> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://atangleofviews.ghost.io/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # The Jesus Generator - URL: https://atangleofviews.ghost.io/the-jesus-generator/ - Published: 2026-05-30T00:00:17.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-05T01:44:33.000Z - Author: heedless The Society of St. Pius X is set to hold episcopal consecrations very shortly. I found this [document](https://sspx-declaration.netlify.app) of theirs online, and it is a remarkable source for understanding just how different the Catholic religion of today is from its pre-conciliar form. When I say "different," I mean to suggest that an ontological change in the character of certain doctrines has occurred, leading one to conclude that the religion now actively contradicts itself. This contradiction is logically impossible if one assumes the traditional Catholic understanding of the deposit of faith. It is this deposit which *cannot* say one thing in one century, and then something entirely different in another, *at least on certain significant matters of faith and morals*. Catholicism is not ideologically conservative – it is conservative in the way that a steward, left to watch the palatial estate, is careful to keep the place intact so that when his master returns, everything is as it should be. It only takes one rupture to cause doubt to enter the mind. *Cantate Domino* was a papal bull issued by Pope Eugene IV at the Council of Florence (1438-1444) which holds ecumenical status in the Latin Church. I double-checked AI tonight since this was my recollection, but I wasn't entirely sure since memory is fallible. Had it been a local synod of bishops, its findings would have been less certain and its binding on the conscience of Catholics doubtful. Ecumenical councils held under the auspices of the Pope of Rome are universal in scope, covering matters of import for all Christians. While there are different opinions on the status of Vatican II, a pastoral council which did not settle theological questions, there has not been any dispute in the last six hundred years over Florence's. Its decrees are considered binding, inerrant, and part of the ordinary magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church. They are *de fide definita –* A settled matter requiring assent of believers. One of the teachings of *Cantate* is that the Mosaic covenant is no longer operative, it having been superseded by the new covenant of Christ and the institution of the sacraments. With these, the previous Jewish ritual laws, sacrifices, and observances were made null and void. Whatever efficacy they held was replaced by the sacraments. To hold then that circumcision, the keeping of the 613 Torah precepts, temple observance, and so on are still required contradicts centuries of Christian teachings. The Orthodox East and the Latin West were never divided on this point either. However, there were separated churches in Africa that *did* continue to practice Jewish customs, such as circumcision. Circa Florence, Latin theologians were alarmed by these, and, in order to re-establish communion with these distant bodies, the role of the Mosaic law post-Christ had to be defined. Hence, *Cantate*'s singling out for special consideration the place of the observants of the Old Covenant. This particular document was specifically addressed to the Ethiopian and Coptic Churches, where broader Semitic customs were still prevalent. The Oriental Orthodox Churches were distinct from the Eastern Orthodox Churches of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Greece, maintaining their own longstanding theological disputes independent of Rome. The Council of Florence then issued three separate papal decrees that settled specific matters concerning the separated parochial bodies, *Cantate* being the last. To say that Florence established a new teaching on this point would be inaccurate since the tradition had long ago jettisoned these older rites. (St. Thomas Aquinas formalizing their rejection from authentic Catholic sources and his own reasoning). The papal bull merely ratifies what the Christian tradition had held since the death of the last apostle. The issue, of course, was contentious even in the time of Peter and Paul, with some factions maintaining kosher diets and Sabbath observance as requisites for converts from paganism. Grace and truth came through the New Law, and eventually this view won out, only to be revived later by certain Protestant sects. The tendency to Judaize is a side effect of the rediscovery of the Old Testament via the printing press. In the case of Ethiopia, however, circumcision predated Christianization, as part of a tradition inherited from older Semitic tribes and cultures in the area. It was a long-established practice, observed alongside infant baptism, although it was not ranked as a sacrament. When Christian missionaries arrived, they brought baptism, the Eucharist, and so on, but they did not eradicate the pre-existing attachment to circumcision among the peoples there. Florence did not let any fine distinction between traditional custom and religious rite keep it from forcefully rejecting circumcision. For the reunion, the African churches were required to cease their use, even if it was a traditional practice devoid of theological significance. Even the appearance of clinging to them as an empty gesture was extremely troublesome. *Cantate* states it thusly: > "Therefore it commands all who glory in the name of Christian, at whatever time, before or after baptism, to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, it cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation." In Western theology, a *sacramentum* is a sign, an outward physical manifestation of an invisible grace. Water for baptism, bread and wine for the Eucharist, etc., with each channeling grace to the receiver. Under the new dispensation, the sacraments are perfect signs, since they unambiguously convey the arrival of Jesus, who is the completion of everything necessary for human salvation. The quote is careful to mark that "whether or not one places hope in it" – to say, "We don't care if it's just a local custom you guys do, but don't rank as a sacrament..." All old signs were antitypes foretelling the incarnation of Christ, and with those completed, their power ceased. To continue to practice them for whatever reason – even as just a cultural hand-me-down – is to inject doubt and uncertainty into the sacraments. Their defense has been, until very recently, the hill that popes, saints, laymen, and martyrs have died on, figuratively and literally. These were zealously protected at all costs since they touched on the very person of Jesus and connected his followers to him. Apart from these signs and *realities*, there is only eternal separation from God. Hence, in the quote just provided, the continued practice of circumcision is ranked as a *mortal* sin: It snuffs out the light of grace and consigns the practitioner of it to hell if they do it with full knowledge of the apostolic teaching. Knowledge is emphasized here since the African churches were practicing something out of cultural habit, which petrified into blindness, but the Roman Church *did* have full knowledge and therefore could not allow anything to threaten the sacramental system. Hence, *Cantate*'s forceful rejection of the Mosaic covenant after Christ's earthly ministry. Rome did not attempt to accommodate, compromise, or soften the edges through a regional dispensation, even if it would've been politically expedient. Reunion with the separated bodies could not be had at the expense of the sacraments and the Christology they expressed. --- Several years ago, when I was still nominally Christian, a scuffle broke out over the USCCB-sponsored document, "Reflections on Covenant and Mission," published in 2002 by its ecumenical office. The document was ignored until around 2009, when it was dredged up on the Internet as a latter-day Catholic controversy. For a Roman Catholic, the reason was understandable since it was flagrantly heretical. Among the gems buried in it was this one from the German Cardinal Walter Kasper, considered by many to be the intellectual counterweight to Cardinal Ratzinger and himself a loyal son of the Council. > "The Church believes that Judaism, i.e., the faithful response of the Jewish people to God's irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises." Whereas Ratzinger developed a reputation for growing conservative in the years following the last session, Kasper emerged as a champion of all things ecumenical and dialogue-y. In other words, decidedly non-Catholic on certain points of theology, such as those defined as *de fide definita* at an earlier ecumenical council – Florence. A six-hundred-year-old ecumenical council is *not* as good as the one your mentor attended as a *peritus*. Times and doctrines change – what St. Thomas and Florence declared heretical, and the basis for mortal sin if observed by Christians – was, in Kasper's appraisal, "salvific." His hermeneutic was rooted in his experiences of being a German living under the weight of a great national disgrace. Local churches and entire episcopal conferences can publish and say heretical things as a body. They are not, according to Catholic theology, granted any special protections from publicly proclaiming, teaching, or promoting error. "Reflections" contradicts Catholic teaching and poisons the well of sacramental theology by creating two parallel systems – one for Jews, the other for the rest of the human race. The very theological clarity and zealous defense of the sacraments that motivated Pope Eugene and an ecumenical council were, six hundred years later, absent among cardinals and the American synod. "Reflections" went seven years before erupting. (Another bifurcation would later manifest in the Two Popes Theory, which posits an active and contemplative ministry carried out concurrently by two validly elected popes. The complexity of the times and the uncertainty in doctrine means one becomes two; two becomes what?) The intent of "Reflections" was, among other things, to formally pre-condemn any efforts by Christians to convert Jews. It explains that the Old Covenant was "eternally valid," strongly suggesting it was therefore unconditional. This statement is a radical rejection of 2,000 years of Christian teaching, carried out with the support of a cardinal who would attend the same conclave that elected Ratzinger to the papacy a few years later in 2005\. Kasper and those in his camp didn't have to explain how he and a few post-Conciliar thinkers figured out what had escaped St. Thomas and Eugene. The eternal validity of the Jewish covenant is, of course, an heretical opinion when viewed through the Florentine lens. Absent *Cantate Domino*, the view would still be heretical since it flatly stands against the received apostolic tradition. That it was formalized at an ecumenical council, held under the guidance of the Bishop of Rome, means it is unimpeachable Christian teaching. But while local ordinaries and conferences can publish heresy, at the time of the scandal, it was pretty clear to my inner doubter that the view was already widespread in Catholicism and that it was only a matter of time before it percolated into other spots, like, say, Rome. A prominent German cardinal being quoted by the American bishops' ecumenical office was probably not an outlier, but rather a test case for a broader introduction. I am probably reading back into the time, but not by much. A student of theology, I knew "Reflections" was a flat-out rejection of a substantial matter of faith, one that would open the door wide to indifferentism at the doctrinal level. If the old covenant is still active, any Catholic could renounce Christ, convert to Judaism, and still enjoy all the promises of an afterlife in paradise. He would just have chosen a path other than the one Christ gave in the New Testament. Kasper would go on to create a muddled theological defense of his position. A short version: The Jewish covenant is active and functioning – it's *eternal,* after all – but it has a divine connection to Christ, and that's what gives it its spunk. So the Jews don't need to recognize, acknowledge, or accept Christ, but their generator is still powered by him in the background. Whereas the cardinal appealed to the deep mystery behind it all, faithful Catholics were left to wonder how a man who was in conflict with solemnly defined dogma could still be allowed to vote for the next pope. And how far did the rot go? If Sam meets a nice Jewish girl and they decide to get married – but she wants him to be Jewish too and, well, she's a great gal – can Sam renounce Christ by getting circumcised and converting to Susie's brand of Reform Judaism – and still avoid the lake of molten eternal fire, where the worm never dies? This sounds like legalism, a simplistic reductionism of Kasper's teaching, the unrefined casuistry of a toothless hillbilly, but it's also a test case for what happens in a real world where plurality, diversity, and all that jazz are present. Remember that the sacrament is a sign, and if that sign is rejected or obscured, then the thing it points to is also devalued. Kasper would not endorse Sam's choice, but the softening is evident, with nothing to preclude the husband-to-be from feeling justified in his own split from the faith. The cardinal has always held that Christians have the calling to witness – to everyone – the role of Jesus in shaping their lives. This witnessing, however, is not followed up by explicit invitation, or a call to recognize Jesus the Jew as worthy of consideration as the messiah. Witness is not invitation. Evangelization is invitation. Witness is what you do in your acts on a day-to-day basis, in your dealings with others, in little and great acts of kindness and charity, seen and unseen. Evangelization is a public call, an invitation, to the Christian life. Jesus did both, first to the house of Israel, *then* to the Gentiles. Kasper does not. If there is no organized mission to evangelize Jews, why is there an organized effort to establish mission churches in Africa? "There is neither Greek nor Jew," as the Apostle declares. All have fallen short. Here now, as a non-Christian, I do not argue what should or should not be the focus of the Catholic Church, merely point out certain incongruities in the cardinal's position. What strikes me looking at this now is that Christian theology is a word game, the communicated symbols so abstract, so obtuse that they become the intellectual plaything of people like Kasper. The church that emerged from Nicea devoted itself to what amounts to subtle word games about the nature of Christ. Two wills? One will? Of the same substance or like the other members of the Trinity in some other way? Scripture itself was quiet on many of these questions, which were settled by zealous monks, Greek-trained philosophers, *political* leaders, and rabble-rousers. The beloved St. Athanasius was rumored to have had Arian opponents assassinated in Alexandria. He didn't, but that was how vicious theological debates over subtle points became. Did your word game land you in a pickle with modern Jews? Well, no worries, just connect this cable over to that generator box over there, flick this switch, and Bob's your uncle! This is the substance of all religions ultimately: the sharing of words to establish identity, to affirm selfhood via tribal association. When those identities shift owing to new realities, the words move too. Maybe it sounds like I draw too much from this incident, but it reflects a general pattern I still see in religion. Words are used as proxies for other ideologies, identities, views, and opinions designed to preserve order in a world under constant change. The symbols that were once immutable become reinterpreted with time. Words need to be changed to reflect modern realities. If you can be a Kasper, you can use them to make irreconcilable ideas work together. It's divine mystery! Florence in the way of an immediate, more pressing problem? No worries! There is a theologian with the nuance, the refined sensibility to hold two contradictory views at the same time and still be a cardinal in good standing! Kasper was interpreted by some critics as saying: "There are not two covenants; there is only one, but two groups of people can publicly observe two different covenants because they are really linked to Jesus." Does this view do a disservice to Jews, to believe that they are just ignorant of the backstop of their covenant and that some day, in the distant future, they will wake up on the other side of the grave to see that Jesus was there the whole time making those circumcisions, bar mitzvahs, days of atonement sanctifying? Kasper and his party's view – which is now something like the papal view – is, "Well, they will see truth in its fullness on the other side, and while we may have two covenants in this world, there are really the same covenant, perceived as two because of the limitations of this world." This is, in some way, a Buddhist reflection on the nature of foundational binaries in a world made up of fire, air, water, and earth. One might speak of a Christian version of the two truths. Oddly, Kasper, in responding to critics such as Avery Cardinal Dulles, noted that Jewish rites were no longer valid and had, in fact, been replaced by the sacraments of the Church. This, in itself, is a key point of supersessionist theology, the kind that upsets modern churchmen to no end. For if the Hebrew salvific rites have been replaced by the Christian sacraments, then this implies that Judaism now lacks them or has them in a deficient or entirely absent form. If they are deficient now, then the Jews are still in need of conversion like all humans because, "special relationship" or not, they live under the same yoke of sin. The old Catholic Church, which has all but disappeared from the world, at least had the ability to speak clearly, even if it had to use many words to communicate abstract ideas. Ideas, views, and opinions have a special grip on our minds, and the language of religion touches the deepest part of our fears and anxieties, trying to address them as best it can. In the proliferation of words comes a proliferation of sides, partisans, stances, and general confusion. Spirituality gives way to mental attunement to verbal symbols rather than realities. --- In Buddhism, I have agency, enough to practice the habit of seeing what is happening now. What is chewing like? What is feeling tired like? What is laughing like? I am the investigator who watches, observes, analyzes, probes, experiences, sees, doesn't see. The words are few: *This is not me, this is not mine, this I am not.* But those are words too, but they are *economical.* They are sparse, parsimonious, and say only what needs to be said. Most of Buddhism can be expressed on a page or two of finely written text. No one can talk themselves into anatta, but they can begin to break the links of identity by paying attention to the little things. You don't need a licentiate in theology from Tübingen to enter the stream. In the Kamala Sutta, the Buddha wisely counsels against becoming enamored of controversies, sophisticated arguments, and reasoning when seeking the wholesome path. This doesn't deny that various schools of Buddhism have produced a lot of texts. Humans being humans, the hardwired love of proliferation means that Tibetans write mountains of books, new suttas, secret teachings, and so on, oblivious to the irony that their reflections weren't really doing anything. Theravadans have their beloved rendition of the Abhidhamma and later commentaries. The Buddha addressed this in advance, noting that monks would soon arrive, eager to polish his dhamma with their own conceit. In other words, the Blessed One warned his followers that counterfeits were sure to come and that the simple practice he proposed would itself become the subject of monkish revision. Jesus said that another would come in his own name, and that they (the Jews) would accept him. A Westerner of course will reinterpret this, say, "Well no, the Buddha never said this or that, it was a later injection by zealous fundamentalists to protect their doctrines..." The early Pali Canon already had thousands of suttas, the result of historical conditions in which memorization and oral tradition were used to communicate the 50-year ministry of the Buddha. We can already detect proliferation in these texts, of likely insertions and embellishments, fabrications of weaker minds entrusted with guarding the oral teachings of arahants. Unlike sacred writings of the Yahweh cults, it's not really important to a practitioner to know whether any given text from the early Nikayas is "pure," straight from the Buddha. Take refuge in yourself first, but do so under the mentorship of a wise spiritual teacher. The canon gives the qualities to look for. But the core of the dhamma doesn't require these texts and later commentaries, and in fact, probably suffers under their weight. I can take or leave the vast mountains of Buddhist literature and commentary, and retreat to a quiet spot to observe the breath. If more monks had done this throughout history, we would have far fewer unread books and more arahants. The Buddha pushed back against translating his teachings into Sanskrit. It was his way of saying, "You sort of missed the point of what I am doing here, turning my teachings into a new set of vedas..." Recall that the Buddha lived in a world of rich and deep literature, rites, rituals, customs. These he knew to have value, but they were also obstacles, the residue of human ego and delusion enveloping them in places. Literacy has consequences. --- Turning back to the SSPX and one of their points raised in their citation of *Cantate*: > §27: 'The covenant that God has established with the people of Israel is never revoked and remains valid... the Old Covenant is never revoked.' The quote is from a Vatican document published in December 2015, aimed at establishing a new basis for dialogue with Jews. Compare and contrast with this same quote given earlier: > "\[The Holy Roman Church\] firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the matter pertaining to the Old Testament, of the Mosaic law, which are divided into ceremonies, sacred rites, sacrifices, and sacraments... **did cease**, and the sacraments of the New Testament began... it commands all who glory in the name of Christian... to cease entirely from circumcision, since, whether or not one places hope in it, **it cannot be observed without the loss of eternal salvation.**" Words being words and Christians being Christians, there's no end to the pettifogging that the modern follower of Christ can indulge in when presented with what looks like an open conflict on the same teaching. This pecking naturally will turn into an armchair legal study of whether the Vatican document is "magisterial," "infallible," "inerrant," "reliable," etc. More words, more ink, more opinions and views needed to protect the Faith, which at this point looks pretty shaky. And this is not the only thing, a weird one-off. No, we have Pope Francis teaching on the will of Yahweh, who desires/intends/permits/allows/tolerates-but-doesn't-like a multitude of faiths. This is a whole other separate write-up, another study in Christian hairsplitting. One thing I know is that Catholics believe words have meaning and in certain matters, precision and fidelity in their use is necessary in order to avoid the kinds of incidents in which "countless souls are led into eternal hellfire." This is one of those oddities: how some guy over there, using words the wrong way, can lead your soul to eternal damnation. It isn't really karma; it isn't really free will; it's just you getting pulled down in the undertow, chained to Cardinal Kasper, making safety impossible. I still like to use this Catholic line in my mind as a joke... "That sonofabitch over there is leading countless souls into eternal hellfire..." No doubt, someone has written how Yahweh's permissive will permissively permit a Kasper to infect, via verbiage, the minds of others, causing them "to lose their faith," and so turn to strange practices and unsound doctrines. Heaven forbid you use karma gained over many lives to account for individual variability. Kasper himself has tried to walk a very fine line between being a faithful Christian and making compromises aimed at settling a German sense of remorse for the Holocaust. Implicit in his position is a link between evangelization and anti-Semitism. Still, I am sympathetic to the SSPX's point here: *Cantate* does not square with the Vatican's 2015 "The Gifts and the Calling of God are Irrevocable." One can argue as post-Conciliar followers have, that this is a "reflection" document only, having no magisterial weight, but it ignores that the paper draws from formal papal teaching, such as *Evangelii Gaudium:* > We hold the Jewish people in special regard because their covenant with God has never been revoked. This sounds suspiciously close to the Kasper quote we presented earlier. Either the Council of Florence is wrong; St. Paul and his single olive tree *analogy* in his Letter to the Romans is wrong or misunderstood; or the post-Conciliar popes are wrong; or we need a special patch to make the two work together. Hence, we need Kasper's special touch to say the two are not two, but really one, but they look like two because, well, we're still alive, and things only make sense when you are on the other side of the grave, in the next world. So don't worry, just accept that Jews do their thing and don't have to convert. Like, don't even try to do what Sts. Peter and Paul did. While Peter sought their conversion and Paul warned that they had been plucked from the one olive tree and cast aside until such a time as they attained a faith in Christ as the true messiah, in the Current Year, *you can't try to bring them into the fold*. The invitation is never sent. This is such a fundamental repudiation of the Great Commission as to make the Catholic religion a grave. It is total defeat, and the theology of the ordinary magisterium – which is *inerrant* and binding on the consciences of the faithful – embraces error openly. It contradicts itself. It may be argued that the Society conflates two issues in its declaration: the ontological status of the Jewish people after Christ and the efficacy of Jewish observance for salvation. The Jewish "sacraments" are null and void, and one can be a modern, progressive churchman like Walter Kasper and hold this view while also maintaining, along with the updated Catholic magisterium, that the Jews have a covenant with Yahweh that has *never* been revoked. *Irrevocable,* as the new Church likes to say, quoting Romans. In other words, *Cantate* is not an obstacle for the moderns at all because it addresses a ritual system rather than an ontological categorization for the people of the covenant. The ritual is what you do; Jewish is what you are. But for there to be an operative covenant for the Jewish people, circumcision is required. Jewish scripture says that the covenant is written into the flesh as part of the contract. If circumcision then is null and void, then one of the parties is unable to fulfill the covenantal role and cannot, in fact, bear the contract as a visible *sign* in their own flesh. In fact, it can never return to it until it accepts Jesus as the messiah. If the path back to that restoration is closed because churchmen have decided evangelization is off the table, then the Church itself can be accused of having left brambles to grow unchallenged in the vineyard of the Lord. This quote from *Evangelii Gaudium* says a lot and says nothing. It's a theological Rorschach test that lets the reader do the heavy lifting, floating far above any notion of precision, substance, or even definitional meaning. If you are a traditional Catholic, you can make it work mentally, on your steam, tying it back to something in the Old Testament. If you are a modernist, you can read into the need to forego "proselytizing" Jews in the modern age because, well, the apostolic age has ended, things are different, everyone has heard of Jesus at this point, they have a covenant, and so on. The quote seems meaningful and the audiences – and there are many – can interpret it however they want. Nothing concrete is offered, and nothing concrete will come out of it besides further division over its ambiguity. If you are a Jew, you can read an affirmation of your people's good standing with Yahweh. Many viewers, same movie screen but everyone is watching a different film. From the outside, it seems to me that the Catholic magisterium, which was supposed to be a bulwark of truth against error, has adopted a lexicon in recent decades that, if it does not contradict earlier statements, at least indicates that key points in the Christian patrimony are now tentative or advisory only. At the very least, it suggests a willingness to renegotiate matters once deemed settled for the sake of political expediency. Florence forewent expediency. If the Jew has his own channel to Yahweh, then there's nothing to stop the same reasoning from spreading to other world religions. Look at the Shinto tent, and you will see a cable snaking into it, hooked up to the Jesus Generator. The recent rejection of the death penalty is a case in point. Scripture and Christian tradition have taught that the state wields a power given by Yahweh to punish evil-doers. Popes themselves have lauded the death penalty for its possible salvific role and as a preservative against greater social evils. That has all been rejected with recent statements as insufficient grounds for its continued use. Every society now, no matter their straits, is expected to feed, house, clothe, and attend prisoners convicted of rape and murder. This was a gradual slide too at first with John Paul, who argued that the death penalty should be rare, if "not practically non-existent." *Rare* very quickly became *never*. St. Thomas would not have been comfortable with the vague language of Jews having a covenant in light of Romans, but he's the one who is problematic for his triumphalist, supersessionist theological framework. For him, the old covenant was a shadow, a foretelling that was set aside by the arrival of Jesus. It was prophetic in the sense of revealing the future, and when the future arrives, it is no longer relevant. If, however, the covenant has "never been revoked," then we are back to Kasper's Jesus generator. Paul's branches plucked from the olive tree, what are done with these? "If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned." (John's Gospel) Jesus says this to the Jews, but Paul revises it, softening it in Romans: Maybe later, the old branches can be grafted back onto the one tree. Branches hang out for a while, as a sign of sorts, preserved by Yahweh for his own reasons, but are then cut off from the tree. They receive no nutrients, no water. They wither, but yet still they survive, a warning to the non-Jewish Christians of what awaits them if they too stray from the covenant they accepted at baptism. Already in the New Testament, we see bifurcating tendencies: John's Jesus says they are cut off, wither, and burn – a definitive, unambiguous end. Paul softens it, says, "Well maybe they all get grafted back in later under the name of 'Israel' if they change X..." And the reader is asked to parse this out. Who is this Israel in Romans that is saved at the end? Is it the Church? Is it anyone who believes? Or is Paul saying that the Jews who convert to Jesus are Israel? Modern magisterial documents like *Evangelii* would seem to hang their miter on the latter. Thomas Aquinas had a very different take on what the tradition read in the Roman epistle, and it doesn't square with recent papal teaching. This is the basis of theology, the game of words that deals with abstract concepts related to final ends, whether of people or angels, in relation to a supreme deity. Anyone can play it. Some play it well because they stick to the *spirit* of the game and work within its lines while making tweaks that, when compounded, lead to systemic changes. Catholics will call this the development of doctrine, and there was, until recent times, a pretty rigorous set of principles for determining fidelity to tradition, rooted in the magisterium. One couldn't just say *anything* or make so many fine adjustments as to cause an ontological shift in the tradition. The Catholic world seems to have emerged from that established frame and entered into new uncharted territory. The nature of language, its ambiguity, is detected all over the Bible, and it is not easy to contain the problem to the pages between its covers. The revealed source of divine truth divides, then further divides, and divides. Why? Words, ideas, rites and rituals. The Mass of St. Pius V was the great vehicle for Christian sanctification, teaching and spirituality for five centuries. Today, it is the object of irritation for popes and bishops, who wish to see it fully suppressed. Is this spirit of hostility going to be unleashed on the other liturgical rites at some point? Will the Eastern Catholics be subjected to a liturgical "renewal" that says, "What was once the sacred factory for saints is now a problem to be suppressed, a kind of fetid medieval backwater?" Perhaps a day is coming soon in which the iconostasis is, like the altar rails, torn down and cast into the rubbish pile. The SSPX sees this and understands that there has been a significant rupture not only in the liturgy but also in the very language of Catholic teaching. The revolutionary conciliar language in fact precedes the breakdown in worship, devotion, and basic practice. These are the word games of Yahweh's followers, the ones they play to keep the plates spinning, the balancing act going. The highly prolific popes of the new Church have spoken so much that they have drifted into contradiction with the past. Modern Catholics are learning that impermanent things are not real. Nothing is permanent. The Buddha understood this.