Indue me, Domine, novum hominem,
qui secundum Deum creatus est,
in justitia, et sanctitate veritatis.

Ef 4, 24

There are three reasons for celebration and joy on this blessed day.

• The first is certainly the liturgical feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which this year providentially falls on a Sunday, celebrating the Throne on which the Redeeming Lamb sits. Today, the Cross stands out proudly in the array of the Risen Lord.

• The second is that after years of trials and uncertainties, we find ourselves reunited as a family in the ancient sense of the term: a microcosm organized on the model of a canonical community of common life. We find ourselves seeing, encouraged by a Bishop, Successor of the Apostles, the small Priestly Fraternity of the Familia Christi, which after years of tribulations is reborn in the hope of renewed fruitfulness.

• The third reason for our joy today is that during this Pontifical Mass, I am conferring the Holy Tonsure on Mauro and Antonio and the Ostiariate on Claudio. Let us therefore thank the Lord for the grace He has granted us to see our Community grow and new Vocations be born within it.

The Sacred Tonsure is one of the most important and highly symbolic moments in the life of a cleric. By cutting your hair, dear Mauro and Antonio, you renounce the world and also externally bear the sign of your total belonging to God. The clerical habit and the tonsure identify you and make you recognizable to all: those who meet you on the street will first see your habit and then you who wears it. It covers your human weaknesses with the merits of Our Lord, and while the man disappears, the consecrated person and the Minister of God appears. Do not forget that this visibility, which on the one hand designates you as disciples of Our Lord, on the other hand also requires you to bear witness with your works and an exemplary life to your belonging to the Holy Church. Put on the new man, created in the image of God in justice and in the holiness of truth, the Apostle Paul exhorts you (Eph 4:24). In justice and in the holiness of truth: because the Truth is Just and Holy, since it emanates from God, who is Supreme Truth, Supreme Justice, and Supreme Holiness.

With the Ostiariate, dear Claudio, you are made worthy of opening and closing the doors of the temple and of ringing the bells to call the faithful. This Minor Order also confers upon you the graces of state to drive away from the House of God those who are unworthy, urging you to be worthy yourself to dwell there with fear and trembling (Phil 2:12). O quam terribilis est locus iste (Gen 28:17), exclaims Jacob after the dream in which he sees the ladder that connects earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it, and God speaking to him. Vere non est hic aliud nisi domus Dei et porta cœli. A terrible, majestic, and solemn place, in which the perfect Sacrifice offered by the Holy Church ascends to the Father, while the abundant fruits of that same Sacrifice descend from Heaven.

Dear brothers, for many years now, we have watched with immense pain as a modernist hierarchy gripped by a totally secularized mentality pursues with stubborn obstinacy a precise plan for the dissolution of the Church, the Mass, the priesthood, and religious life. This hierarchy has imposed a very specific model of the church, the Mass, the priesthood, and consecrated life that no longer has Our Lord Jesus Christ at its center: man has taken His place, and with him the idea that Holy Orders can be superseded by forms of humanitarian ministry, social assistance, and evolving doctrine. After sixty years, the failure is indisputable. For this reason, bishops, cardinals, and superiors cannot allow their power to be challenged by the silent admonition of your very existence. False shepherds and mercenaries see traditional priestly and canonical vocations as a threat, because they constitute a touchstone that manifests and demonstrates that what was culpably abandoned and destroyed in the name of the Second Vatican Council constitutes not only a sublime and eternal value but the best defense against the wicked “innovations” imposed by the conciliar reform.

The Church flourishes with priestly vocations precisely when she keeps them separated from the contagion of the world, not only through the outward signs of the habit and tonsure, but also and above all by forming them to have Christ the King and Mary the Queen at the center of their lives and ministry. Being Ministers of God means providing military service in the army of the Lord, in the militia christiana. It means having a high ideal, a divine model, a supernatural goal that makes every trial and every tribulation worthy of being faced in trustful abandonment to the Divine Will.

The conciliar and synodal Church, however, is agonizing over the crisis of vocations precisely because it does not represent a heroic choice and shows no ambitious goal to be conquered in the bonum certamen. Indeed, there is no certamen to fight, because in today’s Church there are no enemies except Catholics faithful to Tradition and those who dare not bow to the idol of Vatican II. The conciliar priesthood is a choice of forced mediocrity, desired and encouraged from above, which demoralizes and spiritually anesthetizes even the most generous and honest vocations. And as the situation progressively worsens, deaconesses stand ready to replace parish priests with minister-less ceremonies, to the delight of the Modernists and of the one who, more than anyone, hates priests and the Catholic Mass: Satan.

Every consecrated soul faithful to the spirituality and charism of the Founders of their institute and to the immutable Catholic Magisterium is a fearsome soldier of Christ, armed with the Grace of God and prayer. Even more so is a community of secular priests who have chosen to live together through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ, in that mutual example and mutual encouragement required by a demanding charism, such as the one bequeathed to you by the Servant of God Monsignor Giuseppe Canovai, composed of a continuous offering of oneself to God the Father for the salvation of humanity: “to complete what is lacking in the Passion of Christ and, for the salvation of the world, to offer, repair, compensate, and substitute.” And how is it possible to “live together” profitably if not through a Faith inflamed by Charity and apostolic zeal? This zeal is nourished by the daily celebration of the Apostolic Mass and assiduous fidelity to the Divine Office, essential pillars—along with the Holy Rosary—on which your priestly life and apostolate must be built. Oportet semper orare, et non deficere (Lk 18:1) – Pray; pray always and without tiring, Our Lord exhorts you. Let prayer be your shield and your consolation.

Your Community has endured immense trials and persecutions at the hands of false pastors and mercenaries, both in Ferrara and in Rome. But these trials, which have caused so much suffering and required so much endurance, have given you the opportunity to purify yourselves, to abandon every compromise with the liturgical forms of the Novus Ordo, and to resolutely choose Tradition, amending all those aspects that needed improvement, thus learning from past errors and avoiding their repetition in the future. And if the Lord has deigned to evaluate the sincerity and authenticity of your intentions and your perseverance in truth and goodness, bless these trials and thank Him for the help He has granted you, making you worthy of His grace.

I address you in a special way, dear Claudio, Mauro, and Antonio: let your every thought, every breath, and every beat of your heart silently – but efficaciously – repeat the prayer of the hymn Crux Fidelis:

Flecte ramos, arbor alta,
tensa laxa viscera,
et rigor lentescat ille
quem dedit nativitas,
ut superni membra Regis
mite tendas stipite.

These are words that can hardly be spoken without emotion, so full are they of supernatural charity: Bend your branches, tall tree, relax your tensed fibers, and allow the rigidity you had from birth bend, to grant the members of the Heavenly King a tender trunk. When one day you open your arms on the cross, on the blessed day of your priestly ordination, grant that the Savior may lean on the wood of your priesthood, finding in you a tender trunk that adapts to His members.

Remember the words of the hymn: Crux fidelis, faithful cross. The Cross is faithful because it does not deceive us, not only in the cruelty of the suffering and torment it evokes, but also in the triumph of the definitive victory of which it is the instrument. It is faithful because it “served” its divine purpose without betraying its mission to be the altar on which the Savior sacrificed Himself in obedience to the Father. It is the tangible sign of God’s faithfulness to His people and of the sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ who brought the plan of salvation to completion. It is faithful in the sense that it remains an eternal symbol of love, redemption, and victory, never failing in its divine purpose.

May you too be faithful to the Cross, as was Monsignor Giuseppe Canovai, who wrote these fiery words in his diary: “Live only for the Cross, have it with you always, and carry in your soul the invisible Cross of the Master’s suffering charity, the only true concern of life, the only reason for existing.” This fidelity to the Cross translates into true obedience, which is obedience to God before obedience to men, especially when, due to the present apostasy, there are men who usurp God’s Authority against His holy Will, abusing their power by imposing unjust orders. Holy obedience – virtuous and meritorious obedience – is not servile and fearful but rather courageous and responsible. And just as your Master was obedient to the Father unto death, even death on a cross (Phil 2:8), dutifully disobeying traitorous and corrupt High Priests, so you too, following His example, have the constancy necessary to remain faithful to Him who judges you and puts you to the test in order to see you participate in His victory, knowing how to face with firmness the painful cross of being treated as enemies by those who ought to be your fathers.

We would indeed lack Charity toward our Superiors if, out of fear or human respect, we placed deference to the powerful before the dutiful proclamation of Catholic Truth and fidelity to what the Holy Church has always taught. How could those who find in us accomplices, rather than a warning voice reminding them of their duty as Pastors, come to their senses and convert? We would equally lack Charity toward our brethren and the faithful, because our example of servile obedience would lead them to tolerate what every baptized person has the duty to reject and condemn, not out of pride or presumption, but out of love for God, who is the Supreme Truth.

Do not forget that, at the foot of the Cross, your Most Holy Mother, the Regina Crucis, awaits you. May she see in you an alter Christus, a crucified Christ. She awaits you to console you, and to suffer with you who suffer together with her Son. The pains of the co-Passion that made Her Co-Redemptrix also include the trials and sufferings of every priestly soul who sacrifices himself together with His Lord, the Eternal High Priest.

To her, Mother of the Church and our Mother, we were all entrusted by the dying Savior as His children. It is she whom Our Lord wanted to be our Mother, so that in this lacrimarum valle we might have an Advocate who intercedes with Him until His glorious return. If, therefore, you are Familia Christi, be also Familia Mariæ, Her family and Her servants. And there is no greater honor, nor more distinguished privilege than to be in the service of Christ the King and Mary the Queen: today, in the midst of the raging battle; tomorrow, in the blessed glory of the Saints.

And so may it be.

+ Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop

Viterbo, September 14, MMXXV
In Exaltatione S.ctæ Crucis
Dominica XIV Post Pentecosten