St Jeanne Of The Blue Denim

16/02/14 16:58

In this age of the casual, the informal, and the least common denominator modern society can only have a saint of the common man who dons his blue jeaned denims and then faces the world beyond with an egalitarian spirit of compromise, Marxism, heresy, and apostasy.

In these times nothing theological or authoritative in Catholic teaching, nor doctrinal can ever matter again, but merely the whimsical fancy of public opinion, change, and the popularly contrived. Today a pope’s credibility is equal to the input of his popularity from his blue-jeaned denim followers who know nothing more Catholic, in many cases, than a fish dinner on a Friday is the only penance needed during Lent or giving up candy; all religions are equal, and , most of all, you don’t have to be Catholic anymore to be saved, so one does not have to convert.

And these followers of St. Jean of the blue denim come to Church on Sunday, dressed casually in T-shirts and jeans—old or young—with cut-offs and halter tops in the summer, or shorts on men or women, with flip-flops and sandals, and all such accoutrements that have helped to propel us all into the world of the casual, and unorthodox, in which we live today.

Uninformed Catholic consciences abound in the church of the casual along with juvenile rubrics at Masses of balloon liturgies and sacrilegious and irreverent communion in the hand, along with no sin, no religion and no god who demands ethics, respect, or adoration for no one genuflects anymore, prays, and adores in silence and as far as confession of “sin” goes, who does it when sin is passé and no longer relevant.

This mindset evidently accompanies the pope of the day also who seems to revere the casual saint of the blue denim also, for he loves offhanded and informal ‘papal’ pronouncements before the media, denouncing too much emphasis on teaching the hard truths of the faith like abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and pedophilia with learned and scholarly encyclicals that strongly and authoritatively defend the sacred truths of Church teaching as traditionally done for the past 2000 years by every pope.   No, on the contrary we can observe the reality of suppressing the formal in the face of the casual so clearly when our current pope opted to close down the traditional mass for the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate—as well as their seminary—for only a few complaints of members of the order— and this was done even in the face of the living Pope Benedict XVI, his predecessor, who gave universal permission to pray this Mass throughout the Church and world to all priests everywhere with Benedict’s “Motu Proprio.”

The Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, a healthy new traditional order of priests and sisters, was thriving until this markedly unorthodox attack was leveled upon Tradition, making this act one of the most politically correct liberal attacks on Tradition in 2000 years, namely the expunging of the Traditional Mass among the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, except, of course, for Paul VI’s attempt to abrogate the Tridentine Mass throughout the Church some fifty years ago.   Truly this is a scandalous act that oppresses Benedict’s “Motu Proprio” in only a few short years after it was decreed, making this bold act a serious breach of Tradition as never before – because of its arbitrariness and casual papal procedure, done without any warning or fair hearing of the salient facts of the case, the complaints, and thorough evaluation from the Franciscan Friars themselves.

By the same token the rule of the casual in this papacy goes on and on: it is quite difficult to justify in one’s efforts to evangelize the Catholic faith that Pope Francis is the “poster boy” for a gay magazine as the “person of the year”;   moreover, he recently gave a “very casual” blessing in public to a pet parrot of a famed Italian male stripper.   This reprehensible act in public is unprecedented vis-à-vis the traditional image of a pope but instead is an unqualified break with the tradition of papal “gravitas”—something   grievously lacking in Francis’ papacy.

Papal “gravitas” has not allowed such departures throughout the centuries as though one pope can ignore and oppose the traditional image and teachings and decrees of his predecessor, inviting the heretical delusion that the Church could ever be   shackled by a politically correct skullduggery of one pope’s will as opposed to another pope’s or even the will of all others before, similar to the idea of a living constitution in America today.

In this age of modernist confusion throughout the Church what this kind of casual rule will do to papal infallibility, unity of Church teaching, doctrine, and the dissemination of orthodoxy in the liturgy can only be frightening, for it has already wreaked havoc and ruin upon the faith in the last fifty years , especially in regard to the Tridentine Mass of the ages, with apostasy everywhere from millions and millions of fallen away Catholics. This heresy of modernism has given the Church Pope Paul VI who tried to forbid Catholics everywhere from praying the Tridentine Mass, and has also given us Pope John Paul II who excommunicated Tradition in driving the Society of St. Pius X from the Church for not submitting to this heretical decree of forbidding this holy Mass of the Tradition, and has given us Pope Benedict XVI who allowed again the Tridentine Mass worldwide but never said this holy Mass himself once in public, and now, finally, has given us Pope Francis I who has outlawed this so holy Mass in the extraordinary form to the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. What could be next?   And all of this has occurred because of the onrush of modernism in the Church during and after Vatican II and the arrival of the “Novus Ordo Mass.”

Arbitrary rule and its politically correct modernist tendencies, apart from orthodoxy and Tradition, will only be catastrophic to the Unity of the Church and its faith which was founded by Christ Our Lord Himself on Peter, the first pope, with the divine admonition to teach authoritatively, finally, and correctly for Christ Himself has taught: “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven, and whatsoever you loose on earth, shall be loosed in Heaven.”    In no way is the casual or mundane to be considered appropriate with any kind of “serendipity” autonomy or self-imposed magisterial authority to be given to such papal pronouncements, for this is contrary to the history and Tradition of the Roman Catholic Church and its solemn Thomasistic and scholarly declarations.    If this is true, for popes to rule arbitrarily in spite of Tradition and orthodoxy, we have suddenly come to the fruition of a catholic Marxian state with all the earmarks of liberation theology.   Jorge Brogoglio as a cardinal was familiar with this Jesuitical ideal himself in Buenos Aires, and how in its extreme form to overcome income inequality in a society anything goes, including both forced income redistribution and even violence. Of course, this kind of error must be vehemently condemned and rejected by the Church and , hopefully, Francis will do so as vigorously as he has assaulted Tradition by prohibiting the Franciscan Friars from praying the Tridentine Mass.

There is simply no compromise with truth in orthodoxy in a legitimate papacy of the Catholic Church.   Nor does even the demeanor or “gravitas” of a legitimate pope accept this aberration. Nor does the Magisterium of a legitimate pope trump Tradition or orthodoxy; in fact, a pope is not legitimate if he is not thoroughly orthodox and traditional.    And the “sine quae non’ of orthodoxy and Tradition are an absolute for Christ Himself Who taught the following:
      “He therefore that shall break one of these least commandments and shall so teach men, shall be called least in the kingdom of Heaven.   But he that shall do and teach; he shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven.”   (Matt. 5: 19-20)
        “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of Heaven.”

Such was the mindset of the Pharisees who always needled Christ to lessen the law of the prophets; for example, on marriage, to OK   divorce just like Moses did.   But Christ, on the other hand, strengthened the law making it more orthodox by saying:   “ if a man even looks on a woman with lust , he has already committed adultery.”

In fact, Christ always strengthened a less orthodox law among the Jews, making it more orthodox in His teaching if it was not or “more traditional” if it was not so already.

And so, for a pope to condemn the Traditional Mass is neither of Tradition or Orthodoxy as Francis arbitrarily did so to the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.   Furthermore, such wholly untraditional or unorthodox actions render the legitimacy of this modernist papacy seriously suspect with its self-gratifying ways and reckless decrees against orthodoxy and Tradition.   These kind of decrees must simply be ignored and not followed for they are in essence heretical, namely, the shutting down the praying of the Tridentine Mass, the formalized and official worship of the Catholic Church for virtually 2000 years as recently decreed again by Pope Benedict XVI in his “Motu Proprio”, and such an emergency situation needs to be realized and pursued immediately by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate otherwise face the total devastation of their religious order and the very existence of their holy charism.

Moreover, this is another example of how scandals have always existed in the Church, just as they have existed outside the church in the world.   Furthermore, there is no reason to give up and lose our hope in the Catholic Church.   God’s mystery requires that the wheat and the weeds must needs grow up side by side in the Church until the end of world.

Furthermore, it must be remembered that Christ Himself, founded the Catholic Church on fallible men like St. Peter and the apostles, and that he never promised that those men should never sin, or never commit errors or perform heretical acts such as “suppressing” the Tridentine Mass, the Mass of the Ages as infallibly taught by Pope Pius V and the First Vatican Council.

Likewise the heavenly gift of Infallibility comes to the Church only when teaching about faith and morals and therefore, then only, the Catholic Church is prevented from teaching error by the Holy Spirit. Above all, this doctrine of Infallibility cannot mean that these teachers do not sin, cannot be heretical, or teach error. It’s the Church that cannot err on faith and morals!   Not the popes, including Pope Francis!

Finally, it should be remembered by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate this doctrine of faith as promulgated by Pope Innocent III in his encyclical “De Consuetudine” in which he authoritatively and absolutely taught that “it is necessary to obey a pope in all things as long as he does not go against the universal customs of the Church, but should he go against the universal customs of the Church as Pope Francis has so boldly done, he need not be followed.


What all devout Catholics have a right to expect from any papacy in the Church is that it be pregnant with explicating by decree, by documents, and by every word and example all the truths of the faith in their totality, and original meaning and intent; and this unadulterated by any politically correct deviations from the original deposit of faith as passed down to us through the centuries, forever intact, by the very apostles themselves. And this golden ideal cannot be pursued by any pope or Episcopal leader or priest who ignores Christ’s Own definition of what a good teacher of the Catholic faith really is: “Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you.” ( Matt. 28: 19-21)   This is the Great Commission. Thus by implication here of Christ’s Own Words is that everything must be taught in its orthodox correctness and as its traditional clarity.

One of the most orthodox and traditionally perfect of teachers in this past century is Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. who often commented the following: “You can tell if you are an authentic teacher of the Catholic faith if you are living the eighth beatitude, namely, “Blessed are you when men reproach you, and persecute you, and, speaking falsely, say all manner of evil against you, for My Sake.   Rejoice and exult, because your reward is great in heaven; for so did they persecute the prophets who were before you.”   (Matt. 5: 11-13)

Any pope who declares that it is “not by proselytizing that the faith is to be spread but by one’s personal attraction,” can only be living according to the gospel of St. Jean of the Blue Denim.

j. hughes dunphy