AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CATHOLIC ARCHBISHOP OF LAGOS, HIS GRACE ALFRED ADEWALE MARTINS ON EBOLA AND COMMUNION IN THE HAND By Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi Your Grace, Thank you for the leaflet which you printed a few weeks ago and which was circulated in the cathedral, entitled: ‘FROM THE ARCHBISHOP’S CIRCULAR ON COMMUNION-IN-THE-HAND.’ In it was written the following: “Following the meeting of the Bishops of the Lagos Ecclesiastical Province, and in line with the resolution of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria that Holy Communion COULD be given in the hand, we have now deemed it necessary to permit in the interim the reception of Holy Communion in the hand as an extraordinary practice while the Ebola Virus alert is on…” Your Grace, put simply, this news, which was also broken in other states of the country, terrified thousands of Catholic faithful across the nation! But a few Catholics, like myself, were not surprised at the news because they know exactly what Vatican II religion is: Satanic! Your Grace, for your information, it is quite impossible for any true Catholic to receive Christ in the Holy Eucharist in the hand; it is equally impossible for any true Catholic to receive Christ in the Holy Eucharist while standing, or from a Rev. Sister, or from any non-priest. By the present practice, Your Grace, Nigerian Catholic Bishops have not only displayed an extraordinary act of faithlessness, they have also betrayed the Church publicly! But we know that it was not really because of Ebola that this novelty has been introduced, because we know that just as it is possible to contract Ebola while giving someone Holy Communion on the tongue, so also is it possible to contract the virus while giving “communion” in the hand. Your Grace, by the present practice Nigerian Bishops must not hope to have really driven out the Ebola Virus, they have rather invited it into the country. As you know, for over 1,900 years of Catholic history, the normal way of receiving Holy Communion, which every bishop or priest is bound to follow, had been and still is by the faithful kneeling down and a validly ordained priest—not a deacon or a Rev. Sister—giving them the Host on the tongue. This custom, which today is only practised by Catholic traditionalists, like members of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) who are now in Nigeria, is simply based on sound Catholic doctrine and the teachings of the ancient Fathers and Doctors of the Church. For instance, Your Grace, Pope St. Sixtus I (circa 115 AD) taught that “the Sacred Vessels are not to be handled by others than those consecrated to the Lord”—meaning that it is actually only a validly ordained priest (whose hand has been consecrated for this very purpose) that is qualified to give Holy Communion to the faithful. The Council of Saragossa (380) excommunicated anyone who dared receiving Holy Communion by hand, and this was confirmed by the Synod of Toledo. The sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople (680-681) forbade the faithful to take the Sacred Host in their hand, threatening transgressors with excommunication. In his famous Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: “Out of reverence towards this Sacrament (the Holy Eucharist), nothing touches it, but what is consecrated; hence the corporal and the chalice are consecrated, and likewise the priest’s hands, for touching this sacrament. Hence, it is not lawful for anyone else to touch it except from necessity, for instance, if it were to fall upon the ground, or else in some other case of urgency” (Summa Theologica, III, 82, 3). In the sixteenth century, the Council of Trent confirmed this: “The fact that only the priest gives Holy Communion is an Apostolic Tradition.” Your Grace, it is a common perception among Catholics that the world began to come apart in earnest around 1960. It is the year that seems in retrospect to mark a great divide beyond which the exhausted remnants of Christendom lost their remaining power to restrain evil, and all that had been unthinkable quickly became commonplace. As you know, the Second Vatican Council, the most prominent fruit of this period, has rightly been described by many as the worst evil that ever befell the Church. Put simply, Vatican II turned the above teachings on the Eucharist upside down, first, by importing modern atheistic democracy into the Catholic Church, giving the priests and bishops the “right” to mess up Catholic doctrines and practices just as they want. On the Eucharist, for instance, Your Grace, now the priests may have maximum time to talk about money and to do so many irrelevant things, even things that have nothing to do with religion altogether, but when it comes to the distribution of Holy Communion, which is one of their primary duties as priests, they complain of one thing or the other—they complain and complain and complain, handing the precious Body of Christ (or what they present as the “body of christ”) either to Deacons or to women (Rev. Sisters who are simply forbidden to climb the Sacred Altar) or to the lay “faithful.” However, Your Grace, there are also some priests who are against this evil practice and want to do the right thing. But these priests are few and are afraid of being seen as “disobedient” priests; that is, because of you, Your Grace, they are forced to sin against the Church! Here of course we see the truism in a remark once made by Father Herman Kramer in The Book of Destiny—referring to what will be the state of the Catholic Church during the time prophesied by the Saints and prophets of old: “The apostolic democracy founded by Our Lord may have given way to an absolute monarchy, in which the episcopate rules with oriental despotism. The priests may be reduced to a state of servility and fawning sycophancy. The rule by reason, justice and love may have been supplanted by the absolute will of the bishop, whose every act and word are to be accepted without question, without recourse to fact, truth or justice. Conscience may have lost its right to guide the actions of the priests and may stand ignored or condemned. Diplomacy, expediency and other trickery may be upheld as the greatest virtues.” Your Grace, priests who have chosen to obey you on this issue of Communion in the hand and disobey God will be punished by God on the last day. They must understand that the Church is the kingdom of God on earth, a kingdom where love and justice prevail in all things, not a kingdom of darkness where “Diplomacy, expediency and other trickery are upheld as the greatest virtues.” Catholics must understand that in our Church, nobody is infallible, and in fact, apart from when he teaches ex-cathedra, not even the pope. They must understand that only the solemn teachings—the solemn definitions of the Catholic Church are infallible, and they must understand that only these teachings we are bound to follow in all things, to obey in all things, not the bishops who are mere humans that can make terrible mistakes. Catholics must understand that “Apostolic Democracy” actually exists in the Catholic Church. For instance, Catholics must know that just because a priest like Father Michael Umoh or the current administrator of Holy Cross Cathedral, Father Anthony Oyeniyi, is of a lower rank than say Cardinal Onaiyekan or Bishop Kukah, that does not mean that anything Cardinal Onaiyekan or Bishop Kukah says is necessarily right and that any priest who may disagree with them on some theological point they make is necessarily wrong. No! That is why the Church has infallible definitions. It is by measuring any given teaching against the solemn, infallible definitions that we find out if something is true or false—not by what rank in the clergy a person has. For instance, it was a lay man, a lawyer named Eusebius, who pointed out that Nestorius, a high-ranking archbishop in Ephesus, was wrong when he denied that Mary is the Mother of God. Today many Catholics the world over venerate Our Lady as the Mother of God but they do not know how that doctrine—the Theotokos—was fought for and won by just a lay man. How did it happen? The orthodox doctrine states that there are two natures in Jesus Christ, one divine and one human, which though distinct, are joined in one Person and substance. Nestorius, on the contrary, claimed that in Christ a divine and a human Person acted as one, but did not join to compose the unity of a single individual. He also aroused much opposition by preaching against the use of the title Theotokos for Mary the Mother of Christ. Nestorius preached this doctrine on a certain Christmas Day, during Mass, in the 4th century AD. Before the congregation he stated that the divine Logos dwelt in the man Jesus as in a temple, and that the union of the two was in respect of dignity, and furthermore that, inasmuch as the Logos could not have been born, to call Mary ‘‘God-bearer’’ (Theotokos) was absurd and blasphemous. Just then, a lawyer, named Eusebius, stood right up in the pews and denounced the bishop for preaching heresy—a bold attitude simply unthinkable in today’s Church overshadowed by human respect. Eusebius stood right up in the pews on Christmas Day, during Mass, and denounced Nestorius for preaching heresy. Yet all the “high ranking” priests and bishops had remained silent in the face of Nestorius’ heresy. So a mere layman was right and all the rest of them were wrong. So, Your Grace, the truth is not a matter of numbers or rank; the truth is a matter of what Christ or God has revealed in Sacred Scripture and Tradition and what has been solemnly defined by the Catholic Church and what the Catholic Church has always taught. Many Catholics today also believe that just because it is said that the Pope is infallible, therefore any pronouncement a pope makes is perfectly okay and must be obeyed by all Catholics. Your Grace, this belief also stems from massive ignorance of Church history and the doctrine of papal infallibility, which only teaches that when the pope makes ex-cathedra pronouncements, or when he makes a solemn definition, his teaching becomes infallible. Outside this, Your Grace, we know that the pope also can fail because he is not God but a mere human being. For example, when Pope John XXII, back in the 14th Century AD, gave sermons (but not solemn definitions), in which he insisted that the blessed departed do not enjoy the Beatific Vision until the day of General Judgment, he was denounced and corrected by theologians, and he finally retracted his heretical opinion on his deathbed. So those theologians were right but Pope John XXII was wrong! In the Bible we also have the case of St. Peter, the first Pope, who was rightly rebuked publicly by St. Paul for giving the false impression that the First Council of Jerusalem was wrong in its infallible teaching that the Mosaic Ceremonial Law, including the prohibition against Jews eating with “unclean” Gentiles, was not binding in the Catholic Church. (Gal. 2: 11-14). Your Grace, there are many other examples but I cannot state them all here because of space. By citing these examples, however—particularly the last one above—I do not in any way imply that the teachings of Vatican II popes can be compared to those of all the pre-Vatican II Popes. They are simply incomparable! Your Grace, since the post-Vatican II revolution began, the liturgical change that faithful Catholics regard as most horrifying is communion in the hand. It overthrows everything— everything we had been taught to believe about the ineffable holiness of the Real Presence and the sacred character of the priesthood. The 16th-century Protestant heretics who abolished communion on the tongue and introduced communion in the hand were well aware of the doctrines the old practice represented, and changed the mode of receiving communion precisely in order to overthrow these teachings. So too, during and after Vatican II. The modernist heretics—great and small—who promoted errors such as transfinalization, transignification, a “transient” presence of Christ in the Eucharist, assembly theology or a “lay” priesthood inevitably also advocated communion in the hand. Denying Catholic dogmas on the Real Presence and the priesthood went together with the new ritual practice—which says that “there is nothing special here; just plain old bread!” Your Grace, the practice of receiving Holy Communion in the hand first began to spread in Catholic circles during the early 1960s, primarily in Holland, then Belgium, France and Germany. In November 1969 the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) decided at its Plenary Assembly to submit a formal request to the Vatican II Paul VI for “permission” to distribute “Holy Communion” in the hand and it was granted to them. The CCCB’s argument then was not something similar to the Ebola saga, rather it informed its members that “the growing participation in the Eucharist, especially by sacramental communion, has created within man the desire to see re-established the venerable custom of receiving the Eucharistic Bread in their hands”—thus giving the false impression that something like that existed in the past! While not explicitly forbidding Communion on the tongue, the “faithful”—especially first communicants and converts—were “encouraged to receive the Eucharistic Bread on the flat palm of the hand.” This movement towards adopting a new, single policy was reinforced by the removal of the Communion rail, which is compatible with receiving Communion on the tongue. Once the faithful were effectively forced to stand for “Holy Communion” (instead of kneeling) and the practice of receiving in the hand became the norm, lay people were then invited to come up to the altar and distribute “Holy Communion.” Eventually and unfortunately this practice also became normalized. Your Grace, then one of the major arguments given for supporting the practice of receiving “Holy Communion” in the hand was that it “emphasizes an active personal involvement, one of the goals of liturgical renewal.” (CCCB). If, however, this was one of the bishops’ primary motivations behind their quest for legitimate renewal, one has to wonder why the most solemn act of kneeling at the moment of Holy Communion was considered expendable when for centuries it was employed because of its immeasurable benefit of predisposing one to holiness. Communion in the hand was mostly promoted by the Vatican II John Paul II, a man who, as I write, Catholic pundits all over the world are still debating whether he was even a Catholic in the first place, let alone a pope. After John Paul II, many who advocated more traditional liturgical practices looked upon Vatican II Benedict XVI as a sympathetic ally who sought to restore tradition in Catholic worship. Hence, the “permission” given for the “Old Mass”, the reappearance of “old-style” vestments at St. Peter’s, the encouragement given to worthy sacred music, etc. But as you also know, Your Grace, before he occupied the throne of St. Peter Josef Ratzinger was accused of heresy for denying the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist following his work “Die Sacramentale Begrundung Christiliche Existenz” in which he wrote—and I quote: “To go to the Church on the ground that one can visit God who is present there is a senseless act which modern man rightly rejects.” This book, Your Grace, is still on sale even as I write. But surprisingly, the same Ratzinger, as Benedict XVI, was said to have “promoted” adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Eucharist and in fact, to have “put an end to the act of Communion in the Hand!” The following statements of Benedict XVI are often cited in this regard: “I am not opposed in principle to Communion in the hand; I have both administered and received Communion in this way myself. The idea behind my current practice of having people kneel to receive Communion on the tongue was to send a signal and to underscore the Real Presence with an exclamation point. One important reason is that there is a great danger of superficiality precisely in the kinds of Mass events we hold at Saint Peter’s, both in the Basilica and in the Square. I have heard of people who, after receiving Communion, stick the Host in their wallet to take home as a kind of souvenir. In this context, where people think that everyone is just automatically supposed to receive Communion—everyone else is going up, so I will, too–I wanted to send a clear signal. I wanted it to be clear: Something quite special is going on here! He is here, the One before whom we fall on our knees! Pay attention!” (Light of the World, Ignatius Press, pg. 159) Despite these statements, Your Grace, traditional Catholics around the world did not take Benedict XVI seriously because they rightly understood the angle from which he was operating. For, they were sure, in their Catholic consciences, that one cannot just deny the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist without making a public confession and reparation to that effect and still remain a Catholic. Your Grace, I cannot dabble into this issue here because of space. It may suffice, however, to state briefly that upon closer examination, one quickly discovers that Ratzinger/Benedict’s starting point for arriving at the above conclusions is often located in another theological universe: e.g., attractive “sacrality,” culture, sensibilities, the Teilhardian cosmos, richness. (See Work of Human Hands, 5–6, 170–72). This should come as no surprise, because the young Josef Ratzinger was himself formed in the mid-20th century modernist theological universe that rejected the methods and principles of Thomist (i.e. Catholic) theology, so the traditional tone of Benedict’s practical conclusions should not divert us from the poisonous principles behind them. The modernist George Tyrrell (1861–1909), after all, was likewise a great fan of the Latin High Mass, “with all its suggestion of mystery, faith and reverence.” (Through Scylla and Charybdis, 34). Courtesy of Benedict XVI, conservatives and advocates of officially-sanctioned celebrations of the “old Mass” are thus left without a fixed theological principle upon which to hang their opposition to communion in the hand. It was all “context”— the Holy Father said so! But, Your Grace, Trent has an answer to Benedict XVI: “If anyone says that after the consecration the body and blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ are not present in the marvelous sacrament of the Eucharist, but are present only in the use of the sacrament while it is being received, and not before or after, and that the true body of the Lord does not remain in the consecrated hosts or particles that are kept or are left over after Communion: let him be anathema” (Canon 4). Hence, Your Grace, the point here is very simple: namely, that we are perfectly aware that Vatican II churchmen do not really believe in the Real Presence. To buttress this point, you know that Francis I, who in February 2014 gave “permission” for a married Maronite Catholic to be ordained a priest in St. Louis in the United States, recently told a divorced and remarried woman that it was okay to take Communion even though her parish priest denied her the Host. The Argentine woman had written to him about whether she should receive communion at Mass even though she was divorced and remarried. “There are priests who are more papist than the pope,” Francis himself reportedly told Jacquelina Lisbona. Your Grace, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis I have rightly been described as popes who would pretend to be Catholic but would in fact be liberals, whose talk might be right-wing but whose action is left-wing, who are characterized by their contradictions, ambiguity, Hegelian dialectic, in brief, by their lies. There are two hundred and sixty popes (260) that have ruled the Catholic Church since the time of Christ, and these five men—together with John Paul I who is unknown—make the figure 266. But they are radically different from these 260 popes and are in no way ashamed of being seen as such. Indeed, we are into the New Church of Vatican II, just as Our Lady stated that “Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist…the Church will be in eclipse.” Our Lady made this prophecy on September 19, 1846 at La Salette, France, and we are witnessing it now. And then, Your Grace, is there any difference between what these Modernist Popes have done to the Holy Mother Church and what you and your colleagues have also done and are now doing again to our Divine Master here in Nigeria? In view of all this, Your Grace, I have decided to add in this Letter a testimony of a former Eucharistic Minister which I think will particularly address our present ugly situation. The write-up entitled “Letter to His Holiness, Pope John Paul II,” was written by Charles Andre St. George, an ex-Eucharistic Minister and was published in the Fatima Crusader, a US-based Catholic magazine in 2006 with the title ‘CONFESSION OF A EUCHARISTIC MINISTER.’ Father Nicholas Gruner sent the magazine to me some years back. Here I have added the entire Letter just as it was written by Charles St. George. Mr. George’s “Letter”, Your Grace, was addressed to John Paul II, but whether his confession was ever paid attention to or not is another question which I cannot answer here because of space. Of course, Your Grace, every learned Catholic knows, as I have already stated, that the act of giving “Holy Communion” in the hand was mostly promoted by John Paul II himself—so the possibility that he must have ignored the content of that Letter is certain. Your Grace, as you know, often the shallow excuse the priests give for “permitting” all hands to touch the sacred Host is that during His time on earth Our Lord did it that way. Your Grace, for this very reason the Master Himself—very sad—visited Rev. Sister Hermana Gaudalupe on the 14th of April 1989, during the pontificate of John Paul II, and gave a moving message in which He debunks this Satanic argument and threatens to deal with the world Catholic Bishops, Priests, Rev. Sisters and lay “faithful” who are involved in this sacrilege. Put simply, no one who reads this message—except the Devil himself—will ever imagine, let alone indulge in, this scandal again. Your Grace, if you care, I will gladly send this “private revelation” to you. As you also know, Your Grace, now another prominent excuse often given by Nigerian bishops and priests for “permitting” the present scandal is simply that it is so done in the Western countries! Well, as you can see, Your Grace, Charles St. George is not a Nigerian. On the contrary, he is a Westerner who testifies against the evil he sees in the Catholic Churches in the Western world. Your Grace, in the write-up below, Charles St. George gives us a first-hand report to prove his point and that of all traditionalists all over the world, namely that the act of giving “Holy Communion” in the hand is sacrilegious and total disrespect for God the Son. The writer requests forgiveness of his sin and the lifting of excommunication. We print here excerpts of his research and findings: LETTER TO HIS HOLINESS, POPE JOHN PAUL II: ‘I, Charles Andre St. George, accuse myself of committing and participating in grievous and numerous outrages against the Most Blessed Sacrament from about 1980 to 1991. Please hear my plea and grant my requests. ‘First, I have only recently learned according to The Roman Catechism, page 233 “that in this Sacrament are contained not only the true Body of Christ and all the constituents of a true body, such as bones and sinews, but also Christ, whole and entire” and further that, page 239 “the Body of Our Lord is contained whole and entire under the least particle of the bread.” ‘Second, I have only recently learned that according to The Catholic Concise Encyclopedia, page 153 “Excommunication is imposed according to the reservation as follows: ‘(a) Acts reserved to the Holy See in a very special manner are: throwing away, taking or retaining for evil purposes the consecrated species.” ‘I confess that I have thrown away or caused to be thrown away approximately 60,000 consecrated Hosts from 1980 to 1991 and that I caused many of these Hosts to be repeatedly trampled under foot or otherwise desecrated. These grave sins were not motivated by formal hatred of God, but from a motive more banal—I did not care. This is what I did: I was an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist and I sometimes received Our Lord in the hand instead of on the tongue, as well. As most communicants wanted to receive in the hand, I would gently place the Host in their palm. As proven in my attached scientific analysis conducted with the aid of my teenage son, Joseph ... ‘When one receives Communion in the hand there are, on average, about four visible Particles detaching from that same Host. ‘For this trial, I bought from Catholic Supply of St. Louis, Missouri hosts advertised as: “We are pleased to offer by far the best altar bread. All of our breads have a carefully molded sealed edge which prevents crumbs.” We used the “best” and the test result was an average of 3.68 crumbs per Communion. ‘I believe I may have distributed perhaps 15,000 Hosts to communicants. It is reasonable to assume that this generated about 60,000 visible, though tiny Particles. When I would receive Communion in the hand, I would check my palm and sometimes find one or two or even more fragments of the Sacred Species. While I tried to immediately consume these by attracting them with the tip of my right index finger, I am confident that not all Particles were always safely consumed. As Eucharistic Minister, of many thousands of Hosts placed in palms, I never once observed anyone else examining their palm or fingertips to see if there were Particles remaining. ‘So, what happened to these 60,000 Particles containing our Lord and God of which I bear responsibility? Quite simply, they would eventually detach from the palms and fingertips of these communicants as they changed position to folded hands and the Particles would drop to the floor, or be brushed against their clothing and detach, or find their way to destinations unknown. Most should be assumed to have dropped to the floor while still in the church. The above doctrine states that these Particles were the fullness of Jesus our God just as surely as the large host which the priest consecrates for his own consumption! ‘Like myself, Catholics who have gone to Mass at a church where there has been Communion in the hand encounter a veritable minefield where they have mindlessly, repeatedly set their heels against the Holy Face of Jesus Christ Himself! ‘The thought of this HORRIFIES me now. Some, myself included, simply did not care to know what they were doing. Still, does not Our Lord withdraw Himself in anguish from such as do these things and care not? What must the Holy Virgin think of this treatment of Her crucified Son? ‘Not for me, but for the love you bear the Virgin Mother of God, I beg from Your Holiness two things: Please lift this very specially reserved excommunication and forgive these most grievous sins, committed without even caring, against Our Lord’s very Person. ‘Particle Study April 17, 2002 Feast of St. Anicetus ‘My teenaged son, Joseph, was my aide in this study, acting the part of the communicant while I acted the part of the Eucharistic Minister. For the purposes of this trial, I purchased from Catholic Supply of St. Louis, Missouri a box of 1000 1-1/8 diameter white altar breads, item #57212, advertised on their web-site catholicsupply/churchs/wine.html as follows: “We are pleased to offer by far the best altar bread. All of our breads have a carefully molded sealed edge which prevent crumbs.” —The questioned truthfulness of that critical conclusion, naively believed by many, is one reason this trial was decided upon. ‘For this trial, Joseph and I prepared by carefully washing our hands and fingers and drying same with lintless towels. We then examined our fingertips and Joseph’s left palm which would each contact the host to be assured they contained no foreign matter which could be mistaken for a bread particle. I determined we would look for particles after each and every individual “communion” in three areas — my fingertips, Joseph’s palm and Joseph’s fingertips. I further determined that we would count the results from 25 “communions” and record how many particles were found and where. We would only count “naked-eye visible” particles we could both see. ‘The contents of one packet of altar breads was carefully emptied into a small plastic cup. Recalling my training as a Eucharistic Minister (may God forgive me), I would gently take up a host between my right index finger and thumb and place this host in Joseph’s left palm with only sufficient firmness to assure it would be transferred. Joseph commented that Eucharistic Ministers at Masses he attended were less gentle in transferring the Host to his palm. He would then take the host between his right index finger and thumb and place it on his tongue without touching his fingers to his tongue. Joseph would then keep his right index finger against his thumb and hold his left palm upward while we both inspected: first, my right index finger, then my right thumb, then his left palm, then his right index finger, and finally his right thumb for any particle of bread fractured from the host and adhering to us as a result of this multiple manipulation and touching. We would carefully scrape away any particle found before the next “communion” with the blade of a sharp knife to be assured of not counting any particle twice. ‘What were our trial findings? Were there particles of bread fractured from these 25 hosts taken one at a time from a cup and placed in Joseph’s palm and taken from his palm and transferred to his mouth? We were both disturbed at how many Particles: ‘From the 25 “Communions”, we found a grand total of 92 individual, naked-eye visible Particles which averages to 3.68 Particles per “Communion.” ‘As detailed in the statistical information (see below), we counted 27 particles from my fingertips, 47 particles from Joseph’s palm and another 18 particles from Joseph’s fingertips. It is hoped that this trial will work to the honor of Our Lord and aid those who still care for Him. Particle Study This day a brief scientific trial was undertaken to verifiably ascertain how many, if any, consecrated Particles of the Sacred Species are typically broken away from the Hosts, and subsequently thrown-away, desecrated and abused specifically as a consequence of the practice of Communion in the hand in the Catholic Church today. ‘YOU, the reader of this letter, are hereby called upon to do all in your power to put an end to this greater evil which presumes to treat God Himself in a most degrading manner. God will not embrace at the gates of Heaven those who throw away and trample His very Person. This warning is sent that you may have NO EXCUSE at the Judgment. The Japanese Emperor, when putting True Catholics to death some centuries ago, offered them a chance to renounce the Faith and save their skins. All they had to do to renounce their Faith and deny Christ was to step upon a wooden cross placed on the ground and they could go free. Not even this Emperor was so demonic and wicked as to tempt these martyrs to step upon a consecrated Host — Almighty God Himself; but most Catholic bishops are now de facto commanding us to do this very thing and that this be repeated every time one so much as enters one of these execrable churches. ‘Anyone who enters into a church where Communion-in-the-hand has been done without same being respectfully purified of these Particles of God, enters a veritable minefield of these “least Particles” strewn across the floors where they will, with moral certainty, be grinding their heels into the Holy Face of Jesus. That you do not now see Him on the floors of these churches is perfectly understandable — if your heart is not filled with an all consuming love of God and devotion to His Holy Mother as beautifully explained in True Devotion to Mary by Saint Louis de Montfort. Jesus sees Himself on these floors a thousand times over just as surely as He sees your sins committed at times you will to believe He sees you not! If you do not see Him there it is because you do not wish to see Him, and those who do not wish to see Him shall have that wish granted irrevocably and for all eternity. Amen. Amen. ‘May the Virgin Mother of God be ever merciful to those who fight against this outrage of Her crucified Son, but may Her heel crush the reprobates’ heads who laugh with Satan as Her Divine Son is abused with contempt most foul.’ Your Grace, that was the Letter. I urge you, in the name of our Most Holy and Righteous Lord, to abandon the present practice of communion in the hand. If you do, other bishops in the country will certainly follow your example. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, secretary of the Vaticans Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments under Benedict XVI, was very much aware that many cardinals, bishops and priests who are promoting communion in the hand do not really believe in the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and this was what led him to suggest that the policy of giving communion in the hand be “abandoned altogether.” It was Archbishop Ranjith’s belief that the introduction of this evil practice after Vatican II has resulted in indifference, outrages and sacrileges toward Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, causing great harm to both the Catholic Church and to individual souls. In the preface to a book by Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan, Dominus Est: Meditations of a Bishop from Central Asia on the Sacred Eucharist, Archbishop Ranjith notes that the practice of receiving Communion in the hand was not introduced in response to calls from the laity. Instead, he argues, the established practice of piety—receiving the Eucharist kneeling, on the tongue—was changed “improperly and hurriedly,” and became widespread even before it was formally approved by the Vatican. Your Grace, I want you to be another Archbishop Ranjith, in Nigeria. Dominus tecum, may the Lord be with you. (+Jonathan Ekene Ifeanyi, a novelist, is a student of classical Greek and Latin, philosophy and ancient history. He is well versed in church history and has written a masterpiece, Telling The Truth, on that).
Posted on: Thu, 18 Sep 2014 09:25:17 +0000
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