Dear Gabriel:

Well, Gabriel, you have come to the wrong place if you want your ear tickled or if you want sympathy.

The first thing that needs to happen to you is to grow up. To go to a SSPX chapel or to leave the Church is childish rebellion and abject Pride. Your post is filled with "I" and "I want". Who cares what you want? Instead of whining why don't you offer your suffering to God and pray for those priests who abuse the liturgy. If all the energy spent in whining and complaining was put into a mature and adult self-mortification, offering up, and prayer, there would be no abuses for all the priests and laity involved would be converted.

The second thing is to stop listening to the schismatic blather from people who are no longer in communion with the Church. Pope John Paul II is NOT, and I repeat, is NOT a modernist. He is not within a million miles of being a modernist, or teaching anything remotely modernist. You are slandering the Pope calling him a heretic when you characterize him this way. To slander the Pope is GRAVE sin.

In addition, the Pope and the Church continue to teach that salvation subsists in the Catholic Church alone. Whoever told you that the Church has said that salvation can be found in Buddhism is a evil liar. While an individual person who happens to be a Buddhist can find salvation, he does not find it in Buddhism, but only through the Catholic Church even if he is not aware of it.

The third thing is to stop quoting popes out of context and misinterpreted and in ignorance of how various documents work together to form a consistent whole. Stop listening to the interpretation by those no longer in communion with the Church and with the evil dissension on their lips. The Church and the Church alone has the authority to interpret its own documents, not you, or me, or the SSPX, or anyone else.

The fourth thing is to get an education. Your ideas about the so-called "modernist" influences are patently wrong. for example, the ecumenism taught by the Vatican II and by our Pope is NOT an incorrect ecumenism. The Church and the Pope are not compromising one dotted-i of the faith. The ecumenism, as defined by the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, is in response to the teachings of Jesus.

The fifth thing is for the very real liturgical abuses, focus your energies on prayer and worship. I don't care what kind of abuses are taking place, as long as the Mass is valid Jesus is there. Focus on Jesus like a man, instead of the storm around you like a boy. Do not leave Jesus alone with the abusers. Maintain a vigil with Him. Cannot you pray with Him for even one hour?

"You of little faith" is what Jesus said to his disciples when they were acting childish and as a result the devil stiffed them like wheat. Where is your faith? The very gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. That is either true or God is a liar.

Sixth thing is to get an education on the TRUE teaching of Vatican II. It is a beautiful Council that called all the Faithful to holiness. "Be holy as the Father is holy" Jesus commanded us. Vatican II renewed this command of Jesus and called upon all the Faithful to live a life of holiness.

The Seventh thing is to learn history. The abuses and liberalisms and modernisms that have cropped up since Vatican II were present BEFORE Vatican II. ALL of the bishops and priests who mis-represented Vatican II and lead the people into modernism were PRE-VATICAN II bishops and priests. They were the leaders of the rebellion.  This rebellion had been going on for more than a hundred years before Vatican II. All that happened after Vatican II was that it came out in the open where before it was behind rectory doors. Vatican II itself had NOTHING to do with all the abuses we see today.

Which leads to the Eight thing you need to do -- learn how to think. It is only an unthinking person who attributes all this mess of today as the fault of Vatican II. One of the primary tenets of thinking is that "co-relation DOES NOT equal causation".

The Ninth thing to do is to submit your ego, your wants, your preferences, and your pride to the Church. Vatican II is binding upon all Catholics to which it applies, your obedience is required.

I am always in amazement at these so-called Traditionalist. The PRIMARY tradition of the Church is OBEDIENCE, yet that is the first thing to go in these SSPX-types.

Bottomline: stop being a baby whining about what you want. Instead be a disciple who is obedient and loyal to the current Pope and Magisterium in union with him. Why? because God tells you to do that. period. Then work through education and prayer to deal with the legitimate abuses that are taking place.

But first you must come to educate yourself on the REAL abuses and modernisms instead of the bugaboo nonsense spouted by ultra-traditionalist rebels who are consumed by their Pride, have lost their faith, and who serve the devil to bring division into the Church.

This may not be what you want to hear, but I do not care what you want. I care only for the Truth, and I have given you the truth.

Fall before your God and give yourself up to Him. Die to self, and humble yourself in obedience to the Pope and the Magisterium in union with Him that God Himself has appointed in authority over you and me and all of us.

As for our current Pope, John Paul II, there is no better champion for the True Church than John Paul II. Have you actually read his writings? I mean read them cover to cover, not a quote here or there used by some ultra-traditionalist wacko.

This Pope is a living saint. I believe he will be canonized a saint. I think he will be declared a Doctor of the Church. And I think that history will give him the honorary title of "the Great".

The contributions of this man to the spirit of man and to the glory of God and the anointed leadership of this man to wade through the muck of our age and be a shining beacon on a hill to guide the way, justifies my opinion about this Pope's future.

We will be in prayer for you,

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary