A Positivist's Work is Never Done

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Positivists believe that the mere gratuitous assertion that something is true makes something true. This is the basis of almost the entirety of so-called popular culture today.

There are many sub-categories of positivists.

There are, for instance, legal positivists, those who contend that the enactment of a piece of civil legislation or the rendering of a judicial decision is the sole basis for judging the morality of human actions. Indeed, legal positivism was the basis of the defense of those tried as war criminals in Nuremberg, Germany, following the end of World War II. The judges and doctors and military officers of the Third Reich were acting in perfect accord with decrees that had been issued under the emergency powers provision of the Weimar Constitution. Who was any outside power to judge that those decrees were immoral and unjust?

Admitting that there are a few exceptions with this or that judicial decision, legal positivism is the basis of most constitutional and administrative case-law in the United States of America and elsewhere. Indeed, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia admitted this fact in addresses he gave in Rome and at Thomas Aquinas College in 1996 (also in the City of New York at a Communion Breakfast in 1997), stating that he even though he might believe in the Natural Law he is duty-bound as an American judge to view the constitutionality of legislation solely on the basis of the words of the Constitution of the United States of America. He said that abortion, which he contended is neither prohibited or permitted by the words of the Constitution (something that is most arguable), is a matter that is solely within the province of state legislatures, which have the authority to pass legislation either permitting or prohibiting abortion. This is wrong. No human institution has any authority to pass legislation that contravenes the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law. However, this is what Scalia and most other so-called "conservative" jurists believe.

There is also scientific positivism. The gratuitous assertions that the earth is "billions upon billions of years old" and that random molecules evolved into man are accepted as "facts" beyond contention. The same of true of the assertions that it is "necessary" to kill embryonic human beings in order to harvest their stem cells so as to "cure" various diseases. This positivist lie flies in the face of the truth that it is never "necessary," no less moral, to kill an innocent human being and that adult stem cells offer more promise for the treatment of various afflictions than the immoral harvest of embyronic stem cells. There are so many examples of positivism from bogus science masquerading as true science (which can never conflict with the Faith) as to provide enough fodder for several volumes of books.

Corporate positivism is a multinational art form. Corporations invent their own "alternative universes" into which their victims, that is, customers, must submit. Anyone who dares to challenge a billing mistake must be "talked down" by a customer-service representative, a person who is trained to never once admit that the corporation that employs him can ever be wrong about anything. Thus it is that corporations require employees to take "sensitivity-training" programs so as to to accept corporate decisions to embrace all manner of evils as culturally acceptable and beyond criticism. Employees who dissent will be fired summarily in many instances.

Little mention need be made here of the political positivism that is the foundation of electoral politics in the United States of America and around the world, the logical rotten fruit of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King. (Indeed, each manifestation of positivism is a a result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King.) It is, though, nevertheless astounding that the current President of the United States of America, George Walker Bush, persists in his utter madness that this country's military forces must stay in Iraq until the "job is done." The "job," however, has been redefined numerous times since the unwarranted and unjust American invasion of Iraq forty-three months ago. The "job" continues to cost most needlessly the lives of our own citizens as the administration's delusional madmen continue to insist that "progress" is being made and that Iraq will emerge from all of the turmoil at present into a stable democracy.

The Wilsonian belief that all other nations in the world must be transformed into replicas of the pluralist American regime has justified the use of massive military force in Iraq, the killing of countless numbers of innocent human beings, the destruction of that country's infrastructure, the enriching of American corporations such as Halliburton (which feed off of the trough of the taxpayers who funded the destruction of the infrastructure in the first place) and the destabilizing of Iraq's borders, which have become as porous as the Mexican-American border, thus permitting thousands of al-Qaeda operatives to enter a country that was off-limits to them during the reign of a gangster, Saddam Hussein, who did not want rival gangs challenging his power-base. The "job," though, must get "done." When? How many American and Iraqi lives must be sacrificed to advance the goals of Christian Zionists and Talmudic Zionists? How many generations of Americans must be forced to pay for this wanton folly of imperialistic barbarism?

Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn noted the ethnocentricity of Western leaders in his commencement address, "A World Split Apart," delivered at Harvard University, June 8, 1978:

But the persisting blindness of superiority continues to hold the belief that all the vast regions of our planet should develop and mature to the level of contemporary Western systems, the best in theory and the most attractive in practice; that all those other worlds are but temporarily prevented (by wicked leaders or by severe crises or by their own barbarity and incomprehension) from pursuing Western pluralistic democracy and adopting the Western way of life. Countries are judged on the merit of their progress in that direction. But in fact such a conception is a fruit of Western incomprehension of the essence of other worlds, a result of mistakenly measuring them all with a Western yardstick. The real picture of our planet's development bears little resemblance to all this.

Pope Pius XI noted in his first encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, that contemporary political parties were concerned about the acquisition of power, not about the pursuit of the common temporal good undertaken in light of man's eternal destiny:

To these evils we must add the contests between political parties, many of which struggles do not originate in a real difference of opinion concerning the public good or in a laudable and disinterested search for what would best promote the common welfare, but in the desire for power and for the protection of some private interest which inevitably result in injury to the citizens as a whole. From this course there often arise robberies of what belongs rightly to the people, and even conspiracies against and attacks on the supreme authority of the state, as well as on its representatives. These political struggles also beget threats of popular action and, at times, eventuate in open rebellion and other disorders which are all the more deplorable and harmful since they come from a public to whom it has been given, in our modern democratic states, to participate in very large measure in public life and in the affairs of government. Now, these different forms of government are not of themselves contrary to the principles of the Catholic Faith, which can easily be reconciled with any reasonable and just system of government. Such governments, however, are the most exposed to the danger of being overthrown by one faction or another.

It is most sad to see how this revolutionary spirit has penetrated into that sanctuary of peace and love, the family, the original nucleus of human society. In the family these evil seeds of dissension, which were sown long ago, have recently been spread about more and more by the fact of the absence of fathers and sons from the family fireside during the War and by the greatly increased freedom in matters of morality which followed on it as one of its effects. Frequently we behold sons alienated from their fathers, brothers quarreling with brothers, masters with servants, servants with masters. Too often likewise have we seen both the sanctity of the marriage tie and the duties to God and to humankind, which this tie imposes upon men, forgotten.

Just as the smallest part of the body feels the effect of an illness which is ravaging the whole body or one of its vital organs, so the evils now besetting society and the family afflict even individuals. In particular, We cannot but lament the morbid restlessness which has spread among people of every age and condition in life, the general spirit of insubordination and the refusal to live up to one's obligations which has become so widespread as almost to appear the customary mode of living. We lament, too, the destruction of purity among women and young girls as is evidenced by the increasing immodesty of their dress and conversation and by their participation in shameful dances, which sins are made the more heinous by the vaunting in the faces of people less fortunate than themselves their luxurious mode of life. Finally, We cannot but grieve over the great increase in the number of what might be called social misfits who almost inevitably end by joining the ranks of those malcontents who continually agitate against all order, be it public or private.

It is surprising, then, that we should no longer possess that security of life in which we can place our trust and that there remains only the most terrible uncertainty, and from hour to hour added fears for the future? Instead of regular daily work there is idleness and unemployment. That blessed tranquillity which is the effect of an orderly existence and in which the essence of peace is to be found no longer exists, and, in its place, the restless spirit of revolt reigns. As a consequence industry suffers, commerce is crippled, the cultivation of literature and the arts becomes more and more difficult, and what is worse than all, Christian civilization itself is irreparably damaged thereby. In the face of our much praised progress, we behold with sorrow society lapsing back slowly but surely into a state of barbarism.

We wish to record, in addition to the evils already mentioned, other evils which beset society and which occupy a place of prime importance but whose very existence escapes the ordinary observer, the sensual man -- he who, as the Apostle says, does not perceive "the things that are of the Spirit of God" (I Cor. ii, 14), yet which cannot but be judged the greatest and most destructive scourges of the social order of today. We refer specifically to those evils which transcend the material or natural sphere and lie within the supernatural and religious order properly so-called; in other words, those evils which affect the spiritual life of souls. These evils are all the more to be deplored since they injure souls whose value is infinitely greater than that of any merely material object.

Political positivists must assert, however, that men will be made "happy" by the spread of the American concept of civil liberty. The political positivists have been able to augment their hold on power and to restrict legitimate human liberties in large measure because the conciliar church, which is enamored of the pluralist state and its religiously indifferentist foundations, speaks in its own form of positivism, theological positivism, contending that propositions condemned by the Catholic Church over the centuries are perfectly compatible with its own embrace of these same condemned propositions.

Consider, for example, the following passage from Dignitatis Humanae, which contends that false religions have the right to propagate their false beliefs in civil society and that these false beliefs can "contribute" to the bettering of the world:

Religious communities also have the right not to be hindered in their public teaching and witness to their faith, whether by the spoken or by the written word. However, in spreading religious faith and in introducing religious practices everyone ought at all times to refrain from any manner of action which might seem to carry a hint of coercion or of a kind of persuasion that would be dishonorable or unworthy, especially when dealing with poor or uneducated people. Such a manner of action would have to be considered an abuse of one's right and a violation of the right of others.

In addition, it comes within the meaning of religious freedom that religious communities should not be prohibited from. freely undertaking to show the special value of their doctrine in what concerns the organization of society and the inspiration of the whole of human activity. Finally, the social nature of man and the very nature of religion afford the foundation of the right of men freely to hold meetings and to establish educational, cultural, charitable and social organizations, under the impulse of their own religious sense.

Contrast this exercise in theological positivism with the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church, found in Pope Pius VII's Post Tam Diuturnas, 1814, which dealt with the revolutionary constitution in France. Pope Pius VII condemned those things that were considered to "rights" in Dignitatis Humanae and which have been praised constantly by Joseph Ratzinger throughout his Modernist career:

We had hoped that, thanks to the happy change which has taken place, the Catholic Religion would without any delay not only be delivered from all the shackles imposed on it in France in spite of Our continual remonstrances, but that so favorable an occasion would be utilized to restore to it its ancient splendor and dignity.  We have been struck, first of all, by the fact that in the Constitution in question no mention is made of the Catholic Religion. . . . You, Venerable Brother, will easily be able to understand what pain, suffering and bitterness this caused Us, to Whom Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has committed the charge of the Supreme Government of the Catholic Church.  How can We view with equanimity that the Catholic Religion, which France embraced even in the first centuries of the Church, which in that very Realm so many glorious Martyrs sealed with their Blood, which is the Religion of the great majority of Frenchmen, clung to by them with courage and constancy in the midst of terrible calamities, persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which the family of the designated Sovereign itself professes and has always defended with so much zeal, is not only not declared the only One in the whole of France have a right to the favor of the laws and the protection of Governmental Authority, but is even completely left out of account in the very Inauguration of the new Reign!

"But Our heart is more grievously and even most vehemently afflicted by the 22nd Article of the Constitution, by which We confess that We are pained, oppressed and grieved.  By this Article We see that liberty of worship and liberty of conscience, to use the words of the Article in question, are not only permitted, but that help and protection are promised to those who are called the ministers of the different forms of worship.  There is certainly no need of a long discourse, when speaking to you, to get you to see clearly what a deadly blow is thus dealt to the Catholic Religion in France.  By the fact that the freedom of all forms of worship without distinction is proclaimed, truth is confused with error, and the Holy and Immaculate Spouse of Christ, outside of which there can be no salvation, is placed on the same level as heretical sects and even as Jewish perfidy.  Besides, when aid and protection are guaranteed to heretical sects and their ministers, not only their persons tolerated and favored, but even their very errors. This attitude involves that awful and ever lamentable heresy referred to by St. Augustine in the following terms: 'This heresy affirms that all heretics are on the right path and that all teach the truth.  This is so monstrous an absurdity that it seems to me to be incredible.' " (De Hauresibus, No. 72.)

Any questions? The very thing embraced as a civil right by Dignitatis Humanae and by Benedict XVI  has been condemned repeatedly by one pope after another, reiterating immutable truths contained in the Deposit of Faith. Benedict has gone so far as to rewrite the entire history of the Church to conform it to the heresy of "religious liberty," claiming recently in Verona, Italy, that this "teaching" emanates from Our Lord Himself, something that escaped the grasp of every single pope prior to 1958, including Pope Pius XII. The theological positivism of the counterfeit religion propagated by the conciliar church asserts itself with a straight face as representing the Catholic Faith, confusing many millions of believing, practicing Catholics. The vast, undeniable wreckage of souls that has been produced as a result of this counterfeit religion must been seen through the conciliar lens as evidence of a veritable "springtime of the Church."

Consider then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger's discussion of this "springtime" in an interview, conducted by Raymond Arroyo and which aired on September 5, 2003, on the Ever Wishful Television Network (EWTN):

Raymond:  … in such a powerful way, when they interact.  Talk for a moment about the New Springtime.  The Pope has talked a great deal about the New Springtime and you, yourself have laid out your own ideas.  Your vision is a little different from some.  Some see the numbers growing and everybody believing and dancing hand-in-hand (the Cardinal chuckles) into the millennium.  You see a different picture.  Tell us what that picture involves.  How do you see this Springtime evolving?

Cardinal: As I do not exclude even this dancing hand-in-hand, but this is only one moment.  And my idea is that really the springtime of the Church will not say that we will have in a near time buses of conversions, that all peoples of the world will be converted to Catholicism.  This is not the way of God.  The essential things in history begin always with the small, more convinced communities.  So, the Church begins with the 12 Apostles.  And even the Church of St. Paul diffused in the Mediterranean are little communities, but this community in itself is the future of the world, because we have the truth and the force of conviction.  So, I think also today it should be an error to think now or in 10 years with the new springtime, all people will be Catholic.  This is not our future, nor our expectation.  But we will have really convinced communities with élan of the faith, no?  This is springtime — a new life in very convinced persons with joy of the faith.

Raymond: But, smaller numbers?  In the macro?

Cardinal: Smaller numbers, I think.  But from these small numbers we will have a radiation of joy in the world.  And so, it’s an attraction, as it was in the old Church.  Even when Constantine made Christianity the public religion, there were a small number of percentage at this time; but it was clear, this is the future.  So we can live in the future, just give us a way in a different future.  And so, I would say, if we have young people really with the joy of the faith and this radiation of this joy of the faith, this will show to the world, “Even if I cannot share it, even if I cannot convert it at this moment, here is the way to live for tomorrow.”

Any contention that this is the "springtime of the Church" is as much an exercise in madness as Bush's contention that the "job will get done" in Iraq.

First, God does indeed care about numbers. He does indeed want the whole world and everyone in it to be Catholic. This is what I wrote on this exact topic twenty-six months ago (written, obviously, well before I had come to the conclusion that the officials of the conciliar church had deprived themselves of their right to hold ecclesiastical office):

Let us try to figure this out. We are in the springtime of the Church because octogenarian revolutionaries say that we are despite all empirical evidence to the contrary. In other words, revolutionaries responsible for laying waste Christ’s vineyard by fomenting an unprecedented revolt against her authentic patrimony can make positivist statements that must be accepted at face value as being true without any hint of criticism. My word, if a priest were to criticize such self-serving positivist statements he might find that his bishop would have canonical grounds to suspend him for disloyalty to the Pope and to the magnificent work done by the Second Vatican Council to “restore” and to “renew” the Church.

Unfortunately for the Holy Father and for Cardinal Ratzinger, God has revealed to us that he does care very much about numbers.

To wit, consider the following few passages from the New Testament alone:

“After these things Jesus went over the sea of Galilee, which is that of Tiberias. And a great multitude followed Him, because they saw the miracles which He did on them that were diseased.

“Jesus therefore went up into a mountain, and there he sat with His disciples. Now the pasch, the festival day of the Jews, was near at hand. When Jesus therefore had lifted up His eyes, and seen that a very great multitude cometh to Him, He said to Philip: ‘Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?’ And this He said to try him; for He himself knew what He would do.

“Philip answered him: ‘Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little.’

“One of His disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, saith to him: ‘There is a boy here that hath five barley loaves, and two fishes; but what are these among so many?’

“Then Jesus said: ‘Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. The men therefore sat down, in number about five thousand.” (Jn. 6:1-10)

Yes, a number: five thousand. God cares about numbers. The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand is in each of the four Gospels (Mt. 14:13-21; Mk. 6:41-44; Lk. 9:12-16).

Saint John records the exact number of fish, a simile for souls, as Our Lord manifested Himself to the Eleven after His Resurrection:

“Jesus saith to them: ‘Bring hither of the fishes which you have now caught.’ Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land, full of great fishes, one hundred and fifty-three. And although there were so many, the net was not broken.” (Jn. 21:10-11)

Consider the account of the conversion of men on Pentecost Sunday following the first Papal address in the history of the Church:

“But Peter said to them: ‘Do penance, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins: and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is to you, and to your children, and to all that are far off, whomsoever the Lord our God shall call.’

“And with very many other words did he testify and exhort them, saying: ‘Save yourselves from this perverse generation.’

“They therefore that received his word, were baptized; and there were added in that day about three thousand souls.” (Acts 2:38-41)

Three thousand souls. God cares about numbers. Otherwise, you see, His book, the Bible, would not be full of numbers. The examples from the Old Testament are just too numerous to review in this brief reflection. God made the world in six days, resting on the seventh. Noah spent forty days and forty nights in the ark. The Hebrews were enslaved to the Egyptians for 440 years. The Jews spent forty years wandering in the desert. The thousands slain by Saul, the tens of thousands slain by David. And one of the books of the Pentateuch happens to be called The Book of Numbers. Yes, numbers are important to God.

The tradition of the Church teaches us that God cares about numbers, which are indeed something of an indicator of the health of the Church Militant here on earth. Over 10,000 people who had gone over to the Albigensians came back to the Faith after Saint Dominic was given the Rosary by Our Lady. Saint Peter Claver baptized over 300,000 people in his lifetime. Saint Francis Xavier destroyed over 40,000 pagan idols (many of which have made their way into Papal events these days) baptized over 3,000,0000 people. That’s right, three million, And, quite importantly, over nine million indigenous peoples of the Americas were converted to the true Faith in a short space of time following Our Lady’s apparition to Saint Juan Diego at Guadalupe on December 9, 1531, almost person for the person the number of people lost to the Church in Europe as a result of the Protestant Revolt.

Thus, Cardinal Ratzinger’s assertions about a “qualitative” renewal of the Church are now and have always been an exercise in spin doctoring that flies in the face of God’s Word and of the authentic patrimony of the Catholic Church. The wreckage caused by the Second Vatican Council and the Novus Ordo Missae is vast. The decline in the numbers of Catholic attending Mass, of those who believe in the articles contained in the Deposit of Faith, of the numbers of priests and consecrated religious has not occurred because the Church has been preaching forcefully unpopular truths and seeking to gain converts to the Faith. This decline in numbers has occurred precisely because the Church has abandoned her authentic patrimony, expressed her contempt for the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, and treated actual schismatics and heretics and pagans and infidels with great solicitude while those who have held to the Faith our fathers have been dealt heavy and severe blows.

Those in ecclesiastical authority should not be concerned if the Church were abandoned by all but one person other than the Pope himself if all had abandoned her as a result of her fidelity to her tradition. Most of those who had followed Our Lord prior to the Eucharistic discourse left Him when He said that they would not have any life in them unless they ate of His Body and drank of His Blood. Turning to the Apostles, Our Lord asked:

“ ‘Will you also go away?’

“And Simon Peter answered Him: ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and have known, that thou art the Christ, the Son of God.’” (Jn. 6:68-70)

No, it would not matter if our numbers were few because of fidelity of all that is contained in the Deposit of Faith and in the Church’s tradition. Our numbers are few, though, because the Church herself has chased her sons and daughters away and refuses to convert those outside of her, an actual abandonment of the commission Our Lord gave to the Eleven before He ascended to the Father’s right hand in glory on Ascension Thursday.

While Cardinal Ratzinger believes that the small numbers signified by the “springtime of the Church” will be able to effect change in the manner that Lenin’s minority of followers did in Russia, the analogy is false. Our numbers are small at present precisely because of the Vatican’s own revolutionary policies against the Church’s entire patrimony. Imagine what our numbers would look like if the Church had not abandoned her patrimony and forced a synthetic liturgy upon Latin Rite Catholics. The story of the Church and of the world would be quite different.

Our Lord had something to say about those who refuse to bear fruit for the sake of the Kingdom:

“He also spoke this parable: “A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. And he said to the dresser of the vineyard: “Behold, for these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down therefore: why cumbereth it to the ground?” But he answer, said to him: “Lord, let it alone this year also, until I dig about it, and dung it. And if happily it bear fruit: but if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.”’” (Lk. 13:6-9)

It is time for Vatican officials to recognize that the Second Vatican Council and its aftermath has borne nothing but rotten fruit for the Catholic Church and thus for souls. Our Lord wants everyone on the face of the earth to be a member of the Catholic Church so that they will have access to the supernatural helps He has entrusted to her for their sanctification and salvation. The loss of numbers in the wake of the Second Vatican Council is not an indication of the “springtime of the Church.” It is an indication of an apostasy that must be rooted out in the manner of the barren fig tree.

Second, the "radiation of joy" foreseen by Cardinal Ratzinger in his 2003 interview with Raymond Arroyo is being felt these days only by the miscreants who run amok in the conciliar structures promoting the sins of Sodom of Lesbos with complete impunity, if not with direct Vatican approbation. That any conciliar official, no less Benedict himself, can believe that the revolutionary era begun with the reign of John XXIII has not been a complete and unmitigated disaster for souls speaks volumes about the "alternative universe" that has been created by these positivists in order to reinforce their delusions.

To wit, the following story, appeared on LifeSiteNews.com, a Canadian-based Catholic news site. It was written by Hilary White and John-Henry Westen:

MONTREAL, October 30, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Fr. Raymond Gravel, the pro-abortion, and pro-gay 'marriage' parish priest of the Catholic diocese of Joliette announced last week that he would be running for the separatist Bloc Quebecois party in the federal by-election for the north Montreal riding of Repentigny. Today his diocese confirmed with LifeSiteNews.com that he has the permission of his bishop to run for public office, despite a prohibition of such activity in the Church's Code of Canon Law.
 
Gravel is a former homosexual prostitute and one of Canada's most vociferous opponents of Catholic teaching on homosexuality, marriage and the sanctity of life. His self-proclaimed goal in running for federal office is to "fight for justice."
 
Since the scandal through the 1980's of Fr. Robert Drinan, a US Jesuit priest who as a Congressman helped usher in the current situation with legalized abortion-on-demand, Catholic priests have been forbidden by the Church's Canon Law from running for or holding public office. This decree, however, as with most modern disciplinary rules, has the caveat that the local bishop can overrule if there is some serious necessity for the "protection of the rights of the Church or the promotion of the common good."
 
Thus far, Fr. Gravel's greatest claims to public notoriety have been his vociferous opposition to Catholic teaching on sexual purity and the sanctity of life. Even so, the Joliette Diocese has confirmed with LifeSiteNews.com that Gravel was given permission to run by his bishop, Gilles Lussier.
 
In 2004, Gravel boasted to a radio interviewer, "I am pro-choice and there is not a bishop on earth that will prevent me from receiving Communion, not even the Pope."
 
In February this year, Gravel joined a group of nineteen priests in issuing a letter condemning Catholic teaching on sexual purity and opposing the bishops' submissions to Parliament against the same-sex "marriage" law.
 
The diocesan spokesman said that when Fr. Gravel takes on the role of politician, he may not function in any way as a priest. "It was decided that M. Gravel, during his political adventure, is relieved of his functions as a priest giving out the Sacraments, saying Mass and hearing marriages. Although he's still a priest."
 
Gilles Ferland, Communications Director for the Joliette diocese, said that part of the agreement was that Gravel would not take positions as a politician that "go against the doctrines of the Church."
 
Aside from his history of public opposition to those teachings, however, his choice to run for the Bloc Quebecois party that supports homosexual 'marriage,' abortion, and a host of others issues counter to the sanctity of life and family, would put him at odds with the Church from the outset.
 
Ferland told LifeSiteNews.com that the Vatican was not consulted by the diocese in making the decision. "No, it is not the Vatican that gives permission, it is the bishop. The responsibility to accept or refuse the request was his."
 
When asked if the bishop had raised the issue with any other bishops, the response was, "No, not at all."
 
The diocese' council of priests, the "presbyteral council" was consulted, however, and agreed. Ferland said the other priests of the diocese felt there was no problem. It was understood that "this is (Fr. Gravel's) career plan," Ferland said.
 
The Globe and Mail notes that Gravel himself speculated last year in an interview in a homosexual magazine that at least half of Quebec's priests are homosexuals.
 
"I would say that 50 per cent of the priests in Quebec are gay," he said. "But if I became a priest, it's because I'm a believer and I believe in the message of Christ."
 
LifeSiteNews.com's calls to Canada's nuncio and to Fr. Gravel at his parish were not returned by deadline.

Yes, conciliarism always has a catch. Priests and religious are prohibited by the conciliar code of canon law from running for public office, except, of course, if the local bishop deems it "necessary" to give permission.

Ah, yes, the "springtime of the Church." One can be disciplined by Joseph Ratzinger one day but remain a priest in canonical good standing despite his support for baby-killing under cover of law and for "marriage" between those steeped in perversity. Yesterday's slap-on-the-wrist disciplinary letter is no impediment, however, to receiving a conciliar bishop's approbation a few years later to run for public office even though most Catholics believe that John Paul II was supposed to have barred all priests and religious from running for public office and from serving in positions of civil governance. The scandals of the pro-abortion serving Father Robert Drinan in the United States House of Representatives, of Sister Agnes Mansour serving as the head of the State of Michigan's Department of Social Services, which administered a Medicaid program that funded abortions for low-income women, and of Fathers Miguel d'Escoto and Ernesto Cardenal serving in the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, were to have been things of the past. No, not in conciliarism, where such Hegelian slogans of pluriformity in unity and continuity in discontinuity are supposed to make perfect positivist sense. You are not allowed to run for office except when you are allowed to run for office. Makes perfect Hegelian sense, doesn't it?

In plain English, folks, this is a travesty, yet just another indication of the depths of depravity to which into which the counterfeit religion must perforce continue to fall as it makes it "accommodations" to the spirit of the modern state. It is not an impediment in the conciliar church for a Catholic priest to openly announce his support for abortion and for "same-sex marriage" and to remain a Catholic in good standing, no less to run as an ostensible cleric for public office while supporting these abominations.

Not to be outdone, of course, the conciliar Chancellor of the Archdiocese of San Francisco had been planning to sponsor event in the parish of which he is the pastor, Most Holy Redeemer, that is so gross and vulgar that any mention of its details would be an offense against all decency and modesty. A columnist and attorney by the name of Allyson Smith wrote the Chancellor, Father Stephen A. Meriweather. Unfortunately, Mrs. Smith's letter contains some of the graphic details that I consider too gross to include on this site. Here is, however, one brief excerpt:

Words fail to express my outrage at finding out that you are allowing the blasphemous sodomite drag queens, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, to use Most Holy Redeemer for their perverted, pornographic bingo games. You are not only the pastor of MHR, you are the CHANCELLOR of the San Francisco Archdiocese! How could you--how dare you--allow these perverts to desecrate Most Holy Redeemer by openly parading their abominable homosexual vice in the very same building where the true Most Holy Redeemer, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is present in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity?

Are you out of your mind -- or do you find nothing wrong with this? Do you approve of sodomy, one of the sins that cries out to Heaven for vengeance, and of allowing open sodomites to desecrate our Lord's Real Presence and His temple? It certainly appears so, as I just called your church and a staffer there, Joey, confirmed that you are aware of these activities and that they are taking place with your approval.

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence make endless mockery of our Lord's sacrifice at Calvary and of good, faithful nuns who spend their lives in prayerful, selfless service to the Church. They openly display their perversion in public streets during "gay pride" parades -- and now, apparently, in your own parish. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME! . . . .

HOW DARE YOU ALLOW PORN DVDs AND [unspeakable products] TO BE GIVEN AWAY IN THE HOUSE OF GOD? God have mercy on you and these wicked degenerates!!!

The [website for this perverted group] contains an announcement that the "Sisters" will hold their next bingo game at Most Holy Redeemer  this Thursday, November 2, ALL SOULS DAY! What a horrific way to mock Jesus Christ, who died to save sinners, by allowing unrepentant, mocking sodomites to hold their bingo game on that day in a Catholic church!

Father Meriwether, I beg and demand that you put an immediate stop to this terrible sacrilege. Kick the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence out of Most Holy Redeemer NOW. And, as you do, tell them to go to Confession and repent of their abominable homosexual vice. Do not aid and abet their mortal sin and blasphemies any longer. And seek forgiveness yourself for allowing our Lord to be mocked and vilified so hideously in your own parish.

Leaving aside the probability that Our Lord is not present at Most Holy Redeemer Church, Mrs. Smith properly expressed her outrage as a Catholic about this travesty. Her letter did result in a rather prompt and most appropriate response from the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which stated that the event has been canceled and that Father Meriwether is "on leave from his duties." This is indeed most welcomed and to be congratulated. Here is the statement issued by the Archdiocese of San Francisco on October 30, 2006:

Permission to use Ellard Hall should not have been given to the  group [the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence]. The Archdiocese of San Francisco  has directed the parish to end the arrangement immediately. For years the  group has directed contempt and ridicule at Catholic faith and practices. The  particular targets of the group’s derision are women in religious communities,  for whom Catholics, and many non-Catholics, have a special reverence and  respect.

Fr. Meriwether is on leave from his duties.

It remains to be seen whether some of the laity in leadership positions in the parish will "direct" parishioners to an alternate venue for the "performance," if not arrange that venue themselves. This is a standard modus operandi when a chancery office cancels something odious on church grounds after protests are lodged and made public. Stay tuned.

For example, a lecture by Father Richard McBrien, the notorious "theologian" from the University of Notre Dame, who remains in "good standing" as a priest in the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, was held at the Performing Arts Center in Appleton, Wisconsin, six months ago. The lecture was promoted actively by Our Lady of Lourdes Church in De Pere, Wisconsin. Telephone calls to the Diocese of Green Bay were met with the "explanation" that the event was not being sponsored by the diocese and was not being held on diocesan property. Do not be surprised if something similar happens in San Francisco with the event that had been scheduled to take place at Most Holy Redeemer Church.

What remains an enduring scandal in Archdiocese of San Francisco, however, is that Father Meriwether had enjoyed the confidence of William Levada when he was the Archbishop of San Francisco from 1995 to 2005. Furthermore, the invitation extended to the perverted group did not just "happen." That the event was scheduled at all is indicative of the underlying ethos that has been fostered within the infrastructure of the Archdiocese of San Francisco for many decades now. How many of the people who planned this event will retain their positions?

Yet another scandal is that the current Archbishop of San Francisco, George Niederauer, had praised the pro-sodomite motion picture Brokeback Mountain upon its debut earlier this year. Niederauer, a product of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, co-owns a beach house in southern California with his predecessor, another product of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the current conciliar Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, William Cardinal Levada. Although, thankfully protesting in Sodom-by-Bay does appear to have gotten somewhere with regard to the proposed "performance" at Most Holy Redeemer Church, the Homosexual Collective is still quite active in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, especially as young people are propagandized by "programs" that undermine the innocence and purity of children and adolescents. One must recognize that conciliarism and its novelties, including that episcopal collegiality, make it impossible for believing Catholics across the contemporary ecclesiastical divides to reverse all of the ceaseless outrages against God and His Sacred Honor and Glory that are committed on a regular basis under the official auspices of the conciliar officials.

The problem here, ultimately, is not in San Francisco, it is in conciliar Rome itself, where Benedict places the Protestant syncretist Roger Schutz in Heaven and convinces himself that the revolution he helped to wrought as a peritus at the Second Vatican Council has produced a veritable "springtime of the Church." His revolution has been a rejection of the constant patrimony of the Catholic Church and a disaster at the pastoral level for the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood. One must reject conciliarism and then come to recognize that what is happening at Most Holy Redeemer Church, which is in the temporary hands of non-Catholics, does not emanate from the Catholic Church at all.

There are several other contemporary examples of the rot involving the sodomite infestation of the conciliar structures (including a pending document to be released in two weeks by the United States Conference of Conciliar Bishops, USCCB, which will encourage the baptism of the children "adopted" by "gay couples). As an elderly reader wrote to me a few days ago to explain that she was leaving the internet to concentrate on her prayer life before she dies, "Why do I have to keep up with the problems in the conciliar church. I don't keep up with the problems in various Protestant sects. Why should I bother myself with the outrages taking place in Catholic structures that are now in the control of the non-Catholic conciliarists?" Indeed. The conciliar church is of its very synthetic nature a positivist exercise to convince believing Catholics that it is the Catholic Church. It is not.

No one can be a Roman Catholic and dissent from even one article contained in the Deposit of Faith. As Mr. John Lane pointed out in his recent debate, the conciliarists cannot even agree on those matters on which they dissent from the Deposit of Faith. Such is the disunity in the ranks of conciliarism, the very opposite of the hallmark of Catholicism, which is a unity of Faith among all believers, men and women who accept everything that has been handed down to them over the centuries. Catholicism rejects novelty, not embraces it. Catholicism adheres to Tradition, not redefines it.

Consider these wonderful quotes, found at Our Lady of Rosary Library (Quotes Proving the Authority of Tradition):

 

1. "Teach nothing new, but implant in the hearts of everyone those things which the fathers of venerable memory taught with a uniform preaching ... Whence, we preach nothing except what we have received from our forefathers. In all things, therefore, both in the rule of faith in the observance of discipline, let the pattern of antiquity be observed." – Pope St. Leo the Great, Father and Doctor of the Church

2. "'One faith,' St. Paul writes (Eph. 4:5). Hold most firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church ... We must hold this for certain, namely: that the faith of the people at the present day is one with the faith of the people in past centuries. Were this not true, then we would be in a different church than they were in and, literally, the Church would not be One." – St. Thomas Aquinas

3. "I accept with sincere belief the doctrine of faith as handed down to us from the Apostles by the orthodox Fathers, always in the same sense and with the same interpretation." – Pope St. Pius X

4. "The true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries nor innovators, but men of tradition." – Pope St. Pius X

5. "The Church of Christ, zealous and cautious guardian of the dogmas deposited with it, never changes any phase of them. It does not diminish them or add to them; it neither trims what seems necessary now grafts things superfluous . . . but it devotes all its diligence to one aim: To treat tradition faithfully and wisely; to consolidate and to strengthen what already was clear; and to guard what already was confirmed and defined." – St. Vincent de Lerins: Commonitoria (5th Century)

6. "The true Church is also to be known from Her origin, which She derives under the law of grace from the Apostles; for Her doctrines are neither novel nor of recent origin, but were delivered of old by the Apostles and disseminated throughout the world." – Catechism of the Council of Trent (16th Century)

7. "For the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter, that by His revelation they might make known new doctrine, but that by His assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith delivered through the Ages." – First Vatican Council (1869-1870)

8. "I vow ... to change nothing of the received Tradition, and nothing thereof I have found before me guarded by my God-pleasing predecessors, to encroach, to alter, or to permit any innovation therein." – Coronation Oath of the Pope

9. "Therefore, heresy is from the Greek word meaning 'choice' . . . . But we are not permitted to believe whatever we choose, nor to choose whatever someone else has believed. We have the Apostles of God as authorities, who did not . . . choose what they would believe but faithfully transmitted the teachings of Christ. So, even if an angel from heaven should preach otherwise, he shall be called anathema. – St. Isidore, extraordinary Doctor of the Church and last of the great Latin Fathers: Etymologies (7th Century)

10. "The day the Church abandons Her universal tongue will be the day before She returns to the Catacombs." – Pope Pius XII (a few days before his death)

11. "You are fortunate, you have remained in the Church through your faith. You held fast to the foundations of the faith which has come down to you from Apostolic Tradition. . . .In the present crisis, it is they who have broken away from it." – St. Athanasius, champion of Christ's Divinity, Doctor of Orthodoxy, Doctor of the Church, died 373 A. D.

12. "No one, my beloved brethren, will ever prevail against your Faith. And we are confident that God will one day return our Churches to us." – St. Athanasius

13. "What then shall the Catholic do if some portion of the Church detaches itself from communion of the universal Faith? What other choice can he make –  and if some new contagion attempts to poison, no longer a small part of the Church, but the whole Church at once, then his great concern will be to attach himself to antiquity (Tradition) which can no longer be led astray by any lying novelty." – St. Vincent de Lerins
14. "Is it permitted for Catholics to be present at, or to take part in, conventions, gatherings, meetings, or societies of non-Catholics which aim to associate together under a single agreement everyone who, in any way, lays claim to the name of Christian? In the negative! ... It is clear, therefore, why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics. There is one way in which the unity of Christians may be fostered, and that is by furthering the return to the one true Church of Christ for those who are separated from Her." – Pope Pius XI

 

We have no reason to despair in these troubling times. No, despair is of the devil, who has fomented this confusion in the minds of so many Catholics between the conciliar church and the Catholic Church. The positivists in the world and in the ranks of conciliarism will continue to make their gratuitous assertions as true. We, however, must scoff at these assertions and to beam with the confident assurance that Our Lady will vanquish the current hold that civil and theological positivism has over so many hundreds of millions of people today. Our Lady will have the Triumph of her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, and that triumph will indeed be glorious beyond all telling. We must be earnest in our own efforts to reject all forms of positivism, including conciliarism, and to keep the authentic Catholic Faith alive in our own homes as we strive to do penance for our own sins and those of the whole world as the consecrated slaves of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. This is last day of October. How about a few extra Rosaries on the last day of the Month of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary?

As we enter November tomorrow, November 1, we will call to mind in a special way the fact that we are united at all times to the Communion of Saints, which gathers together at every offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Even though the Poor Souls of the Church Suffering in Purgatory cannot help themselves and must rely upon our prayers and sacrifices and penances we offer for them through Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, those Poor Souls can help us, joining with the members of the Church Triumphant in Heaven to provide us with spiritual strength, the likes of which we we will only come to understand fully in eternity, please God we die in states of Sanctifying Grace.

We must always recognize the fact that the chief positivist, that is, the devil, wants to detract us from recognizing that we have a heavenly cloud of witnesses who stand ready to help us. Many of these witnesses suffered untold humiliations and human losses for remaining faithful to the Faith of our fathers in their own day. We must never lose sight of the fact that we are never alone in the battle to maintain Tradition in our own lives. No matter how many people hate us or calumniate us, no matter how many people refuse us their friendship or how many family members think themselves superior to us because they are not "schismatic" as we are, we must always take refuge in the simple Catholic truth that we have helpers at the ready who want to console us and to encourage us as with lift high the Cross of the Divine Redeemer in our own lives as they did in theirs, making the Holy Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ the standard of our own victory as it was the standard of theirs. Let us use tomorrow's feast, All Saints Day, to meditate on the great joy that awaits us if only we ask the help of those who have gone before us marked with the sign of the Faith, that is, the Sign of the Cross: In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, 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 John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Blessed Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Blessed Francisco, pray for us.

Blessed Jacinta, 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.