|
To His Holiness POPE JOHN PAUL II
Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Jesus Christ, Successor of St. Peter, Prince of the
Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Patriarch of the West,
Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province, Sovereign
of Vatican City.
Ascension Thursday
May 21,
1998
Most Holy Father,
On the tenth anniversary of the
consecration of the four Catholic bishops by His Grace Archbishop Marcel
Lefebvre for the survival of the Catholic Faith, by the grace of God, I declare
that I am Roman Catholic. My religion was founded by Jesus Christ when he said
to Peter:
Thou art Peter and upon this Rock, I
will build my Church. (Mt. 16:18)
Holy Father, my Credo is the
Apostles’ Creed. The deposit of Faith came from Jesus Christ and was completed
at the death of the last Apostle. It was entrusted to the Roman Catholic Church
to serve as a guide for the salvation of souls to the end of time.
St. Paul instructed Timothy: "O
Timothy, keep the deposit." (I Tim. 6:20), the deposit of
Faith!
Holy Father, it seems that St. Paul is
telling me:
Keep the deposit… the deposit that is
entrusted to you, not discovered by you. You received it: you did not draw it
from your resources. It is not the fruit of any personal understanding but of
teaching. It is not personal use, but it belongs to public tradition. It does
not come from you, but it has come to you. With respect to it, you cannot act as
an author, but only a simple keeper. You are not its initiator but its disciple.
It is not for you to direct it, but your duty to follow it. (St. Vincent of
Lerins, Commonitorium, No. 21).
The Holy Council of Vatican I teaches
that
the doctrine of Faith that God has
revealed, was not proposed to the minds of men as a philosophical discovery to
be perfected, but as the divine deposit, entrusted to the Spouse of Christ that
she might faithfully keep it and infallibly define it. Consequently, the meaning
of the Sacred Dogmas which must always be preserved is that which our Holy
Mother the Church has determined. Never is it permissible to depart from this in
the name of a deeper understanding. (Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius,
Dz. 1800).
The Holy Ghost was promised to the
successors of Peter, not that they might make known new doctrine by His
Revelation but rather that, with His assistance, they mighty religiously guard
and faithfully explain the Revelation or deposit of Faith that was handed down
through the Apostles. (Vatican I, Dogmatic Constitution Pastor Æternus
Dz. 1836)
Moreover, "the power of the pope is
not unlimited; not only can he not change anything which is of divine
institution (to suppress episcopal jurisdiction, for instance), but he is
to build and not to destroy (cf. II Cor. 10, 8); he is enjoined,
through natural law, not to sow confusion in the flock of Christ" (Dict. De
Théol. Cath., II, col. 2039-2040).
St. Paul too confirmed the Faith of his
converts: "But though we or an angel from heaven preach a Gospel to you
besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema." (Gal.
1:8)
As a Catholic bishop, briefly, this is
my stand on the post-Conciliar reforms of the Second Vatican Council. If the
Conciliar reforms are according to the will of Jesus Christ, then, I will gladly
cooperate in their implementation. But if the Conciliar reforms are planned for
the destruction of the Catholic Religion founded by Jesus Christ, then, I refuse
to give my cooperation.
Holy Father, in 1969, a communication
from Rome was received in San Fernando Diocese of La Union. It said the
Tridentine Latin Mass was to be suppressed and the Novus Ordo Missae was
to be implemented. There was no reason given. Since the order came from Rome it
was obeyed without any protest (Roma locuta est, causa finita
est).
I retired in 1993, 23 years after my
episcopal consecration. Since my retirement, I discovered the real reason for
the illegal suppression of the traditional Latin Mass. The ancient Mass was
an obstacle to the introduction of ecumenism. The Catholic Mass contained
Catholic dogmas, which Protestants denied. To achieve unity with Protestant
sects, the Tridentine Latin Mass had to be scrapped, being replaced by the
Novus Ordo Missae.
The Novus Ordo Missae was a
concoction of Monsignor Annibale Bugnini, a freemason. Six Protestant ministers
helped Monsignor Bugnini in fabricating it. The innovators saw to it that no
Catholic dogmas fully and replaced them with very ambiguous Protestantizing and
heretical things. They even changed the form of the consecration given by Jesus
Christ. With these modifications, the new rite of the Mass became more
Protestant than Catholic.
The Protestants maintain that the Mass
is a mere meal, a mere communion, a mere banquet, a memorial. The Council of
Trent emphasized the reality of the sacrifice of the Mass, which is an unbloody
renewal of the bloody sacrifice of Christ on Mount Calvary. "He, therefore,
our god and Lord, though He was about to offer Himself once to God the Father
upon the altar of the Cross… offered to God the Father His own body and blood
under the species of bread and wine… at the last supper on the night He was
betrayed, so that He might leave to His beloved Spouse the Church a visible
sacrifice (as nature of man demands), whereby that bloody sacrifice once
to be completed on the Cross might be represented…" (Dz 938). The
Mass is also as a consequence a communion to the sacrifice previously
celebrated: a banquet where one eats the immolated Victim of the sacrifice. But
if there is no sacrifice there is no communion with it. Mass is first and
foremost a sacrifice and secondly a communion or a meal.
It is also noted that in the Novus
Ordo Missae, Christ’s Real Eucharistic Presence is implicitly denied. The
same observation is also true concerning the Church’s doctrine of
Transubstantiation.
Connected with this, in the Novus
Ordo Missae, the priest has been demoted from a priest who offers a
sacrifice to one who merely presides over the assembly. Now he is the president
of the assembly. For this role he faces the people. In the Traditional Mass, the
priest, on the contrary, faces the tabernacle and the altar where Christ
is.
After having known those mutations, I
decided to stop saying the New Rite of Mass, which I was saying for more than
twenty-seven in obedience to ecclesiastical superiors. I returned to the
Tridentine Latin Mass because it is the Mass instituted by Jesus Christ at the
Last Supper which is the unbloody renewal of the bloody sacrifice of Jesus
Christ on Mount Calvary. This Mass of all times has sanctified the lives of
millions down the centuries.
Holy Father, with all the respect I
have for you and for the Holy See of St. Peter, I cannot follow your own
teaching of the "universal salvation", it contradicts Sacred
Scripture.
Holy Father, are all men going to be
saved? Jesus Christ wanted all men to be redeemed. In fact, He died for us all.
Still, not all men are going to be saved because not all men fulfill all the
necessary conditions in order to be numbered among the elects of God in
Heaven.
Before Jesus Christ ascended to Heaven,
He entrusted to His Apostles the duty of preaching the Gospel to every creature.
His instructions already hinted that all souls were not going to be saved. He
said: "Go into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, he that believeth not shall be
condemned." (Mk. 16:15-16).
St. Paul supported this in his
instruction to his converts: "Know you not that the unjust shall not possess
the Kingdom of God? Do not err, neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
adulterous, nor the effeminate, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor
drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners shall possess the Kingdom of God."
(I Cor. 6:9-10)
Holy Father, should we respect false
religions? Jesus Christ founded only one Church in which one can find eternal
salvation. This is the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church. When He gave
all the doctrines and all the truths needed to be saved Christ did not say:
"Respect all false religions." In fact, the Son of God was crucified on
the cross because He did not compromise His teaching.
In 1910, in his letter "Our
Apostolic Mandate", Pope St. Pius X warned that the interdenominational
spirit is part of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every
country for a one world church. Pope Leo XIII warned that to "treat all
religions alike… is calculated to bring about the ruin of all forms of religion,
and especially of the Catholic Religion, which, as it is the only one that is
true, cannot, without great injustice, be regarded as merely equal to other
religions (Encyclical Humanum Genus). The process is this: FROM
CATHOLICISM TO PROTESTANTISM; FROM PROTESTANTISM TO MODERNISM; FROM MODERNISM TO
ATHEISM.
Ecumenism, as practiced today, flies in
the face of traditional Catholic doctrine and practices. It places the one true
Religion established by Our Lord on the same base level with false, man-made
religions —something that popes throughout the centuries absolutely forbade
Catholics to do: "It is clear that the Apostolic See can by no means take
part in these (ecumenical) assemblies, nor is it in any way lawful for Catholics
to give to such enterprises their encouragement or support" (Pope Pius XI,
Mortalium Animos).
I am for eternal Rome, the Rome of Ss.
Peter and Paul. I do not follow Masonic Rome. Pope Leo XIII condemned
Freemasonry in his encyclical Humanum Genus in 1884.
Neither do I accept modernist Rome.
Pope St. Pius X also condemned modernism in his encyclical Pascendi Dominici
Gregis in 1907.
I do not serve the Rome that is
controlled by Freemasons who are the agents of Lucifer, the Prince of
devils.
But I support the Rome that leads the
Catholic Church faithfully to do the will of Jesus Christ —the glorification of
the most Holy and Triune God —God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy
Ghost.
I consider myself fortunate because in
this present crisis of the Catholic Church I received the grace to have returned
to the Church that adheres to Catholic Tradition. Thank God, I am again saying
the traditional Latin Mass —the Mass instituted by Jesus at the Last Supper, the
Mass of my ordination.
May the Blessed Mother Mary, St.
Joseph, St. Anthony, my patron saint, St. Michael and my Guardian Angel assist
me to remain faithful to the Catholic Church founded by Jesus Christ for the
salvation of men.
May I obtain the grace to remain and
die in the bosom of the Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church that adheres to the
ancient traditions and be always a faithful priest and bishop of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God.
Most respectfully,
+ Salvador L. Lazo,
D.D.Bishop Emeritus San Fernando Diocese
of La
Union
Philippines
| 
No comments:
Post a Comment