The state of the Vatican II religion in 2024 A.D.
Crazy Sermon and Orange Butterfly Vestment at Novus Ordo Funeral ‘Mass’ in Minnesota
A gigantic monarch butterfly adorns the front of the chasuble worn by Rev. Mike Sullivan
On May 24, 2024, a funeral service — we can’t call it ‘Mass’ — was held at the so-called Catholic Community of Saint Joseph the Worker in Maple Grove, Minnesota. The parish is part of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul & Minneapolis under ‘Abp.’ Bernard Hebda, so consider yourself forewarned.
The name of the departed is irrelevant and will not be mentioned here, and we certainly mean no disrespect to him or his memory in the lines that follow. He, too, was surely but a victim of the Novus Ordo counterfeit religion, thinking it to be Roman Catholicism.
The Novus Ordo priest presiding over the funeral ceremony was Rev. Mike Sullivan, pastor of the parish. He thought it a good idea to wear a chasuble (priestly vestment) conspicuously adorned not with a beautiful cross or Crucifix but with a silly-looking giant monarch butterfly.
Although one’s first instinct might be to suspect that the choice of vestment was simply the whim of the typical American Novus Ordo priest of the baby-boomer generation trying to share some Vatican II joy, we have reason to believe there was something more sinister going on there.
The Butterfly-Soul Connection
It turns out that some people believe there is a connection of sorts between butterflies and the souls of the dead. As one web site observes:
In many cultures, butterflies symbolize transformation and resurrection. After all, a caterpillar goes into a cocoon, basically turns itself into goo, and emerges a few weeks later as a stunningly beautiful butterfly. So, it makes total sense that a butterfly represents the transformation of death and the resurrection as something beautiful — a soul.
(Karen Frazier, “Butterflies & Death: Communication & Comfort From the Other Side”, Love to Know, June 24, 2024)
To our knowledge, in Catholic tradition the Resurrection of Christ or belief in the resurrection of the dead have been represented by various symbols, but orange butterflies are not among them.
We suspect there is a different tradition responsible for this association of butterflies with souls and death. And indeed, as another site notes:
In the cosmology of many indigenous cultures in Mexico, butterflies were considered as the souls of the deceased returning to visit their loved ones on Earth during Day of the Dead. For the Aztecs, these winged creatures were associated with Mictecacihuatl, the goddess of the underworld and protector of the dead. This belief established a profound symbolic connection between butterflies and the transition between life and death.
(“The Relationship Between the Monarch Butterfly and Day of the Dead”, Ecolife Conservation, Nov. 1, 2023)
A flyer released by a ‘Catholic’ hospice facility located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, explains its annual custom of remembering on National Grief Awareness Day those that died under its care in the past year:
A release of Monarch butterflies is typically a part of this celebration, as a symbol of loved ones being present, and at peace.
So, what is the significance of butterflies with grief, loss, and remembrance? Many believe that butterflies, particularly Monarchs, represent the souls of those who have passed away and left the mortal world. And, people from around the world, believe they are a sign of a guardian angel that is watching over you.
Butterflies are viewed as a spiritual symbol of life after death because of their metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a colorful creation that flies through the air. Therefore, they bring comfort to people who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Psyche, or “soul” is the Greek word for butterfly and Greek mythology makes a connection between butterflies and human souls.
(Source)
Thus it seems clear why the Rev. Sullivan thought it appropriate to feature a giant orange butterfly on his white chasuble for a funeral, and it wasn’t because of his deeply-held belief in traditional Catholic teaching on the last things (death, judgment, purgatory, heaven, hell).
Tragically, things get worse from here because the butterfly presbyter also delivered a homily.
Before we deal with that, though, let us consider how the traditional Roman chasuble differs visually from the Novus Ordo horse blanket worn by ‘Fr.’ Mike (why ‘Fr.’ in quotes?).
The traditional Roman chasuble for the Requiem Mass:
(above image source: chasubles24.com)
Novus Ordo butterfly blanket for the ‘Mass of Christian Burial’:
Can you guess which of these two types of vestments is part of the ‘new springtime in the faith’ triggered by Vatican II?
A Doozy of a Sermon
But now let’s turn to the homily delivered by the butterfly presbyter on the occasion of this funeral. Make sure you’re seated.
‘Fr.’ Sullivan starts out with a reflection on the ‘mosaic of life’ made up of the various elements that have supposedly made each one of us what we are. His message reflects a generic greeting card spirituality so common in ‘Catholic’ churches today, but it gets even more intolerable as he begins to talk about the pre-existence of the soul, a heretical idea apparently first spread by Origen (185-ca. 253). There are different variations of it, but basically this false doctrine holds that each person, or at least each person’s soul, existed with God before it was infused into a body to become the child of a particular set of parents (the orthodox Catholic teaching, by contrast, is that the soul is created immediately by God when it is infused into the body).
It is somewhat shocking to hear ‘Fr.’ Mike propose this ludicrous error so nonchalantly in his sermon, but the video recording of the funeral released by the parish leaves no doubt that that is indeed what the butterfly presbyter preached, beginning at the 22:15 min mark (already cued up):
For those who can’t or don’t want to play the video (direct link here), we are providing an approximate transcription of the presbyter’s words here (it is ‘approximate’ because he speaks fast and the audio quality is not very good):
God is the one who’s asked us, “Will you go down to earth and be a child of this particular mom and dad?”
…Babies get excited in heaven to be able to come down and be part of this mom and dad. This child doesn’t know what all is going to be happening with that mom and dad — they’re just there. But they do know, I think, that it’s their job as a little baby to teach moms and dads about unconditional love.
These lines demonstrate what an utter theological freak show the Novus Ordo religion has become, at least in the United States. The idea that there are babies in Heaven who exist before they are sent into the world by God in a kind of ‘incarnation’, is completely nuts on a number of levels.
For one thing, if they are truly babies, then they have a human body, and if they have a human body, then they have been conceived by parents. Furthermore, if they are already with God in Heaven — whom to behold is the ultimate goal of all human existence — why would they leave their blessedness for an earthly existence in which their souls can be lost? To teach their parents ‘unconditional love’, eh? But weren’t the parents, too, babies at some point, teaching their parents ‘unconditional love’?
What is this if not a complete theological madhouse?
More importantly, however, the pre-existence of the soul is not simply madness but heresy or very close to it, depending on what further nuances one may hold regarding this belief.
First of all, it is clear from Sacred Scripture that God does not take a soul from a supply of pre-existing ones and then infuse it into a body; rather, He creates the soul at the moment of infusion: “And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the earth: and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen 2:7).
Furthermore, the Canons against Origen, approved by Pope Vigilius (537-555), begin with the following anathema:
If anyone says or holds that the souls of men pre-existed, as if they were formerly minds and holy powers, but having received a surfeit of beholding the Divinity, and having turned towards the worse, and on this account having shuddered (apopsycheisas) at the love of God, in consequence being called souls (psychae) and being sent down into bodies for the sake of punishment, let him be anathema.
(Pope Vigilius, Canons against Origen, Canon 1; Denz. 203; italics added.)
Here we might add an interesting linguistic tidbit: One of the accepted meanings of the Greek word psyche [ψυχή], which is typically translated as ‘mind’ or ‘soul’, is actually — wait for it — ‘butterfly’! Aren’t some coincidences just incredible?
For those who would like to dig deeper, St. Thomas Aquinas devotes a number of pages to refuting the pre-existence of the soul theory in Chapters 83 and 84 of Book II of his Summa Contra Gentiles.
The Deceased — Perfect in the Eyes of God?
There are, of course, more problems with the content of the Rev. Mike’s insufferable homily than this one quasi-heresy. However, we will confine ourselves to looking at just one additional example, a staggering one that confirms we are dealing here not with a Catholic man but with an apostate, nothing short of a false prophet.
Beginning at the 31:42 min mark, ‘Father’ Sullivan says regarding the deceased member of his parish:
…he was already made perfect in the eyes of God at his birth, at his baptism, now in his death because he’s always been perfect in the eyes of God. He believes firmly and strongly that now he’s welcomed to the table at God’s heavenly banquet.
Wow, talk about instant canonization! Here the butterfly presbyter essentially declares the departed to have been immaculately conceived (or at least born so) and to have remained without stain of sin his entire life — which alone would be a heresy since Pope Pius IX declared the Blessed Virgin’s Immaculate Conception to be “a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God” (Bull Ineffabilis Deus).
Clearly, ‘Fr.’ Sullivan preaches the false gospel of Naturalism and Universalism. He denies original sin and its consequences. His position is a denial of the Redeemer and of the Redemption. If his words were true, there would be no need for a Savior, no need for the Gospel, no need for the Cross, for penance or prayer, nothing. It would also mean that Christ is not God because then Christ misled us and did not teach the truth. Then Catholicism would be one gigantic waste of time, which explains why Novus Ordo churches tend to be so empty, for this kind of butterfly theology cannot nourish souls.
Yes, God wants us to be ‘the best we can be’, so to speak (see Mt 5:48), but not simply in a natural sense by ‘taking with us what others have given us’, but in a supernatural sense: We are called to be saints! And that cannot happen without sanctifying grace. It cannot happen without the infused virtues of Faith, hope, and charity; nor without prayer, mortification, the devout reception of the sacraments, and works of mercy made efficacious through God’s grace.
Thus we see that the giant orange butterfly on the Rev. Mike’s chasuble was merely the conspicuous external symptom of the apostasy inside him. “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 and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables” (2 Tim 4:3-4).
If we compare ‘Fr.’ Mike’s insufferable ‘mosaic of life’ funeral sermon with the ‘sermon from the casket’ given by sedevacantist Bp. Donald Sanborn at the funeral of his consecrator, Bp. Robert F. McKenna (1927-2015), the contrast couldn’t be more striking:
(alternate direct link here)
The difference between the two sermons is easy to explain: Bp. Sanborn is a Catholic and preaches the true, supernatural Gospel; ‘Fr.’ Sullivan, by contrast, is a Modernist and preaches a sentimental, Naturalist butterfly message of ‘unconditional love’. The latter’s sermon could just as well have been given by a Unitarian or a Freemason, we might add; and, who knows, perhaps it was.
Final Thoughts
We will end this article by pointing out that there was no coffin or catafalque in the church of St. Joseph the Worker for the May 24 funeral. Instead there was an urn, for, tragically, the deceased had been cremated. Yes, in the Vatican II religion, that is officially allowed:
As Fr. John Laux (1878-1939) noted in his course on morality, cremation is an ancient pagan practice that came to be abolished in places where Catholicism took hold. “In modern times”, he added, writing in the 1930s, “efforts have been made to force this pagan practice on the world once more”. He then continued with this startling revelation:
On December 8, 1869, the International Congress of Freemasons imposed it as a duty on all its members to do all in their power to wipe out Catholicity from the face of the earth. Cremation was proposed as a suitable means to this end, since it was calculated to gradually undermine the faith of the people in “the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.”
(Rev. John Laux, Catholic Morality [New York, NY: Benziger Brothers, 1934], p. 106. This book can be purchased in paperback here [#CommissionLink].)
How far the Freemasons have succeeded in this goal up until now, can easily be seen by surveying the status quo in the Vatican II Church, and especially in the travesty of a funeral held on May 24 at St. Joseph the Worker’s in Maple Grove.
It is hard to believe, but the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass has been replaced by this pseudo-Catholic clown show. In musical terms, we might say the magnificent Dies Irae has given way to the sappy Be Not Afraid.
The lasting damage to souls the ‘Great Renewal’ of Vatican II has done, defies all description.
Image source: YouTube (screenshots) unless otherwise noted
Licenses: fair use
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