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REMARKS
BY RICHARD CUNEO
FOR
9TH
ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF FR. DE PAUW
Fr.
John, Members of the Board of Directors of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement
and the Ave Maria Chapel, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you all for coming to this 9th observance of the anniversary of
the death of Fr. DePauw which is this coming Tuesday, May 6th.
Let
me first take this opportunity to thank Fr. John for the beautiful Holy Week
which we observed 2 weeks ago. We all consider ourselves blessed to have been
able to attend once more a real Holy Week and to have been able to celebrate a
real Easter. On this Good Shepherd Sunday, be assured of our prayers for you
and our gratitude to you for the sacrifices that you make each week to be here
and for your dedication to us and to the True Church of Jesus Christ.
Ladies
and gentlemen, two principles guided Fr. DePauw throughout his entire life,
whether it was as a young priest during the dark days of occupation of his
homeland, or as a priest of 23 years during the equally dark days of the
occupation of our Church by the modernists.
The
first principle was the belief in the unchanging nature of God and His truth,
Christ yesterday, today and forever. And the second principle was, that no matter
how dark things get, there is hope for something better. This is of course the
central theme of Easter.
Those
two principles formed the basis of everything he did as a priest, of every
speech he ever gave and of every sermon he ever preached. Those are the same
two principles which he sought to instill in each one of us.
Make
no mistake, and don’t let the ostriches, with their heads in the sand, of
popular religious news networks tell you otherwise. The days are very dark for our Church and the
confusion predicted by the Blessed Mother at Fatima is very much upon us even
more than it was 9 years ago. How else can one explain the puzzling and indeed
even frightful events in Rome last Sunday. How else
can one describe the most recent papal infra dignitatem and the effort by the
Holy See press office to explain it. An effort, given by a fellow Jesuit, which
as a student would earn him an “A” for creativity, but an “F” in logic,
pastoral medicine and Canon Law. This delicate balancing act of having to
explain what is called the Pope’s “personal pastoral relationships” and the
consequences they have as they relate to the teachings of the Church, has now
tragically, become an almost daily occurrence.
Such
confusion finds its roots in the condemned modernist error of evolution, the
theory that the Church is fed by the need of adapting itself to historical
conditions and harmonizing itself with existing forms of society. Such
confusion can only be possible in a Church establishment which destroyed the heart
upon which it stands or falls, the valid Sacrifice of the Mass, and lives under
the curse of the great saint and pope whose feast day we celebrate tomorrow,
St. Pius V, who warned that if anyone dared to touch that Mass, they would
incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. But
it was Our Lord Himself Who told us, “My kingdom is not of this world” and
“heaven and earth will pass away but My words will not
pass away”.
Faced
with such clear words from Our Lord and such confusion from our Church
establishment, our only response must be to reinforce our determination to hold
on and preserve that little flame of the True Faith which Fr. DePauw entrusted
to us 9 years ago. It should give us renewed resoluteness to work harder then ever to ensure that we pass that little flame on to
the next generation. He gave us everything we need to be able to do so. He
prepared us for the days that we are now experiencing, but it is up to us to
adhere to it and to use it.
This
means first and foremost, ensuring that this “little oasis of Catholic Faith”
never changes from what it stood for when he was alive. I cannot stress this
point strongly enough. This chapel will never change from providing the same
True Roman Catholic Faith and the same wholesome spiritual food that he
provided us with for 37 years. That was my promise to him. And for these past 9
years it has been, and will continue to be, my solemn duty to continue to
fulfill that promise. That is why at the close of each day, before I leave, I
come to this memorial and take stock of my work and of myself. I stand right
here and look at his picture. And looking him squarely in the eye, I pray, “Fr.
Gommar, I hope I did everything right by you today”.
This
morning, I ask each one of you to do the same and take stock of yourselves.
Come up to this memorial before you leave these grounds and look at him,
squarely in the eye, and ask yourself, have I been faithful to what he told me
to do to hold on? Have I followed what
he preached to me.
Have I remained that uncompromisingly loyal Roman Catholic, rejecting
schism on the right and heresy on the left, that he told me to be, or have I
become weak and tired of the fight, and now rationalize keeping one foot in the
sinking ship of the Conciliarist establishment and
the other foot in the life saving boat of the True Church, or fallen prey to
inadequately trained and questionably ordained clergymen. Have I ensured that I
have passed on what I received to my children as he instructed me to do, so that
when I am gone, that little flame of the True Faith is securely in their hands,
or have I become neglectful of my first responsibility before God as a parent,
to take care of the immortal souls of my children. Am I living my life
differently from the rest as he urged me
to do, or am I leading a double life, coming here on Sundays, but then the rest
of the week, living by the low moral and social standards of today’s world.
Ladies
and gentlemen, if any of us have to look away, while asking ourselves these
questions, then our presence here this morning is a sham and we are on the
wrong side and heading in the wrong direction, but on the wrong side and in the
wrong direction of whom, Fr. DePauw? No
ladies and gentlemen, Father always told us that to be a member of the Catholic
Traditionalist Movement, did not mean that you were a follower of him, but
rather a follower of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Therefore,
if we have to look away, then we look away not from his face but from the face
of Our Lord. But being able to answer yes, I have been faithful to what you
taught us, we can be assured that we are on the right side, the side of Christ
and His Blessed Mother, and all the saints. Being able to answer yes,
means that we are headed in the right
direction, the direction that will ensure that we will be among those
recipients that today’s collect prayer speaks of: “O God …Grant unending
happiness to Thy faithful, that those whom Thou has snatched from the perils of
endless death, Thou mayest cause to reach in
everlasting joys”.
Ladies
and gentlemen, no matter how dark the days get, and I am afraid there are even
darker days ahead, if we make sure that first principle which guided the life
of Father DePauw continues to guide our lives, the belief in and our fidelity
to the unchanging nature of God and His truth, then we can be assured of the
promise of the second principle, the hope of something much better, the hope of
obtaining heaven.
Richard Cuneo
Richard Cuneo, President
Catholic Traditionalist Movement
