Judge A Man By The Reputation Of His Enemies

June 23, 2018, will commemorate the historic 50th anniversary of the first public Mass offered by canonist Fr. Gommar A. DePauw at the Ave Maria Chapel in Westbury, New York. At that time, Fr. DePauw was literally, "the only game in town" when it came to offering the True Mass for Traditionalist Catholics. To be certain, there were other priests who offered the True Mass and kept the Faith, but they did it privately for small groups of the Faithful. The "big names" of Archbishop Lefebvre, Archbishop Thuc, and Bishop Mendez, were not yet around. Bishop de Castro Mayer kept the Faith, but exclusively in his diocese of Campos, Brazil. Only Fr. DePauw was "in your face" and unafraid to take the fight for Truth and Tradition to the general public. He founded the Catholic Traditionalist Movement ("CTM") in 1964, while the damnable Robber Council of Vatican II was in session. Many Traditionalist clerics now admit what was known at the time; without Fr. DePauw and the brave Bishop Blaise Kurz by his side, many of the clergy that claim they were the "saviors" of the faith, wouldn't have come forth as they did.

 Fr. DePauw was in all major media, including (but not limited to), The New York Times, Time Magazine, U.S. News & World Report, WABC-TV, WNBC-TV, WCBS-TV, and on over 100 major radio stations covering most major cities in the United States. Father's radio Mass was begun with his own money he inherited from his father. It began on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, October 4, 1970, and was broadcast in over 25 countries. For many, that radio Mass was their only connection to a True Mass offered by a real priest. Truth be told, the man typing these words wouldn't have the True Faith, had I not been converted by Father DePauw 37 years ago.

It's been said that a man is known more by the reputation of his enemies than by the friends he keeps. The aphorism certainly holds true of Father DePauw. Vatican II opened on Father's 44th birthday, October 11, 1962. The young canonist was a peritus (i.e., theological expert) at the Council, and assisted Bishop Kurz, Cardinal Ottaviani, Cardinal Bacci, Cardinal Spellman, and Cardinal Ruffini--among some other notable names who were part of the Anti-Modernist group in Rome. Unfortunately, almost all of them fell victims of Vatican II with few notable exceptions.

One of Fr. DePauw's sworn enemies went to judgement on October 18, 2017-- the detestable apostate priest, Fr. Gehard Albert Baum, known more commonly as Fr. Gregory Baum. Baum was born in 1923 of a Jewish mother and Protestant father in Germany. He immigrated to Canada as a war refugee in 1946. While studying mathematics at McMaster University, a friend gave him a copy of St. Augustine's Confessions. Shortly after this, he became Catholic, and in 1947 he was ordained a priest in the Augustinian Order. His advanced learning prompted a quick route to ordination, but erudition without the True Faith and morals makes for a disgraced and wicked priest.

Baum Attacks Traditional Theology

 Baum was also a peritus at the Council, and aligned himself with the Modernists. He wasted no time under "good 'Pope' John" in showing his true colors. The line in the sand was drawn between the forces of good and evil. Just three months after the Council started, Baum was quoted in the magazine Commonweal as follows:

"The conflict at the Council is not at all between men who try to introduce new insights and modern ways and those who seek to remain faithful to the great tradition of the past. It is rather between those who seek to renew the life of the Church by returning to the most authentic Catholic tradition of all ages and those who seek to consecrate as eternal Catholic wisdom the theology of the manuals of the turn of the century and the anti-modernist emphasis which penetrated them." (See Commonweal, 77, 17 [January 18, 1963], pg. 436). 

The implication was staggering. Baum was telling the world that the theology manuals of the most learned and anti-Modernist clerics being taught in the seminaries (especially since Pope St. Pius X), were not "in the most authentic Catholic tradition of the ages," especially due to the anti-Modernism inherent in them. Some of the greatest minds produced by the Church in theology and Canon Law had to be banished from the seminaries so the work of Modernism could begin in earnest. To be jettisoned were such illustrious names as Van Noort, Tanquerey, Zubizarreta, Herve, Pohle, and many more. 

Fr. DePauw championed these same theologians, whose works he taught as a seminary professor for the Archdiocese of Baltimore. He taught Canon Law, Latin, and Moral Theology. Seminarians could expect to learn from the great Dominican moral theologian Prummer. In Canon Law, Buscaren and Augustine were used to form the future priests. The original Modernists would try and delude people into thinking that teaching like this against their abominable doctrines constituted some "theological excess," the antidote to which was "easing off" of Modernism. The ploy worked well. 

As soon as the saintly Archbishop Francis Keough  of Baltimore died on December 8, 1961, his successor, the loathsome Modernist Lawrence Sheehan removed Fr. DePauw from his position as Dean of Admissions and replaced him with a young priest who was "pastoral" towards those candidates for the priesthood who were attracted to men (perverts). Upon his return from Vatican II, he found himself out of his teaching position, along with the other anti-Modernists installed by Archbishop Keough. By the mid-1970s, Mount St. Mary's Seminary was a cesspool of vice and error, giving Modernists and perverts as "clergy" for the Vatican II sect in Baltimore.

Fr. DePauw knew there could never be any "return" to a more authentic Catholic doctrinal tradition through the abandonment of the common teaching of all the twentieth-century manuals of theology. The infallible Magisterium of the One True Church never abandons the most authentic Catholic tradition because She is Indefectible. The tradition is manifest in the common teaching of the twentieth-century manuals, and in the condemnations of the various Modernist propositions. 

Baum knew that removing those theologians would ignite the revolution needed. As Pope St. Pius X wrote in his encyclical Haerent Animo, " In our own day, alas! it is the contrary that happens all too frequently. Members of the clergy allow their minds to be overcome gradually by the darkness of doubt and turn aside to worldly pursuits; the chief reason for this is that they prefer to read a variety of other works and newspapers, which are full of cunningly propounded errors and corruption, rather than the divine books [theological works] and other pious literature.

Be on your guard, beloved sons; do not trust in your experience and mature years, do not be deluded by the vain hope that you can thus better serve the general good. Do not transgress the limits which are determined by the laws of the Church, nor go beyond what is suggested by prudence and charity towards oneself. Anyone who admits this poison into his soul will rarely escape the disastrous consequences of the evil thus introduced." (para. #3, 1908). 

The Theological Onslaught Continues

Vatican II produced 16 documents; all of them heretical. There were four Constitutions, three Declarations, and nine decrees. Baum was one of the chief architects of Unitatis Redintegratio, the decree on ecumenism. It states in paragraph # 3, "For the Spirit of Christ has not refrained from using them [false sects] as means of salvation which derive their efficacy from the very fullness of grace and truth entrusted to the Church." (Emphasis mine). He also helped craft Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on Non-Christian Religions which praises demonic Islam, pagan religions (like Hinduism), and "absolves" the Jews from the sin of Deicide (killing Christ). He even had a hand in the development of Dignitatis Humanae, the Declaration on Religious Freedom, which replaced the true Catholic teaching on religious toleration. As a result, false religions were allowed to proselytize and function in formerly Catholic countries.  Just look at Ireland which has officially sanctioned both sodomite "marriage," and just last month, stripped all legal protections from from innocent unborn babies. 

After Vatican II, Baum was involved with "Liberation theology" which is Marxism cloaked in religious language. He also is linked with "Holocaust theology," which despairs of the Goodness of God. Former Hitler Youth member Ratzinger, will bend over backwards to prove his acceptance of all things Jewish (like Baum who never really stopped being a Jew for all intents and purposes). As "Pope" Benedict XVI, Ratzinger stated, "In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence – a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? " (See http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/may/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060528_auschwitz-birkenau.html) I guess Ratzinger never heard of free will and the inclination to evil since the Fall. That's what happens when you abandon the approved theologians pre-Vatican II! 

In the meantime, Fr. DePauw was made out to be a "rebel" or "disobedient" priest. More than once people were told by the invalidly consecrated "bishop" of Long Island, NY, John McGann, that Fr. DePauw was "no longer Catholic," and "excommunicated." To attend his Chapel would make them "excommunicated." Billy Murphy, the apostate from Boston who would become "bishop" of Rockville Centre (the Diocesan name for Long Island) in 2001, was even more hateful. While "gay masses" (sic) took place a mile away at St. Bridget's Church, he would only denounce Fr DePauw. When Father left this world for a better place in 2005, Murphy had the unmitigated gall to show up at the wake! I had the privilege of seeing the President of the Board of Directors refuse him permission to enter. "We don't belong to the same religion," he honestly told him. 

Baum was lionized in the press. When he died last year, many obituaries omitted the fact he left the priesthood in 1978 to "marry" his long time "friend" Shirley Flynn (a divorced ex-nun), and he remained with her until her death in 2007. Since Vatican II he was a strong supporter of sodomites. His autobiography, The Oil Has Not Run Dry: The Story of My Theological Pathway (2017), published just before his death, reveals that Baum himself was a sodomite and attracted to men since his youth. He writes that in 1986 he "fell in love" with another former priest and states "his unwavering love, which has given stability to my life as a theologian, has been a gift from God." (pgs. 114-116). This took place while he was living with his concubine, Shirley Flynn, whom he used to mask his active homosexual liaisons with her consent. Baum chose to keep his homosexuality a secret while appearing to be a faithful priest so he could subvert the Catholic Church. "I did not profess my own homosexuality in public because such an act of honesty would have reduced my influence as a critical theologian." His first homosexual encounter took place in 1963, while Vatican II was underway. It was a hook-up with a sodomite he met in a restaurant, and he found it "exciting."

Baum was the enemy of Fr. DePauw--how glorious for Father!

Enemies and Critics--Then and Now

 The leader of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement was insulted, despised, and calumniated for his unwavering fight "for Truth and Tradition." He fought the good fight and persevered until the end. During his life, he saw the Great Apostasy, and did all he could to stop it. That doesn't prevent his detractors from continuing to misrepresent and calumniate him even today.

The charges most often used against him:

1. He wasn't a sedevacantist. I believe he was since at least 1999, but at the beginning many were confused. Afterwards, he just wanted to believe that the Church was coming back to Her glory. It was hard for him to face what was happening. However, he never "kept people in the Vatican II sect" as "controlled opposition." He told people that the "Concilliar Sect"(as he called it) was NOT Catholic and no one could attend. Why would he not "go public"as a sedevacantist? Many people at the Chapel would have been scandalized and would have fallen into the clutches of the V2 sect's Society of St. Peter (FSSP), or the "Indult" fiasco. I believe he was acting with the best interests of the souls he had cared for in the decades past.

2. He didn't become a bishop and ordain priests. Bishop Kurz, the Bishop-Moderator of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement, did indeed ordain two men to the priesthood. One of those priests, Gunther Storch, became a sedevacantist bishop through Archbishop Thuc. Had Bp. Kurz lived longer, who knows how it would have gone. Abp. Lefebvre and the others chose not to stand with Father from the beginning, but came out later and brushed him aside. He didn't trust them, and I understand why. On August 1, 1967 he was offered episcopal consecration at the hands of an "Old Catholic" sect bishop from the Netherlands. (Their orders are valid, and they thought Father was against the Church). Father rejected the offer and rebuked them for denying the One True Church. He informed them he was, and would ever remain, a Catholic priest. "I will remain as a Catholic priest, rather than receive a bishop's miter from heretics."

3. He was involved with Masonry. I put this in the same category as so-called Elvis sightings and alleged encounters with Bigfoot you read about in supermarket tabloids. Someday I will write a separate post on this calumny. For a short time, Father was fooled by some claiming to be a Traditionalist order. They were frauds, but not Masonic. He severed all ties. As a matter of fact, with his own money, he purchased a former Masonic Temple across the street from the Chapel under an alias, and then converted it into an annex for members of the Chapel to use. He also bought the house next door (still unoccupied) when he heard that Planned Parenthood was going to purchase it and turn it into a baby killing factory ("abortuary"). Father built a beautiful Bishop's residence across the street for Bishop Kurz. Unfortunately, the good bishop died before he could move in. It also remains unoccupied, as Father DePauw chose to live in a small one bedroom apartment above the Chapel, in the company of Our Lord directly below him in the tabernacle. He repeatedly denounced Masonry, Communism, and all other evils from the pulpit.  Hardly the actions of a "Mason."  People are given to speak and write without doing the research. One person wrote in the comments of one of my posts that Fr. DePauw was praised by Wojtyla (John Paul II) after Father died, proving he was in cahoots with the Modernist Vatican. I doubt that. Fr. DePauw passed out of this world on May 6, 2005. Wojtyla died 34 days prior on April 2, 2005.

4. He didn't reject Vatican II, he just wanted its "full implementation" and to keep the Traditional Mass along with the Novus Bogus. This is so misunderstood. Let me put things in context. In 2011, the New York State Legislature was debating a bill to legalize sodomite "marriage." A friend of mine was a member of the Legislature, and lead the fight against the bill, which unfortunately became law four years before the abominable U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). When my friend had the floor and was debating the bill, he proposed a novel idea to the Democrats; I'll work with you to draft a Domestic Partnership Bill, that will give homosexual "couples" all the same rights as married people under the law, but we just won't call it "marriage." The Democrats were outraged and demanded he give up the floor as they would never agree to such a thing!

 I asked my friend why he did that instead of condemning sodomites. His answer was brilliant. He told me if he had denounced homosexuals, the media would paint him as a "religious zealot" and "an extremist, homophobic bigot." By offering to give them what they ostensibly wanted ("equality"), without the name of "marriage," their rejection revealed the sodomites' true intention--the destruction of Holy Matrimony as it has been known for centuries through the acceptance of their perversion as both "normal" and under the name "marriage." The media quashed the story realizing they couldn't paint him as an extremist, and they would expose the sodomite agenda.

Likewise, when Father DePauw proposed letting people have the Novus Bogus, as long as priests could continue to offer the true Mass, he exposed the Modernist agenda when they refused. The True Faith and the True Mass cannot co-exist with Modernist theology! He successfully showed the Modernists as not wanting to "update" the Church, but they were on a mission to change Her and destroy Her (if such a thing were possible!).

One of Father's detractors is Theresa Benns, the ersatz female "theologian" who engineered the farmhouse "conclave" consisting of six people who "elected" David Bawden as "Pope" Michael. After telling people to follow this man or be "outside the Church," she rejected him herself and went back to being a Home Aloner. She led people into following an antipope, made Traditionalists look wacky, and now we're supposed to trust her judgment of a real canonist! This charge she brings against Father belies her ignorance of what was done and why. It's another "Monday morning quarterback" who can tell you what the team that lost should have done to win, never having played professional sports and not going through the situation at the time.

Conclusion

Fifty years ago, Father DePauw offered the first public True Mass in defiance of the Vatican II sect posing as the Roman Catholic Church. A man may be judged by the reputation of his enemies. Gregory Baum, was an apostate and pervert, breaking his vows even as he sought to destroy the Church by invalidating the Mass, the sacraments, and corrupting dogmas. He is the quintessential enemy of Father DePauw. When the bishops at Vatican II considered a separate decree on the Blessed Virgin Mary, Baum and the Modernists opposed it. The vote was the closest of the Council with  1,074 bishops in favor of a separate document for the BVM and 1,114 bishops against; a margin of just 40 votes stopped it. Baum was urging the vote against it, while Father DePauw was urging votes in favor.

In the November 1963 edition of The Sign, Baum had this to say: "There is no doubt that Mariology, or the Catholic teaching on Mary, is a tremendous obstacle to the ecumenical movement, because it developed since the Reformation. The two Marian dogmas on the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption are obstacles, because they are new and concern a subject not directly connected with our salvation and also because they are the only doctrines defined by the pope alone." So Mariology originated in the 1500s? The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption are "new"? (Is that why there was a Mass in honor of Our Lady's Assumption from at least the eighth century?) These were the only doctrines defined by the pope alone? (Ever hear of canonizations or Unam Sanctum?) This was the drivel the Modernists were unleashing upon the Catholics of the world, while Father DePauw named his Traditionalist Chapel "Ave Maria," to honor God's Own Mother.  The fact that people of Baum's ilk, and self-professed "theologians" attack him, is a testament to his Catholic Faith.

As Father DePauw used to say, there were three groups of people around when he lead the Catholic Resistance to the Modernists: those who said it wouldn't be done. Those who said it couldn't be done. And those who said it shouldn't be done. By the grace of God, His humble servant, Father Gommar A. DePauw proved that it would be done, and the Church would continue as She must, despite the worst attacks of his (and the Church's) diabolic enemies. This Sunday, say a prayer for the repose of Father DePauw's truly Catholic soul, the first to stand up against the Modernists. Through him, God has proven that His One True Church may be attacked, but She shall never be conquered.