THE FOLLOWING IS A STATEMENT FROM

THE CATHOLIC TRADITIONALIST MOVEMENT

This past Wednesday, March 13, 2013, Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio was elected as Successor to St. Peter.

The Catholic Traditionalist Movement in union with Roman Catholics the world over rejoices in the election of a new Supreme Pontiff, His Holiness Pope Francis. 

We chose not to join the “quick to judge” among so-called “traditionalist” internet press and bloggers, who literally within minutes of his election were already condemning the new pope.  We choose instead to give him a chance and give him our prayers.  While it is true we cannot shower our new pope with unqualified alleluias, let no traditionalist worthy of the name Roman Catholic ever be found among those who have already begun to shout “crucify him! crucify him!”

The new pope’s past record shows that he has upheld traditional Church teaching in the field of sexual morality, the sacredness of the marriage, and celibacy for priests.  In his address to the College of Cardinals this past Thursday, he reminded them of what today’s Gospel tells us that there are two camps, those of God and those of the devil when He told them; “when one does not profess Jesus Christ, one professes the worldliness of the devil.”

While we watched his first public Mass as Pope with sadness this past Thursday, using the worst form of the Novus Ordo Missae, a Mass which was rejected by the late Cardinals Ottaviano and Bacci on no less than 27 counts describing it as “infidelity to that Sacred Deposit of Doctrine to which the Catholic faith is bound forever”, we take heart from the fact that one of his first public acts as Pope was to pray at the tomb of St. Pope Pius V, Pope of the Quo Primum.

We know that to uphold the Church’s moral positions without the True Mass, is like performing plastic surgery on a patient that badly needs heart surgery.  We know that the Mass is the heart by which the Church stands or falls, the heart by which the Church lives or dies.  And we know that no one, neither lay people, single or married, nor religious, nor priests, not even the pope himself can live by the standards of traditional morality unless they are aided and sustained by God’s own grace which only comes to us through the valid sacraments all centered around the valid Roman Catholic Sacrifice of the Mass.

We strongly believe that we must pray hard enough and often enough, especially during this month of March dedicated to St. Joseph, the Patron of the Universal Church, that this new pope not fall into the hands of the enemies of the Church, some who will live with him right inside the Vatican.

A special prayer therefore has been added to the Mass this morning titled “Pro Papa” for the Pope.  We pray that prayer without bitterness but rather with faith and yes, hope.  Hope based on the realization that the night is always darkest just before the dawn. 

May our sacrifices and prayers which we intensify during this Lenten season to the Divine Founder of our Church and to His Immaculate Mother to whom this Chapel is dedicated, enlighten and strengthen Pope Francis and restore him and our Church to where God wants us to be, members of His one, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. One flock under one Shepherd at last united once more together again. Amen!