THE CHURCH MILITANT - BELEAGUERED BY BERGOGLIANISM

On belief without faith
[And what it has to do with the forthcoming 'summit' in Rome]
by David Warren

February 15, 2019


Belief, to my mind, is a comfort to many. This pertains to those who “believe” in God, those who believe in Dawkins’s Flying Spaghetti Monster, those who believe in the benignity of adders, those who believe in Bitcoin, and those who believe their pensions are safe with the government. (Descending order of probability.)

I believe in reason, because it seems to work, but more fundamentally I believe in it as a matter of faith. This is because I am a Catholic, a religion fairly unique in its insistence not only that God exists, transcending all natural existence (“supernatural” is the term the atheists mock), but that the universe He created has a natural order.

Moreover, that within our natural limitations, we can make sense of it. For instance, we can usually distinguish men from women, clouds from dragons, up from down and so forth. Not always I must add, especially not when we are being wantonly and aggressively insane.

I believe in insanity, incidentally. There is plenty of evidence for it – all around – and as reason tells me, it is a hopeful thing. This is because beliefs founded in madness will go away when sanity is restored; and it will be restored, by nature.

Not first thing tomorrow morning, however. Or even in one lifetime, as those who have died by violence or in political prison camps would confirm. (That they can’t do so in person, being dead, I trust gentle reader to understand.)

I said that belief is comforting, and that would include the one just presented. Humans are themselves sufficiently supernatural that we may see a little beyond the horizon of our own material lives. Not far, but far enough to cope, I believe. And yes, I take comfort in this.

I have noticed that those who believe that the universe is senseless – that men can impose any order they like, arbitrarily – must act just as if the sun will rise in the east even while it is setting in the west, and do innumerable little things in the course of the intervening day that assume other continuities. For reason seems to work whether or not one believes in it.

There are people who genuinely believe that reality can be altered by human law, even when laws already on the books have been undermined. Instead of asking themselves, “But what if we enforced them?” they go campaigning for new laws that won’t be consistently enforced, either.

It was, for instance, already against the law to murder people or molest them in several other ways – whether for one’s own hateful pleasure, or convenience. (This is why abortions are and should be such a big issue.) The belief that inventing supplementary “hate crimes” will stop or deter anyone is a good example of our post-modern battiness.

Another good example is happening in Rome, just now. Heads of bishops’ conferences are meeting to discuss – “whatever.”

As Cardinal Burke says – and he should know, if you examine his credentials – we have had severe laws in place against priestly and episcopal malfeasance, including sex crimes, for many, many centuries. The (ignorant) belief that we haven’t seems to guide not only public opinion, but the behavior of many prominent churchmen.

Civil law is irrelevant, or was irrelevant, through most of that time. The Church herself had the means to do something, quite decisive, about perverts wearing collars or in embroidered robes.

She had been teaching that, e.g., homosexuality is disordered, all along – a matter of some interest when four of five alleged criminal sex acts by our (all-male) priests have been committed against boys past puberty. Until recently, she wasn’t shy about “disordered.”

Nor was she shy about resisting passing fashions until, “in the spirit of Vatican II,” her will to resist suddenly evaporated. But now she is so timid that when barefaced lies are told against her – I count the rot about “clericalism” and “synodality” among these, as neither term is used accurately – she truckles and apologizes, circling her own, like a herd of musk-oxen.

The absurdity of wasting jet fuel and hotel expenses on an international gathering to discuss a “problem” whose “solution” is self-evident, tends to undermine not only the authority but the plausibility of Holy Church.

Among the most absurd contemporary beliefs is in talk shops and committees that prattle all day, then draft long, incredibly boring, and counter-productive documents. The alternative is to appoint good men to established offices, and let them do their jobs.

The “problem” is described as a “culture” of deformity. Whether it is publicized or not, there are obviously homosexual cabals, reaching right up to the Curia and into the papal office itself. We can talk about this until we are bleeding in the lips, but the solution will be hard as it is simple: Root it out!

Which takes us to Faith.

It is my contention that a large proportion of our clergy, and of our laity, at every level, have undertaken to believe in things they have no faith in. What is the proportion I do not know – the gathering of statistics for what cannot be counted is another sign of the times.

But a priest, or any man, who perceives a duty, and does not act upon it, has no faith. He can believe anything he wants, and will, in order to comfort himself. “People believe what they want to believe.”

Right and wrong – Themis, Iustitia, Lady Justice – is no mere “belief,” as in some myth. Rather it is, in the teaching of our Church, a necessity. It goes beyond reason, to the heart of our God-created habitation. We have faith in it, or we have nothing.



Fr Vaughn Treco at his former Ordinariate parish of St Bede the Venerable.

The following is the tragic tale of an American priest who did act upon his duty and simply told his flock the truths of the faith - for which he was relieved of his pastoral duties and prohibited from exercising his priestly functions by none other than his bishop, Steven Lopes, who heads the only Ordinariate for ex-Anglicans in the USA, and about whom I had read only good things before. But with what he did, he has shown himself to
be just another Bergoglian who will not tolerate Christian truth and the Christians who say it like it is.

At the time the punishment of Fr. Treco was reported - I don't think anyone in the Catholic media picked up on it - I wondered in my post what Fr. Hunwicke would have to say about it, seeing that he too wrote
admiringly about Bishop Lopes in the past. Sadly, he seems to have been unaware of it, and I hope that this story in 1Peter5 will finally reach him.


'O Father, My Father!'
The story of Fr. Vaughn Treco
by Jonathan Schwartzbauer

February 15, 2019 0 Comments

On a winter day in early 2016, after months of attending the traditional Latin Mass at my local FSSP apostolate, I was asked what I thought of the Mass at a little parish called the Church of St. Bede the Venerable in St. Louis Park, Minn., a suburb of Minneapolis.

You see, the Church of St. Bede is a parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, and I was told the Mass was very traditional and not too dissimilar from the TLM. The parish was so small that it shared space with a Novus Ordo parish that had miraculously restored what was lost in the wreckovation of the ’60s and ’70s.

I had heard of the Ordinariates and the use of the “Anglican Patrimony” within the Catholic Church, but I had no idea what that really looked like. Curious, I decided to take my wife one Sunday and see what it was all about.

I was surprised how similar to the old Latin Mass it really was. Although the liturgy was in English, it was a sort of sacral English — something different from the vernacular we use every day. The priest faced God instead of man and celebrated at the high altar. The hymns were traditional, and chant was used for all the propers.

After the consecration, but before the elevation, the priest genuflected in worship of God, just as it is in the traditional Mass. Communion, although offered under both species, was received kneeling at the altar rail, with the Sacred Host on the tongue. And in what would turn out to be the most significant detail, the priest preached his homilies as a priest of God should.

After each Ordinariate Mass in the undercroft of the church was a time of fellowship and refreshment. Those gathered were a unique group, each with his own idiosyncrasies. In the best possible way, they were a group of misfits, and found that I, as a traditionalist, fit right in.

It was here that I met Fr. Vaughn Treco, parochial administrator and priest of this small community, who would become not just my pastor, but my friend. I found Fr. Treco a unique man with a penetrating mind, quick to discern truth from falsehood. I could hear in his words immediately that this was a man of tradition.

I still remember our first conversation. He was speaking of how even the typeface used in the first edition of the new Roman Missal was printed in a sans serif type — something our brains instinctively see as less formal. He also spoke of how, when he did celebrate the Novus Ordo Mass for the archdiocese, he would use only the Roman Canon. He spoke clearly and concisely and in a way that made it clear that he was a priest to take note of.

Over the following several months, my wife and I attended Sunday Mass there more and more. The Mass time worked well with our schedules, and we were a part of a developing community there of the sort that never seemed to coalesce at the FSSP apostolate we had been attending. Furthermore, we had direct access to our pastor, and he was always happy to discuss tradition and the struggles we face in the Church today. He gave concrete examples of how to be a good Catholic in these difficult times.

After a few months, Fr. Treco encouraged my wife and me to commit; he wanted us to pick a parish and stick with it. He reminded us that this is how Catholics had always lived — not going from place to place, but rooted in one parish. I will never forget the words he used: “Let me propose this: come to St. Bede’s, make this your parish, and help me to build the kingdom of God.”

How could I refuse such an invitation?

So the following week — the better part of two years ago now — my wife and I registered as parishioners of the Church of St. Bede the Venerable. We do still attend the FSSP parish once a month to be nourished by the traditional liturgy of the Roman Rite, but our weekly Mass is at this tiny parish. We’re a small group just trying to get holy.

Fr. Treco’s motto is just two little words: “Get holy.” It’s clear to me that this has been his goal in all my interactions with him. Get holy.
- You’re worried about the state of the world? Get holy.
- You’re worried about the state of the Church? Get holy.
- God ordained that you be born in this time for a specific purpose. Get holy.
- You struggle with a sin? Get holy.
- You suffer from depression and anxiety? Get holy.
God needs saints. So get holy. [It is Benedict XVI's admonition to the children of St Mary's in England, "Be saints!"]

The Scripture that reads “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” is something never taken as hyperbole by Fr. Treco. Jesus said to do it, so Father encouraged us to believe it’s possible, because Jesus said so.

After daily Mass, my wife and I would often walk back to the sacristy to engage Father in conversation. We would discuss everything from exegesis of Scripture to Church politics, as well as the successes and failures of daily life. He would always give us exactly what it was we needed, whether it was encouragement, chastisement, or something in between.

Through his ministry, I have made much more progress with a particular anxiety disorder I suffer from than any amount of therapy or medication ever accomplished. I have learned how to be a husband in accord with the teaching of the Church, and how to be head of the house without lording it over my family. My wife has learned how to be a godly wife.

I have ridden along with Fr. Treco as he runs errands and meets the elderly and sick for anointing and confession. He has taught us how to “get holy” in the midst of the insanity of this world. He even sent us recordings of his homilies when my wife and I were on vacation, just for the sake of encouragement. What other priest does this? The priest I want most to compare Fr. Treco to is that great pastor of souls, the Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney.

Before knowing this Fr. Treco, the idea of a priest as a father was an abstract concept that was best expressed in theological terms. But now I know what it means for a priest to be father, and even to be a dad.
- A dad is there when you need him.
- A dad provides wise counsel and intervenes when you need it.
- A dad tells you when you’re being stupid and encourages you when you’re down.
- A dad praises your successes and tells you to not linger there, but move on to the next one.
This is what Fr. Treco is, for me, for my wife, and for all of his parishioners. He knows the cost of being a priest and his responsibility before God. Always his encouragement or chastisement or whatever it is his listener needs at that moment has one goal: get holy.

I heard Fr. Treco preach without fear of retribution on many occasions, speaking the hard truth. He has no illusions about the current state of the church and has no fear in telling his parishioners exactly what they need to hear so that we might be saved. I love this man like a father, and he loves us as his children and so will tell us the truth. It is this he also sought to do and faithfully did on November 25.

That’s when everything changed.

On the Feast of Christ the King in the Ordinariate calendar, November 25, 2018, one week before Advent, Fr. Treco delivered this a 38-minute homily in which he attempted to provide a deeper understanding of the current crisis in the Church and to offer a safe way forward in the years that lie ahead of us.

Father showed us a clear picture of the post-conciliar church and the concessions to modernity and the world that the post-conciliar popes have made. He pointed out how this faithlessness is what allowed this rot in the Church to fester for so long and provided several ways for us simple faithful to move forward. The homily was a labor of love — one he spent 10 weeks carefully crafting to be as accurate and clear as possible.

A few days after the homily was preached, it was posted online by The Remnant. Before sharing it, The Remnant offered Father Treco the option of publishing it anonymously, but he declined, saying, “If I am going to speak the truth, then I am going to do so with my name attached to it.” (As of this writing, the homily has over 33,000 views.)

For some weeks, Fr. Treco continued to labor faithfully, preaching the truth. But around the Third Sunday of Advent, his homilies, though still full of Catholic truth, began to seem less pointed and more subdued. My wife and I began to wonder about possible consequences for Fr. Treco in response to his November 25 homily. There were some small hints that maybe something was amiss.

As I was vesting and preparing to serve at the altar of God on January 20, 2019, I noted that Fr. Treco was absent. In his place was Msgr. Jeffrey Steenson, ordinary emeritus of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, who has served as a substitute on a number of occasions when Fr. Treco needed to be absent.

Despite our familiarity with Msgr. Steenson, something about his being there felt off. I looked at our weekly bulletin and saw that Fr. Treco’s email and phone number were no longer there and that there was a notice that read that “daily Masses are cancelled until further notice.”

At the end of Mass, Msgr. Steenson read a letter from our bishop, His Excellency Steven Lopes. The bishop explained that the November homily — the one that had gained so much attention for its unflinching evaluation of the crisis — was, in fact, the reason for his removal.

Further, the bishop wrote, the homily was contrary to the teaching of the Church — he did not explain how — and that, even after a personal meeting in Houston between himself and Father Treco, Father refused to recant what he had said. The bishop’s letter then announced that Fr. Treco has been removed as parochial administrator of the Church of St. Bede and that Msgr. Steenson had been assigned as parochial administrator pro tempore.

When I heard these words, I was angry, dismayed, and saddened — but not exactly shocked. What else have we come to expect from Church authorities today? Over and over, we hear about abusive priests being protected and moved around by their bishops, but a priest who is too openly orthodox or critical of what is happening in the Church he serves? Apparently, that was unacceptable. I had to keep my composure until the final blessing and the recessional. The instant I made it to the sacristy, however, I de-vested and left.

I was struggling to control my emotions, since rage, which is what I felt, certainly would be of no use. I’d heard of stories like this of priests being removed because they dared to speak the truth, but now it was my pastor — the man who had made me feel welcome, had helped me with so many of my own problems, had taught me to “get holy” and invited me to help him to “build the kingdom of God.”

I had recently watched the 1989 film Dead Poets Society. The plot is essentially as follows: Robin Williams stars as an English teacher named Mr. Keating at an all-boys boarding school in 1959. In the film, Mr. Keating, an alumnus of the school, is hired to replace the previous English teacher, who passed away before the start of the film. His education methods are unconventional and thus not in accord with the curriculum of the school. The impact Mr. Keating has on the lives of his students is explored throughout the film. He awakens something in them — a love of words, of language, of poetry, and independent thought — that had been dormant.

Toward the end of the film, Mr. Keating is forced out by the powers-that-be because he won’t follow the program. At the very end, a seemingly disgraced Mr. Keating comes to his classroom while the headmaster teaches in his place so he can pick up a few last personal items. He walks through the room sheepishly, but just before he is about to leave, one of the young boys stands up on his desk and cries out a line from a poem by Walt Whitman that Mr. Keating had taught them the first day of class: “O Captain, my Captain!” In short order, all the other boys in the class stand up on their desks and salute the man who had made such an impact on their lives, shouting, “O Captain, my Captain!”

I texted this message — “O Captain, my Captain!” — to Fr. Treco immediately after I left the sacristy. He is guilty of nothing other than speaking out against a hierarchy that has perverted Catholic teachings, led countless souls astray, and protected an unknown but unimaginable number of despicable clerics who have sexually abused children or young adults under their spiritual care.

Fr. Vaughn Treco spoke out against the status quo,
- and so he has been silenced.
- For this “crime,” he was been removed as parochial administrator, functionally pastor, of my parish.
- He had his faculties for hearing confessions withdrawn.
- He was forbidden to preach or offer any reflections or anything of the sort.

Nor was the bishop content merely to silence him. Despite the fact that Fr. Treco made a profession of faith in the presence of his bishop, despite repeating his oath of obedience to his bishop,
- he has been threatened with excommunication under a charge of schism.

What sort of schism he is alleged to be guilty of I cannot say, but he will not take back the true words he spoke in his homily about what has gone so horribly wrong in the Church.

Today, my cry is not “O Captain, my Captain!” but rather “O Father, my Father!” Fr. Treco has become my father, the father of my wife, and the father for many others. He is being taken away because he would not stand silently by while the attacks on the Catholic Faith from within the Church continue.

So many priests fail to speak out, certainly publicly, because this is exactly what they fear. I do not fault them for it. Instead, I fault their bishops and superiors, who refuse to acknowledge the contradictions of the Second Vatican Council and the problems of the post-conciliar pontificates.

Please pray for Fr. Treco and his family. As a former Anglican priest, he is married. He has a wife, grown children, and grandchildren he cares for. Pray for the bishops and other chancery officials responsible for this decision. And pray for Holy Mother Church. Also, share the homily Fr. Treco was removed for preaching. You, and those you share it with, will be nourished by the truth.

And most of all: Get holy! Our Lord needs saints!

St. John Vianney, pray for us.