Rector's letters

In our carefree childhood we built wonderful houses of cards, but we felt sad and helpless when they collapsed. Years have passed, our childhood is gone and our adult vocation weighs upon our shoulders with heavy responsibilities. We have left behind the joys and sorrows of our childhood and have received in exchange the charge of our children’s souls. Yet, it seems that our childhood is not totally over, as sometimes we see the castles we build in the air collapse with the first breeze that comes along. It is not rare to have resounding failures regarding our children and see our young left miserably stranded, at the mercy of their passions. Is this shipwreck of our young inevitable? Should we remain untroubled and plead in our defense the harshness of the present times or the weakness of their souls?

The glorious hymn of the angelic choirs, bursting into the silence of the Christmas night, illuminates men with the amazing news of Our Lord’s birth: “Unto you a child is born, a Savior is given to you, come all and worship Him.” And in the souls eager to serve God peace is established. Divine benevolence inclines towards our misery, and God, thwarting all human calculation, espouses our vile condition. In taking upon Himself our misery, He offers us the treasure of His divinity in a royal exchange!

The environment in which man is immersed exerts a predominant influence and has a hold over him which, exceeding the simple sphere of his behavior, reaches his very self. Who does not know, for instance, that climates give each country its specific character and shape its inhabitants’ temperament? Beyond climatic variations, we must consider the influences of the spiritual order, whose impact is all the more remarkable since it is imperceptible. Yet our soul receives from it a deep and often indelible mark. Thus, family strongly marks the child, and his adult reactions will tomorrow bear the trace of this first impression.

The timeless beauty of Rome, the Eternal City, enables the soul to contemplate the harmony of eternal truth. The Conciliar revolution, however, has tainted her greatness and she bears the scars. The modernist villainy, as a thousand-faced hydra, reigns in the bosom of this sacred shrine. Cardinal Kasper embodies one of these faces. A German, he is frequently mentioned as candidate to the papal throne, a key figure of modernism and head of the Congregation for the Unity of Christians, he has made himself the champion of ecumenism. Accustomed for a long time to distilling the poison of errors that smack of heresy, he has used his Cardinal’s hat to acquire an additional aura. Thus, self-assured by his Roman responsibilities, he disseminates with authority and total impunity the worst, most insane errors, putting souls into the road to their eternal damnation.

The helm has broken down and the ship, left to itself, is drifting as waves and currents dictate. As a frail raft lost in the middle of the sea, it is but a wisp of straw at the ocean’s mercy. Like the drunken wandering of a boat adrift, man today staggers along, haggard and swept away by dark currents which use his passions in order to subject him to their dominion. Where does this deadly drunkenness come from, which leads man to the edge of the abyss without his being aware of it?