ON THE MODERNIST ITCH TO REBUKE: A Memorial Insight

“For there shall be a time when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”

— 2 Timothy 4:3

Prologue: A Birthday Reflection

October 24th.

I pause to thank God — not merely for life, but for the greater gift of Faith. In these dark and confusing times, when the synthesis of all errors wears the robes of religion and silence dares to masquerade as charity, a sublimely great grace is simply to see through the deception and stand steadfast upon the ground and bulwark of Faith.

This little reflection is born from a brief but revealing exchange on the battlefield of words that now passes for the “public square.” A simple post shared to edify became a window into the strange restlessness of the Modernist enthusiast’s soul: always rebuking, always correcting, yet never believing.

Let us look, then, at the Modernist itch to rebuke — that peculiar eagerness to scold fidelity while defending falsehood, to quote commandments while forgetting the God who gave them.

I. Truth Proclaimed, Error Unmasked

I shared a post which reads:

 “God does not demand compromise. The Novus Ordo has never been the Catholic Church and will never be. It does not matter how much reverence the priest or the people have for it. And it doesn’t matter if it’s said in Latin. It is not the Catholic Mass and it will never be.”

These are by no means the words of pride, but of love — love for the God of Truth and for souls who must not be deceived. And indeed, a number of uncompromising Catholics, edified, liked or retweeted the same. 

But immediately came a rebuke from a trolling Modernist enthusiast, one steeped in the religion of “niceness,” quoting fragments of catechism like stones against Catholic intransigence. He cried out:

“To like or retweet is to affirm. To affirm is to witness. If you bear false witness, it is a sin.”

Ah yes, he remembered the Eighth Commandment — but forgot the First! Oops… 

Think on this:

• what greater false witness can there be than to call false worship “true,” and to dress a man-made ceremony in the garments of the spotless Sacrifice of Calvary?

To name error as faith, and fabrication as Tradition, is not mere confusion — it is blasphemy disguised as devotion. It is to place man’s work on God’s altar, and then dare to call it holy. 

II. The Mask of Moralism

This is the Modernist’s favorite disguise: moral language without faith. He scolds, but he does not believe. He speaks of commandments, but he forgets their Author.

His speech carries the tone of righteousness, yet beneath it coils the serpent’s hiss — “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace; “charity,” when truth is denied.

He cloaks betrayal with the language of virtue, rebuke with a smile of tolerance. He cautions others not to “bear false witness,” yet he himself bears the gravest false witness — against the Church that gave him the Faith, against the true Mass that sanctified the saints, and against Christ Himself, really present upon our altars, whom he now replaces with a human invention and calls it worship.

Yes. With smooth words he dethrones the Lord of Glory, replaces His Sacrifice with a human ceremony, and calls it worship — exchanging Calvary for a stage, and the Divine Victim for the applause of men, ecumenical-synodal applause.

III. The Boast of Empty Experience

To strengthen his rebuke, he boasts:

 “The Tridentine Mass — and I have served over 1500 — existed for less than 20% of Church history.”

What a boast! As though numbers conferred wisdom, or attendance at holy things gave understanding of them. Did not Judas himself serve at the First Mass?

A boast wedded to a dismal historical distortion! No!  The Tridentine Mass is no “recent invention,” but the crown of centuries, the ripened flower of apostolic worship. It is the same Holy Sacrifice offered by the Apostles, preserved through the ages, and solemnly codified by St. Pius V — not invented, but defended — against the very Protestant novelties whose spirit now breathes through the Modernist ecumenical service the enthusiast so proudly upholds.

To say it “existed only for 20% of Church history” is to say that the sun shone “only” after it rose. The Roman Rite did not appear at Trent — it was safeguarded there, so that no hand of man might dare touch what came from God.

Meanwhile — who can tell? Those “over 1500” Tridentine Masses he boasts of serving may well have been mere imitations — mock Masses offered by lay-robed conservative modernist agents posing as guardians of tradition. You see? not every Latin word or folded hand makes a priest, and not every ceremony that looks ancient is the true Sacrifice of the Altar.

IV. The Denial of the Obvious

Next came the Modernist’s proud retort:

“Never heard of the Novus Ordo Church.”

Of course he hasn’t. The Modernist enthusiast no longer sees contradiction because he no longer believes in truth. He does not recognize that the Modernist false religion now occupies what was once the visible shell of the Catholic Church — a counterfeit structure where once stood the sanctuary of the True Faith.

To him, “Church” is an elastic tent that stretches to include all who “mean well” - except uncompromising Catholics, of course. He speaks of unity, but not of doctrine. He imagines that the worship of God can change with the spirit of the times.

Indeed, the saints and popes of old would recognize this counterfeit faith at a glance — a religion no longer centered on God, but on man.

It is the offspring of ecumenism without truth and human pride without repentance: a creed that flatters the senses, glorifies earthly unity, and empties divine worship of its sacrifice.

Here, the altar has become a stage, the Mass a performance, and the priest a presenter. Every sermon becomes a hymn to the world, seasoned with fragments of Catholic phraseology to retain a pious appearance — words polished, but faith diluted; ceremonies sometimes ornate like the High Anglicans, but grace absent.

It is the religion of horizontal charity without conversion, of universal brotherhood without the Cross, where man is adored in the very place where God once reigned. The saints would not have called it renewal, but apostasy clothed in liturgical silk.

V. The Accusation That Reveals All

And finally, with the air of triumph, he declares:

 “I am a member of the Roman Catholic Church. You are a member of a Protestant sect started by men in 1981.”

How rich the irony! The defender of a rite written by a committee with the inspiring assistance of six Protestant pastors under a papal impostor who longed to please the world, now calls the faithful remnant “Protestant.” What a height of absurdity! 

But it is he who follows the principles of private judgment as thought by his modernist masters — who picks and chooses what to believe based on feeling and fashion. It is he who has abandoned the divine Tradition handed down by the Apostles and replaced it with the new gospel of secular human dignity and interreligious fellowship.

In truth, the “sect started by men” is not the small remnant that clings to the Faith of all ages, but the Modernist counterfeit that seized the Church’s name while emptying her of substance.

• Its beginnings were plotted in secrecy, when infiltrators conspired to reconcile the Church with the errors of the world — replacing divine Revelation with human experience, immutable dogma with shifting dialogue, and the Cross with self-worship.

• It was unveiled in 1962 under the pretense of a “pastoral council,” where ambiguity became the weapon of revolution. Doctrines once defined with heavenly clarity were now expressed in double-tongued phrases that permitted heresy to flourish under the guise of renewal.

• It took flight in 1965, when the council was closed and its new principles unleashed — a religion of man masquerading as the faith of Christ, in which authority became a servant of opinion and worship was reduced to a communal performance.

• It was enthroned in 1969, when the so-called Novus Ordo Missae replaced the immemorial Roman Rite — the true and propitiatory Sacrifice — with a Protestantized meal that blurred the distinction between priest and people, sacred and profane.

• But the groundwork for this enthronement was already laid in 1968, when Paul VI promulgated the new rite of Episcopal Consecration, a rite altered in form and intention , just like the Anglican ordinal, rendering it absolutely null and utterly void . With that act, the visible chain linking countless bishops back to the Apostles was all but severed, and the hierarchy of the new religion ceased, to be truly Catholic in sacramental reality.

Thus, the false church that now parades as “Catholic” is not the continuation of Peter’s See, but the religion of man enthroned where God once reigned — a counterfeit born of Modernism -the synthesis of all heresies, confirmed by false rites, and sustained by illusion. The true remnant, on the other hand, remains the unchanged spouse of Christ, clinging to the faith, sacraments, and worship handed down from the Apostles, ever faithful to Him who is “yesterday, and today, and the same forever.”

VI. The Oak and the Reed

How clear the contrast!

• The uncompromising Priest stands like an oak rooted on Calvary, unmoved by the storm. He speaks firmly, not to win applause, but to save souls. His words burn because they come from the fire of truth.

• The Modernist enthusiast, meanwhile, is a reed bending with every wind. He quotes commandments without believing in their Giver. He mistakes politeness for holiness, popularity for unity, and tolerance for charity.

• The true priest stands in the clear light of truth — firm, visible, and obedient to God.
• The Modernist, shrinking from that same light, retreats into the fog of ambiguity and dares to call his confusion “humility.”

Adoring the Word made Flesh,  Sacramentality and Really made present by my lowly ministry - on the day of my birth... 

VII. The True Witness and the False

To “like” or “share” the truth is to confess Christ before men; to “like” or “share” falsehood is to deny Him before His angels. The Eighth Commandment flows from the First, for to betray truth is to betray God Himself.

Those who defend the Novus Ordo defend another altar, animated by another spirit, directed toward another end — not the worship of the Triune God, but the exaltation of man. To speak the full truth, even when it wounds pride or breaks friendships, is to offer a sacrifice of fidelity to the living God.

The rebuke of the Modernist is hollow, for he cannot bear the light he claims to love. Yet the silence of a priest who knows the truth would be a sin crying to Heaven. To defend compromise is to pierce again the Heart of Christ; to expose error is to console Him and keep watch at His Cross.

Let it be said plainly: as always, but moreso in these days of masqueraded charity and fashionable neutrality, to rebuke compromise is not cruelty but love; not pride but fidelity; not false witness, but the bearing of the Cross itself.

Servant of God, Don Luigi Guanella,  my Priestly model of Catholic Intransigence and Charity, whose death-day is my birthday... 

Closing Reflection

So on this day of my birth anniversary, also the day of the death anniversary of the Servant of God, Don Luigi Guanella, my Priestly model Catholic Intransigence and Charity, I thank God not only for natural life, but for divine light.

• For to see truth in an age of deception is mercy;

• to speak it, grace;

• to suffer for it, glory.

May the Good Lord preserve us, through the prayers of His Immaculate Mother,

from the Modernist itch to rebuke what is holy, and grant us the courage to rebuke what is false and to be faithful unto death— for His honour, for His Church, and for the salvation of souls. Amen!