A Never Ending "Search" for Peace and Unity

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Newer and greater absurdities keep emerging in conciliarism's never ending "search" for "peace" and "unity." Rather than insist on the unconditional conversion of all men and all nations to the true Church, outside of which there is no salvation, Joseph Ratzinger, the quintessential Hegelian conciliarist who believes in the thoroughly condemned proposition that dogmatic truth can be understood differently at different times according to the "needs" of modern man and the circumstances of the moment, keeps praising false religions as instruments of "peace." Each and every false religion is from the devil. God despises false religions. He detests false religions. He loathes false religions.

While God wills the conversion of the members of false religions, He does want want those false religions praised as though they come from Him, can please Him in any way or can serve as anything other than a means of leading people to their eternal perdition and reaffirm them in the fallacious belief that social order itself is not premised on the submission of each human being on the face of this earth to the Deposit of Faith that He has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church. God does not believe that false religions have a right to profess their heretical views, which offend Him and mislead the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross, publicly or that those views can be helpful to the cause of social order or world peace, no less the salvation of individual souls.

Joseph Ratzinger himself has contradicted the Catholic Church's condemnation against religious liberty throughout his priesthood. He has done so throughout the course of his false pontificate. A representative of the conciliar Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Monsignor Anthony Frontiero, said the following a few days ago at the annual meeting of the Organization of Security Cooperation in Europe in Warsaw, Poland, quoting Ratzinger's own lavish praise for religious liberty in the process:

In his recent address to the Executive Committee of the Centrist Democratic International (CDI), Pope Benedict XVI recalled that the right to religious liberty is fundamental, irrepressible, inalienable and inviolable. Moreover, the exercise of this freedom includes the right to change religion, which should be guaranteed not only legally, but also in daily practice.

"In fact, religious liberty corresponds to the human person's innate openness to God, who is the fullness of truth and the supreme good. An appreciation for religious freedom is a fundamental expression of respect for human reason and its capacity to know the truth. Openness to transcendence is an indispensable guarantee of human dignity since within every human heart there are needs and desires that find their fulfillment in God alone. For this reason, God can never be excluded from the horizon of man and world history! That is why all authentically religious traditions must be allowed to manifest their own identity publicly, free from any pressure to hide or disguise it."

As we witness the varied religious reactions to the social problems of our day, there is evidence that the significant world religions, including Christianity, are promoting peace and justice as essential dimensions of their religious commitment. Men and women involved in these movements recognize an intrinsic connection between their religious faith and the active concern for the wellbeing of society. There is evidence of a universal solidarity on the horizon.

Christian discipleship and the quest for personal holiness include responsibility for the world. Faith traditions and religious experience based on reason and truth offer the promise and hope that the spiritual life is to be realized in a sustained, practical involvement for the well-being of God's world.

In 1971, in his apostolic letter "Octogesima Adveniens," Pope Paul VI argued that utopia can be an unrealistic dream that prevents people from effective action. But utopia, rightly understood, is a positive vision that criticizes the existing order, generates a forward-looking imagination, recognizes the as yet unrealized possibilities of the present, and supplies energy for the creation of a new future.

Religion will continue to serve as a meaningful, substantial and positive part in the quest for such a new future, especially if religions are delivered from their possible shortcomings and failures, and if they respect authentic aspirations. Religion, in the service of peace, human rights and social justice will be effective to the extent that it embraces the Holy Spirit's inspiration to be faithful to its deepest values.

 

"All authentically religious traditions must be allowed to manifest their own identity publicly, free from any pressure to hide or disguise it"? Condemned. A hideous, hateful abomination in the sight of God. This alone should be enough to prove Ratzinger's rejection of the Catholic Church. He himself has said that he does not consider bound by the consistent condemnation of "religious liberty." Truth, after all, is only perceived in the mind, subject to varying interpretations at different times, he believes, as he made clear in 1990 in L'Osservatore Romano:

The text [of the Second Vatican Council] also presents the various forms of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms -- perhaps for the first time with this clarity -- that there are decisions of the Magisterium that cannot be a last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. Its nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times have influenced, may need further ramifications.

“In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from immersion in the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they become obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at the proper moment.” (L'Osservatore Romano, July 2, 1990)

 

Pope Saint Pius X, writing in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, demonstrated the fallacy of this Modernist proposition:

Hence it is quite impossible to maintain that they absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion

It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: "These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts." On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason"; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth." Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: "Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation."

 

The concept of religious liberty was condemned as a heresy by Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814:

But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me."

 

Ratzinger's attitude? That was then, this is now. We know better. The decision of past popes are only "provisional," providing a momentary "anchorage" for the truth in a port that seems best at the time? Why isn't conciliarism's teaching as provisional? Why is it "essential" for what is said to be, albeit falsely, the Catholic Church? There is no reason to consider conciliarism's false teachings binding on anyone if its precepts are as provisional and conditioned by perception and circumstance as those of the true popes of the Catholic Church. Obviously, there is only one word for this: absurdity.

No human being can make something that is a heresy in 1814 into something acceptable to God, Who is unchanging, in 1965 or 2007. Was Pope Pius VII in error for condemning religious liberty? Was he joined in that error by Popes Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Leo XIII in the Nineteenth Century? Was Pope Saint Pius X wrong to condemn the separation of Church and State in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, and Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8,1907? There had to be a remarkable, ceaseless stream of error prior to conciliarism to make its embrace of religious liberty valid. Or God must be mutable, meaning His teaching is subject to reinterpretation in ways that contradict past pronouncements. Either option is completely antithetic to the nature of God and to the truths He has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.

Pope Gregory XVI condemned religious liberty in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832:

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.

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again?

 

No one has the right to propagate error publicly. This makes a mockery of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the mission that He gave the Eleven on Ascension Thursday to spread the true Faith to all men and nations until the end of time. Individuals may hold false beliefs. They cannot be coerced into converting to the true Faith. Holy Mother Church teaches that there is a distinction between religious tolerance, which seeks to do no violence to individual conscience, and religious liberty, which asserts that there is a civil right to propagate falsehoods. There is no such right.

Pope Leo XIII explained in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, the disastrous consequences that befall a society when the civil state permits the license of opinion and action to lead the minds of men astray, as happens every day in the "free" United States of America, the model of governance that Joseph Ratzinger praises as the one best expressing the spirit of conciliarism:

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 way 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.

 

The Church recognizes the reality of the conditions in which men live. She exhorts her children to make use of those conditions as best as they can for the promotion of the true Faith. The Catholic Church must never stop pointing to the ideal to which men must strive, making no concessions as a matter of principle to the reality of social conditions that are contrary to her teaching. Conciliarism has made concessions to the principles of Modernity, "reconciling" itself with the principles of 1787 and 1789. Pope Leo XIII, after using diplomatic language to praise certain elements of the American constitutional system and praising the natural virtues of George Washington, specifically condemned the separation of Church and State in the United States of America, noting that the American model is not one that should adopted in the rest of the world, exactly the opposite of what Joseph Ratzinger contends. This is what Pope Leo XIII wrote in Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895:

For the Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority.

 

Pope Leo was explaining to the American bishops that the growth of the Church in the United States of America was the work of of the Holy Ghost, not the product of the Constitution of the United States of America, which provides as much freedom for false religions and atheism as it does for Catholicism, the one and only true religion. He was exhorting the American bishops to work for the Catholicization of their nation, thereby making it possible for the Catholic Church to enjoy the "favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority" as God Himself teaches is the duty of the civil state to recognize and respect in all that pertains to the good of souls.

Yes, the Church can adapt herself to any legitimate form of government. She does insist, however, that the civil state recognize her as the true religion, recognizing also that she has the right, exercised rarely and judiciously and only after the exhausting of her Indirect Power of teaching, preaching and exhortation, to intervene with the civil authorities when the eternal good of souls demands such an intervention. The explicit embrace of the separation of Church and State by conciliarism, which is part and parcel of the heresy of religious liberty, is an explicit rejection of the consistent condemnation of this falsehood by the Catholic Church over the centuries.

There are no grounds upon which to justify any defense of the "right" of the adherents of false religions to propagate themselves publicly in society. Pope Pius IX made this clear in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864:

But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief errors of this kind, yet the cause of the Catholic Church, and the salvation of souls entrusted to us by God, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether demand that we again stir up your pastoral solicitude to exterminate other evil opinions, which spring forth from the said errors as from a fountain. Which false and perverse opinions are on that ground the more to be detested, because they chiefly tend to this, that that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world -- not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests.

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."

 

Despite the protestations of Joseph Ratzinger and the other conciliarists, the heresy of religious liberty leads to the triumph of religious indifferentism, the belief that one religion is as good as another. The following papal condemnations make clear that religious indifferentism, no matter what "benefits" it is said to extend to the Catholic Church in culturally and religiously pluralistic nations, winds up making atheism the lowest common denominator in society. Pope Leo XIII noted this in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God.

 

Pope Pius IX put the matter this way in Qui Pluribus, his first encyclical letter, issued on November 9, 1846:

Also perverse is the shocking theory that it makes no difference to which religion one belongs, a theory which is greatly at variance even with reason. By means of this theory, those crafty men remove all distinction between virtue and vice, truth and error, honorable and vile action. They pretend that men can gain eternal salvation by the practice of any religion, as if there could ever be any sharing between justice and iniquity, any collaboration between light and darkness, or any agreement between Christ and Belial.

 

As we know only too well, the practical effect of the heresy of religious liberty and the conciliarist doctrine of false ecumenism has been, once again, all conciliar protestations to the contrary, to reaffirm people in the practice of their false religions, reaffirming them as well in the delusional, insane proposition that their false beliefs can contribute to the betterment of nations and to world peace itself. Joseph Ratzinger did this once again recently in a statement issued by the conciliar "Pontifical" Council for the Promoting Christian Unity. Here is the report from the Vatican Information Service:

VATICAN CITY, OCT 19, 2007 (VIS) - Today in the Vatican, the Pope received a delegation from the Mennonite World Conference, a group which has recently expressed the desire to meet the Pope and to visit some of the dicasteries of the Holy See. This is the Mennonite Conference's first visit to Rome.

"The Mennonites are part of the Anabaptist tradition of the Reformation," explains a communique issued by the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. "To use a modern term, the Mennonites could be described today as pacifists. For their views on Baptism which, they feel, should be administered only to people capable of making autonomous decisions, they were subject ... to persecution in both Protestant and Catholic countries." In 1986 and 2002, the leaders of the Mennonite World Conference accepted John Paul II's invitation to participate in the meetings for peace in Assisi.

"In the ecumenical spirit of recent times, we have begun to have contacts with each other after centuries of isolation," the Pope told the Mennonite leaders in his English-language talk. "Since it is Christ Himself who calls us to seek Christian unity, it is entirely right and fitting that Mennonites and Catholics have entered into dialogue in order to understand the reasons for the conflict that arose between us in the sixteenth century. To understand is to take the first step towards healing."

"Mennonites are well known for their strong Christian witness to peace in the name of the Gospel, and here, despite centuries of division, the dialogue report 'Called Together to be Peacemakers' has shown that we hold many convictions in common. We both emphasize that our work for peace is rooted in Jesus Christ."

Catholics and Mennonites "both understand that 'reconciliation, non violence, and active peacemaking belong to the heart of the Gospel.' Our continuing search for the unity of the Lord's disciples is of the utmost importance. Our witness will remain impaired as long as the world sees our divisions."

The Pope concluded his address by expressing the hope that the visit "will be another step towards mutual understanding and reconciliation."

 

There is so much error in what Ratzinger asserts in this address that it is hard to know where to begin. Oh, well, let's give it a try.

"Since it is Christ Himself who calls us to seek Christianity unity"? Huh? Unity exists in the One, Holy, Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Those are outside of the true Church simply need to convert unconditionally. There is no need for a "dialogue." Non-Catholics, whether Protestant or Orthodox or Talmudic Jews or Mohammedans or Hindus or Buddhists or animists or outright atheists, need to take instruction in the true Faith and then to be received into the Catholic Church.

The search for unity? Remember, Joseph Ratzinger is the man who said in Cologne, Germany, on August 19, 2005, that he specifically rejects the "theology of the return." Does anyone out there in the Motu communities want to say that God Himself has rejected the "theology of the return?" Has God himself rejected these words of Pope Pius IX, contained in Iam Vos Omnes, an apostolic letter addressed specifically to exhort Protestants to return to the true Church, September 13, 1868?

Therefore, whoever recognizes that religion is the foundation of human society must be moved to confess what great violence has been wrought in civil society by the discrepancy of principles and the division of religious societies which fight amongst themselves, and with what force the refusal of the authority willed by God for governing the convictions of the intellect of men through the direction of the actions of men, as much in private life as in social life, has provoked, promoted and fed the lamentable of the things and of the times which agitate and plague [afflict] in this way nearly all peoples.

It is for this reason that so many who do not share “the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church” must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. She does not hesitate to raise to the Lord of mercy most fervent prayers to tear down of the walls of division, to dissipate the haze of errors, and lead them back within holy Mother Church, where their Ancestors found salutary pastures of life; where, in an exclusive way, is conserved and transmitted whole the doctrine of Jesus Christ and wherein is dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace.

 

Has God rejected these words of Pope Pius XI, contained in Mortalium Animos, January 6, 1928?

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly." The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills." For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head.

Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors. Did not the ancestors of those who are now entangled in the errors of Photius and the reformers, obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief shepherd of souls? Alas their children left the home of their fathers, but it did not fall to the ground and perish for ever, for it was supported by God. Let them therefore return to their common Father, who, forgetting the insults previously heaped on the Apostolic See, will receive them in the most loving fashion. For if, as they continually state, they long to be united with Us and ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, "the Mother and mistress of all Christ's faithful"? Let them hear Lactantius crying out: "The Catholic Church is alone in keeping the true worship. This is the fount of truth, this the house of Faith, this the temple of God: if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. Let none delude himself with obstinate wrangling. For life and salvation are here concerned, which will be lost and entirely destroyed, unless their interests are carefully and assiduously kept in mind."

 

It simply cannot be the case that Popes Pius IX and XI, who exhorted the necessity of Protestants to return to the true Church, and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's conciliarist-based rejection of such a "theology of the return" are each correct. Pope Pius XI wrote that the "mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated." Someone is either right or wrong here. Unless God is mutable and can contradict Himself, which we know is not the case, then it is clear that it is Joseph Ratzinger and his fellow conciliar revolutionaries are the ones who are in error and have dropped more than a few drops of poison into the wellspring of the Faith, thereby expelling themselves from the Catholic Church, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896, happened to those who dissented from even one article contained in the Deposit of Faith.

The choice is clear, ladies and gentlemen. Either the Catholic Church erred for nearly two millennia in seeking with urgency the conversion of all men to her maternal bosom or we are in the age of apostasy. Great saints would have had to be encouraged to err in seeking the return of Protestants and the Orthodox to the true Faith. Saint Josaphat gave up his life in vain to seek the return of the Orthodox in the Seventeenth Century. Saints Peter Canisius and Francis de Sales and Ignatius Loyola worked to no end at all to convert Protestants, who, according to Joseph Ratzinger in his August 19, 2005, address to Protestants in Cologne, Germany, are entitled to their own "faith history," which, of course, comes from the devil:

We all know there are numerous models of unity and you know that the Catholic Church also has as her goal the full visible unity of the disciples of Christ, as defined by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council in its various Documents (cf. Lumen Gentium, nn. 8, 13; Unitatis Redintegratio, nn. 2, 4, etc.). This unity, we are convinced, indeed subsists in the Catholic Church, without the possibility of ever being lost (cf. Unitatis Redintegratio, n. 4); the Church in fact has not totally disappeared from the world.

On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return:  that is, to deny and to reject one's own faith history. Absolutely not!

It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity:  in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature. Ecumenical meeting at the Archbishopric of Cologne (August 19, 2005)

 

What did Saint Teresa of Avila say?

"Know this: it is by very little breaches of regularity that the devil succeeds in introducing the greatest abuses. May you never end up saying: 'This is nothing, this is an exaggeration.'" (Saint Teresa of Avila, Foundations, Chapter Twenty-nine)

 

The inter-related heresies and errors of conciliarism have devastated souls and reaffirmed the world-at-large in the promotion of sin under cover of law and in every aspect of popular culture. The refusal to seek with urgency the conversion of all men in the world to the true Faith denies them access to the enlightenment provided by the Deposit of Faith and the supernatural helps provided by Sanctifying Grace, thereby leaving these people lost in a sea of confusion and contradiction throughout their lives. Then again, this kind of sounds like conciliarism itself, doesn't it?

There is no need to engage in a never ending search for peace and unity. Unity exists in the Catholic Church, Period. Peace is to be found by seeking to maintain oneself in a state of Sanctifying Grace and to grow in sanctity with every beat of one's heat, consecrated as that heart should be to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Searching for peach? Once again, it is necessary (as people forget and new readers might read it for the very first time) to turn to Pope Pius XI's first encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 22, 1923, for words of Catholic sanity about the constituent elements of peace:

Because the Church is by divine institution the sole depository and interpreter of the ideals and teachings of Christ, she alone possesses in any complete and true sense the power effectively to combat that materialistic philosophy which has already done and, still threatens, such tremendous harm to the home and to the state. The Church alone can introduce into society and maintain therein the prestige of a true, sound spiritualism, the spiritualism of Christianity which both from the point of view of truth and of its practical value is quite superior to any exclusively philosophical theory. The Church is the teacher and an example of world good-will, for she is able to inculcate and develop in mankind the "true spirit of brotherly love" (St. Augustine, De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, i, 30) and by raising the public estimation of the value and dignity of the individual's soul help thereby to lift us even unto God.

Finally, the Church is able to set both public and private life on the road to righteousness by demanding that everything and all men become obedient to God "Who beholdeth the heart," to His commands, to His laws, to His sanctions. If the teachings of the Church could only penetrate in some such manner as We have described the inner recesses of the consciences of mankind, be they rulers or be they subjects, all eventually would be so apprised of their personal and civic duties and their mutual responsibilities that in a short time "Christ would be all, and in all." (Colossians iii, 11)

Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.

 

Protestantism is no basis of personal salvation or social order. To assert that any of the 33,000 sects that make up Protestantism contribute in any way to "peace" is to deny the fact that there can be no peace with the true Faith, there can be no Christianity without the Mass:

"Where there is no Mass," writes one of the Fathers of the English Oratory, "there is no Christianity." The reason is plain. Christ's life was one of sacrifice--not merely of the figurative sacrifice of praise and prayer, but one of outward act, of suffering and of death. His religion must be like Himself: it must be the continuation of the divine human life that He led upon earth, representing and perpetuating, by some sacred rite, the sacrifice that began in the womb of Mary and ended upon the cross of Calvary. That rite is the holy Mass. Do we always realize it as such? Does the conviction sink deep into us, when offering, or assisting at the adorable sacrifice, that Jesus is re-enacting, in our presence, the mysteries of His life and death?

The altar of the Mass is the holy house of Nazareth, the city of Bethlehem, the Egyptian place of exile, the hill of Calvary, the garden-tomb in which Our Saviour's corpse reposed, and the Mount of Olives from which He ascended. The Passion, it is true, is that which is primarily represented and continued in the holy Mass; yet the prayers and rites of the sacrifice refer, at times, to other mysteries. Thus the dropping of a part of the sacred host into the chalice, before the Agnus Dei,represents the reunion of Christ's soul with His body and blood on the morning of the Resurrection. For a description of the many and beautiful analogies between the eucharistic life of Our Lord and His sacred Infancy, we refer the reader to Father Faber's Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament.

The Mass is truly a "hidden treasure," and, alas, our cold, dead faith allows it to remain so. If we valued it as we ought, we would hurry every morning to the church, ceaseless of the snows of winter and the heats of summer, in order to get a share of the riches of this treasure.

The saints knew the value of one Mass: that it was a dark day in their calendar on which they were deprived of the happy privilege of saying or hearing Mass. Although St. Francis de Sales was overburdened with apostolic work on the Mission of the Chablais, he made it a point never to miss his daily Mass. In order to keep his holy resolution, he had frequently to cross the river Drance, to the village of Marin, in which there was a Catholic church. It happened, in the winter of 1596, that a great freshet carried away a portion of the bridge over the stream, and the passengers were, in consequence, compelled to cross on a plank laid over those arches of the broken structure that had withstood the waters. Heavy falls of snow, followed by severe frosts, made this board very slippery, so that it became dangerous to attempt passing on on it; but St. Francis was not be deterred, for despite the remonstration of his friends, he made the perilous journey every morning, creeping over the icy plank on his hands and feet, thus daily risking his life rather than lose Mass.

Dear Christian reader! beg this glorious saint to obtain for you and me some portion of his burning love for the most holy and adorable sacrifice of the altar. (Preface to the American edition of Saint Leonard of Port Maurice's The Hidden Treasure: Holy Mass.)

 

Social order is premised upon the Mass, which is why the world will end when the last true priest dies or is killed. Modernity and Modernism are in league as one in the rejection of these basic Catholic truths:

1. The Catholic Church as a Divinely-instituted mission to seek with urgency the conversion of all men and all nations in the world.

2. All men and their nations must submit themselves at all times to the Deposit of Faith that the God-Man, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church without one iota of dissent.

3. Men must have belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace, which was won for them by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All graces, in order to be virtuous and to live in accord with the precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

4. Social order is premised upon the right ordering of souls according to the truths of the Catholic Faith and in cooperation with the graces she makes present in the world by the working of the God the Holy Ghost in the sacraments and through the loving hands of Our Lady.

5. Although men are free to choose the specific form of government that they deem best for their circumstances (monarchical, constitutional monarchy, parliamentary-ministerial or presidential-congressional systems--or combinations thereof, such as in France and Poland and Russia, federal, unitary, confederal), every civil state must recognize the true Church and to advance even the temporal good of its citizens in light of their Last End:

These are fundamental principles: No matter what the Christian does, even in the realm of temporal goods, he cannot ignore the supernatural good. Rather, according to the dictates of Christian philosophy, he must order all things to the ultimate end, namely, the Highest Good. All his actions, insofar as they are morally either good or bad (that is to say, whether they agree or disagree with the natural and divine law), are subject to the judgment and judicial office of the Church. (Pope Saint Pius X, Singulari Quadam, September 24, 1912.)

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error." (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

 

6. True love of one's nation is premised on willing her good, the ultimate expression of which is her Catholicization. Citizens must seek to obey God's laws rather than the laws of men if those human laws are contrary to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the Natural Law. Pope Leo XIII explained this in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:

Now, if the natural law enjoins us to love devotedly and to defend the country in which we had birth, and in which we were brought up, so that every good citizen hesitates not to face death for his native land, very much more is it the urgent duty of Christians to be ever quickened by like feelings toward the Church. For the Church is the holy City of the living God, born of God Himself, and by Him built up and established. Upon this earth, indeed, she accomplishes her pilgrimage, but by instructing and guiding men she summons them to eternal happiness. We are bound, then, to love dearly the country whence we have received the means of enjoyment this mortal life affords, but we have a much more urgent obligation to love, with ardent love, the Church to which we owe the life of the soul, a life that will endure forever. For fitting it is to prefer the good of the soul to the well-being of the body, inasmuch as duties toward God are of a far more hallowed character than those toward men.

Moreover, if we would judge aright, the supernatural love for the Church and the natural love of our own country proceed from the same eternal principle, since God Himself is their Author and originating Cause. Consequently, it follows that between the duties they respectively enjoin, neither can come into collision with the other. We can, certainly, and should love ourselves, bear ourselves kindly toward our fellow men, nourish affection for the State and the governing powers; but at the same time we can and must cherish toward the Church a feeling of filial piety, and love God with the deepest love of which we are capable. The order of precedence of these duties is, however, at times, either under stress of public calamities, or through the perverse will of men, inverted. For, instances occur where the State seems to require from men as subjects one thing, and religion, from men as Christians, quite another; and this in reality without any other ground, than that the rulers of the State either hold the sacred power of the Church of no account, or endeavor to subject it to their own will. Hence arises a conflict, and an occasion, through such conflict, of virtue being put to the proof. The two powers are confronted and urge their behests in a contrary sense; to obey both is wholly impossible. No man can serve two masters, for to please the one amounts to contemning the other.

As to which should be preferred no one ought to balance for an instant. It is a high crime indeed to withdraw allegiance from God in order to please men, an act of consummate wickedness to break the laws of Jesus Christ, in order to yield obedience to earthly rulers, or, under pretext of keeping the civil law, to ignore the rights of the Church; "we ought to obey God rather than men." This answer, which of old Peter and the other Apostles were used to give the civil authorities who enjoined unrighteous things, we must, in like circumstances, give always and without hesitation. No better citizen is there, whether in time of peace or war, than the Christian who is mindful of his duty; but such a one should be ready to suffer all things, even death itself, rather than abandon the cause of God or of the Church.

 

Modernity and Modernism both reject the necessity of the confessionally Catholic state. Remember this and remember it well: Pope Pius XI condemned those who reject the Social Teaching of Popes Leo XII, St. Pius X and Benedict XV stand condemned as Modernists:

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.(Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

 

Pope Pius XI was condemning as Modernists those who support such things as the separation of Church and State and religious liberty as a matter of principle. Pope Pius XI had noted earlier in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio what Pope Leo XIII had written in Immortale Dei and Libertas, June 20, 1888, that no one is to be condemned for supporting any particular form of government that recognizes the rights of the true Church. No one is to be condemned for trying to use existing forms of government that are opposed in principle to Catholic Social Teaching as best as they can at any given moment in time if there is not a danger to the Faith in doing so.

What does stand condemned is any kind of unequivocal support or endorsement for such things as religious liberty and the separation of Church and State, both of which feed into and off of the religious indifferentism of Modernity and the false ecumenism of the Modernists of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Just as Joseph Ratzinger rejected the "ecumenism of the return" that was specifically fostered by the Catholic Church throughout her history prior to 1958 and exhorted upon the Protestants in a specific way by Popes Pius IX, Leo XIII, and Pius XI, so does he reject the condemnations of religious liberty and separation of Church and State made by pope after pope after pope. He stands condemned as a Modernist by his own words. No matter how many Catholic-sounding things he may say and pious allocations he may give, he is a dissenter from, among so many other things, the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church.

Moreover, although the conciliar officials will sometimes remonstrate with pro-abortion politicians and sometimes reaffirm these nefarious supporters of one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, there has been no firm and consistent policy emanating from the conciliar officials in Rome to condemn once and for all those who support any kind of abortion, whether surgical or chemical, under any conditions or circumstances whatsoever has read himself out of the Catholic Church. True, it is a little difficult for those who have read themselves out of the Church by means of the apostasies of conciliarism to take decided action against others, which is one of the reasons that most pro-aborts in public life remain Catholics in good standing in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Nevertheless, the interdenominational or nondenominational approach to social evils, born of a variety of different influences, including that of the Sillon in France, of the "integral humanism" of Jacques Maritain, and certain aspects of the writings of the "New Theologians," including Johann Baptist Metz, has produced nothing but one sordid compromise after another as evil advances at lightning speed under cover of law and in every aspect of popular culture.

Pope Saint Pius X had this to say about interdenominationalism:

Alas! yes, the double meaning has been broken: the social action of the Sillon is no longer Catholic. The Sillonist, as such, does not work for a coterie, and “the Church”, he says, “cannot in any sense benefit from the sympathies that his action may stimulate.” A strange situation, indeed! They fear lest the Church should profit for a selfish and interested end by the social action of the Sillon, as if everything that benefited the Church did not benefit the whole human race! A curious reversal of notions! The Church might benefit from social action! As if the greatest economists had not recognized and proved that it is social action alone which, if serious and fruitful, must benefit the Church! But stranger still, alarming and saddening at the same time, are the audacity and frivolity of men who call themselves Catholics and dream of re-shaping society under such conditions, and of establishing on earth, over and beyond the pale of the Catholic Church, "the reign of love and justice" with workers coming from everywhere, of all religions and of no religion, with or without beliefs, so long as they forego what might divide them - their religious and philosophical convictions, and so long as they share what unites them - a "generous idealism and moral forces drawn from whence they can" When we consider the forces, knowledge, and supernatural virtues which are necessary to establish the Christian City, and the sufferings of millions of martyrs, and the light given by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the self-sacrifice of all the heroes of charity, and a powerful hierarchy ordained in heaven, and the streams of Divine Grace - the whole having been built up, bound together, and impregnated by the life and spirit of Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God, the Word made man - when we think, I say, of all this, it is frightening to behold new apostles eagerly attempting to do better by a common interchange of vague idealism and civic virtues. What are they going to produce? What is to come of this collaboration? A mere verbal and chimerical construction in which we shall see, glowing in a jumble, and in seductive confusion, the words Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Love, Equality, and human exultation, all resting upon an ill-understood human dignity. It will be a tumultuous agitation, sterile for the end proposed, but which will benefit the less Utopian exploiters of the people. Yes, we can truly say that the Sillon, its eyes fixed on a chimera, brings Socialism in its train.

We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the "Kingdom of God". - "We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind."

And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer.

We know only too well the dark workshops in which are elaborated these mischievous doctrines which ought not to seduce clear-thinking minds. The leaders of the Sillon have not been able to guard against these doctrines. The exaltation of their sentiments, the undiscriminating good-will of their hearts, their philosophical mysticism, mixed with a measure of illuminism, have carried them away towards another Gospel which they thought was the true Gospel of Our Savior. To such an extent that they speak of Our Lord Jesus Christ with a familiarity supremely disrespectful, and that - their ideal being akin to that of the Revolution - they fear not to draw between the Gospel and the Revolution blasphemous comparisons for which the excuse cannot be made that they are due to some confused and over-hasty composition.

We wish to draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to this distortion of the Gospel and to the sacred character of Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, prevailing within the Sillon and elsewhere. As soon as the social question is being approached, it is the fashion in some quarters to first put aside the divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to mention only His unlimited clemency, His compassion for all human miseries, and His pressing exhortations to the love of our neighbor and to the brotherhood of men. True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors. Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one's personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.

 

Catholicism is the one and only solution to the problems of the world, not liberalism or socialism or communism or fascism or nationalism or Zionism or Judeo-Masonry or any other form of naturalism (conservatism, libertarianism, utilitarianism, materialism, legal positivism, pragmatism--and all of the mutations and permutations that flow from each!). Catholicism. Catholicism. Catholicism. Catholics in public life have a solemn duty to think as Catholics, to speak as Catholics and to act as Catholics in order to plant the seeds for the Social Reign of Christ the King. No one in public life, let alone a Catholic, is permitted to make a distinction between "private" beliefs and public actions. Pope Leo XIII made this abundantly clearly in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885 (listen up, Teddy and Rudy and Arnie and Mario and Dick Durbin and Tom Harkin and Susan Collins and George Pataki and Joe Biden and Christopher Dodd and Geraldine Ferraro and George Mitchell and Tom Ridge and all of the other Catholic pro-aborts in public life, past and present):

Hence, lest concord be broken by rash charges, let this be understood by all, that the integrity of Catholic faith cannot be reconciled with opinions verging on naturalism or rationalism, the essence of which is utterly to do away with Christian institutions and to install in society the supremacy of man to the exclusion of God. Further, it is unlawful to follow one line of conduct in private life and another in public, respecting privately the authority of the Church, but publicly rejecting it; for this would amount to joining together good and evil, and to putting man in conflict with himself; whereas he ought always to be consistent, and never in the least point nor in any condition of life to swerve from Christian virtue.

 

There is no need to search for "peace" and "unity." Both are ours to be had if only we surrender ourselves to the Catholic Church and enfold ourselves under the mantles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, lifting high the standard of the Holy Cross in our daily lives as we embrace a life of prayer and penance and mortification and detachment from earthly goods (including fame, fortune, reputation) in order to serve Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen.

One of the ways we can, of course, promote Catholicism as the source and foundation of true peace in the souls of men and within and among nations is by spreading the practice of Home Enthronement to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. We can also join with others in the Block Rosary, making it a practice to carry extra blessed Rosaries with us on our person each day (along with Rosary instruction booklets) to hand out to those whom God's Providence places in our paths and when the opportunity for doing so presents itself. We can help to expedite the restoration of all things in Christ by distributing blessed Miraculous Medals and by handing out as well Green Scapulars (making sure to say the required prayer, "Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and the after of death" for each person who receives a Green Scapular from you, as my dear, dear wife does each and every day for the scores of souls to whom she has handed out the Green Scapular across the United States of America). We must be enrolled in the Brown Scapular of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and encourage others to enroll themselves.

Very importantly, of course, we can encourage our friends and neighbors to join us in the Catholic catacombs where no concessions are made to conciliarism or to its false shepherds, recognizing, of course, that this encouragement cannot turn into badgering. God's graces that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady work as they will in the time that God has ordained. We can invite. Others must see things in their own time as they are able to respond more and more to God's graces, which is why our prayers and sacrifices in their behalf, offered to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, are more important than our words. So many people in the "resist and recognize" and sedevacantist camps probably thought that I was a hopeless case in the 1980s when they were remonstrating with me privately. Well, yes, it took me long enough. I admit that. However, I know that many of those people were praying for me after they had planted their seeds, which is why we must believe that the time that we spend before the King of Kings in the Most Blessed Sacrament and the Rosaries we pray in honor of the Mother of God are indispensable for our own souls and those of others.

Remember, Our Lady told us at Fatima to pray the Rosary. Imagine what good could be done if a prominent Catholic who had access to the popular media exhorted people to pray the Rosary. This is still the month of the Rosary. Let us us this great spiritual weapon that has defeated so many heretics and infidels in the past to defeat the apostasies and betrayals of the present moment. The rewards just might be Heavenly if we do so.

Vivat Christus Rex. Viva Cristo Rey!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us now and the hour of our deaths. Amen.

All to thee, Blessed Mother. All to thy Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Luke the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Hilarion, pray for us.

Saint John Cantius, pray for us.

Saint Peter of Alcantara, pray for us.

Saint Hedwig, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Francis Borgia, pray for us.

Saint Edward the Confessor, pray for us.

Saint John Leonard, pray for us.

Saint Dionysisus (Denis), Rusticus and Eleutherius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Placidus and Companions, pray for us.

Saint Bruno, pray for us.

Saint Wenceslaus, pray for us.

Saint Jerome, pray for us.

Saint Remigius, pray for us.

Saint Clotilde, pray for us.

Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.

Pope Saint Linus, pray for us.

Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.

Saint Raymond Pennafort, pray for us.

Saint Raymond Nonnatus, pray for us.

Saint Thecla, pray for us.

Saint Matthew, pray for us.

Saint Eustachius and Family, pray for us.

Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Cupertino, pray for us.

Saint Januarius, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Giles, pray for us.

Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.

Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.

Saint Nicomedes, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

Pope Saint Zephyrinus, pray for us.

Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us.

Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.

Saint Philip Benizi, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

Saint John Eudes, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us, pray for us.

Saint Agapitus, pray for us.

Saint Helena, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.

Saints Monica, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint  Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Turibius, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Basil, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.

Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.

Blessed Humbeline, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Juan Diego, pray for us.

Father Maximilian Kolbe,M.I., pray for us.

Father Frederick Faber, pray for us.

 

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.