Naturally Absurd, part eight

I have come to the remarkable conclusion that there is nothing original that I can write about the state of a world where men and their nations do not believe that it is necessary to subordinate both private and public life in light of First and Last Things. If men in their private lives do not seek sanctity as befits redeemed creatures, they will descend ultimately to the very states of barbarism from which their ancestors were rescued by the Apostles and the missionaries who followed them in the First Millennium to become members of Holy Mother Church with access to the life-giving fountain that is the Sacraments. Similarly, if men act collectively in the public life of their nations as if it is not necessary to pursue the common temporal good in light of man’s Last End—the possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, they will be at war with each other domestically and with other nations internationally.

Our true popes have explained that this is so:

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."

And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that "the people's will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right." But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests? (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)

We have fallen into the abyss when men do little else that the follow “no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests.

This is true with respect to individuals, corporations, and governments worldwide today.

Why Support Anything To Do With The Walt Disney Company?

We have the spectacle of the completely morally bankrupt Walt Disney Company pushing the agenda of the homosexual collective, taking specific aim at the Governor of Florida, Ronald Dion DeSantis, for his opposition to the collective’s brainwashing of children from Kindergarten through Third Grade in so-called “public schools” (Disney Encountering Backlash from Opposition to DeSantis Education Bill.)

It is far past time (at least thirty-five years past time) for Catholics, of all people, to stop patronizing anything to do with the Walt Disney Company.

Stop going to theme parks.

Stop downloading or streaming even old Disney motion pictures.

Don’t buy Disney-themed products (shirts, mouse ears, lunch boxes, thermos jars, records, audio compact discs, digital video discs, Betamax or VHS videotapes, etc.).

Why do we want to patronize, either by ourselves or with our children, any motion picture theater? All right, The Passion of the Christ and For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada were exceptions. Apart from that, however, why do we want to support Hollywood, no less accustom our children to the naturalistic, at best, and overtly demonic, at worst, influences that emanate from the devil's playground?

Why go to "theme parks" that feature "rock" music and demonic visual images as part and parcel of their "appeal" to the public?

Why do we permit ourselves and our children to be subjected to anything to do with television or video games? Why? What possible benefit is there for the salvation of one's immortal soul in doing so?

Why do we accommodate ourselves to the prevailing trends in popular fashion, such as that is, you understand? Who says it is acceptable for a woman or a girl to wear pants at any time, yes, especially in the house, or to wear sleeveless dresses, yes, even in the summer? Did Our Lady do so? Why is it acceptable for you? Who says that it is acceptable for a man or a boy to go around bare-shirted or to wear shorts at any time other than for some gymnastic exercise? Who says that the standards of "modesty" must change to suit the "needs" of "modern" man? Any Catholic going to the Immemorial Mass of Tradition might as well go over to the Novus Ordo Missae if that is his mentality. Modesty is modesty. One standard fits all men in all ages in all parts of the world.

Who says that we can take ourselves and our children to "water parks" and beaches in the summer so as to "beat the heat," subjecting ourselves and our children to the gross immodesty and indecency displayed there?

Does Our Lady say we can put our souls in jeopardy by doing so?

Is this the message she gave Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos at the Cova da Iria in Fatima in 1917? Is it? If not, who says that we are exempt?

Who says that we can listen to "rock" music, whose very beat is designed to agitate and to disturb the soul? For the adults among you, please secure a copy of Michael Matt's The Gods of Wasteland (Remnant Bookstore) and consider it carefully. Destroy any and all "rock" vinyl records, tapes and compact discs. Do not give them away. Destroy them. There is a place where that music will be played for all eternity, and it is not called Heaven.

Who says that we can be indifferent to the harmful influences on our children of relatives and friends and neighbors and associates who are hostile to the Faith, who do not mind their speech, who play anything and everything imaginable on television, who tempt our children with bad music and beliefs that can take our children away from the practice of the Catholic Faith over the course of time? It is easier for bad example to corrupt than it is for good example to covert.

Who says that we can suspend our adherence to the Faith in order to maintain our career success?

Who says that we can refuse to speak about Our Lady's Fatima Message in public when we are given a platform to discuss the issues of the day?

Who says that we can join organizations that refuse to recognize that the whole of world peace has been entrusted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?

Who says that we can be indifferent to the conversion of this nation to Catholicism by professing publicly that it is some shopworn political ideology of philosophy that holds the "answers" to social problems?

If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that we have made many compromises with the spirit of the world.

If we want to get to Heaven and if we want to help our children to do so, we must understand that we are called to be Catholic in everything, and that a Catholic cannot make voluntary compromises with the world, especially a world that is anti-Catholic of its very foundational principles, which rest on the belief that man can be indifferent to the Incarnation and to the Deposit of Faith that God has entrusted solely to the Catholic Church and yet know personal peace and social order.

Give up the world, folks. The rewards are heavenly.

Kill Innocent Babies, Kill Innocent Patients in Hospitals? Unleash a Torrent of Epic Street Violence

Why do we expect that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ will not chastise us with the likes of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.., Kamala Harris, Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi, Charles Ellis Schumer  and the rest of the leftist lynch mob currently in power that sees everything through the prism of race and that now wants to chase Associate Justice Clarence Thomas off the Supreme Court of the United States of America thirty-one years after Biden, at least, tried to keep him off it?  (See The Smearing of Clarence Thomas.) 

Sure, we also have the spectacle of a doddering old man who is incapable of understanding the agenda set for his administration by those who are actually running it and saying things that are completely contrary to the “official” line  (Biden's gaffes becoming 'national security risk,' Rand Paul says) constantly repeating his support for the surgical execution of the innocent preborn and for the sin of Sodom, both of which cry to Heaven for vengeance:

Folks, advancing liberty and justice also requires protecting the rights of women. The constitutional right affirmed by Roe v. Wade, standing precedent for half a century, is under attack as never before.

If you want to go forward not backwards, we must protect access to healthcare; preserve a woman’s right to choose — and continue to advance maternal healthcare for all Americans.

The constitutional right affirmed in Roe v. Wade — standing precedent for half a century — is under attack as never before.
If we want to go forward — not backward — we must protect access to health care. Preserve a woman’s right to choose.

And folks, for our LGBTQ+ Americans, let’s finally get the bipartisan Equality Act to my desk. The onslaught of state laws targeting transgender Americans and their families — it’s simply wrong.

As I said last year, especially to our younger transgender Americans, I’ll always have your back as your President so you can be yourself and reach your God-given potential. (Bumbling Stumblebum’s State of the Union Addresss.)

No one is morally free to do that which is contrary to the eternal laws of God, and the last time I looked the directly intended taking of an innocent human life is prohibited by these four simple words that are quite easy to understand: “Thou shalt not kill.”

There is a direct, inexorable link between the decriminalization and subsequent celebration of the chemical and surgical execution of the innocent preborn with the epic rise of crime in American cities, including in my own native City of New York (I was born in Jamaica Hospital, Borough of Queens, City of New York, on November 24, 1951, and lived in Queens Village, Borough of Queens, City of New York, above my father’s veterinary hospital until we escaped to Great Neck in the County of Nassau on November 10, 1955). The horror stories of unprovoked violent assaults by wicked people upon bystanders whom they have never met is a sign of the barbarism that must arise when men learn that ignore the Fifth Commandment with legal and social impunity. Everyone is now at a risk as a result of the killing of innocent babies and by the killing of the innocent in hospitals (“brain death”/vital organ vivisection, which Biden, of course, supports—see A Proclamation on National Donate Life, the starvation and dehydration of brain-damaged human beings—yesterday was the seventeenth anniversary of the late Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo’s death by unspeakable cruel two-week starvation and dehydration—see Ten Years Later—and “palliative care”/hospice). For a brief story about an execution-style slaying in New York City, see Queens shooting victim's mom pleads with Mayor Adams to 'fix' NYC.

It Pays to Be Ignorant to Get On Biden’s Short List for the Supreme Court

The reprobate named Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., who has long celebrated the killing of innocent human beings and has been an outspoken promoter of the every permutation of the homosexual agenda that has taken place in the past fifty years, including for mutants now (see Biden-Harris Administration Advances Equality and Visibility for Transgender Americans), has been permitted to remain in “good standing” within the counterfeit church of conciliarism for so long—nearly five full decades—that he knows he can say such things without any fear of being excommunicated from the conciliar sect. He has no regard for the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law, which is why he nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to succeed the thoroughly pro-abortion, pro-perversity statist named Stephen G. Breyer as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America as she has as little regard for the words of the Constitution of the United States of America as its framers had for the authority of Holy Mother Church as the final arbiter in all that pertains to the good of souls. Judge Jackson is pro-abortion (Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks on abortion, faith and race in Supreme Court confirmation hearing) and is so committed to the ever-widening agenda of perverts and mutants that she could not even define the word “woman” during her recent confirmation hearings (see ‘I’m Not a Biologist’: Ketanji Brown Jackson Cannot Define 'Woman'). Such is the utter and complete madness of a world where simple facts must give sway to ideological fantasies inspired by the adversary and that are designed to nations to ruin and souls into hell for all eternity.

Ketanji Brown Jackson, who could not call to mind the basis of the Supreme Court case of in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford, a case that even high school students used to learn in another epoch of American history, which ruled that black Americans, slave or free, could not sue in Federal courts as they were not American citizens. This what Jackson said:

"I don't quite remember the basis for the Dred Scott opinion," Jackson said, stating that she trusted Cornyn’s take on it. (Supreme Court nominee Jackson doesn't 'quite remember the basis' for Dred Scott decision.)

This means that she did not know much, if anything about the Dred Scott decision, something that is a part of basic American history, no less constitutional law. Disregarding the fact that no one who supports any of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for justice, including willful murder and the sin of Sodom, is qualified to hold any position of public trust, whether elected or appointed, how is anyone qualified to sit as a federal judge without knowing basic constitutional law? Well, I guess Judge Jackson is “qualified” if one considers the constitution meaningless in her own theory of jurisprudence.

Yes, we have arrived at a time in salvation history when those in public life have no regard even for the words of their government’s constitution as a supposed “pope” has for the immutable Catholic doctrines that have been defined by Holy Mother Church’s twenty true general councils and/or by our true popes. Divine Revelation is as fungible in the minds of the conciliar revolutionaries as just human laws are in the minds of social engineers who believe that a constitution is a blank slate upon which they can write whatever they want without regard for the amending or legislative processes.

Men who are formed in an incubator of religious indifferentism, materialism, Pelagianism, and majoritarianism will come to view themselves as infallible demigods who can contradict themselves at will, seek to repress and persecute those who do not accept their “infallible” pronouncements, and make any dissent for what passes for the secular “orthodoxy” du jour appear as unfit citizens who are filled with hatred and bigotry. The very people who deny that there are immutable truths that have either been revealed definitively by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and taught infallibly in His Holy Name by the Catholic Church believe in their own infallibility from which no one can legitimately dissent.

Brett Michael Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett: “Conservative” Jurists Who Are Statists

Our situation is so absurd that the Supreme Court of the United States of America gives deference to most “vaccine mandates,” especially those issued by the United States Department of Defense, in the name of “respecting” the judgment of “public health authorities” and, in the case of military personnel who have sought religious exemptions from those mandates, in the name of not wanting to interfere with the “chain-of command.” It is thus that even “conservative” justices such as Brett Michael Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett clothe mere mortals with a cloak of infallibility because they serve in government positions.

This is what Associate Justice Kavanaugh wrote in the case of Lloyd J. Austin III, Secretary of Defense v. United States Navy Seals, March 25, 2022:

In this case, the District Court, while no doubt well-intentioned, in effect inserted itself into the Navy’s chain of command, overriding military commanders’ professional military judgments. The Court relied on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. See 42 U. S. C. §2000bb−1(b). But even accepting that RFRA applies in this particular military context, RFRA does not justify judicial intrusion into military affairs in this case. That is because the Navy has an extraordinarily compelling interest in maintaining strategic and operational control over the assignment and deployment of all Special Warfare personnel—including control over decisions about military readiness. And no less restrictive means would satisfy that interest in this context.

The Court “should indulge the widest latitude” to sustain the President’s “function to command the instruments of national force, at least when turned against the outside world for the security of our society.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 645 (1952) (Jackson, J., concurring). That fundamental principle applies here. As Admiral William Lescher, Vice Chief of Naval Operations, explained: “Sending ships into combat without maximizing the crew’s odds of success, such as would be the case with ship deficiencies in ordnance, radar, working weapons or the means to reliably accomplish the mission, is dereliction of duty. The same applies to ordering unvaccinated personnel into an environment in which they endanger their lives, the lives of others and compromise accomplishment of essential missions.” App. to Application for Partial Stay 110a. (Austin v. U. S. Navy Seals, March 25, 2022.)

In other words, Justice Kavanaugh accepted the completely false claim that unvaccinated personnel would “endanger their lives, the lives of others and complete accomplishment of essential missions.” Due deference is thus given to patent falsehoods, but such must the case in a world where men do not see the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith and become bound to see in assertions made in government legal briefs “truths” that are not only not there but are contrary to what a diligent investigation of facts would reveal.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito, however, noted that the Navy Seals were denied fundamental as their naval superiors had no intention of even reading their claims of being entitled to a religious exemption from the vaccine mandate:

No fewer than 50 steps, and during the first 35 steps, none of the various officials who processed requests gave any consideration to their merit. Decl. of A. Stephens, Exh. 1, ECF Doc. 62, at 10–26. Instead, a form letter rejecting each request was prepared and sent to seven offices for review. App. 40a.2 A package of rejection letters was then assembled, together with a memo asking the vice admiral who served as a deputy chief of naval operations to sign the rejection letters. Ibid. Only at step 35 was someone in this chain told to read the exemption requests, but it appears that this individual was not given an opportunity to recommend that a request be granted. See ECF Doc. 62, at 7. Instead, this person’s sole task was to record pertinent information on a spreadsheet and send the package on to the vice admiral. Id., at 7–8. Given the nature of this procedure, the results it produced are not surprising.

Although more than 4,000 exemption requests had been submitted by February 15, 2022, not a single one had been approved when the complaint in this case was filed. See Application for Partial Stay 9, and n. 3 (Application) (citing ECF Doc. 129, at 16, n. 2 (Feb. 23, 2022)). Respondents are among the many recipients of form rejection letters, and according to their declarations and testimony, some of them were told outright that pressing for a religious exemption would end their naval careers. A respondent identified as Navy Seal 2 stated that a superior officer advised him that “‘all religious accommodation requests will be denied’” because “‘senior leadership . . . has no patience or tolerance for service members who refuse COVID–19 vaccination for religious reasons and want them out of the SEAL community.’” U. S. Navy Seals v. Biden, 27 F. 4th 336, ___ (CA5 2022) (per curiam), App. 9a. This officer allegedly added that “‘even if a legal challenge is somehow successful, the senior leadership of Naval Special Warfare will remove [his] special warfare designation.’” Ibid. According to Navy Seal 5, he was told that “‘there [would] be a blanket denial of all religious accommodation requests regarding COVID–19 vaccination.’” Ibid. Navy Seal 8 declared that his “‘chain of command . . . made it clear that [his] request [would] not be approved and . . . provided [him] with information on how to prepare for separation from the U. S. Navy.’” Ibid. Navy Seal 11 stated that a command master chief told him that “‘anyone not receiving the COVID–19 vaccine is an “acceptable loss” to the Naval Special Warfare (NSW) community.’” Ibid. (Austin v. U. S. Navy Seals, March 25, 2022.)

None of this mattered to Brett Michael Kavanaugh or Amy Coney Barrett. They did not even want to examine if Navy commanders had decided that those who wanted a religious exemption from the vaccines that are poisoned with the cell lines of aborted babies and are causing untold numbers of deaths and injuries to many of those who receive them (and will be causing long term problems well into the future, especially with endless “boosters” upon “boosters) could be deprived of basic due process rights because of slavish adherence to the vaccine agenda.

Oh well, What was I saying about Don't Place Your Bets on Brett?

Brett Michael Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett are as much as pro-government institutionalists as is Chief Justice John Roberts Glover, Jr. Ketanji Jackson Brown will feel right at home as she does her work of legal positivism.

Men and their nations are not meant to hang by the slender threads represented by legal positivists and their preferential option against the law of Good and for the imposition of their ideological agendas under cover of the civil law.

As the Killing Continues in Ukraine

Although I have no intention of writing a fourth part of the “Wars and Rumors of Wars” series, there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind by now that Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin is deliberately targeting civilian population centers, meaning that even if the requisites for launching a just war had been met, which they were not, Putin’s whole enterprise has rendered completely immoral as he is using raw terror to pummel the idiot named Volodymyr Zelensky to make peace on his, Putin’s, terms. Anyone who still thinks that Vladimir Putin is a moral man ought to consider the following commentary from a secular writer:

The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin catastrophically miscalculated.

He thought Russian-speaking Ukrainians would welcome his troops. They didn’t. He thought he’d swiftly depose Volodymyr Zelensky’s government. He hasn’t. He thought he’d divide NATO. He’s united it. He thought he had sanction-proofed his economy. He’s wrecked it. He thought the Chinese would help him out. They’re hedging their bets. He thought his modernized military would make mincemeat of Ukrainian forces. The Ukrainians are making mincemeat of his, at least on some fronts.

Putin’s miscalculations raise questions about his strategic judgment and mental state. Who, if anyone, is advising him? Has he lost contact with reality? Is he physically unwell? Mentally? Condoleezza Rice warns: “He’s not in control of his emotions. Something is wrong.” Russia’s sieges of Mariupol and Kharkiv — two heavily Russian-speaking cities that Putin claims to be “liberating” from Ukrainian oppression — resemble what the Nazis did to Warsaw, and what Putin himself did to Grozny.

Several analysts have compared Putin to a cornered rat, more dangerous now that he’s no longer in control of events. They want to give him a safe way out of the predicament he allegedly created for himself. Hence the almost universal scorn poured on Joe Biden for saying in Poland, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

The conventional wisdom is entirely plausible. It has the benefit of vindicating the West’s strategy of supporting Ukraine defensively. And it tends toward the conclusion that the best outcome is one in which Putin finds some face-saving exit: additional Ukrainian territory, a Ukrainian pledge of neutrality, a lifting of some of the sanctions.

But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if the West is only playing into Putin’s hands once again?

The possibility is suggested in a powerful reminiscence from The Times’s Carlotta Gall of her experience covering Russia’s siege of Grozny, during the first Chechen war in the mid-1990s. In the early phases of the war, motivated Chechen fighters wiped out a Russian armored brigade, stunning Moscow. The Russians regrouped and wiped out Grozny from afar, using artillery and air power.

Russia’s operating from the same playbook today. When Western military analysts argue that Putin can’t win militarily in Ukraine, what they really mean is that he can’t win clean. Since when has Putin ever played clean?

“There is a whole next stage to the Putin playbook, which is well known to the Chechens,” Gall writes. “As Russian troops gained control on the ground in Chechnya, they crushed any further dissent with arrests and filtration camps and by turning and empowering local protégés and collaborators.”

Suppose for a moment that Putin never intended to conquer all of Ukraine: that, from the beginning, his real targets were the energy riches of Ukraine’s east, which contain Europe’s second-largest known reserves of natural gas (after Norway’s).

Combine that with Russia’s previous territorial seizures in Crimea (which has huge offshore energy fields) and the eastern provinces of Luhansk and Donetsk (which contain part of an enormous shale-gas field), as well as Putin’s bid to control most or all of Ukraine’s coastline, and the shape of Putin’s ambitions become clear. He’s less interested in reuniting the Russian-speaking world than he is in securing Russia’s energy dominance.

“Under the guise of an invasion, Putin is executing an enormous heist,” said Canadian energy expert David Knight Legg. As for what’s left of a mostly landlocked Ukraine, it will likely become a welfare case for the West, which will help pick up the tab for resettling Ukraine’s refugees to new homes outside of Russian control. In time, a Viktor Orban-like figure could take Ukraine’s presidency, imitating the strongman-style of politics that Putin prefers in his neighbors.

If this analysis is right, then Putin doesn’t seem like the miscalculating loser his critics make him out to be.

It also makes sense of his strategy of targeting civilians. More than simply a way of compensating for the incompetence of Russian troops, the mass killing of civilians puts immense pressure on Zelensky to agree to the very things Putin has demanded all along: territorial concessions and Ukrainian neutrality. The West will also look for any opportunity to de-escalate, especially as we convince ourselves that a mentally unstable Putin is prepared to use nuclear weapons.

Within Russia, the war has already served Putin’s political purposes. Many in the professional middle class — the people most sympathetic to dissidents like Aleksei Navalny — have gone into self-imposed exile. The remnants of a free press have been shuttered, probably for good. To the extent that Russia’s military has embarrassed itself, it is more likely to lead to a well-aimed purge from above than a broad revolution from below. Russia’s new energy riches could eventually help it shake loose the grip of sanctions.

This alternative analysis of Putin’s performance could be wrong. Then again, in war, politics and life, it’s always wiser to treat your adversary as a canny fox, not a crazy fool. (What if Putin Didn’t Miscalculate?.)

Yes, since when has Putin ever played clean?

Mind you, this is not indemnify Volodymyr Zelensky, who has banned opposition political parties and has made war on the press since his inauguration but who has the temerity to beg Western powers for “help” to save “democracy.”

However, this is to note that, as has been noted in the three-part “Wars and Rumors of Wars” series, the constituent elements for a just war were not present prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine despite all the decades of Western provocation as Putin believes in realpolitik and could not care less about the just war doctrine. He had geopolitical goals to pursue, and he is taking full advantage of the doddering old fool, who turns eight years of age on November 20, 2022, to do so.

Pray to Our Lady of Ukraine for a just peace in Ukraine.

Pray to Our Lady of Ukraine for the all the suffering innocents in Ukraine.

Without Holy Mother Church There Must Be Chaos at Home and War Abroad

Pope Leo XIII explained in Immortale Dei that it is a fatal, pernicious error for nations to ignore the teaching of the true Church:

So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only passport to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

It is a grave and fatal error to exclude Holy Mother Church from the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth and from influencing the whole direction of domestic society. The Western world is on a death march from which, humanly speaking, there is no retreat. This is all a preparation for the coming of Antichrist to take control of a world that has been torn apart by the proliferation of sin and error by those who believe that men can make their lives better without Christ the King and His true Church.

Consider these words of Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:

Men today do not act as Christians, as brothers, but as strangers, and even enemies. The sense of man's personal dignity and of the value of human life has been lost in the brutal domination begotten of might and mere superiority in numbers. Many are intent on exploiting their neighbors solely for the purpose of enjoying more fully and on a larger scale the goods of this world. But they err grievously who have turned to the acquisition of material and temporal possessions and are forgetful of eternal and spiritual things, to the possession of which Jesus, Our Redeemer, by means of the Church, His living interpreter, calls mankind.

22. It is in the very nature of material objects that an inordinate desire for them becomes the root of every evil, of every discord, and in particular, of a lowering of the moral sense. On the one hand, things which are naturally base and vile can never give rise to noble aspirations in the human heart which was created by and for God alone and is restless until it finds repose in Him. On the other hand, material goods (and in this they differ greatly from those of the spirit which the more of them we possess the more remain to be acquired) the more they are divided among men the less each one has and, by consequence, what one man has another cannot possibly possess unless it be forcibly taken away from the first. Such being the case, worldly possessions can never satisfy all in equal manner nor give rise to a spirit of universal contentment, but must become perforce a source of division among men and of vexation of spirit, as even the Wise Man Solomon experienced: "Vanity of vanities, and vexation of spirit." (Ecclesiastes i, 2, 14)

23. The same effects which result from these evils among individuals may likewise be expected among nations. "From whence are wars and contentions among you?" asks the Apostle St. James. "Are they not hence from your concupiscences, which war in your members?" (James iv, 1, 2)

24. The inordinate desire for pleasure, concupiscence of the flesh, sows the fatal seeds of division not only among families but likewise among states; the inordinate desire for possessions, concupiscence of the eyes, inevitably turns into class warfare and into social egotism; the inordinate desire to rule or to domineer over others, pride of life, soon becomes mere party or factional rivalries, manifesting itself in constant displays of conflicting ambitions and ending in open rebellion, in the crime of lese majeste, and even in national parricide.

25. These unsuppressed desires, this inordinate love of the things of the world, are precisely the source of all international misunderstandings and rivalries, despite the fact that oftentimes men dare to maintain that acts prompted by such motives are excusable and even justifiable because, forsooth, they were performed for reasons of state or of the public good, or out of love for country. Patriotism -- the stimulus of so many virtues and of so many noble acts of heroism when kept within the bounds of the law of Christ -- becomes merely an occasion, an added incentive to grave injustice when true love of country is debased to the condition of an extreme nationalism, when we forget that all men are our brothers and members of the same great human family, that other nations have an equal right with us both to life and to prosperity, that it is never lawful nor even wise, to dissociate morality from the affairs of practical life, that, in the last analysis, it is "justice which exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable." (Proverbs xiv, 34)

26. Perhaps the advantages to one's family, city, or nation obtained in some such way as this may well appear to be a wonderful and great victory (this thought has been already expressed by St. Augustine), but in the end it turns out to be a very shallow thing, something rather to inspire us with the most fearful apprehensions of approaching ruin. "It is a happiness which appears beautiful but is brittle as glass. We must ever be on guard lest with horror we see it broken into a thousand pieces at the first touch." (St. Augustine de Civitate Dei, Book iv, Chap. 3)

27. There is over and above the absence of peace and the evils attendant on this absence, another deeper and more profound cause for present-day conditions. This cause was even beginning to show its head before the War and the terrible calamities consequent on that cataclysm should have proven a remedy for them if mankind had only taken the trouble to understand the real meaning of those terrible events. In the Holy Scriptures we read: "They that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed." (Isaias i, 28) No less well known are the words of the Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ, Who said: "Without me you can do nothing" (John xv, 5) and again, "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." (Luke xi, 23)

28. These words of the Holy Bible have been fulfilled and are now at this very moment being fulfilled before our very eyes. Because men have forsaken God and Jesus Christ, they have sunk to the depths of evil. They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. It was a quite general desire that both our laws and our governments should exist without recognizing God or Jesus Christ, on the theory that all authority comes from men, not from God. Because of such an assumption, these theorists fell very short of being able to bestow upon law not only those sanctions which it must possess but also that secure basis for the supreme criterion of justice which even a pagan philosopher like Cicero saw clearly could not be derived except from the divine law. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

That last paragraph, number twenty-eight, says it all. The gist of the two hundred thirty-seven articles linked at the top of this article can be summarized in the following words written by Pope Pius XI nearly eighty-eight years ago:

They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

As we know, Modernity itself is the problem. The world in which we live, born of the Protestant Revolution and the subsequent triumph of naturalism in all of its Judeo-Masonic guises, is collapsing  because of its refusal to acknowledge the Word Who was made Flesh in His Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost and to submit in all that pertains to the good of souls to His true Church. It is really very simple to understand. Everyone loses when Christ the King reigneth not over men and their nations.

We must be champions of Christ the King and Our Lady, she who is our Immaculate Queen, champions of the Catholic Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal, champions of the truth that Catholicism is the and only foundation of personal and social order. Those who disagree do so at the peril to the nation they say they love but for which they have a false sense of nationalistic pride that impedes her conversion to the true Faith, which is what Our Lord Himself mandates for each nation on the face of this earth.

We must not be distracted by the side shows of naturalism or conciliarism. We must serve as champions of Christ the King through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, especially by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits, refusing to march along in the parade of the ignorant midget naturalists.

As noted earlier in this commentary, we must reject the world and its vain amusements.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque explained this truth as follows:

O Divine Heart of Jesus, inexhaustible Source of love and goodness, ah! how I regret that I have forgotten Thee too much and loved Thee so little! O Sacred Heart, Thou dost merit the reverence and love of all hearts which Thou hast cherished so much and laid under infinite obligations. And yet Thou dost receive from the greater number nothing but ingratitude and coldness, and especially from my own heart which merits Thy just indignation. But Thy Heart is all full of goodness and mercy, and of this I wish to avail myself to obtain reconciliation and pardon. O Divine Heart, I grieve intensely when I see myself guilty of such cowardice and when I consider the ungrateful conduct of my wicked heart, which has so unjustly stolen the love that it owes to Thee and bestowed it on myself or on vain amusements.

Although I have written on this subject much before, I want to make an appeal to each and every traditional Catholic who reads these words: make no provision for the world and its pleasures. This is a time of penance and mortification, not of a merry abandonment to "pleasures" that are impediments to our own sanctification and can indeed lead to our eternal perdition. Culture must be restored to Catholicism. We do not need the tragedy of the Russian invasion of Ukraine nor the utter catastrophe that has been and will continue to be the pro-abortion, pro-perversity, statist administration of the crooked tool of the Red Chinese, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and his incompetent handlers who have contempt for the laws of the God and the just laws of men.

Our situation is not going to be made aright by elections, no, not even by the re-election in 2024 of the narcissist who is still promoting the sodomite agenda in his own right, Donald John Trump.

We must fast.

We must pray.

We must take our total consecration to Our Lord Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary seriously, recognizing that it will be by our Rosaries and our sacrifices that some small seeds might planted for what Pope Leo XIII said was necessary for the return of society to true Christianity, Catholicism:

So society in its foolhardy effort to escape from God has rejected the Divine order and Revelation; and it is thus withdrawn from the salutary efficacy of Christianity which is manifestly the most solid guarantee of order, the strongest bond of fraternity, and the inexhaustible source of all public and private virtue. This sacrilegious divorce has resulted in bringing about the trouble which now disturbs the world.  Hence it is the pale of the Church which this lost society must re-enter, if it wishes to recover its well-being, its repose, and its salvation.

Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely wise, good, and just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men.  It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption.  It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine Assistance and of that immortality which has been promised It, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which It has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect It in Its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the Teachings of the Gospel It does not reveal Itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of Justice and Charity, and the Propagator as well as the Guardian of True Liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the True Limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes  It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of Truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty.  Not does it infringe upon the rights of Justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

Anyone who thinks that this is not a reiteration of the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church is a fool. Conciliarism is at odds with this teaching. Draw the logical conclusion. Witness the results in the midst of the world of conciliarism's utter and complete contempt for this teaching of simple, old-fashioned Catholicism.

Remember, this is a time of profound chastisement.

As should be abundantly clear by now, the false opposites of the naturalist “right” are not going to restore even a rudimentary adherence to the rule of law under the terms of the Constitution of the United States of America, no less to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law. And the putative “pope” in the Casa Santa Marta actually celebrates the rot of popular culture as he promotes a “theology of encounter” with his fellow minions of the devil, each of whom is being used for preparing the way for Antichrist and his final battle with Our King, Christ the King. 

We do not, however, despair.

We are Catholics.

We trust in the motherly care of Our Lady, Who promised us in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, that her Fatima Message will triumph in the end, which is why we must truly persevere in our prayers for the restoration of a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter so that he can fulfill Our Lady's own request, made to Sister Lucia dos Santos in 1925, for the collegial consecration of Russia to her Immaculate Heart.

Oh, is there someone out there who does not believe that we are suffering from the errors of Russia in this time of apostasy and betrayal, this time when the Throne of Saint Peter is in chains?

We just need to keep close to her, especially through her Most Holy Rosary as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, as we seek to make reparation for our sins and those of the whole world.

Viva Cristo Rey!

Viva La Virgen de Guadalupe!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Appendix

Dom Prosper Gueranger on Friday in the Fifth Week of Lent

First, Lazarus was sick; and then, he died. The sinner begins by being tepid and careless; and then he receives the mortal wound. Jesus could have cured Lazarus of his sickness; but he permitted it to be fatal. He intends to work such a miracle, and that within sight of Jerusalem, that his enemies shall have no excuse for refusing to receive him as the Messias. He would also prove that he is the sovereign Master of life, in order that he might hereby teach his Apostles and Disciples not to be scandalized at the death he himself was soon to suffer. In the moral sense, God, in his wisdom, sometimes leaves an ungrateful soul to itself, although he foresees that it will fall into sin. It will rise again; and the confusion it will feel for having sinned will lead it to that great preservative against a future fall—humility.

The two sisters, Martha and Mary, are full of grief, yet full of confidence in Jesus. Let us observe how their two distinct characters are shown on this occasion. Jesus tells Martha that he is the Resurrection and the Life, and that they who believe in him shall not die, that is, shall not die the death of sin. But when Mary came to him, and he saw her weeping, he groaned in the spirit, and troubled himself, because he knew the greatness of her love. His divine Heart was touched with compassion as he beheld those who were so dear to him, smarting under that chastisement of death, which sin had brought into the world. Having reached the sepulcher where Lazarus was buried, he wept, for he loved Lazarus. Thus did our Redeemer by his own weeping sanctify the tears which Christian affection sheds over the grave of a relative or friend. Lazarus has been in the sepulcher four days: it is the image of the sinner buried in his sin. To see him now is what even his sister shudders at: but Jesus rebukes her, and bids them take away the stone. Then, with that voice which commands all nature and makes hell tremble, he cried out Lazarus, come forth! He that had been dead rises up in the sepulcher; but his feet and hands are tied, his face is covered with a napkin; he lives, but he can neither walk nor see. Jesus orders him to be set free; and then, by the hands of the men that are present, he receives the use of his limbs and eyes. So is it with the sinner that receives pardon. There is no voice but that of Jesus which can call him to conversion, and touch his heart, and bring him to confess his sins; but Jesus has put into the hands of Priests the power to loosen, enlighten, and give movement. This miracle, which was wrought by our Savior at this very season of the year, filled up the measure of his enemies’ rage, and set them thinking how they could soonest put him to death. The few days he has still to live are all to be spent at Bethania, where the miracle has taken place, and which is but a short distance from Jerusalem. In nine days from this, he will make his triumphant entry into the faithless city, after which he will return to Bethania, and after three or four days, will once more enter Jerusalem, there to consummate the Sacrifice, whose infinite merits are to purchase resurrection for sinners.

The early Christians loved to see this history of our Lord’s raising Lazarus to life painted in the walls of the Catacombs. We also find it carved on the Sarcophagi of the fourth and fifth centuries; and later on, it was not unfrequently chosen as a subject for the painted windows of our Cathedrals. This symbol of spiritual resurrection was formerly honored by a most solemn ceremony in the great Monastery of Holy Trinity at Vendome, in France. Every year, on this day, a criminal who had been sentenced to death was led to the Church of the Monastery. He had a rope round his neck, and held in his hand a torch weighing thirty-three pounds, in memory of the years spent on earth by our Savior. The Monks made a procession in which the criminal joined; after which a sermon was preached, at which he also assisted. He was then taken to the foot of the Altar, where the Abbot, after exhorting him to repentance, imposed on him, as a penance, the pilgrimage to Saint Martin’s Church at Tours. The Abbot loosened the rope from his neck and declared him to be free. The origin of this ceremony was that when Louis of Bourbon, Count of Vendome, was prisoner in England, in the year 1426, he made a vow that if God restored him to liberty, he would establish this custom in the Church of Holy Trinity as a return of gratitude and as an homage to Christ, who raised up Lazarus from the tomb. God accepted the vow, and the Prince soon recovered his freedom. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B. The Liturgical Year, Friday in the Fourth Week of Lent.)