Pray for the conversion of the Jews

                           Luke 19:27

But as for those my enemies, who would not have me reign over them, bring them hither, and kill them before me. 

Cornelius a Lapide Commentary

Ver. 27.—But those mine enemies (the Jews, His citizens, who would not have Him to reign over them) bring them hither—to my Tribunal, in the valley of Jehosaphat and Jerusalem—and kill them before Me.” In the Greek, “Kill them before my face.” Our Lord alludes to those victorious kings who slew and destroyed their conquered rebels. By this destruction Christ signifies the extreme judgment of the Jews and His other enemies, and their own condemnation to eternal death in Gehenna, and that a living and vital death, where they will be perpetually tormented by death-dealing flames, and yet will never die. Our Lord alludes to Titus, who slaughtered the conquered Jews. He describes precisely to the letter the condemnation of the Jews, and the Gehenna which He has appointed for them when He shall return from heaven to judge and condemn them and the reprobate. 

The old Altar in St.. Peter's Basilica in Rome

Card. Noè.  Per Fr. Zuhlsdorf.

The altar is the "Altar of the Chair" in St. Peter’s Basilica.  Alas, this is no longer Bernini’s glorious altar, rippped out in the 1990’s when Card. Noe was in charge of the Basilica (I was there that morning and saw it happen).  The altar in use there is an awful picnic table altar set up during the time of Paul VI.  So, at this newer Altar of the Chair, the celebrant faces geographical East, when also "facing the people". 

What the old altar of the chair in St. Peter's Basilica used to look like...

As everybody knows, it was Virgilio Cardinal Noè who as Archpriest of the Vatican Basilica had two altars torn out: this altar of the chair and another in the canons' chapel.

Cardinal Noè was part of that Lombardy clique that came into power in the Vatican in the sixties and swept in to make everything "modern." Even today when he still gives interviews he actually weeps at the name "Papa Montini" because as he explains, Pope Paul was the "greatest" pope the Church ever had.

The Vanquished Altar of the Chair of the Vatican Basilica 

by John Paul Sonnenon May 30, 2022

The altar depicted in the photo was placed here in St. Peter's Basilica during the reign of Pius IX and was removed by order of the Rev. Fabbrica di San Pietro in 1994.  The various candlesticks are on display today in the Treasury Museum of St. Peter's Basilica, located next to the Sacristy.    

It can safely be said that what happened at St. Peter's violated the liturgical norms in place at that time. A very well known 1967 document on the Eucharist has this to say:

"Care should be taken against destroying treasures of sacred art in the course of remodeling churches. On the judgment of the local Ordinary, after consulting experts and, when applicable, with consent of other concerned parties, the decision may be made to relocate some of these treasures in the interest of the liturgical reform. In such a case this should be done with good sense and in a way that even in their new locations they will be set up in a manner befitting and worthy of the works themselves" (cf. Eucharisticum Mysterium, 24).

In a lesser known 1977 document, there are instructions about the importance of having only one altar in the sanctuary, but this applies ONLY IN CONSTRUCTING NEW CHURCHES, in which case, "the single altar signifies the one Savior Jesus Christ and the one Eucharist of the Church" (cf. Introduction to the Rite of Dedication of a Church and Altar, Ch. IV, no. 7). This instruction clearly DOES NOT apply to St. Peters, which is the farthest imaginable thing from a "new church."

The inscription commemorating its consecration can clearly be seen carved on the front of the altar, in simplex style.  

Nevertheless, the tragic affair of the Vatican Basilica is a reality and it resulted no doubt from a typical and erroneous interpretation of Vatican II (big surprise), which of course said absolutely nothing about removing altars or permanently disfiguring historic places of prayer like St. Peter's. Nevertheless, the removal or destruction of the old altar stands as an unfortunate abuse of power and a prime example of poor judgment, potentially subject to censure. It should not have happened and absolutely cannot be justified with an appeal to Church documents of the time.  Although the Code of Canon Law does not attain this level of specificity in its treatment of altars (can. 1235-1239), the above passage taken from Eucharisticum Mysterium represents a universal liturgical law and its violation is thus forbidden.

Perhaps as a direct result of abuses of recent decades, the latest edition of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2002) includes a revision that is particularly relevant: 

"In building new churches, it is preferable to erect a single altar which in the gathering of the faithful will signify the one Christ and the one Eucharist of the Church. In already existing churches, however, when the old altar is positioned so that it makes people's participation difficult but cannot be moved without damage to its artistic value, another fixed altar, of artistic merit and duly dedicated, should be erected and sacred rites celebrated on it alone" (cf. GIRM, 303).

Although this teaching was in place in lesser known documents cited above, there was unfortunately no parallel paragraph in the 1975 edition of the GIRM.

The altar ready for Holy Week.

Let us hope and pray for authentic renewal in the Church.  I encourage the discussion to bring this interior sanctuary back to to a poetic conception with a high altar that rescues it from the danger of bleak commonplaceness.  We are made for the heights of nobility - we need to build a world where we all know this.  Below is what the altar looked like in 1666 when it was dedicated. We pray for a restoration. 

Following below is a press photo image of Cardinal Spellman celebrating Mass in 1957 on the since vanquished altar. 

Hosanna Sunday. "Judeo-Christian values. Jews are our brothers. Christian Zionist" Try saying these things after reading/singing this Maronite Rite Hymn.

 Hosanna; Lord Save Us

The reader has to scroll down to red the text:

Catholic Catechism accuses Jesus of sinning.

 I even sent hard copies and email copies of my complaints to the CDC about the entries of Jesus and Scandal two different times - once when Ratzinger was Prefect and once when Mueller was Perfect - and I never even received a response indicating that they had even received them, and now this from Rorate:

However, we still heard of some oddities. For example, we learned that the somewhat aggressive Jewish organization B’nai B’rith submitted its own commentary on the proposed Catholic Catechism—and they were, sub secreto, apparently invited to do so. Another aspect of Ecumenism?

“In his autobiography Clerical Error, Kaiser explains that he left the order before ordination because he felt that he could better implement the Jesuits’ goals by working directly for the CIA as Time magazine’s Rome correspondent during the Second Vatican Council. During the soirees he hosted at his posh Rome apartment on Time’s lavish expense account, Kaiser met Malachi Martin, another Jesuit who had also become a double agent. Martin was being paid by both B’nai B’rith and the American Jewish Committee to subvert the Catholic claim that the Jews had killed Christ.” 
― E. Michael Jones, Pope Francis in Context: Have the End Times Arrived in Buenos Aires?

Former Father Walter Kasper might have encouraged this submission by B’nai B’rith, given his special interests in non-Christian religions, especially his mercy for the Jews. In any case, we were told that the long-awaited “Modi” from Walter Kasper had finally arrived, one of the last sets to arrive, and all the persons seated with and near Cardinal Ratzinger were “as excited as school girls,” as we were told by phone from Rome. (Father Kasper had become a new Bishop—with the approval of John Paul II—only a year before, on 17 June 1989.) When Father Hardon heard of this welcoming expectancy and of the nature of Kasper’s own Commentary (“Modi”), he had some very strong words about Kasper himself and about Kasper’s own personal doctrine “as to the Incarnation.” (However, Kasper was later made a Cardinal by Pope John Paul II, on 21 February 2001.) How are we to understand such things? To include Kasper’s further influential promotions and prestigious positions held under Pope Benedict XVI, as well as his more understandable support and endorsement by the current Pontiff, Francis.

https://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2022/04/fr-john-hardons-commentary-on-draft-of.html#more

Hmmmm maybe it was B'nai B'rith that helped compile these scandalous entires about Jesus but it is The Pope and Bishops (JP II and his hierarchy) who are responsible for their "Teaching." 

Here is one copy of my now long dated complaint about the Catechism which, when I read these sections, I slammed the catechism to the floor in anger and swore...

The Catholic Catechism Gives Scandal

The Catechism requires a rewrite. Read what it teaches about Scandal:

2284 Scandal is an attitude or behavior which leads another to do evil. The person who gives scandal becomes his neighbor's tempter. He damages virtue and integrity; he may even draw his brother into spiritual death. Scandal is a grave offense if by deed or omission another is deliberately led into a grave offense. 

2285 Scandal takes on a particular gravity by reason of the authority of those who cause it or the weakness of those who are scandalized. It prompted our Lord to utter this curse: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."[85] Scandal is grave when given by those who by nature or office are obliged to teach and educate others. Jesus reproaches thescribes and Pharisees on this account: he likens them to wolves in sheep's clothing.[86] 

2286 Scandal can be provoked by laws or institutions, by fashion or opinion. Therefore, they are guilty of scandal who establish laws or social structures leading to the decline of morals and the corruption of religious practice, or to "social conditions that, intentionally or not, make Christian conduct and obedience to the Commandments difficult and practically impossible."[87] This is also true of business leaders who make rules encouraging fraud, teachers who provoke their children to anger,[88] or manipulators of public opinion who turn it away frommoral values. 

2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. "Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!"[89] 

And then read what it teaches about Jesus and Scandal:

587 If the Law and the Jerusalem Temple could be occasions of opposition to Jesus by Israel's religious authorities, his role in the redemption of sins, the divine work par excellence, was the true stumbling-block for them.363 

588 Jesus scandalized the Pharisees by eating with tax collectors and sinners as familiarly as with themselves.364 Against those among them "who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others", Jesus affirmed: "I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."365 He went further by proclaiming before the Pharisees that, since sin is universal, those who pretend not to need salvation are blind to themselves.366 

589 Jesus gave scandal above all when he identified his merciful conduct toward sinners with God's own attitude toward them.367 He went so far as to hint that by sharing the table of sinners he was admitting them to the messianic banquet.368 But it was most especially by forgiving sins that Jesus placed the religious authorities ofIsrael on the horns of a dilemma. Were they not entitled to demand in consternation, "Who can forgive sins but God alone?"369 By forgiving sins Jesus either is blaspheming as a man who made himself God's equal, or is speaking the truth and his person really does make present and reveal God's name.370 

The Catechism is teaching that it is always wrong/sinful to give scandal while at the same time teaching that Jesus gave scandal. 

Of course the Catholic Church does not believe that Jesus sinned but, at least to me anyways, it has erred by emphasizing that Jesus GAVE scandal (twice) rather than that it was the case that Jews took scandal. A claim could be made that, objectively, the CCC teaches that Jesus sinned.

How was it possible that this escaped the notice of the editors?  It hit me like a punch in the stomach when I read it and I threw the catechism to the floor in anger.

Either the entries on scandal must be expanded to include an explication of the specific types of scandal – direct and indirect…

Or – far better

Rewrite the entries about Jesus “giving scandal”: to make it crystal clear it was the Jews who took scandal.

Jesus was not about giving scandal. Mat 17:26 But that we may not scandalize them…

Matt 15:12 Then came his disciples, and said to him: Dost thou know that the Pharisees, when they heard this word, were scandalized?

My Rheims Testament notes: It must be observed here, that Christ was not the direct cause of scandal to the Jews, for such scandal would not be allowable; he only caused it indirectly, because it was his doctrine, at which, through their own perversity, they took scandal.

But the catechism has changed this traditional understanding of indirect scandal and now teaches that even indirect scandal is a sin.

2287 Anyone who uses the power at his disposal in such a way that it leads others to do wrong becomes guilty of scandal and responsible for the evil that he has directly or indirectly encouraged. "Temptations to sin are sure to come; but woe to him by whom they come!

The Catechism entries on this subject must be rewritten. I have thought this way since 1993 when I first read these entries.

When it comes to Jesus and Scandal, The Catholic Catechism scandalises me.

P.S. The ONLY PERSON the CCC teaches who gave scandal is the Divine Person; Jesus, Our Lord and Saviour. It is the only Catechism in history that identifies one person- The DIVINE PERSON - as one who gave scandal.

I think a major reason why the Church is in such bad shape are the Catechism entire on Jesus and scandal.

I think it likely He has withdrawn some of His Grace from the Church because of the "teaching" about Him and His scandal.

Catechism of Saint Pius X

4 Q. Does God also forbid us in the Fifth Commandment to do harm to the spiritual life of another?

A. Yes, in the Fifth Commandment God also forbids us to do harm to another's spiritual life by scandal.

5 Q. What is scandal?

A. Scandal is any word, act, or omission which is the occasion of another's committing sin.

6 Q. Is scandal a grave sin?

A. Scandal is a grave sin because, by causing the loss of souls, it tends to destroy the greatest work of God, namely, the redemption; it effects the death of another's soul by depriving it of the life of grace, which is more precious than the life of the body; and is the source of a multitude of sins. Hence God threatens the severest chastisement to those who give scandal.

STOP SEDERS. JUST STOP IT.SEDERS ARE A MORTAL SIN.

 I wrote to Dr. Hahn objecting to his claims that Jesus celebrated a seder and I included dispositive documentation. 

He had a few grad assistants respond but he refused my request to publish my question, documentation and the responses.

Odd....There was nothing personal included in the email exchanges- which I still have if he changes his mind.

First Class Error in Fourth Cup Thesis

The Reader has to scroll down to read all of the text

                           Mick Amongst The Hahn-verts

And it came to pass that I was among the adoring crowds anxious 

to hear the good news from the fifth evangelist before whom all of Tradition must genuflect. 

I was amongst tens of hundreds of adoring acolytes crowded into

Saint Therese de Lisieux Catholic Church in Wellington, Florida on August 31, as the chosen one addressed the multitudes from 9:00 am until 2:12 pm.

I had paid my $26.00 with the solitary goal of publicly challenging the chosen one over his claims about Holy Maundy Thursday, the Last Supper/First Mass, and the putative “Fourth Cup,” which, according to the authoritative CPA (Convert from Protestantism Apologist), is the

key to understanding the Bible and its Eucharist 

Institution accounts.

Dr. Hahn is as wrong about that novel claim as he is popular and 

deemed authoritative by his uncountable Hahn-Verts – especially those Bishops and Priests who have been converted to his radical exegetical evangelical claims which appear to have some connection to his Presbyterian Seminary (Gordon-Conwell) training in Theonomy (An ideology advocating the application of Mosaic Laws to the society

 the Christian finds his own self living in).

https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/scott-hahns-novelties/

Those Bishops and Priests have stood in his presence, apparently in 

full agreement, as the great communicator casts his eisegetical spell 

over his adoring acolytes and presents a new Gospel based upon, 

wait'll until ya get a load of this later on, a first century Seder Meal.

But, I first have to note just how effective a speaker Dr. Hahn is; from 

his bearing to his enthusiasm to his materials to his entire presentation which mixes intelligence, learning, humor, and even pathos, he had his acolytes eating out of the palms of his hands and nodding their heads in agreement to all of his statements in such fervent unison that they reminded me of the flocks of pigeons in Piazza San Marco in 

Venice racing after popcorn pitched by tourists.

There can be no doubt that had Dr. Hahn proclaimed - Sam the Sham 

was the last in a long line of great Egyptian Pharoahs that the painting of The Stations of the Cross would have vibrated due to the force of the sound generated by  AMENS !!

However, Dr. Hahn made some excellent points, among them the valuable reminder  that the words, “New Testament” are the only such words in the new testament and those are said by Jesus which reminds us all that the New Testamnet is not so much about a book or collection of books but about the action of Christ, the Mass (my paraphrase).

He also made a neat summary of the New Evangelisation by describing it as your story about your Catholic Faith shared with others (paraphrase) after crediting Pope Blessed John Paul II with having had the keen, and right, insight that it was the Baptised who need evangelising – an undeniable truth.

He was also charmingly self-effacive at points - I'm not much but I am 

all that I think  about - and he told genuinely interesting personal vingnetttes that did not cast him in the best of lights and he was, 

frankly, simply brilliant at presenting the scriptural basis for Confession and illustrating the necessity for it by linking  New Testament citations

 with Genesis and the Creation of Adam and Original Sin and dying the death as referring to the loss of Sanctifying Grace and from his own life he supplied the matter that grounded his theological points in here-and-now reality.

Well done, sir; very well done!!!

But – at this is a but bigger than Oprah's – it was his presentation of 

“The Fourth Cup.” (the putative Ritualistic Map discovered by Dr. 

Hahn that helped him to escape the querulous quandary in which he then spiritually existed) that constituted both the major part of his anti-Traditional eisegesis and the dangerous error that he has been

 successfully spreading with as much success as did Johnny Appleseed accomplish his self-appointed task.

http://www.star.ucl.ac.uk/~vgg/rc/aplgtc/hahn/m4/4cp.html

It is worth noting that the presentation I was at contained not a single word of caution from Dr. Hahn that this was merely his own opinion and an opinion not shared by others – you know, such as Doctors of The Catholic Church and The Early Church Fathers and can not be found in any reliable Catholic Commentary (A Lapide, Catena 

Aurea, Haydock's Commentary, and even Dom Orchard's 1952 Commentary is in opposition to Hahn) , nor is it even hinted at in such sources as Denzinger, Ott, Premm, Spirago-Clarke, Radio Replies, Catholic Evidence Training Outlines (yes, Dr. Hahn 

wrote the Forward to the 1992 reprint) Liturgical Year etc etc etc

Dr. Hahn's Ritualistic Map that is supposed to lead the believer from naïveté and/or theological confusion to the heart of the matter of The Institution of the Holy Eucharist - that it is a First Century Seder that Jesus supposedly faithfully followed.

No, I am not kidding.

This is the very center – the hearth and heart – of his captious claim 

(for me, not the Hahn-Verts) that at the Last Supper/First Mass, Jesus and His Apostles celebrated a Seder.

Bullshit.

The Seder (Order) Meal was developed by Rabbinical Judiasm after 

Titus had  destroyed the City of Deicide as this Jewish author confesses:

Almost everyone doing serious work on the early history of Passover traditions, including Joseph Tabory, Israel Yuval, Lawrence Hoffman, and the father-son team of Shmuel and Ze’ev Safrai, has rejected Finkelstein’s claims for the great antiquity of  the bulk of the Passover Haggadah. What is particularly significant about this consensus is that these scholars are not radical skeptics. These scholars believe that, 

generally speaking, we can extract historically reliable information from rabbinic sources. But as demonstrated by the late Baruch Bokser in his book The Origins of the Seder, practically everything preserved in the early rabbinic traditions concerning the Passover Seder brings us back to the time immediately following the

 Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. (A.D. 70 for those who accept Jesus as Messias). It’s not that rabbinic literature 

cannot be trusted to tell us about history in the first century of the Common Era. It’s  that rabbinic literature—in the case of the Seder—does not even claim to be telling  us how the Seder was performed before the destruction of the Temple.

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/was-jesus-last-supper-a-seder/#end02

Further background

http://tinyurl.com/kvtv5u6

http://judaism.about.com/od/passover/a/seder_golinkin.htm

So why does Dr. Hahn insist that Jesus and His Apostles celebrated a Seder and why is he so fixiated on “The Fourth Cup” when those matters have never been a concern for Catholics?

Who knows ? It is prolly just the flowering of some malign theonomic seed planted in him during his seminary days.

What we do know from Catholic Tradition is that Jesus did not just 

lead His Apostles in the celebration of just a Jewish Meal – Seder or regular meal – but a passover meal FOLLOWED by the Insititution of the Eucharistic Sacrificial Meal (to stay with the meal analogy for the moment).

He did both even though Dr. Hahn is ignorant of this (I don't know how he could be if he read Trent; He does have a personal library of 20,000 or more books) or if that  is the case, then he simply prefers his own theological ideology which in the matter of his "Fourth Cup" presentations (delivered 100s of times) is not Traditional 

Catholic exegesis but Protestant eisegesis.

It is simply preposterous to insist that Jesus faithfully followed a seder that was not even developed until long after His Passion, Death, and Resurrection.

Here is the gteat commentary of Cornelius a Lapide that explains and settles the matter:

Council of Trent (Sess. 22, c. 1): “After Christ had celebrated the ancient Passover, which the multitude of the sons of Israel sacrificed in memory of their going out of Egypt, He instituted a new Passover, that He Himself should be immolated by the Church (ab ecclesia), by means of (per) the priests, under (sub) visible signs, in  memory of His passage from this world to the Father, when He redeemed us by the shedding of His Blood, and delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated

 us to His Kingdom.”

http://tinyurl.com/k34adv7

In the ever new light of Catholic Tradition I  began to understand why 

the  scripture expert continually used his own words rather than the words of Jesus when it came to the putative Fourth Cup for Dr. Hahn does not quote Jesus accurately but rather, repeatedly, claims that in Matt 26:29, Jesus says “He will not drink...until His kingdom is revealed” rather than 

And I say to you, I will not drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of my Father

and for Dr. Hahn that kingdom is revealed when Jesus drinks the wine/vinegar on the Cross which is supposed to be The Fourth Cup of the Seder.

Dr. Hahn's presumptively christian exegesis is rather a Judaised 

eisegesis based upon a Seder Meal developed by Rabbis long after Jesus instituted the Eucharist in the Upper Room and he has spread these Judaised seeds all over America in presumptively

 Catholic Churches and I am unaware of any Bishop or Priest who has called him on this and corrected him.

I never did get to ask his question because there was no Q & A session but during one break I got Dr. Hahn alone for a quick eye-balling 

during which time I noted I had a question about the presentation and Dr. Hahn walked off saying “I'll be right back.”

He did not return. C'est la vie. Maybe he was alerted to potential problems because I had a Bible and a zippered notecase that might have contained some contrary information  or maybe it was simply the case (more likely) that he was just too busy and forgot to return.

What is undeniable is that Saint Therese de Lesieux may as well be renamed Saint Scott for it has been completely Hahn-verted which is another way of saying its Catholic Tradition has been subverted and inverted and it has been Baptised into the Presbyterian Theonomic Ideology personified by Dr. Hahn.

I inquired about signing-up for two Bible Study Courses but both courses required that I buy his textbooks and Dr. Hahn's text on Exodus alone cost $50.00.

He was also selling his books on Sacramentals, his Catholic Dictionary, his Biblical Exegetical Series, and he was giving away copies of his weekly reflections of the weekly scriptural readings of the Lil' Licit Liturgy. 

It is quite clear that today's Catholic need never again consult 

The Early Church Fathers (Hahn has his own book of specially-culled excerpts from them) and because he made it clear that anybody who

 tells you that Vatican Two was a rupture ought not be listened to 

(that did make me smile) and that Vatican Two was  a great blessing 

and it came at just the right time, I came to understand that I 

was witnessing an astonishing Ecumenical Conciliar disaster 

being recast as an Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da Dadaism Song and Dance of Denial.

When I told the Bible Study sign-up clerk that I had my own Bibles 

and Catholic Commentaries she said that made no difference for Saint Therese de Lesieux would exclusively be using Dr. Hahn's material 

from now on and that I could not take the courses unless I purchased 

Dr. Hahn's material.

Seems reasonable given that he has supplanted Catholic Tradition.

I have to give credit where it is due and Dr. Hahn has to be credited 

with being a marketing genius if nothing else but I also wonder just when some Priest will publicly stand-up to some of his captious claims and refute them with Tradition.

Prolly never as AmChurch Clergy are far more like to have been in a Seminary where they have engaged in trust exercises (falling backwards into each others arms) rather than being exposed to and taught Catholic Tradition.

C'est la vie.

In hs fascinating and revealing, Nikitaroncalli, Franco Bellgrandi, 

Court Chamberlaim of the Sword and Cape of His Holiness in the Papal Court , described the devolution of Catholicism and its rejection of Tradition as the process of  The Body of Christ phagocytizing protestantism – and I saw it in action.