An Alternate World for an Alternate Faith

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Nothing much has changed in the past ten days since the last article was posted on this site. Those who live in the alternate world of an alternate faith continue to delude themselves and those who trust in their ceaseless misrepresentations and distortions in any number of ways. Efforts to delineate these misrepresentations can border on the oxymoronic, to be sure. It is, however, nevertheless important to explode the delusions of those who live in a world of apostasy.

Universalizing from the Particular

Much like Martin Luther, for whom he has much respect, the former Joseph Ratzinger has created an alternate faith that reaffirms himself in his unwillingness to confront evil directly. Luther devised a false theology to reaffirm himself in his refusal to reform his life of impurity. Ratzinger, who has excused his brief and reluctant participation in the Hitler Youth organization by saying that "everyone" did it and that it was "useless" to resist, has been an advocate of a "new theology" that seeks to accommodate the Faith to the "needs of modern man" because he believes that it is not "useful" to "oppose" various evils in the world that were denounced very clearly by the authentic popes of the past. A "synthesis of faith" must be found to reconcile the competing tensions of the Faith with "advances" of knowledge in the world. The old condemnations, therefore, lose their "force" as the "Church" seeks to anchor herself in different places according to the needs of the moment. It is not an exaggeration to state that Joseph Ratzinger has done with the Catholic Faith exactly what Martin Luther did: to universalize from his own quite subjective perspectives drawn from his own particular experiences, which in this case means that John XXIII's belief that there is no need to condemn error is embraced with enthusiasm.

Consider this excerpt of Monsignor Georg Ratzinger's views on the "impossibility" of opposing the Nazi regime of the Third Reich:

He [Ratzinger] has since said that although he was opposed to the Nazi regime, any open resistance would have been futile — comments echoed this weekend by his elder brother Georg, a retired priest ordained along with the cardinal in 1951.

“Resistance was truly impossible,” Georg Ratzinger said. “Before we were conscripted, one of our teachers said we should fight and become heroic Nazis and another told us not to worry as only one soldier in a thousand was killed. But neither of us ever used a rifle against the enemy.”

Some locals in Traunstein, like Elizabeth Lohner, 84, whose brother-in-law was sent to Dachau as a conscientious objector, dismiss such suggestions. “It was possible to resist, and those people set an example for others,” she said. “The Ratzingers were young and had made a different choice.”Justin Sparks, Munich, John Follain and Christopher Morgan, "Papal hopeful is a former Hitler Youth - Sunday Times - Times Online," April 17, 2005.

 

This is why Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did not think it at all extraordinary for Stanislaw Wojciech Wielgus, who resigned his position as the conciliar archbishop of Warsaw, Poland, a day after he was installed on January 5, 2007, to have collaborated with the Communist secret police in Poland during that country's forty years years of overt captivity to Marxism-Leninism. What's the big deal? He, Ratzinger, believed resistance to the Nazis was "futile." So did Wielgus. Why the furor? Ratzinger is so bereft of the sensus Catholicus that the thought of resisting evil by risking one's very life and limb in defense of the Faith is foreign to him. Yes, true. He is far from alone in this. Most of the conciliar bishops are quite friendly with public officials who support baby-killing under cover of law. (See: Pro-Abort Politicians "Friends of Mine" says New York Cardinal Egan and my column from six years ago on this exact subject, Nothing but an American Right.)

The Refusal to Confront Evil and to Refute Error is Founded in the Ethos of the Errors of Conciliarism

The refusal to confront evil and to call it by its proper name is part and parcel of the whole conciliarist ethos. Consider John XXIII's opening address to the "Second" Vatican Council, October 11, 1962:

At the outset of the Second Vatican Council, it is evident, as always, that the truth of the Lord will remain forever. We see, in fact, as one age succeeds another, that the opinions of men follow one another and exclude each other. And often errors vanish as quickly as they arise, like fog before the sun The Church has always opposed these errors. Frequently she has condemned them with the greatest severity. Nowadays however, the Spouse of Christ prefers to make use of the medicine of mercy rather than that of severity. She consider that she meets the needs of the present day by demonstrating the validity of her teaching rather than by condemnations Not, certainly, that there is a lack of fallacious teaching, opinions, and dangerous concepts to be guarded against an dissipated. But these are so obviously in contrast with the right norm of honesty, and have produced such lethal fruits that by now it would seem that men of themselves are inclined to condemn them, particularly those ways of life which despise God and His law or place excessive confidence in technical progress and a well-being based exclusively on the comforts of life. They are ever more deeply convinced of the paramount dignity of the human person and of his perfection as well as of the duties which that implies. Even more important, experience has taught men that violence inflicted on others, the might of arms, and political domination, are of no help at all in finding a happy solution to the grave problems which afflict them.

 

The Catholic Church has always condemned error vigorously, however. Men do not always see error clearly, something that is plainly visible in the words and deeds of the conciliarists themselves, steeped as they are in the errors of religious liberty and ecumenism and a false ecclesiology that makes of the "Church of Christ" a series of nonexistent "concentric circles" which include whole categories of people who dissent from multiple articles contained in the Deposit of Faith. Pope Leo XIII explained in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890, that Catholics have a fundamental obligation to oppose evil and to denounce it with all of the strength that God can give them:

But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. So soon as Catholic truth is apprehended by a simple and unprejudiced soul, reason yields assent. Now, faith, as a virtue, is a great boon of divine grace and goodness; nevertheless, the objects themselves to which faith is to be applied are scarcely known in any other way than through the hearing. "How shall they believe Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? Faith then cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." Since, then, faith is necessary for salvation, it follows that the word of Christ must be preached. The office, indeed, of preaching, that is, of teaching, lies by divine right in the province of the pastors, namely, of the bishops whom "the Holy Spirit has placed to rule the Church of God.'' It belongs, above all, to the Roman Pontiff, vicar of Jesus Christ, established as head of the universal Church, teacher of all that pertains to morals and faith.

No one, however, must entertain the notion that private individuals are prevented from taking some active part in this duty of teaching, especially those on whom God has bestowed gifts of mind with the strong wish of rendering themselves useful. These, so often as circumstances demand, may take upon themselves, not, indeed, the office of the pastor, but the task of communicating to others what they have themselves received, becoming, as it were, living echoes of their masters in the faith. Such co-operation on the part of the laity has seemed to the Fathers of the Vatican Council so opportune and fruitful of good that they thought well to invite it. "All faithful Christians, but those chiefly who are in a prominent position, or engaged in teaching, we entreat, by the compassion of Jesus Christ, and enjoin by the authority of the same God and Savior, that they bring aid to ward off and eliminate these errors from holy Church, and contribute their zealous help in spreading abroad the light of undefiled faith.'' Let each one, therefore, bear in mind that he both can and should, so far as may be, preach the Catholic faith by the authority of his example, and by open and constant profession of the obligations it imposes. In respect, consequently, to the duties that bind us to God and the Church, it should be borne earnestly in mind that in propagating Christian truth and warding off errors the zeal of the laity should, as far as possible, be brought actively into play.

The faithful would not, however, so completely and advantageously satisfy these duties as is fitting they should were they to enter the field as isolated champions of the faith. Jesus Christ, indeed, has clearly intimated that the hostility and hatred of men, which He first and foremost experienced, would be shown in like degree toward the work founded by Him, so that many would be barred from profiting by the salvation for which all are indebted to His loving kindness. Wherefore, He willed not only to train disciples in His doctrine, but to unite them into one society, and closely conjoin them in one body, "which is the Church,'' whereof He would be the head. The life of Jesus Christ pervades, therefore, the entire framework of this body, cherishes and nourishes its every member, uniting each with each, and making all work together to the same end, albeit the action of each be not the same. Hence it follows that not only is the Church a perfect society far excelling every other, but it is enjoined by her Founder that for the salvation of mankind she is to contend "as an army drawn up in battle array. ''The organization and constitution of Christian society can in no wise be changed, neither can any one of its members live as he may choose, nor elect that mode of fighting which best pleases him. For, in effect, he scatters and gathers not who gathers not with the Church and with Jesus Christ, and all who fight not jointly with him and with the Church are in very truth contending against God.

 

The false church of conciliarism has scattered and gathers not with the true Catholic Church and with Jesus Christ as it has embrace the Judeo-Masonic ethos responsible for the promotion of religious liberty and the separation of Church and State and religious indifferentism that was condemned by pope after pope prior to 1958. The conciliar church embraces the very heresies, therefore, that each of us must hate in order to show forth our true love for God as He has revealed Himself exclusively through the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation.

Father Frederick Faber wrote of the Church's hatred for heresy in The Dolors of Mary, 1857:

This is particularly offensive to the world. So especially opposed is it to the spirit of the world, that, even in good, believing hearts, every remnant of worldliness rises in arms against this hatred of heresy, embittering the very gentlest of characters and spoiling many a glorious work of grace. In the judgment of the world, and of worldly Christians, this hatred of heresy is exaggerated, bitter, contrary to moderation, indiscreet, unreasonable, aiming at too much, bigoted, intolerant, narrow, stupid, and immoral. What can we say to defend it? Nothing which they can understand. The mild self-opinionatedness of the gentle, undiscerning good will also take the world's view and condemn us; for there is a meek-looking positiveness about the timid goodness which is far from God, and the instincts of whose charity is more toward those who are less for God, while its timidity is daring enough for a harsh judgment. Heresy can only be hated by an undivided heart.

 

Father Faber elaborated on this very simple Catholic truth three years later, 1860, in The Precious Blood:

If we hated sin as we ought to hate it, purely, keenly, manfully, we should do more penance, we should inflict more self-punishment, we should sorrow for our sins more abidingly. Then, again, the crowning disloyalty to God is heresy. It is the sin of sins, the very loathsomest of things which God looks down upon in this malignant world. Yet how little do we understand of its excessive hatefulness! It is the polluting of God’s truth, which is the worst of all impurities.

Yet how light we make of it! We look at it, and are calm. We touch it and do not shudder. We mix with it, and have no fear. We see it touch holy things, and we have no sense of sacrilege. We breathe its odor, and show no signs of detestation or disgust. Some of us affect its friendship; and some even extenuate its guilt. We do not love God enough to be angry for His glory. We do not love men enough to be charitably truthful for their souls.

Having lost the touch, the taste, the sight, and all the senses of heavenly-mindedness, we can dwell amidst this odious plague, in imperturbable tranquility, reconciled to its foulness, not without some boastful professions of liberal admiration, perhaps even with a solicitous show of tolerant sympathies.

Why are we so far below the old saints, and even the modern apostles of these latter times, in the abundance of our conversations? Because we have not the antique sternness? We want the old Church-spirit, the old ecclesiastical genius. Our charity is untruthful, because it is not severe; and it is unpersuasive, because it is untruthful.

We lack devotion to truth as truth, as God’s truth. Our zeal for souls is puny, because we have no zeal for God’s honor. We act as if God were complimented by conversions, instead of trembling souls rescued by a stretch of mercy.

We tell men half the truth, the half that best suits our own pusillanimity and their conceit; and then we wonder that so few are converted, and that of those few so many apostatize.

We are so weak as to be surprised that our half-truth has not succeeded so well as God’s whole truth.

Where there is no hatred of heresy, there is no holiness.

A man, who might be an apostle, becomes a fester in the Church for the want of this righteous indignation.

 

This hatred of heresy is the very antithesis of the ethos of conciliarism. The only ones who are in error these days are those Catholics who hold fast to the fullness of the Deposit of Faith before the errors of Modernism began to be spread by the conciliar church in the 1960s and thereafter. And there are some Catholics who consider themselves devoted to the Church's Tradition who believe it inopportune or "indiscreet" to oppose errors as long as they have access to a modernized (1962 or 1965) version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, offered under unjust and illicit conditions, thereby imprisoning them in the conciliarist paradigm just so that they can be considered to be in "good standing" in the structures of a "church" that is counterfeit and is working assiduously to move its members into the larger framework of the naturalist One World Religion that has long been the goal of Judeo-Masonry. Being in "good standing" with the conciliarists, however, means being in "full communion" with those who are promoting the very errors and heresies that have been condemned by pope after pope prior to 1958. This is not of God whatsoever.

A Review of the Errors of the Moment

Revolutionaries seek to cloak themselves in the mantle of "reform," distorting and misrepresenting the past while they promote schemes are not of God and therefore lead souls into error and, quite possibly, to eternal damnation. Pope Saint Pius X was most blunt in assessing the schemes of the Sillon, a movement in France that is the absolute model for the ethos of conciliarism, in his August 15, 1910, encyclical letter, Notre Charge Apostolique:

This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.

No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo.

 

Of the utmost importance in the Modernist, conciliar revolution was to change the form of "worship" of the Roman Rite, doing so while contending that the revolutionary changes in what purported to be the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass were in full consonance with the Tradition of the Catholic Church. The Novus Ordo Missae's very synthetic nature was designed to give rise to experimentation in the name of "the inculturation of the Gospel." This is borne out by a review of Paragraph 395 of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal and my commentary on it in G.I.R.M. Warfare, which is now out of print:

"Finally, should the participation of the faithful and their spiritual good call for variants and points of deeper adaptation in order that the sacred celebration respond to the genius and customs of the different peoples, the Conferences of Bishops may propose to the Apostolic See, in accordance with art. 40 of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, with a view to introducing them with the Apostolic See's consent, especially in favor of peoples to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed in more recent times. The special norms determined by the instruction, Inculturation and the Roman Liturgy, shall be attentively observed. As to the way of proceeding in this matter, the following shall be respected" In the first place, a detailed prior project should be forwarded to the Apostolic See, so that after the necessary authorization has been given, the precise points of adaptations may be worked out. Once these proposals have been duly approved by the Holy See, experiments should be carried out at specific times and places. If appropriate, once the period of experimentation is concluded, the Conference of Bishops shall decide upon carrying forward the adaptation and shall make a mature proposal to the Apostolic See for its decision."

Comment and Analysis: There you have it, ladies and gentlemen. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass can be used as a laboratory of experimentation. The purpose of this experimentation, which is absolutely, unqualifiedly without any precedence in the nearly 2,000 year history of the Church, is to adapt the barbaric practices of pagan peoples directly into the Catholic Mass so as to satisfy what are alleged to be the desires of indigenous peoples to "feel" as though the liturgy reflects the "genius" of their history. This is why, you see, it is important to incorporate tribal practices of the barbaric peoples of Africa, of the Aztecs and Mayans and Incas of Latin America, of the bush people of Australia and New Zealand, and of the various Indian tribes of North America, to say nothing of the experiments involving "rock" Masses" and "folk" Masses and the practices of the New Age movement.

Thus, we have the phenomena of the Vicar of Christ accepting the gifts to be used in a Papal extravaganza Mass in Africa from half-naked women, of New Zealand tribesmen dressing down to do tribal dances in the Basilica of Saint Peter (as I commented at the time a few years ago, did these natives board the plane from New Zealand in their tribal attire?), of scandalous music being played at World Youth Day celebrations, of feathered Aztec dancers entertaining the congregation at the "canonization" of Juan Diego in Mexico City. How can any right thinking Catholic stand by and believe that this is anything other than sacrilegious? Would any canonized saint in the history of the Church shut his mouth at these horrible spectacles?

Paragraph 395, therefore, authorizes a national episcopal conference to propose a scheme of adaptation to the Holy See. If the Holy See approves the schema, then there is a period of experimentation. If the experimentation is deemed to be successful in the view of the conference of bishops in question, then the project is presented to the Holy See for final approval. And, naturally, there is going to be great pressure placed on the Holy See to approve the experiment or otherwise run the risk of being considered insensitive to the needs inspired by the genius of the peoples. This paragraph represents the authorization of the un-Christian and the bizarre as constituent elements of a Catholic Mass.

  

A conciliar bishop in India, Stanley Roman of Quilon, will "celebrate" a Novus Ordo Missae seated as Buddha and will bless a statue of Our Lord sitting as Buddha (see Daily Commentaries, January, 2007, at TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Network). Even presuming the invalidity of the Novus Ordo Missae, such an exercise is a sacrilege as it is being offered by one considered by most to be a "bishop" in the Catholic Church, thereby giving the impression that false religions are valid means to to worship God and that their false rituals may be incorporated into what purports to be a Catholic Mass.

Meanwhile, you see, the Vatican's chief Latinist, Father Reginald Foster, O. Carm., has said that the long-expected "universal indult" for the 1962 modernized version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, which is used by the Society of Saint Pius X and by all priests, diocesan and religious, who offer the "indult" Mass, will not be issued by Benedict XVI. Whether this is true or not is really irrelevant. The indult, although it served as the "bridge" by which many of us found our way back to the fullness of Tradition--and from there to recognize that the Catholic Church cannot issue defective liturgies and cannot be the author of doctrinal errors, has been and continues to be a trap to entice Catholics into accepting the false conditions under which a modernized form of the Mass of all ages that was in use in the conciliar church for just two years before being replaced by the Ordo Missae of 1965 could be offered while their silence about the errors of the day, including the Novus Ordo Missae, is purchased. Only a relative handful of those who go to "indult" Masses recognize the errors of conciliarism and speak out about them. Most of those who assist at "indult" chapels think that they have the fullness of the Catholic Faith and that it is simply wrong to speak out about anything, thereby proving true the words that Father Frederick Faber wrote about timidity just about 150 years ago now.

More to the point, however, is the fact that Father Reginald Foster, O. Carm., described the Immemorial Mass of all ages as follows:

It is a useless mass and the whole mentality is stupid. (Pope's Latinist pronounces death of a language.)

 

A "useless mass and the whole mentality is stupid"? Such a statement from one who is in canonical "good standing" in the conciliar structures as the chief Latinist to the pretender in white named Benedict XVI says a whole lot about the revolutionary mentality of the men who hold ecclesiastical office in the Vatican at this time of its Modernist Captivity. The Mass that goes back, in all of its essential elements, to the first Pope, Saint Peter, is "useless." Thus, the Catholics in England who fought for the Immemorial Mass of Tradition in the Sixteenth Century fought for a "useless" Mass and with a "stupid" mentality. They should have accommodated themselves to the successive changes in the Protestant Mass that was promoted by the false church, the Anglican Church, started by King Henry VIII, thus serving as pioneers in behalf of the "enlightened" mentality that produced the Novus Ordo Missae itself. What point was there in dying for a "useless" Mass with a "stupid" mentality?Go tell that to Our Lord Himself, Who taught the Apostles how to offer the Mass before He Ascended to the Father's right hand in glory on Ascension Thursday.

The Novus Ordo Missae is thus essential to affirm those who are exposed to it in the belief that the Faith can change as ceaselessly and as radically as the liturgy. It is relatively simply to promote condemned propositions such as religious liberty and ecumenism and the separation of Church and State when most ordinary Catholics have been subjected to ceaseless changes in the very thing that is supposed to communicate the immutability and permanence of God Himself, the Mass. The alternate world of an alternate faith of Judeo-Masonry could not have been made possible had it not been for the Novus Ordo Missae and all of its inherent offenses to God and its never-ending harmful effects on the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

The New Ecclesiology. A large part of the alternate world in which the false faith of conciliarism lives is premised upon the belief that the "Church of Christ" is larger than the Catholic Church. This is heretical. The Catholic Church is the one and only Church of Christ. As noted earlier in this commentary, Benedict XVI believes that the "Church of Christ" is made up of various "concentric circles" and that we need to "search" for unity, which means that one of the Four Marks of the Catholic Church, Unity, is lacking from her Divine Constitution. Bishop Donald Sanborn went into this matter at great length in his masterful The New Ecclesiology: An Overview and The New Ecclesiology: Documentation. The belief that false religions are used by God to save souls is opposed to the simple truth that Our Lord founded but one Church upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, to be the sole means of human salvation. The entire missionary work of the Church from Pentecost Sunday until 1958 must have been wrong for conciliarism's new ecclesiology to be correct.

Ecumenism. Related to the new ecclesiology is the error of ecumenism, which is the "practical" means by which the "new ecclesiology" is made manifest in the alternate world of the conciliar church. Benedict XVI has once again been beating the drums in behalf of this error in the past few days, stating that it is important to be guided by the "Holy Spirit" to search for the "unity" that is "lacking" at present. Utter apostasy. There is only one path by which the Catholic Church seeks the good of souls who are outside of her maternal bosom: to seek their unconditional conversion to the Church without any concession whatsoever to their false beliefs. The Holy Ghost cannot contradict Himself.

"Proselytism," that is the seeking of converts to the Catholic Church, is forbidden in most instances by the conciliar church. This is especially true in the case of Talmudic Jews and Protestants and the Orthodox. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself, therefore, must have been wrong when He sought the conversion of Saul of Tarsus as he hade his way to Damascus to persecute yet another band of Catholics as he had done in Jerusalem. The conciliar church has thus done the bidding of the Sanhedrin of old: seeking to silence Catholics about the necessity of preaching the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ to all men at all times and in all circumstances without any exception whatsoever.

Pope Pius IX, writing in Iam Vos Omnes, September 14, 1868, summarized the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church from Pentecost Sunday until the time that a man with Rosicrucian friends named Angelo Roncalli rose to power in 1958:

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.

It is therefore by force of the right of Our supreme Apostolic ministry, entrusted to us by the same Christ the Lord, which, having to carry out with [supreme] participation all the duties of the good Shepherd and to follow and embrace with paternal love all the men of the world, we send this Letter of Ours to all the Christians from whom We are separated, with which we exhort them warmly and beseech them with insistence to hasten to return to the one fold of Christ; we desire in fact from the depths of the heart their salvation in Christ Jesus, and we fear having to render an account one day to Him, Our Judge, if, through some possibility, we have not pointed out and prepared the way for them to attain eternal salvation. In all Our prayers and supplications, with thankfulness, day and night we never omit to ask for them, with humble insistence, from the eternal Shepherd of souls the abundance of goods and heavenly graces. And since, if also, we fulfill in the earth the office of vicar, with all our heart we await with open arms the return of the wayward sons to the Catholic Church, in order to receive them with infinite fondness into the house of the Heavenly Father and to enrich them with its inexhaustible treasures. By our greatest wish for the return to the truth and the communion with the Catholic Church, upon which depends not only the salvation of all of them, but above all also of the whole Christian society: the entire world in fact cannot enjoy true peace if it is not of one fold and one shepherd.

 

As was the case with John Paul II, Benedict XVI feels free to walk into places of false worship (Protestant "churches," Talmudic synagogues, Mohammedan mosques) and to commit sins against the First Commandment by treating these places as holy and worthy of veneration. Gone is the refusal of the martyrs of the first centuries of the Church to give even the semblance of belief in false religions. Gone is this simple witness to the Faith given by a woman at the time of the Elizabethan persecution of Catholics in England, as recounted by Blessed Edmund Campion:

"A lady was lately told that she should be let out of prison if she would just once allow herself to be seen walking through an Anglican church. She refused. She had come into prison with a sound conscience and would depart with it, or die." (Father Harold C. Gardiner, S.J., Edmund Campion, Hero of God's Underground, Vision Books: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1957)

 

Benedict and his fellow conciliarists make a mockery of such Catholic courage in the face of apostasy.

Religious Liberty. This error has been reviewed many times on this site. Conciliarism contends that false religions have the right to propagate themselves in civil society and that their false beliefs can contribute to the common good of nations. This is blasphemous in that it contends that God Himself did not entrust the Deposit of Faith solely in the Catholic Church and that it is His Holy Will that these false religious exist and be accorded the same rights by civil governments as the very Church of which He is the Invisible Head. Benedict XVI has been very aggressive in promoting this error, going so far as to say that it was a "novelty" instituted by Our Lord Himself. If this is true, obviously, then the whole notion of the infallibility of the Catholic Church's Ordinary Magisterium is abolished. Why? Well, it is quite simple. This alleged "novelty" that was supposedly "instituted" by Our Lord Himself was not only not taught by popes prior to the "Second" Vatican Council but was actually condemned repeatedly in no uncertain terms. Once again, the Holy Ghost cannot contradict Himself. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his band of fellow conciliarists live in a world of their own making, one that has no relationship at all to the Catholic Church and the truths deposited in her by her Divine Bridegroom, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Among the many popes to condemn religious liberty was Pope Pius VII, who wrote the following in a papal brief, Post Tam Diuturnas, to Archbishop Etienne-Marie de Boulogne of Troyes, France, April 29, 1814 (translation by John S. Daly; full text available at: POST TAM DIUTURNAS):

For We had hoped, affairs having so happily changed, not only that all impediments organized against the Catholic religion in France would be removed with the utmost speed (as We have unceasingly demanded), but also that, as the opportunity presented itself, provision would also be made for her splendour and ornament. We saw at once that a deep silence was preserved in the constitution concerning this, and that there was not even any mention made of Almighty God, by whom kings reign and princes command. You will find it easy, Venerable Brother, to convince yourself of how grave, how bitter and how painful this matter was to Us, to whom has been committed by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Our Lord, the whole of Christendom. For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? 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."

Although, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Libertas, June 20, 1888, the Church may permit the civil state to tolerate the private practice of false religions so as not to violence to individual conscience and to avoid greater evils in civil society, she does not admit that error has any rights, much less that error must placed on a level of equality with the true Faith, Catholicism:

Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men are in this our age being borne. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good. God Himself in His providence, though infinitely good and powerful, permits evil to exist in the world, partly that greater good may not be impeded, and partly that greater evil may not ensue. In the government of States it is not forbidden to imitate the Ruler of the world; and, as the authority of man is powerless to prevent every evil, it has (as St. Augustine says) to overlook and leave unpunished many things which are punished, and rightly, by Divine Providence. But if, in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability. In this, human law must endeavor to imitate God, who, as St. Thomas teaches, in allowing evil to exist in the world, "neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills only to permit it to be done; and this is good.'' This saying of the Angelic Doctor contains briefly the whole doctrine of the permission of evil.

But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting. And although in the extraordinary condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however, remains always true -- that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.

 

Separation of Church and State. Once again, this is a topic that has been discussed on this site endlessly. Judeo-Masonry has sought to overthrow the Social Reign of Christ the King as it must be exercised by the Catholic Church, convincing even believing Catholics that it is a "protection" for the Church herself not to be "associated" with the civil state. This is of the essence of conciliarism itself, as attested throughout the course of Benedict XVI's false pontificate--and it stands condemned by the Catholic Church without any equivocation whatsoever.

While admitting that the Church may have to make accommodations to the practical realities that exist in various nations as a result of the revolutionary forces that produced the modern state, Pope Leo XIII insisted in the aforementioned Libertas that the separation of Church and State is a grave error and he urged Catholics to do all they could to bring about the happy reunion of these the temporal and supernatural powers:

Next comes the system of those who admit indeed the duty of submitting to God, the Creator and Ruler of the world, inasmuch as all nature is dependent on His will, but who boldly reject all laws of faith and morals which are above natural reason, but are revealed by the authority of God; or who at least impudently assert that there is no reason why regard should be paid to these laws, at any rate publicly, by the State. How mistaken these men also are, and how inconsistent, we have seen above. From this teaching, as from its source and principle, flows that fatal principle of the separation of Church and State; whereas it is, on the contrary, clear that the two powers, though dissimilar in functions and unequal in degree, ought nevertheless to live in concord, by harmony in their action and the faithful discharge of their respective duties.

But this teaching is understood in two ways. Many wish the State to be separated from the Church wholly and entirely, so that with regard to every right of human society, in institutions, customs, and laws, the offices of State, and the education of youth, they would pay no more regard to the Church than if she did not exist; and, at most, would allow the citizens individually to attend to their religion in private if so minded. Against such as these, all the arguments by which We disprove the principle of separation of Church and State are conclusive; with this super-added, that it is absurd the citizen should respect the Church, while the State may hold her in contempt.

Others oppose not the existence of the Church, nor indeed could they; yet they despoil her of the nature and rights of a perfect society, and maintain that it does not belong to her to legislate, to judge, or to punish, but only to exhort, to advise, and to rule her subjects in accordance with their own consent and will. By such opinion they pervert the nature of this divine society, and attenuate and narrow its authority, its office of teacher, and its whole efficiency; and at the same time they aggrandize the power of the civil government to such extent as to subject the Church of God to the empire and sway of the State, like any voluntary association of citizens. To refute completely such teaching, the arguments often used by the defenders of Christianity, and set forth by Us, especially in the encyclical letter Immortale Dei, are of great avail; for by those arguments it is proved that, by a divine provision, all the rights which essentially belong to a society that is legitimate, supreme, and perfect in all its parts exist in the Church.

Lastly, there remain those who, while they do not approve the separation of Church and State, think nevertheless that the Church ought to adapt herself to the times and conform to what is required by the modern system of government. Such an opinion is sound, if it is to be understood of some equitable adjustment consistent with truth and justice; in so far, namely, that the Church, in the hope of some great good, may show herself indulgent, and may conform to the times in so far as her sacred office permits. But it is not so in regard to practices and doctrines which a perversion of morals and a warped judgment have unlawfully introduced. Religion, truth, and justice must ever be maintained; and, as God has intrusted these great and sacred matters to her office as to dissemble in regard to what is false or unjust, or to connive at what is hurtful to religion.

From what has been said it follows that it is quite unlawful to demand, to defend, or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, of speech, or writing, or of worship, as if these were so many rights given by nature to man. For, if nature had really granted them, it would be lawful to refuse obedience to God, and there would be no restraint on human liberty. It likewise follows that freedom in these things may be tolerated wherever there is just cause, but only with such moderation as will prevent its degenerating into license and excess. And, where such liberties are in use, men should employ them in doing good, and should estimate them as the Church does; for liberty is to be regarded as legitimate in so far only as it affords greater facility for doing good, but no farther.

 

Writing in Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895, Pope Leo XIII explained to the bishops of the United States of America that the Catholic Church in this country would enjoy even greater benefits if she enjoyed the "favor of the laws:"

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.

 

Among the many other absolute condemnations of the separation of Church and State is that found in Pope Saint Pius X's Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906:

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."

 

Something that is "absolutely false, a most pernicious error" in 1906 cannot be an absolute "good" in 2007. The contradiction of Catholic teaching by the conciliarists, steeped in Modernism's embrace of the ethos of Judeo-Masonry, has to be apparent to anyone who has the eyes of the Faith to see it and the graces given them by Our Lady to admit it.

The Catholic Church Is Not the Author of Error and Deceit

The Catholic Church is not the author of error and deceit. No one can remain a Catholic in good standing while believing, even privately, any one of the errors listed above, mindful of the fact that there are others, particularly as relates to the "evolution" of dogmas and the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture, that have not been discussed in this commentary. Pope Leo XIII made this clear in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896:

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).

 

"The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it.. . . 'There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition.'" This describes conciliarism and the conciliarists perfectly.

"The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium." One does not remain a member of the Catholic Church in good standing by simply holding onto a minimal number of articles contained in the Deposit of Faith. One must adhere to everything contained in the Deposit of Faith. Everything. Each of the errors listed above demonstrate a deviation from points of doctrine that have been proposed by the Church's authoritative Magisterium and are thus endowed with the charism of infallibility. No one is free to dissent from them and remain a Catholic, no less hold ecclesiastical office legitimately.

His Excellency Bishop Mark A. Pivarunas quoted the following theologians in his defense of the sedevacantist thesis at the Fatima Conference in Spokane, Washington, on October 13, 2006 (see: On the Vacancy of the Apostolic See by Bishop Mark A. Pivarunas, CMRI):

St. Robert Bellarmine said:

“A Pope who is a manifest heretic automatically ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases automatically to be a Christian and a member of the Church. Wherefore, he can be judged and punished by the Church. This is the teaching of all the ancient Fathers who teach that manifest heretics immediately lose all jurisdiction.”

St. Alphonsus, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, said:

“If ever a Pope, as a private person, should fall into heresy, he should at once fall from the Pontificate. If, however, God were to permit a pope to become a notorious and contumacious heretic, he would by such fact cease to be pope, and the apostolic chair would be vacant.”

St. Antoninus said:

“In the case in which the Pope would become a heretic, he would find himself, by that very fact alone and without any other sentence, separated from the Church. A head separated from a body cannot, as long as it remains separated, be head of the same body from which it was cut off.”

 

Once again, by way of reminder, the late conciliarist Mario Francesco Cardinal Pompedda, commenting on the incapacity of John Paul II two years ago, noted the following, as reported by Zenit on February 8, 2005:

Cardinal Says Pope Could Govern Even If Unable to Speak

Ex-Prefect of Church's Supreme Court Analyzes Conditions for a Possible Resignation

VATICAN CITY, FEB. 8, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Even if the Pope were unable to speak, he could continue to guide the Catholic Church, says the retired prefect of the Apostolic Signature, the Church's supreme court.

In regard to "the exercise of power, of the ministry, which is an exercise of jurisdiction, … it is not necessary to be able to speak," Cardinal Mario Francesco Pompedda said in statements published today in the Turin newspaper La Stampa.

"It is sufficient that [the Pope] expresses his will and that he does so in a clear manner. He can express his will perfectly in writing, or he can also express it in obvious and significant gestures," added the cardinal.

"The power of government is based on an act of will; there is no formula that must be pronounced in the exercise of jurisdiction, as occurs in the sacraments," he noted.

"No one would ever be able to cast doubt on a decision of the Pope which, even if it is not manifested with speech, is expressed in writing, or with gestures, with expressions that express clearly his will," Cardinal Pompedda, 75, continued.

The cardinal outlined how a pope might proffer his resignation. He said such a declaration "must be public" and added: "He could do so before two witnesses, before the College of Cardinals, before a synod, or by appearing at the window of his apartment, saying publicly, 'I resign.' There are no codified formulas."

The Code of Canon Law does not include dispositions in case of a pope's "incapacity due to illness," the cardinal noted.

Cardinal Pompedda reminded his listeners that the apostolic constitution "Universi Dominici Gregis," which regulates matters concerning a pope's eventual death, includes the expression "the Roman See, when for any reason it becomes vacant."

"By analogy, one could apply to a pope the norms that the Code provides for a vacant episcopal see," said the cardinal. "Also foreseen is the case of impediment. That is, when the bishop is no longer able to communicate with his own community, because of exile [or] prison.

"It is true that the canonical doctrine states that the see would be vacant in the case of heresy. ... But in regard to all else, I think what is applicable is what judgment regulates human acts. And the act of will, namely a resignation or capacity to govern or not govern, is a human act."

He added: "There is no human act when on the part of the intellect there is a lack of awareness or knowledge of what one is doing, or when on the part of the will there is no freedom."

 

Once again, sedevacantists have not created an alternate world for an alternate religion. The conciliarists have done so, which is why they are content to work behind the scenes as the scions of the Talmud attack those Catholics and their apostolates that hold in even the smallest way to anything that has to do with the authentic Faith of the Catholic Church, dismissed in conciliar circles as the "preconciliar" Church. Why should the conciliar revolutionaries attack us directly when the ancient enemies of the Faith can be convinced to do so, proving once again that conciliarism is the same thing as Judeo-Masonry, which is the subject of my conference at Saint Gertrude the Great Church this coming Sunday, February 4, 2007, Septuagesima Sunday.

Constant Recourse to Our Lady

We are but six days away from the start of the pre-Lenten season on Septuagesima Sunday. Now is the time, therefore, to intensify our own prayers and penances and sacrifices, offered freely to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart as her consecrated slaves, to help to plant the seeds for the Triumph of that same Immaculate Heart. We must live in the real world of the authentic Catholic Faith, making no concessions whatsoever to the legitimacy of conciliarist or of its wolves in shepherds' clothing. As we make the sacrifices to assist at the daily offering of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition and as we pray our daily Rosaries, therefore, we must implore Our Lady to help us to remain faithful to the fullness of the Faith no matter what names we are called and no matter what pressure, whether from the conciliarists or their cronies in the synagogue of Satan or in the government, is brought upon us to be silent about the truth.

Remember these words from Pope Pius XI's Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, written to explain why he was instituting a special feast, to be observed annually on the last Sunday in October, on the Universal Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ:

When once men recognize, both in private and in public life, that Christ is King, society will at last receive the great blessings of real liberty, well-ordered discipline, peace and harmony. Our Lord's regal office invests the human authority of princes and rulers with a religious significance; it ennobles the citizen's duty of obedience. It is for this reason that St. Paul, while bidding wives revere Christ in their husbands, and slaves respect Christ in their masters, warns them to give obedience to them not as men, but as the vicegerents of Christ; for it is not meet that men redeemed by Christ should serve their fellow-men. "You are bought with a price; be not made the bond-slaves of men." If princes and magistrates duly elected are filled with the persuasion that they rule, not by their own right, but by the mandate and in the place of the Divine King, they will exercise their authority piously and wisely, and they will make laws and administer them, having in view the common good and also the human dignity of their subjects. The result will be a stable peace and tranquillity, for there will be no longer any cause of discontent. Men will see in their king or in their rulers men like themselves, perhaps unworthy or open to criticism, but they will not on that account refuse obedience if they see reflected in them the authority of Christ God and Man. Peace and harmony, too, will result; for with the spread and the universal extent of the kingdom of Christ men will become more and more conscious of the link that binds them together, and thus many conflicts will be either prevented entirely or at least their bitterness will be diminished.

If the kingdom of Christ, then, receives, as it should, all nations under its way, there seems no reason why we should despair of seeing that peace which the King of Peace came to bring on earth -- he who came to reconcile all things, who came not to be ministered unto but to minister, who, though Lord of all, gave himself to us as a model of humility, and with his principal law united the precept of charity; who said also: "My yoke is sweet and my burden light." Oh, what happiness would be Ours if all men, individuals, families, and nations, would but let themselves be governed by Christ! "Then at length," to use the words addressed by our predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, twenty-five years ago to the bishops of the Universal Church, "then at length will many evils be cured; then will the law regain its former authority; peace with all its blessings be restored. Men will sheathe their swords and lay down their arms when all freely acknowledge and obey the authority of Christ, and every tongue confesses that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father."

That these blessings may be abundant and lasting in Christian society, it is necessary that the kingship of our Savior should be as widely as possible recognized and understood, and to the end nothing would serve better than the institution of a special feast in honor of the Kingship of Christ. For people are instructed in the truths of faith, and brought to appreciate the inner joys of religion far more effectually by the annual celebration of our sacred mysteries than by any official pronouncement of the teaching of the Church. Such pronouncements usually reach only a few and the more learned among the faithful; feasts reach them all; the former speak but once, the latter speak every year -- in fact, forever. The church's teaching affects the mind primarily; her feasts affect both mind and heart, and have a salutary effect upon the whole of man's nature. Man is composed of body and soul, and he needs these external festivities so that the sacred rites, in all their beauty and variety, may stimulate him to drink more deeply of the fountain of God's teaching, that he may make it a part of himself, and use it with profit for his spiritual life.

History, in fact, tells us that in the course of ages these festivals have been instituted one after another according as the needs or the advantage of the people of Christ seemed to demand: as when they needed strength to face a common danger, when they were attacked by insidious heresies, when they needed to be urged to the pious consideration of some mystery of faith or of some divine blessing. Thus in the earliest days of the Christian era, when the people of Christ were suffering cruel persecution, the cult of the martyrs was begun in order, says St. Augustine, "that the feasts of the martyrs might incite men to martyrdom." The liturgical honors paid to confessors, virgins and widows produced wonderful results in an increased zest for virtue, necessary even in times of peace. But more fruitful still were the feasts instituted in honor of the Blessed Virgin. As a result of these men grew not only in their devotion to the Mother of God as an ever-present advocate, but also in their love of her as a mother bequeathed to them by their Redeemer. Not least among the blessings which have resulted from the public and legitimate honor paid to the Blessed Virgin and the saints is the perfect and perpetual immunity of the Church from error and heresy. We may well admire in this the admirable wisdom of the Providence of God, who, ever bringing good out of evil, has from time to time suffered the faith and piety of men to grow weak, and allowed Catholic truth to be attacked by false doctrines, but always with the result that truth has afterwards shone out with greater splendor, and that men's faith, aroused from its lethargy, has shown itself more vigorous than before.

The festivals that have been introduced into the liturgy in more recent years have had a similar origin, and have been attended with similar results. When reverence and devotion to the Blessed Sacrament had grown cold, the feast of Corpus Christi was instituted, so that by means of solemn processions and prayer of eight days' duration, men might be brought once more to render public homage to Christ. So, too, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was instituted at a time when men were oppressed by the sad and gloomy severity of Jansenism, which had made their hearts grow cold, and shut them out from the love of God and the hope of salvation.

If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society. We refer to the plague of anti-clericalism, its errors and impious activities. This evil spirit, as you are well aware, Venerable Brethren, has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God's religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences. We lamented these in the Encyclical Ubi arcano; we lament them today: the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin. We firmly hope, however, that the feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior. It wouldbe the duty of Catholics to do all they can to bring about this happy result. Many of these, however, have neither the station in society nor the authority which should belong to those who bear the torch of truth. This state of things may perhaps be attributed to a certain slowness and timidity in good people, who are reluctant to engage in conflict or oppose but a weak resistance; thus the enemies of the Church become bolder in their attacks. But if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights.

Moreover, the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them. While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights.

"We may well admire in this the admirable wisdom of the Providence of God, who, ever bringing good out of evil, has from time to time suffered the faith and piety of men to grow weak, and allowed Catholic truth to be attacked by false doctrines, but always with the result that truth has afterwards shone out with greater splendor, and that men's faith, aroused from its lethargy, has shown itself more vigorous than before." May Our Lady arouse us from our lethargy, from our complacent concessions to the ethos of Judeo-Masonry that is conciliarism so that we can defend the Faith with vigor as Catholics who dearly love God as He has revealed Himself exclusively through the Catholic Church.

Our Lady will have the triumph of her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, and it will be glorious beyond all telling. May she inspire us to have that hatred of heresy written about by Father Frederick Faber so that the souls of so many people who are deceived at present may come to embrace Catholicism in all of its holy purity and integrity, thereby knowing a peace in this life that leads those who persevere in it until the point of their dying breaths to an unending Easter Sunday of glory in Paradise with her in the Beatific Vision of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Vivat Christus Rex!

 

Our Lady of Good Success, 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 Francis de Sales, pray for us.

Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Thomas the Apostle, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.

The Holy Innocents, pray for us.

Saint Thomas a Becket, pray for us.

Pope Saint Sylvester I, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, 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 Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Basil, 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 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 John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us

Pope Saint Pius V, 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.

 

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.