error in moral theology which I will come back to. „Is to be seen in an incomplete and contradictory understanding of tradition, incomplete as it is denying the living character of tradition.‟ Saint Vincent of Lérins says, „Tradition is not dead. It is living, but in the sense that the understanding deepens in the same sense and same judgment.‟ Back to the document. „Insofar as it is denying the living character of tradition, as Vatican II teaches very clearly.‟ There’s nothing Vatican II teaches very clearly, but I’m quoting the document. „Handed down from the apostles under the assistance of the Holy Spirit, tradition knows progress. The understanding of the handed down things and words grow through the meditation and the pondering and the studies of the faithful who are pondering these doctrines in their heart and their insights that come from spiritual experience. This is entirely contradictory to a concept of tradition that knows no change and no progress, but only a deepening in the same sense and the same judgment.‟ The same sense and same judgment and the deepening of tradition is nowhere mentioned here. The only thing mentioned here is that the faithful ponder the whole things in their heart and have religious experiences.

This is, and I have to digress from the document for a while. This is due to a philosophical misunderstanding, or you could call it that, a philosophical heresy that governs what is called la nouvelle théologie, the new theology of Vatican II and following. In the old days, the Church would follow Thomistic understanding of reality. Today, we have something that is called phenomenologist. A phenomenon is an appearance. It’s something that seems to be what it is. Look, this here is a glass of wine. If I was to use it as an ashtray, it would be a glass of wine you have used as an ashtray. It does not become an ashtray because it was created, conceived, and made as a glass for wine, a wine glass. No matter how often, no matter how frequently I use this as an ashtray, it remains a wine glass used as an ashtray. If I take this microphone and I knock out Hillary in the White House with it, it is still not an instrument of justice. It is a microphone. And it will remain a microphone no matter what I do with it. If I plug this microphone into a 110 volt outlet and throw it into Clinton’s bathtub, I do a good deed, but it remains a microphone. It is not a legal instrument of execution. It is a microphone. Well, not so for the phenomenologists. They will tell you, „You use this as an ashtray, it’s an ashtray for you.‟ They don’t care about the objective reality. They will say Father Hess, „For Father Hess, it’s a wine glass. For so-and-so, it’s an ashtray.‟ Same thing. You can see this doesn’t make sense because once we start to think like that, any kind of conversation and language becomes absurd. Could you imagine what would happen to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language? Instead of one volume, you’d need 35 volumes because you cannot define a word anymore. You could not talk about a wine glass anymore in this dictionary. You would have to say, „A wine glass is something made of glass in a certain shape principally conceived to contain wine, but may be used as an ashtray, may be used as a fuel container, may be used as an instrument to kill someone in a bar, may be used as such and such and such.‟ Language becomes totally absurd. You cannot determine the truth anymore.

And this is what phenomenology is all about, and I have sad news for you. The present pope is a phenomenologist, grew up as a phenomenologist, and was taught in phenomenology. He follows, in his writings, he follows the doctrines of a certain Max Scheler and Hegel, and they were the worst phenomenologists you can possibly imagine. For these people, there’s no objective truth. There’s only a truth that applies to you. So this is not a wine glass. It’s a wine glass for Father Hess, not for those who don’t use it as a wine glass. For you it’s a Coke cup. Well, it isn’t. It’s a wine glass no matter what you put in there. It is. That’s Thomistic thinking. A thing is what it is, and it always remains the same under the same aspect. The principle of any type of civilized and intelligent and philosophically acceptable thinking, any type of thinking that the Catholic Church would accept will tell you that the first principle of everything is the principle of non-contradiction. One and the same thing can be and not be at the same time seen from the same viewpoint. This cannot be a wine glass and at the same time something else. Not from the same viewpoint. This today is gone. We have no objective truth anymore. Matter of fact, the pope encourages you to find yourself. You find yourself and then after you found… In the ‚60s, they went to India to find themselves. All they found was grass and pot, but death, as a matter of fact. But he tells you to find yourself and that means, in reality, that he encourages you to make up your own reality. This is why suddenly after 2,000 years of contrary teaching, all religions are good, as Mother Teresa said. „God loves all religion.‟ Quotation from Mother Teresa. God is not capable of loving all religions. God is very capable indeed of loving all human beings, including the sinner. God is not capable of loving all religions because Christ did not say, „I’m in favor of the truth.‟ Christ did not say, „I get you a little bit of the truth.‟ Christ said, „I am the truth.‟ Christ cannot possibly love what is contrary to him. He can love the human being that’s a creature of God even though he’s a sinner. Christ is not capable of loving the sin. Christ therefore is not capable of loving deviation from the truth. He cannot. Has nothing to do with God’s omnipotence because the concept of God’s omnipotence is not to be understood in absurd terms, in contradictory terms. God cannot make himself cease to exist because he has decided to exist. God cannot with one snap of his nonexistent fingers take all of us away from here because he has… He might move us, but he cannot kill us. He has decided to give life to us. He cannot do the bad thing. He cannot contradict himself. That’s patently absurd. Therefore, Christ cannot love what is against the truth. He cannot love all religions. And if Mother Teresa… Well, I don’t expect her to be more pope than the pope is, but if Mother Teresa tells me God loves all religions, I will say, „Baloney,‟ if I’m polite that day. Usually I talk about truckloads of you-know-what, but anyway. It is impossible to talk about anything if you do not accept the concept of an unchangeable truth. Because what do we talk for? What do we talk about? Why do we talk at all? Might as well resort to the old principle of Saint Benedict and his inspired rule for Benedictine monastic life where he says, „If it is not for the praise of God and you do not have to say it, shut up.‟ This is exactly what I agree with in this sense. I talk just too much myself, but at least I try not to contradict the truth, and I certainly will not declare all the truth to be the same.

So we are facing here in Ecclesia Dei the first heresy. I promised you there would be a second one. I keep my promises. It says here in number five, „The width and the depth of the teachings of Vatican II make new and deepening research necessary in which one should enlighten the context between the council and tradition, especially in those sections of the teaching that cannot yet be understood by groups in the church perhaps because they are new.‟ That is heresy. And that proves that the pope sees the council in a way that we must call heretical. Because on the 18th of July, 1870, the Constitutio Dogmatica Prima Pastor Aeternus de Ecclesia Christi about papal infallibility in the fourth chapter, Pope Pius IX defines as a dogma the following sentence. „The Holy Spirit has not been given to the successors of Peter so that with his, under his revelation, they will proclaim a new doctrine, but that with his guidance, they will faithfully explain and saintly safeguard the tradition handed down from the apostles, the deposit of the faith.‟ It is therefore a dogma that the pope must not do and may not do anything else but saintly safeguard tradition and faithfully explain it. When we talk about faithfully explain tradition, we talk about explaining tradition in perfect harmony with everything the popes ever defined and with everything the councils ever defined. There may not be the slightest contradiction whatsoever to define doctrine and there cannot be a substantial contradiction to anything in the ordinary magisterium. If it was possible, if it was conceivable that the ordinary magisterium of a pope can be lawfully in doctrines of moral and faith, of course, can be lawfully contradicted by a future pope then Pius XII would be in deep error when he says in Humani Generis that ordinary magisterium may as well not be binding with the ascent of faith, but has to be accepted as such in obedience.

And the same council makes a very, very important distinction in the third chapter, defining the primacy of the pope. It says, I allow myself to interpret something that the church says, but you will immediately see why. The pope enjoys the primacy, the universal primacy, not only, my words added, in what we know anyway in matters of faith and moral, but also in matters of church government and discipline. (foreign language) This distinction is of utmost importance because it distinguishes what the pope is bound by and what he is not bound by. Any pope can bind all of his successors in decisions of faith and morals. Of course, there can never be a pope who takes back the Immaculate Conception. There can never be a pope who will say that artificial conception is all right after Paul VI said, „Net to that.‟ But the popes constantly changed the law of papal election, the conclave. They constantly change it. It’s an act of administration that has to be ruled on by somebody. The popes changed canon law. They changed matters of church government and discipline, and they may. They do not need to stick to what their predecessors decided. But in matters of faith and moral, they have to. They’re absolutely bound. And this is what the fourth chapter and the third chapter of the dogma of infallibility solemnly pronounced by servant of God, Pius IX said. However, in Ecclesia Dei number five we read about sections of the teaching of Vatican II that some groups in the church have not yet understood, perhaps because they are new. That is a historical condemnation of Vatican II. I love it. It proves that my interpretation of Vatican II is exactly the same the present pope has. Totally different light, but same interpretation. Totally different attitude towards it. I reject it, he loves it. But it also shows why I have the right to reject it. There cannot be new doctrine in the church. Impossible. Period. Anything new can’t be true. And anything new will indeed be contradictory to what has been defined before.

So far, for two heresies in an extremely short document. Document starts here and ends here. This is extremely unusual with the present pope. He usually needs some 104 pages to say almost nothing. And in this very short document, we’ll find a complete contradiction of 2,000 years tradition of moral theology and interpretation of canon law. It’s quite something. The pope says in number three, „This disobedience…‟ He again refers to the illegal act of consecration of four bishops by Monsignor Lefebvre. „This disobedience that carries within self a rejection of the Roman primacy is a schismatic deed.‟ Nobody except a few crackpots agrees with that. Not even the present bishops and cardinals unless they have some political motives to do so, which means dishonesty. For 2,000 years, to be precise, for 1,949 years, the church never put the illegal consecration of bishops under excommunication. Schism, however, always was under excommunication. In 1949, Pope Pius XII decided to threaten illegal consecration with the penalty of excommunication because he had some big political problems with China. That, however, was in itself a new thing in church history. And I don’t know if it was a good thing, and it’s not the topic for tonight. However, until then, it was never considered a schism because a schismatic act, because then it would have had to be punished. They would have had to punish it with excommunication. You cannot face schism and only threaten suspension.

Let me explain the difference. If a bishop, if a priest is suspended, that does not mean he’s outside the church. They take away his faculties. There’s two degrees of suspension. Let’s take, for simplicity’s sake, a parish priest. The parish priest is suspended. He ceases to be parish priest. He may not baptize in the parish anymore, he may not give first communion in the parish anymore, he may not issue the necessary documents for marriage in the parish anymore. He’s not parish priest anymore, but he’s still a priest who celebrates, hopefully celebrates mass, and he still may do that. However, for some additional crimes, he may be suspended a divinis, as they call it, from holy things. In that case, he’s not supposed to say mass anymore or to administer sacraments. However, he’s not excommunicated. He’s a member of the church, but he’s a kind of, let’s say, a locked-up member of the church, as if he was in prison and couldn’t do anything. Excommunication means exactly what it says. There is no community anymore. Somebody who is excommunicated does not belong to the church, period. He’s outside. Unless he’s absolved, he cannot receive the sacraments, he’s not to be considered a member of the church. Excommunication is a very intelligent and good thing to do for some people because it exposes them completely to the temptations of the devil and it shows to them how necessary it is to stay in communion with the church. Sometimes, in the old days, when people were not really as indifferent as they are today. Today, people follow Alfred E. Newman’s philosophy, „What me worry?‟ And that is unfortunate because this way they cannot understand the purpose of excommunication, which means exposing them without any help to the temptations of the devil and that indeed causes many of them to realize what it means to be outside the church. However, the distinction is suspension means you’re inside the church but you can’t do anything anymore, excommunication means you’re outside the church, period. So of course somebody who is in schism and puts himself outside the church automatically is excommunicated. There’s no judgment needed for that. Somebody who is a heretic puts himself outside the church as if he was to leave it voluntarily, so therefore there’s no need to pronounce a judgment.

Now in the new Code of Canon Law, you will find the crime of illegal consecration of bishops in Canon 1382 not in the section of acts and crimes against the unity of the church. Schism means you act against the unity of the church. Schism means you do something that separates you from the church. Schism means not you just disobey the Pope. Schism means you reject his right to give commands. That is totally different. Every time I talk about schism I take the example with our dear beloved and highly esteemed president in this country who is the supreme commander of all armed forces. She has that right. She has that position. She is the supreme commander. You can’t change it unfortunately, not yet. However, it might be necessary to reject a command given. So if I’m a colonel in the army and Hillary tells me to shoot my wife, that’s the occasion I might have been waiting for for years, but I cannot obey that command. I cannot. I must not. That does not mean that I publicly reject her authority as supreme commander. It only means I will not obey that very one command. This is exactly what happened in 1988.

You have to understand that, and I refer because we don’t have the time to deal with all of that again here, I have to refer to the videotape that I recorded last year in Los Angeles. There’s two of them. The first one talks basically about the first document of Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, in which I proved that it is, while not exactly explicitly heretical, an intrinsically evil document and a schismatic document because it really asks for a major change in liturgy, something that the Council of Trent has put under anathema. And then I talk about the other documents of Vatican II that are decidedly, in part, heretical. Anybody who will tell me that Christ will not hesitate to give salvation to the efforts of Protestant churches will be called a heretic right to his face, if he says that to me. The pope says that in Catechesi Tradendae number 32, and all he does, he quotes the document on ecumenism from Vatican II. So that’s a heretical document and it will have to be condemned in the future. I’ve talked about that at several occasions. No need to repeat it here. You can ask questions afterwards and then I might be forced to repeat it, but not now. Anyway, if you once realize that Vatican II is something that a Catholic cannot accept without ceasing to be a Catholic, and once you realize that the new Mass is something that a Catholic cannot accept without being in danger of losing his faith, he also realized that a Catholic young man who wants to become a priest will not have the possibility anymore because the diocesan seminaries will reject him for the reasons I just mentioned. So Archbishop Lefebvre decided to consecrate four bishops in order to perpetuate the Catholic priesthood. And so far he has been successful. There is some independence around too and this is a different topic. But anyway, he had to do it. That’s the whole point. The pope tried to keep him from doing it, but the pope was wrong. So Archbishop Lefebvre had no way in good conscience to obey that one single command. But he always affirmed that he considered the pope to be the pope and to have the primacy. In order to be a schismatic you have to reject the papal primacy or the papal power to command. You cannot, it is impossible even if you were talking foolishly and say, „Uh, I want to be a schismatic, therefore I do not do what the pope says.‟ That’s just nonsense. That’s rubbish. That statement makes no sense. In order to be a schismatic you have to separate yourself from the authority of the church by principle, not an individual case of disobedience. If that was not clear enough, you may ask questions about that later.

So but here now, we are faced in number three of Ecclesia Dei, signed by the pope, the statement that this disobedience is in itself a rejection of the Roman primacy and therefore a schismatical deed that contradicts everything all of his predecessors have always maintained and it contradicts his own code of canon law. And based on this canonical and moral theological error, it’s not the place to call that a heresy, but it’s an error and a canonical contradiction. Based on this throughout the document he says several times, „The Society of Saint Pius X will be considered outside the church.‟ In one and the same document we face double heresy, a major error in moral theology, and as far as canon law is concerned, a lie. Did I call the pope somebody who is in sin of lie just now? No. I told you I do not pronounce personal judgment. He signed a lie. Maybe he was just mistaken. Maybe he didn’t read the document, but at the last judgment his signature will be held against him. Not I who says that. I couldn’t. That’s a fact.

So the sad thing now, and this will answer a lot of questions before they are asked later on, the sad thing is that we have several groups in the church that base their very existence on this heretical, schismatical, and fraudulent document. Christ said something about that when he talked about when he gave the good advice not to build buildings on sand. Uh, excuse me, I don’t know the quotation in the Gospel, but you can find it yourself with a concordance. Look up sand. Um, the Fraternity of Saint Peter is based on this document. The Institute of Christ the King is based on this document. And it fits. It fits perfectly well. It fits perfectly well because when you approach a priest of Fraternity of Saint Peter – not all of them, but in their official function – and I don’t judge the individual priests of Fraternity of Saint Peter. I have a friend there and I also have a friend in The Institute of Christ the King, but friendship very often is something transcendent to truth. You might be a good friend of a liar; you just love him as a friend. You hate him when he lies but you love him as a friend, right? When you approach one of those priests and you ask him, „Father, is there a way to interpret Vatican II in a Catholic sense?‟ They will say, „Yes.‟ That in itself is heresy. It is absolutely impossible to interpret everything in Vatican II – most of it, yes – but it’s absolutely impossible to interpret everything in Vatican II as Catholic. There is no way whatsoever to give a Catholic interpretation – and believe me people tried and I’ve discussed that over and over for hours and hours – to interpret Lumen Gentium 16 in a Catholic way. In Lumen Gentium 16, the council has the incredible audacity to say that the Jews and the Muslims together with us adore the same God. That’s blasphemy and heresy. Saint Paul says, „The moment the Jews rejected Christ, they started to see even the truth of the Old Testament like through a veil or a curtain.‟ You cannot adore the same God we do and reject Son and Holy Spirit. That is a different God. You might personally not be culpable for that. The poor Arab in the desert has never heard anything else but about Allah and Allah and Allah and Muhammad, his prophet, and so on. He does not know about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because the Quran tells him that the very idea of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is, according to Quran, beg your pardon, but we are not Victorians, an excremental idea. I’m quoting the Quran. Um, he does not know better, but we are not talking about the individual. Vatican II did not mention the individual. Vatican II, in the Latin text where like in English you do not use capital letters for nouns, says, „MUSULMANI,‟ with capital letter, „HEBREI‟ with capital letter. And it says (Speaks Latin) „… the Muslims together with us adore one merciful God.‟ They think they adore one merciful God. They don’t do that together with us because they reject the Trinity and they reject the incarnation. That’s a different God. The God we pray to, the only true God, if you say anything to the contrary you’re in mortal sin against the first commandment. The only true God is one nature, three persons of which the second person united personally with perfect human nature. Blood, flesh, the soul of a man were united in one person with the divine nature, the divinity of the second person. It’s one and the same person in two natures. I know it’s a mystery and something for a much deeper talk than we here today, but that is a very definite, as a matter of fact, a very defined, dogmatically defined concept of God. The individual is not our concern. The Arab towel head in the desert is not our concern right here. We are concerned with Mussulmani, the Muslims, the group, the religion. They do not adore one and the same God. They do not adore a merciful God together with us. If one of us was to worship God together with them, he’d be in schism, in heresy, and public notorious sin against the first commandment. If I catch anybody of you in the mosque praying with the Muslims, I’m gonna refuse communion to you publicly because if I didn’t, I’d be in mortal sin. And you’re certainly not worth that to me, believe me. So as much as I like you, but I’m not gonna go in mortal sin for you, okay? This is not something to be taken lightly, but Vatican II says it. Gaudium et Spes in number 12 says that the believers and the non-believers and all kinds of churches, whatever that means, agree to the fact that the efforts of all churches are directed towards man as its summit and center. That’s Satanism. That’s downright Satanism. The summit and the center of all the efforts of churches is God’s greater glory, and then the salvation of man. But first, God’s greater glory. And the summit and the center is God, not man. Documents like this cannot be accepted, and who does it ceases to be a Catholic.

Therefore, if a priest of the fraternity of Saint Peter is honest and is good and is likable and lovable, he might be personally, and as much as I might appreciate his efforts to keep the old mass going, the moment he tells me that Vatican II can be interpreted in a Catholic way, he personally might not know better or understand better, but the moment he says that, I will entirely distrust him for all kinds of theological judgments because then I see he does not even recognize heresy where it is so patently evident. And at the same time, they tell us that the new liturgy is not bad in itself. There was the famous discussion in The Remnant, which is a paper that I abhor because it’s constantly running down this country and patriotism is something that Pius XII reminds us over and over again. Patriotism is a Christian duty. But anyway, in The Remnant, there was a discussion between Michael Davies, whom I like personally very well and he’s a friend of mine and we have had dinner together in my house in Vienna. But there was a discussion between Michael Davies and the District Superior of the Society of Saint Pius X in Australia, whom I don’t even know, however, with whom I have to side against Michael Davies because the District Superior said, and I say the same, that the new mass is intrinsically evil. And Michael Davies said, „How can something that is a sacrament be intrinsically evil?‟ He does not understand that the very thing that makes the new mass intrinsically evil, among other things, is the fact that it is a sacrament or could be a sacrament when it’s valid. Sometimes it is valid. But they don’t understand that the sacraments of the Russian Orthodox Church, which are all together recognized as valid, however, in a certain sense, are intrinsically evil because it’s intrinsically evil, not the rites, but the fact that they take place because it is evil to celebrate against the will of the pope, not the individual pope now, but against the rule of the church and it is evil to celebrate mass while being in schism and heresy. You find this in the Roman Missal at the beginning of the book where it speaks about the defects that can occur during mass, the Defectibus Missae Corentibus. There it says that when a priest is legally suspended and excommunicated and he celebrates mass, the sacrament is valid, but he’s in mortal sin. If that is not an evil, then I don’t know what is.

But with the new rite there is something quite in addition to the Russian Orthodox rites. The Russian Orthodox rites, in themselves, Ritus, the book, are not evil. They’re traditional rites handed down to today’s Russian Orthodox priests, they’re all called popes there, handed down from the early days of the Church. Not so with the new rite. Pope Innocent III says that no pope has the right to change the rites of the Church that have been handed down. Several councils have dogmatically decreed that the faithful, by divine right, divine right, a right given from God, enjoy the privilege of having the sacraments in their own rite, R-I-T-E, ritus. What is the ritus of the faithful of the Latin Roman Church, which we are. I don’t think there’s Eastern rite present. But anyway, we’re not talking about the Eastern rites here. The Council of Trent, when it gathered to discuss the sacraments in general, that was the seventh session of the Council of Trent, in canon number 13 said anybody who says that any one of the pastors of the churches may change the handed-down rites into new ones, anathema sit, he’s cursed. That dogmatic definition does not mean like it is translated even with the otherwise excellent publisher, Thomas A. Nelson, does not mean every priest. Well, out of respect to the Council of Trent, but I really don’t need the Council of Trent or a dogmatic definition in order to understand that it is not up to the individual parish priests to change old rites into new ones. The church has always understood that perfectly well and everybody understood that. Not even the head doctor, Martin Luther, said that every pastor can write up his own rites. As a matter of fact, he was very strict with his followers on certain things. So quite obviously the council wanted to define the fact that no one of the pastors may do that. As a matter of fact, the Latin term is… but that’s a denied term, understand, (Latin) Pastores, (Latin). Quiscumque in Latin does not mean everybody, but whosoever. Now that is quite different in its meaning. That doesn’t say every pastor, but whosoever of the pastors. Well, the Pope, as far as his quality as pastor is concerned, is Bishop of Rome, Archbishop of Latium. He is the Primus of Italy, Primate of Italy. He is the Patriarch of the West. What more do you want? He’s one of the pastors. He is bound to liturgy and I will prove that to you further.

At the Council of Florence, Pope Eugene IV chose as his counselor his favorite theologian, a Spanish cardinal named Torquemada. Cardinal Torquemada was the, by the way, the uncle of the famous Inquisitor Torquemada. I consider both saints, but that’s besides the point. Cardinal Torquemada had, by the time he was called into the Council of Florence by Pope Eugene IV, written a big book called Summa de Ecclesia, everything about the Church. In this book he says, „If a pope was to dare to change all the rites and the sacraments, he would be in schism with the Church.‟ What did he get for this statement? He got the title of Defender of the Faith. Pope Eugene IV named him Defensor Fidei. If that’s not the papal approbation of what the cardinal said, I don’t know what is.

But then we have the document Quo Primum issued by St. Pius V, which says, „The missal as it is now…‟ This missal. „The missal as it is now may not be changed in any way whatsoever and it may not be turned into a new rite ever again and it can henceforward be used by any priest whatsoever even against the explicit will of his superior. And all other missals, if they are not by the time older than 200 years, are herewith outlawed.‟ The document says, just to give you an example of how strict this document is, this document tells a Dominican monk who was enjoying the privilege of the Dominican liturgy, which at the time was more than 200 years old, it dated back far before 1370 and this document was issued in 1570, was telling a Dominican monk that even if his prior says, „I don’t want you to use the Roman Missal, I want you to use the Dominican rite,‟ he could say, „No, sir. I’m not going to.‟ And use the Roman Missal. This is what it means. At the same time, this is an indult. We’re talking about indults today, indults given by documents. This is all baloney because the real indult is given by Pius V forever, till the last judgment. You may use this missal against the explicit will of your superior. Then it says, „This decree…‟ Not this missal, this decree. Even this decree, Quo primum, can never be changed, can never be taken back, is in itself irreformable forever.

I discussed this very issue with one of the priests of the Fraternity of Saint Peter who said to me, „Uh-uh. Wait a second. That’s just a legal phrase.‟ Because when Pope Clement XIV… I always mistake that. Was it Benedict XIV or Clement XIV who abolished the Jesuits? I think it was Clement XIV. Right, thank you. When Pope Clement XIV abolished the Jesuit Order, he put the same legal phrase in the document: This decree is irreformable, can never be taken back, and it’s binding forever. Which did not keep Pope Pius VII from reintroducing the Jesuit Order. So what? We’re talking about two entirely different levels. I told you before how important it is to distinguish between matters of faith and morals and matters of discipline and government of the church. Now, shutting down the Jesuit Order, I’d love to see that today, but shutting down the Jesuit Order is definitely something of what is called the regimen ecclesiae et disciplina, discipline and church government. It has nothing got to do with morals and faith. Pope Clement XIV did not say, „It is immoral to conceive the existence of a Jesuit Order.‟ Maybe he thought that, but he never said it. He just said, „From now on, go home to your dioceses. Bye-bye.‟ as they say down South, „We don’t want you around anymore.‟ That’s church government. That’s discipline. It doesn’t bind his successors.

But I have to remind you of the oldest principle in liturgy: Lex orandi, lex credendi. All the popes quoted it. The law of what has to be prayed will determine the law of what has to be believed, not the other way around. The other way around is interesting for historians, not theologians. What we pray, we believe. Therefore, do we believe the Immaculate Conception because it is celebrated December 8th, or is the Immaculate Conception celebrated December 8th because we believe it? Well, certainly not. I never heard about a mass being celebrated in honor of a saint simply because we believe that he’s a saint. That’s only historical. Of course, many people have to believe somebody’s a saint before he can be canonized, but that’s not us. You and me, we believe that Saint Robert Bellarmine is a saint because he was canonized, because most of us don’t even know who the hell the guy was. So we believe he’s a saint because he’s celebrated today at mass. So the law of what has to be prayed, celebrated, will determine the law of what has to be believed. When on August 15th, the church celebrates the assumption of Our Lady and you were to say, „I don’t believe in that feast,‟ you’re a heretic. Bye-bye. This is the point. So if the pope issues a decree saying, „From now on, I want everybody to say the Creed at the Masses of the Martyrs…‟ Has never been done, but it’s fine with me. But when the pope issues a decree saying that this whole book has to remain such and such and such and such, the pope is not talking church government and discipline. The pope is talking faith. As a matter of fact, he’s ruling on the foundation of the faith, which is Holy Mass and the sacraments and the liturgy. He’s talking about the foundation of the faith. He’s talking about what will determine on what we have to believe. This is something on a totally different level. And if Saint Pius V said, „This decree is irreformable,‟ then it is irreformable until the last judgment.

Now, is this a daring interpretation by Father Hess or church doctrine? Rest assured, it is church doctrine because I only believe in this case what Saint Pius V believed, what Pope Innocent VIII believed, what Pope Urban VIII believed, what Pope Pius X believed, and what Pope, ironically, what Pope John XXIII believed, because this Roman Missal is the first book in church history to contain more than one papal document. On all other books ever published in church history, you will find front page on all documents ever published by a pope. You will find front page, the decree of the pope who published it, period. And if for some reason it is a book that later on will be reformed, you will find the one document of the one pope who reformed it, period. Because they’re not bound, so they might as well throw away the document of the predecessor and say, „To heck with it. I’m gonna do something different.‟ Innocent VIII was obviously convinced he could not do that because he was the first pope in history to add his decree to the one of his predecessor. The same is true for Urban VIII, Saint Pius X, and the same is true for John XXIII even. So this is a very, I think, very evident case of popes feeling themselves to be bound to their predecessor. So what I told you is not my interpretation. It is interpreting the interpretation of the popes. And that’s quite obvious, I think, in that case. Why would they add their own documents to the document of their predecessors, and at the same time explain and almost apologize? Very rare that the pope apologizes for anything. Well, not the present pope. Present pope constantly apologizes for everything, but in church history it was very rare that the pope would apologize. These popes, they almost apologized. At least they tried to carefully explain why they had the audacity to touch this missal. This is the reason why, as far as the legal aspect, the licitness of the new mass is concerned, it cannot be considered legal. As a matter of fact, when you consider that we were talking about the authority of councils and popes, we have to consider the new mass as something to be absolutely evidently against the will of Christ, against the will of the Church, against divine law, therefore against eternal law. It’s an illegal rite.

And the interesting thing is, just not to make you despair entirely, the Holy Spirit is still with the Church. The Holy Spirit made sure that the new missal was never made obligatory with a papal signature. There is no such thing as a papal signature on the obligation to use that horrible book called the New Missal. When Pope Paul VI published the New Missal with his Constitutio Apostolica Missale Romanum of 1969, he published a book saying, „I like this book. It’s kind of neat. And the only part that is formally a decree in this constitution says, ’Now in this book you will find four Eucharistical prayers,‚ decree part one, decree part two, ’And in all of those four Eucharistical prayers, the words of consecration have to be the same following.‚‟ Then he puts out the new words of consecration. Not even this was kept because in all translation except the Polish translation the words of the consecration of the chalice have been translated wrong. But anyway, that’s the only thing he decreed. Then in came, and this is unheard of in church history, a (Latin). A notice from the congregation saying, „You oughta use this missal.‟ Pope Paul VI, when he made cardinals May 26 of 1976, he said, „Priests now do not have the choice anymore which mass to say.‟ This is a papal private statement. I couldn’t care less about it. It’s not a decree. „Priests do not enjoy the choice anymore of what mass to say.‟ And then he quoted the wrong document. He didn’t even quote the (Latin), which he probably wasn’t even aware of. He quoted some other declaration by the congregation, I forgot right now what it was, that has nothing to do with any form of obligation to use that horrible book. So the Holy Spirit takes care.

At the same time, the Holy Spirit made sure that Vatican II never defined anything. Matter of fact, there’s an explicit term on that. Pope John XXIII said, „This council does not want to define or condemn.‟ We will be nice. And Paul VI said, „This is a pastoral council. It doesn’t want to define anything.‟ And the secretary of the council, good old Cardinal Pericle Felici wrote a document in addition, an appendix to Lumen Gentium that says, „This council is obligatory only when it says so.‟ And it nowhere says so. It’s only the present pope who lies about it and talks about the doctrines of Vatican II. Pastoral council doesn’t have doctrines. It has recommendations and advice. And it may rule on some disciplinary matters, but it cannot teach. Anyway, the present pope talks about teaching and so, but he’s not capable of canonizing something that cannot be canonized. So worry not about it because the Holy Spirit will never leave us. Not us personally, the Church.

Therefore, the mass is illegal, but the mass is also intrinsically evil because it is leading to heresy, and in many translations it’s directly heretical. The new mass, and I told you that the foundation of the faith is liturgy. It is what you prayed is what you believe. Now we pray that the mass is a propitiatory sacrifice, a sacrifice with the purpose of forgiving sins, repairing sins, reparation of the damage caused by us horrible, abominable sinners. Dr. Martin Luther didn’t like the concept of reparation of sins through mass and he said, „Mass is not a propitiatory sacrifice.‟ But he still clung to the concept that mass is a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. The new mass hardly ever mentions the term sacrifice and it certainly does not do so in the most important part, which is the ordinary of mass. The ordinary of mass is what the priest will celebrate every day. The words that he will use every day. There, instead of the old offertory, which I cannot quote to you in English, I’m sorry. You can look it up in your daily missal, and it’s beautiful. It talks about the immaculate host to be offered up to God for the forgiveness of sins. A substitute with a Jewish table prayer, not joking. The new so-called offertory, because it ain’t no offertory, is a literal quotation of the prayer to be used by the Jewish house father blessing the bread, distributing the bread to his family. „Blessed be the Lord of the, God of the universe…‟ That, by the way, is entirely Masonic concept of God, the Lord of the Universe. The architect, the great architect of the universe is how the Masons call him. We don’t call him Lord of the Universe; we call him just Lord God, Domine Deus. And he talks about the bread that we receive from our Lord and the fruit of the earth and human labor that will become for us the bread of life. Sounds like Protestant Bill was saying, „The bread of life.‟ It’s not Church concept. He doesn’t talk about the real presence. He doesn’t talk about the bread becoming the body of Jesus Christ, and he doesn’t talk about the wine later on to become the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. It says it will be the (Latin), the spiritual drink. This is spiritual drink before consecration. But I believe I can turn it into the blood of our Lord if I use it for mass. This is why I’m very reverent towards wine. It is, in potency, God. In potency. Now don’t go out and say, „Father Hess said wine is God.‟ Please. Sounds like a wino talking, you know? And the concept of transubstantiation, as it is called, the substance of the wine is turned into the substance of our Lord, is essential to holy mass. The concept of the propitiatory sacrifice, again, the sacrifice that enables the reparation of the damage of sins, caused by sins, is essential to holy mass. These concepts are washed down to almost zero in the new mass and that turns the mass into something intrinsically evil even when validly celebrated.

Now you will say, „What the hell does the church know about what I think?‟ Church doesn’t. She doesn’t. De internis Ecclesia non judicat. About internal things, the church does not judge. What is meant with the intention at a sacrament is the manifest intention. See, I can show to you what my innermost thoughts and intentions are. Obviously, I’m not seated here to listen to something, but to teach to you. So you will say, „Father Hess is here to teach us.‟ And indeed, my intention is to teach you. And if I tell you my intention is to teach you, you will believe me because that’s exactly what I’m doing right now. So my intention is manifest. It’s visible. This is what the church talks about. What is necessary for a valid sacrament is the visible intention to do what the church does. It is not the visible manifest intention of doing, to do what the church might do, or what the church wants to do, or what the church has done. No. It is the visible intention to do what the church does. Quo… Intendere facere quod facit ecclesia. What the church actually does. There’s an old theological dispute about the question, if I, as a priest, if I can take this glass of wine… Well, now we are in the church, but if I can take this glass of wine at a wedding banquet, raise it just like this and pronounce the words of consecration and turn it into the blood of Christ. The church has not definitively answered that, but the common answer, the sententia communis improbabilis on this is, „No, you can’t.‟ Because the church does not do that. The church has certainly not made a lot of fuss about rubrics and laws on how to build a church and how to say mass in order that I be able, like a magician, to grab any glass of wine whatsoever at any feast whatsoever, just say the magical word, „Ding, ding, ding, ding,‟ and, „This is the blood of our Lord.‟ Can’t do, won’t do. Church doesn’t do that. Church has never done that.

You see, when Cardinal Mindszenty, he says in the prison in Hungary, celebrated the mass with just a little bit of wine which they smuggled into his cell, and he says, „I practically had barely the time to pronounce the words of consecration.‟ He’s talking as a priest who has celebrated mass for many, many, many, many years. See, I know the ordinary of mass entirely by heart. I can recite the entire ordinary of mass from the In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen until the Deo Gratias of the last gospel. So if I was to be imprisoned and I would know that the guard passing by would leave me only 20 seconds for the consecration, I would just sit there like this and start right here with a silent, „Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.‟ And start the mass. (praying latently) Every time the guards come by I say, „Ding,‟ and continue. And then there will be the moment that I arrive shortly before consecration and I’m gonna get up, see if I can see the guard, come back, and very, very fast pronounce the words of consecration, „Hide the blood and body of our Lord.‟ Sit down again, continue mass until communion. Get up, see if the guard’s passing, and then communicate. This is of course what Mindszenty did. Mindszenty did not just sit there in the chapel. He was no fool, huh? He would not just sit in the chapel, in his cell with the wine in his hand, fast pronounce the words, and gulp down the wine. No. He knew that was no mass. He knew that was not the context of mass. But even in that circumstance, in the cell right there, there was more context of mass than you would find at a wedding banquet. The context, you understand the context, the setting is not there. It’s a meal, but the concept that mass is a meal has been condemned. Paul VI didn’t bother. He said all the same that mass has a character of a meal, but Paul VI was a heretic, material heretic. We’ll come back to the distinction later. The mass is not celebrated, generally speaking, outside a church. (…) And grave reason if you celebrate mass outside the church, namely, for example, the lack of other possibilities. Today, that’s a problem for traditionalists. Don’t be shocked that I’ve said mass in hotel rooms, but not with 100,000 people present, silently, just not to miss mass. I had no choice. If I go to one of those chapels of the Church of the New Advent and say, „Hi, I’d like to celebrate.‟ Say, „Okay, it’s 22 minutes to 9:00. Come back in 22 minutes. We will concelebrate.‟ Over my dead body, I tell you. And that’s not a workable arrangement as W.C. Fields would have said. I don’t do it. The church doesn’t do it. So the intention has to be to do what the church does.

Therefore, there have to be, several things have to be considered as far as the validity of the new Mass is concerned. First of all, question that I cannot answer. Is the document Apostolicae Curae by Leo XIII deciding on the validity of Anglican orders and the Anglican Mass enough for us to judge the new rite, at least in its translations, invalid? Yes or no? Archbishop Lefebvre said that the new rite, the new rite of Mass when somebody celebrates it in Latin in the old spirit, which, believe it or not I did for about 10, 12 months, but I didn’t know better then. Mea culpa, I really didn’t know better. But I always celebrated with the Roman Canon, Te Deum laudamus, the Confiteor, and with the intention to do exactly what the church does, and with the intention to follow the doctrine on Mass that I had learned from St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae. And Archbishop Lefebvre said that I celebrated valid Masses. And Bishop Fellay says it and Father Schmittberger says it and Bishop Williamson says so. But with the translations, especially the English translation and some even crummier translations than the English translation, the question is, have the concepts of propitiatory sacrifice, transubstantiation, real presence been eliminated to a point that the document Apostolicae Curae of Pope Leo XIII applies? Yes or no? I can’t say. A future pope will.

Then the words of the consecration of the chalice are, (Latin) Look up the translation in your missal. In the new Mass, in the vernacular, it doesn’t say pro multis, for the many. It says for all. I told you before that Christ died for all people only in potency, not in act. In act, he died only for the many that decide to agree with him and to accept his offer. But that’s not even the point. There are two theories on changed words of consecration. Many good theologians, I’m talking about the old days, not talking about the pseudo-theology of today. I’m talking about theology that was common until 1950. Many theologians said in order to consecrate the wine in a chalice, all that is needed is the words, „This is my blood.‟ That’s what they say. It’s an opinion. To be careful, that’s an opinion. This opinion is held by many theologians, but not by all, as you will see.

Before, I mentioned the Roman Missal. And I mentioned the pages on the defects that can occur during Mass. And there it says, among other things, that if a priest is interrupted while pronouncing the words of consecration over the chalice, which are long, you just heard me doing it, he could be interrupted. He could sneeze, cough or be interrupted, distracted. Dog comes running in the church, goes bark, bark, and the priest turns around and just interrupts the words of consecration. The Roman Missal says, „If he does not… If being interrupted, he mispronounces the words of consecration or cuts them short to a point that the meaning changes, then he has to repeat the entire words of consecration correctly and completely. Otherwise, the sacrament does not take place.‟ Not confected. It says that (Latin) in the missal. Now, what is this? Is this papal teaching? No. The pope signed it, but it’s not necessarily papal teaching. However, quite obviously for many centuries, all the popes agreed with this. They knew what it said on the page, (Latin), and they all agreed with it. So if you are put before the choice of accepting the opinion of the popes of, let’s say, at least four, but maybe seven or eight centuries, or a few learned theologians, which opinion are you going to prefer? Well, I prefer the ones of the popes. So therefore, I would say the probability, be careful what I say, the probability. The probability speaks against a valid Mass with changed words of the consecration of the chalice. Why? Because if it happens once, unintentionally, by accident that a priest celebrates Mass, and after the words of the consecration of the host, he kicks the bucket, there is the host on the altar, the body of our Lord, but there’s no Mass because he hasn’t consecrated the chalice. And if there is not both consecrations and the communion of both, then the Mass has… There is no Mass. That’s why it’s only at the end of mass that the priest says, (Latin). Go, this is the mass. Which is what it really means. Not the messianic going peace. It means, go, this is the mass. (Latin). (Latin) means go, (Latin), this is the mass. Only then, the moment the priest communicates the two sacred species. The communion of the people has nothing got to do with mass. But if the priest does not communicate, then there’s no mass. If the priest consecrates only the host at the time of communion and realizes this is not the blood of Christ because it’s grape juice or cranberry juice or whatever, and he does not bother because he’s afraid of scandal, he does not bother to empty the chalice, refill it and consecrate it again before communion, he commits a sacrilege, a mortal sin, and there’s no mass.

Now if this happens once then we are faced with a very strange and rare phenomenon. We are faced with consecration outside mass. Generally speaking, the church does not do that. A matter of fact, canon law says… Canon law does not say this is impossible, but canon law says anybody who attempts consecration outside mass commits a sacrilege. The Latin word is nefas. Not sacrilegium in that case. Nefas. That’s a legal term for sacrilege. Nefas. The church says, I’ve always… For a long time I’ve wondered about that, but then I found out why canon law does not define it. Because canon law has to consider the possibility that for once, by chance, coincidence, there is a consecration but no mass. But does the church do that? No. The church does not consecrate outside mass, period. The church does not… Church does not do that; therefore I cannot have the intention of doing it. Therefore, if I use a missal that mispronounces on paper already, mispronounces the words of the consecration of the chalice, I cannot consecrate the bread either because the church doesn’t do that. The church doesn’t do it; it might happen by circumstances, chance. The church doesn’t do it. According to this, it is highly improbable that the new masses in English is valid, for the Trenchard has written an excellent book on that which I recommend to all of you.

The point is… And there’s, by the way, a very delightful aspect about what I say, because if most new masses are invalid then at least, thank God we don’t have communion in the hand, ‚cause if the mass is invalid all that is distributed is a cracker, a cookie, a Ritz cracker without salt. And that’s happy news, I say. However, I repeat this is not yet decided, but there is something else that is decided and this is why I confront you with this rather complicated explanation on the question of validity of the new mass. I have not been able, as you can see, to prove to you that the new mass is valid, and I have not been able to prove to you that the new mass is invalid. However, I have proven to you that there is doubt about the validity of the new mass. I have not proven to you that there can be doubt; I have proven to you that there is doubt, because after all of what I said, all of you now are in doubt about the validity, or you should be if you followed logically what I said, in doubt about the validity of the mass. I have not decided it is valid; I have not decided it is invalid. I have only shown you that it is doubtful, and this is the point. Benedict XI explicitly condemned the doctrine, which is not a doctrine but a theory, explicitly condemned the theory that for pastoral reasons you might approach a doubtful sacrament. He said, (Russian). „No way. You may not, for pastoral reasons, approach a doubtful sacrament.‟ And this is one of several reasons why it is not possible for us to attend the new mass unless the exceptions will follow. We cannot attend the new mass because it is doubtful. Benedict XI said we must not do that; we must not approach a sacrament that is doubtful. We cannot fulfill Sunday duty in the new mass because it is patently absurd to fulfill something that God requires in something that God rejects. He rejects everything that is illegal. I have proven to you that the mass is illicit. I have not proven that it is invalid, but I’ve proven it is illicit. Who says that? The church or I? Well, we both say it, because in the old days… Now everything’s possible except the old mass, but in the old days you were not allowed to fulfill your Sunday duty in a Russian Orthodox mass. That was not allowed. The church did not allow you to attend a Russian Orthodox mass. Why? It’s valid, isn’t it? It’s valid. It’s a valid mass. Why were you not allowed to go there? Well, because it is a valid mass but it is not a licit mass. Means it is celebrated by somebody who objectively is in heresy and schism. I’m not judging. I know, I know but something now. I’m not judging the poor Russian Orthodox priest who maybe doesn’t know better. That’s of no concern to us. I’m not interested. All I’m saying is objectively he’s not allowed to do that, because, objectively, rejecting infallibility is a heretic, rejecting the primacy of the pope, he’s a schismatic, he’s not allowed to celebrate mass. Yet, he does. This is the reason why, in the old days when there was still discipline and understanding of the sacraments, one could not fulfill Sunday duty in a Russian Orthodox mass even when in Russia. Talking, for example, about the days of the Russian emperor last century. In those days, you had tourism, not just in tourist. You had tourism, real tourism. And people went to Russia, diplomats, Western diplomats, and they wanted to attend mass. They had to make sure to find a Catholic Church or a United Eastern. They were not allowed to go to the Russian Orthodox Church. So what I say is not my interpretation, it’s not my comment. It’s what the church says, and it’s logical. If something is illegal, you cannot fulfill a duty in it. That’s absurd. How can you fulfill a duty in something that is illegal?

If you are in reach of this chapel, then of course you know where to go. If you’re in reach of a Chapel of Saint Pius X, you know where to go. If you’re in reach of the Society, well, ah, Pius V, but I mean, it’s a mass. I caution with going to the chapels of the Fraternity of Saint Peter for the reasons that I named before. The individual priest might be a very nice guy and he might celebrate mass in a very beautiful way, but if he tells you in his sermon, and sometimes they do, but if he tells you in his sermon that Vatican II needs to be interpreted in the Catholic way, which is impossible. And in a sermon he says, „You must not condemn the new mass,‟ then you rightfully will scratch your head and say, „Then why the hell am I here if I can go to my next parish anyway?‟ So you see there’s an inconsistency. And certain things a priest is not allowed to say. And if he says it, then you’re not bound to accept him. This is what I’m saying. I’m not saying these priests are not good. I’m not saying these priests are all liars. I’m not saying they’re all heretics. But we’re talking about an objective situation. It’s like the Russian Orthodox priest might never pronounce heresy in his life yet poor guy’s Russian and Orthodox, not united. That’s the whole point. So, understand what I’m saying. I’m talking about objective situations. Usually, 2/3 of the people to whom I say that afterwards leave the chapel or the hall or whatever conference takes place and say, „Father has just condemned every single priest of the fraternity of Saint Peter.‟ That’s baloney. I don’t. I just told you, I’m judging situations. I’m judging doctrine. I am judging about doctrine. And I try to give you the teaching of the church, not a pronounced judgment on some poor individuals who might in many ways be holier than I am and probably are. But that’s not what we sit here for. We’re not here to gossip about what should belong to the rainbow press and not to church doctrine.

So, for today, I think that was already quite a lot I gave you. And before I continue on the questions of the orthodoxy of the present pope and Vatican II in the detail, which I will do on Friday together with other questions that might come up, I herewith invite you formally to ask questions. And I must say, well, I always say at this occasion, not the one who asks the question is the idiot, but the one who laughs about it. So feel free to ask and do not be afraid.

In the light of all of what I said here, he asked what is being done in the hierarchy to address the situation. That needs a very complicated answer. Nothing. (foreign language) Next question.

What can be done?

What can be done, sanctify yourself and pray for a Catholic pope. Next question.

Yes? Could you explain the indult mass?

Thank you, I forgot. The subject is the indult, what does that mean? The indult mass means a mass that is celebrated most of the times in a diocesan church with a special permission, as if this was needed, with a special permission from the local bishop. You cannot go to the indult mass for two reasons. First of all, you do not know the priest who is celebrated. I’m not talking about the individual involved. I’m talking about ordination. See, we have to be careful not to end up in the Donatist heresy. The Donatist heresy was a heresy that said, only a priest who’s holy and only a good priest can really give the sacraments. Bad priests can’t. So the people went on to look around and say, „Do I like this priest or don’t I like him?‟ And then decided if he was a real priest or not. I’m not talking about that. What I’m talking about is, I told you about the difficulties of the vernacular versions of the new sacraments. In many translations of the Rite of Ordination, there are patently absurd terminologies to be found. Sometimes it needs much less than that for a doubtful ordination. In 1976, I’m revealing a secret of the Holy Office, ha ha, but I’ve never sworn to it so I may do it. In 1976, Cardinal Alfrink of Utrecht in the Netherlands consecrated a bishop, and he left out all references as to obedience under the pope. The Holy Office decided that this consecration has to be conditionally redone because he was doubtful in his validity. So even the new church recognizes to a point that a doubtful ordination comes about pretty easy once the bishop who does it messes around with the book. Now today’s bishops mess around with the book and how. So if you go to an indult mass and there’s a priest who is 60 years old or something like this, you’re pretty well safe. But that’s not sufficient. If you face a 35 or 30-year-old priest at the indult mass, you don’t even know if the guy is a priest. So that’s one aspect. The second aspect is, I give you an example. Examples are always easier than theories. In Rhode Island, in Providence, Rhode Island, there is an indult mass every Sunday. The priest who celebrates that indult mass every Sunday is not allowed to consecrate the little hosts for the faithful. At the same time, he is allowed and forced to give communion in the hand. You cannot attend and say yes to a sacrilege. You also may not approach a doubtful sacrament. If the priest who celebrates the indult mass, first of all, his ordination may be doubtful, maybe, depends on the age. But at the same time, even if he has been definitely ordained a priest is not allowed to consecrate the little hosts, then you don’t know who did in what language, what rite and what he did. Some priests quote fairy tales instead of consecration words. I’m not joking. They quote Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Queen saying, „Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the beautiest of them all?‟ I’ve heard that as words of consecration. You can guess what happens with the cookies. And those are the ones then in the indult mass distributed to you. That’s no solution whatsoever. I call it, and it’s joking, of course, but at the same time very true, I call it the insult mass. Thank you for the question. I forgot. Yes. Go ahead. Come on. You’re packed with questions. Ask them.

Father, yes. I want to congratulate you for what you said in defense of Quo Primum, that papal magisterial act-

He congratulates me on what I said on Quo Primum.

… which touches the foundation of the faith. It’s not just another disciplinary (microphone feedback drowns out speaker).

He agrees that it touches the foundations of the faith and not, and it’s not just a disciplinary document.

The question I have is regarding, I have two questions, one regarding the… this movement that started, I don’t know who really started it, this… to found a Tridentine Rite in the church as a solution instead of… just as we have a Byzantine Rite, an Ukrainian rite. And I presume listening to your words that you would see the solution is not to try and start a new Tridentine Rite because the Roman Rite, the mass of the Roman Rite legally is the Latin Tridentine Rite.

He says, um… This is for the microphones and the tapes. He says that Father says quite rightly that what I’m trying to say is that it is certainly not sufficient just to start with Indult Masses, Fraternity of St. Peter and Institute of Christ the King and similar groups, a Tridentine Rite parallel to the Novus Ordo Rite in the Roman Church. Rightly so, because that is not possible. I firmly believe, mind you, this is my personal belief. I have to underline this because whatever I do not comment on is church doctrine as much as I am able to reproduce it faithfully. My personal belief is that Christ cannot permit the new mass to be a parallel rite to the old mass. And there’s a reason why I say this, because it is dogmatically defined that there may be no new rite proclaimed. The old rite may not be turned into new rite. That’s the Council of Trent. At the same time, it is dogmatically defined that all faithful enjoy, by divine law, the privilege of having the sacraments in their own rite, R-I-T-E, in their own ritus. That is not possible if you have both rites legally established. Christ cannot permit that both rites are legally, fully legally established because then you would be delivered to the individual choice of an individual priest and that is against divine law granted to you. So I personally believe that cannot be and certainly must not be according to what I have told you and which is about what I know about it. And I’ve checked and checked and checked and I found, I did not find anything contrary to it. And so far some people have tried to contradict my former videos but they just did not succeed because there is no such church document that will contradict me on this point. The new rite has to go out the window and down the drain and it should end up where it belongs, in the trash can.