Antichrist's Anti-Religious Religious Zeal

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Men may come and men may go, because God has left plenty of room for the to and fro of their free-will; but the substantial lines of nature and the not less substantial lines of Eternal Law have never changed, are not changing and never will change.  There are bounds beyond which one may stray as far as one sees fit, but to do so ends in death; there are limits which empty philosophical fantasizing may have one mock or not take seriously, but they put together an alliance of hard facts and nature to chastise anybody who steps over them.  And history has sufficiently taught, with frightening proof from the life and death of nations, that the reply to all violators of the outline of "humanity" is always, sooner or later, catastrophe.

From the dialectic of Hegel onwards, we have had dinned in our ears what are nothing but fables, and by dint of hearing them so often, many people end up by getting used to them, if only passively.  But the truth of the matter is that Nature and Truth, and the Law bound up in both, go their imperturbable way, and they cut to pieces the simpletons who upon no grounds whatsoever believe in radical and far-reaching changes in the very structure of man.

The consequences of such violations are not a new outline of man, but disorders, hurtful instability of all kinds, the frightening dryness of human souls, the shattering increase in the number of human castaways, driven long since out of people's sight and mind to live out their decline in boredom, sadness and rejection.  Aligned on the wrecking of the eternal norms are to be found the broken families, lives cut short before their time, hearths and homes gone cold, old people cast to one side, youngsters willfully degenerate and -- at the end of the line -- souls in despair and taking their own lives.  All of which human wreckage gives witness to the fact that the "line of God" does not give way, nor does it admit of any adaption to the delirious dreams of the so-called philosophers! (Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, Men's Dress Worn By Women.)

 

Although the late Giuseppe Cardinal Siri, Archbishop of Genoa, Italy, from May 29, 1946, to July 6, 1987, wrote the words quoted above in an "notification" to his clergy about the harm of women wearing masculine attire, his words have application to the simple truth that false ideas always produce bad consequences. While God does indeed intends to bring good out of the evil done by men, He never positively wills us to commit any evil or positively wills us to believe in false ideas that can lead only to evil consequences. To believe in a falsehood, even if one is sincere in such a belief, is to permit oneself to be led in a thousand different and frequently contradictory directions.

Most Catholics in the United States of America, ignorant of, if not hostile to, the authentic Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, live their entire lives in the trap set for them by the devil in a country whose constitutional system is premised upon the false belief that men of good will can pursue the common temporal good without subordinating themselves to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as they have been entrusted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ exclusively to His true Church, the Catholic Church, for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication, and without individual men having belief in, access to or cooperation with Sanctifying Grace.

To believe this is to believe in a falsehood, a lie. To believe this is to permit oneself to be caught between what are I have described so many times on this website as the false opposites of the naturalist "left" and the naturalist "right." Many Catholics, at least those who pay attention to public affairs, fall along these ideological fault-lines as those who leave to the "left" view as villains those who are on the "right," who gladly return fire. This makes for very good political theater. However, it is also a gigantic sideshow from the devil to keep people so ensnared in the issues of the moment that almost no one reflects on root causes, less yet of viewing the world and everything in it through the eyes of the true Faith, the Catholic Faith, and not the false faith of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

For the sake of reiteration, therefore, as I know that people forget and that there might be that new reader to this little-read and much-castigated website, let me explain yet again what I mean by the false opposites of the naturalist "left" and the naturalist "right":

I refer to the "false opposites" of the "left" and the "right" because, despite their differences over  the powers "government" over that of the "individual," both the "left" and the "right" reject Catholicism as the one and only foundation of personal and social order. The adherents of the "left" and the "right" believe that it is neither prudent or necessary to acknowledge that the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother has changed human history. Such adherents also reject any suggestions that both men and their nations must be subordinate to Christ the King and the authority of His true Church on all that pertains to the good of souls and that the civil government has an obligation to pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End.

No matter the differences between "conservatives" and "liberals," my friends, they both have one mind and one heart in the belief that man does not need the teaching and sanctifying offices of the Catholic Church to guide them in their private and social lives. This is, of course, the triumph of the Judeo-Masonic spirit of naturalism that was dissected so well by Pope Leo XIII. It matters little as to who is or is not a formally enrolled member of the "lodges" when most Catholics and non-Catholics alike are infected with the ethos of naturalism.

Similarly, any civil leader who believes that can, either by himself or with others, pursue genuine order without the help of Our Lady and the use of her Most Holy Rosary is a fool. We must give public honor to Christ the King and to Mary our Immaculate Queen.

That's the point I try to make repeatedly on this site.

 

The bifurcation between Catholics of the "left" and Catholics of the "right" in the United States of America is such that the statists on the "left" try to wrap themselves up in the mantle of a perverted and distorted notion of what they think is Catholic Social Teaching as presented by the conciliar "bishops" in this country, many of whom are just unreconstructed socialists who attempt to make various government programs that are said to aid the poor and the suffering appear to be consonant with the Christian precepts of charity. The truth of the matter, of course, is that individual human beings have been charged by Our Lord, Christ the King, to provide for the needs of those who cannot provide for themselves, not wasteful, duplicative government programs that are created in full violation of the Natural Principle of subsidiarity, enunciated very clearly by Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931. The very establishment of these programs in this country during the Great Depression and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's "New Deal" created an entire class of nonelected bureaucratic rulers who have a vested interest in seeing to it that their clients become so dependent upon their programs that they will agitate with great fury if they are threatened in any way so as to scare off elected officials who understand these programs to be boondoggles that enrich only those who administer them.

Even long before the Great Depression and over forty years before the Bolshevik Revolution, Otto von Bismarck, the prototypical socialist and social engineer, sought to make large segments of the German population dependent upon the largesse of the civil state so that the citizenry would be more inclined to look the other way as it, the civil state, increased control of their daily lives over the course of time. The Eurosocialist states are all descended from Otto von Bismarck and Karl Marx, whose "radicalism," as the Freemason Bismarck saw it, he sought to preempt by the creation of his own social welfare state.

"Leftism" in the United States of America has many roots, each of which go back to the Protestant Revolution wrought by Father Martin Luther, O.S.A., against the Divine plan that God Himself instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church. 

As has been noted many times on this site, one of the proximate root causes of what can be called "liberalism" is the writing of John Locke, whose views were the direct result of the Protestant Revolution that began in England under King Henry VIII in 1534 and resulted in the proliferation of Protestant sects in a kingdom that had been Catholic for nearly a millennium. Readers of this site know that I care very much about root causes. Well, permit me to remind you of at least one of the roots of the American "left":

The Protestant Revolt engendered murder and mayhem in the German states after it was launched by the hideous, lecherous, drunken Augustinian monk named Father Martin Luther, O.S.A., on October 31, 1517, when he posted his "ninety-five theses" on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther himself was aghast to see the almost instantaneous moral degeneration of his "evangelicals" into violent mobs who pilfered and sacked formerly Catholic churches and lived riotously, oblivious to the fact that he was responsible for this degeneration by depriving those who followed his revolution against Christ the King of the Sacraments and of the true teaching that Our King has entrusted to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.

In like manner, of course, the the Protestant Revolt in England engendered murder and violence, much of which was state-sponsored as Henry Tudor was responsible between the years of 1534 and 1547 for ordering the executions of over 72,000 Catholics who remained faithful to the Catholic Church following the decree that Parliament has passed that declared him to be the "supreme head of the Church in England as far as the law of God allowed." As was the case in the German states as princes gave Luther protection so that they, the princes, could govern in a Machiavellian manner free of any interference from Rome or their local bishops, so was it the case in England that the Protestant Revolution provided the receipt for the unchecked tyranny of English monarchs.

Indeed, the kind of state-sponsored social engineering that has created the culture of entitlement in England and elsewhere in Europe has its antecedent roots in Henry's revolt against the Social Reign of Christ the King and His Catholic Church in the Sixteenth Century.

Henry had Parliament enact various laws to force the poor who had lived for a nominal annual fee on the monastery and convent lands (as they produced the food to sustain themselves, giving some to the monastery or convent) off of those lands, where their families had lived for generations, in order to redistribute the Church properties he had stolen to those who supported his break from Rome. Henry quite cleverly created a class of people who were dependent upon him for the property upon which they lived and the wealth they were able to derive therefrom, making them utterly supportive of his decision to declare himself Supreme Head of the Church in England. Those of the poorer classes who had been thrown off of the monastery and convent lands were either thrown into prison (for being poor, mind you) or forced to migrate to the cities, where many of them lost the true Faith and sold themselves into various vices just to survive. The effects of this exercise of state-sponsored engineering are reverberating in the world today, both politically and economically. Indeed, many of the conditions bred by the disparity in wealth created by Henry's land grab in the Sixteenth Century would fester and help to create the world of unbridled capitalism and slave wage that so impressed a German emigre in London by the name of Karl Marx. Unable to recognize the historical antecedents of the real injustices he saw during the Victorian Era, Marx set about devising his own manifestly unjust system, premised on atheism and anti-Theism, to rectify social injustice once and for all. In a very real way, Henry of Tudor led the way to Lenin of Russia.

The abuses of power by English monarchs led to all manner of social unrest in England, especially as those Anglicans who were followers of John Calvin sought to eradicate all remaining vestiges of Catholicism from Anglican "worship" and "doctrine" (removing Latin from certain aspects of the heretical Anglican liturgy, smashing statues, eliminating high altars in favor of tables, things that have been undertaken in the past forty years in many formerly Catholic churches that are now in the custody of the counterfeit church of conciliarism). This unrest produced the English Civil Wars of the 1640s and the establishment in 1649 of what was, for all intents and purposes, a Calvinist state under the control Oliver Cromwell that became a Cromwellian dictatorship between the years of 1653 to 1660 until the monarchy under the House of Stuart was restored in 1660. Oh yes, King Charles I lost his head, quite literally, in 1649 as the "Roundheads" of Oliver Cromwell came to power in 1649 following seven years of warfare between "parliamentarians" and "royalists." Revolutions always wind up eating their own. The English monarchy itself was eaten up by the overthrow of the Social Reign of the King of Kings by Henry VIII of the House of Tudor in 1534.

King James II, who had converted to Catholicism in France in 1668 while he was the Prince of York under his brother, King Charles II of the restored monarchy, acceded to the English throne in on June 6, 1885, following his brother's death, which occurred after Charles II himself had converted to the the Faith on his deathbed. Suspicious that the property that had been acquired and the wealth that had been amassed as a result of Henry VIII's social-engineering land grab of 150 years before would be placed in jeopardy, Protestant opponents of King James II eventually forced him to abdicate the throne in 1688, his rule having been declared as ended on December 11 of that year. The abdication of King James, whose second wife, Mary of Modena, had been assigned Blessed Father Claude de la Colombiere as her spiritual director when she was the Princess of York, is referred to by Protestant and secular historians as the "glorious revolution," so-called because it ushered in the penultimate result of the Protestant Revolution, the tyranny of the majority.

It was to justify the rise of majoritarianism that John Locke, a Presbyterian (Calvinist) minister, wrote his Second Treatise on Civil Government. Locke believed, essentially, that social problems could be ameliorated if a majority of reasonable men gathered together to discuss their situation. The discussion among these "reasonable men" would lead to an agreement, sanctioned by the approval of the majority amongst themselves, on the creation of structures which designed to improve the existing situation. If those structures did not ameliorate the problems or resulted in a worsening of social conditions then some subsequent majority of "reasonable men" would be able to tear up the "contract" that had bound them before, devising yet further structures designed to do what the previous structures could not accomplish. Locke did not specify how this majority of reasonable men would form, only that it would form, providing the foundation of the modern parliamentary system that premises the survival of various governments upon the whims of a majority at a given moment.

In other words, England's "problem" in 1688 was King James II. The solution? Parliament, in effect, declared that he had abdicated his throne rather than attempt to fight yet another English civil war to maintain himself in power as the man chosen by the parliamentarians to replace him, his own son-in-law William of Orange, who was married to his daughter Mary, landed with armed forces ready to undertake such a battle. The parliamentary "majority" had won the day over absolutism and a return to Catholicism.

Unfortunately for Locke, you see, social problems cannot be ameliorated merely by the creation of structures devised by "reasonable men" and sanctioned by the majority.

All problems in the world, both individual and social, have their remote causes in Original Sin and their proximate causes in the Actual Sins of men. There is no once-and-for-all method or structure by which, for example, "peace" will be provided in the world by the creation of international organizations or building up or the drafting of treaties.

There is no once-and-for-all method or structure by which, for example, "crime" will be lessened in a nation by the creation of various programs designed to address the "environmental" conditions that are said to breed it.

The only way in which social conditions can be ameliorated is by the daily reformation of individual lives in cooperation with the graces won for men by the shedding of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces. And to the extent that social structures can be effective in addressing and ameliorating specific problems at specific times in specific places those who create and administer them must recognize their absolute dependence upon God's graces and that there is no secular, non-denominational or inter-denominational way to provide for social order. Social order and peace among nations depend entirely upon the subordination of the life of every person and the activities of every nation to the Social Reign of Christ the King as it is exercised by the Catholic Church.

 

There is, therefore, amongst American Catholics who adhere to some kind of "leftist" worldview a belief that it is indeed the role of government to "solve" social ills, most of are the result, over and above the after-effects of Original Sin, the systematic, planned breakdown of the stability of the family that was one of the chief goals of Freemasons in state legislatures, starting in North Dakota, in the late-Nineteenth Century to liberalize divorce laws. This systematic, planned breakdown of the family was expedited by the spread of contraception in the 1920s, leading ultimately to an epidemic of divorce and remarriage as spouses  felt "free" to be violate the Sixth Commandment injunction against adultery. Husbands abandoned wives. Wives abandoned husbands. Children became lost and confused. Entire classes of people became dependent upon the largesse of the civil state as a result. And this is to say nothing of the direct effort on the part of Margaret Sanger to break down the stability of the families of black Americans so that they could enjoy the benefits of her sort of social engineering, a fact that has been documented on this site in several articles.

If one believes in the leftist paradigm, however, one will be absolutely convinced that social "problems" are the result of not enough government spending and not enough government programs and not enough government regulations and not enough efforts to direct the daily lives of those who are dependent upon them and, ultimately, of us all as the "experts" and the bureaucrats know better as to how we should live than we do. Former President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton said as much in the late-1990s (I believe that it was when making a speech in Buffalo, New York). Let me see if I can find the quote. All right, here it is:

Clinton: "I can spend your money better than you can."
In a post-State of the Union speech in Buffalo, NY on January 20, 1999, Bill Clinton was asked why not a tax cut if we have a surplus. Clinton's response:

"We could give it all back to you and hope you spend it right... But ... if you don't spend it right, here's what's going to happen. In 2013 -- that's just 14 years away -- taxes people pay on their payroll for Social Security will no longer cover the monthly checks... I want every parent here to look at the young people here, and ask yourself, 'Do you really want to run the risk of squandering this surplus?' "Source: Washington Times, January 21, 1999. (Quote and commentary found at: Bill Clinton - Stupid Quotes and Statements.)

 

This is the arrogance of the left. This is the arrogance of left that is displayed currently by President Barack Hussein Obama. This is the arrogance of the left that has long been the bane of the existence of the bureaucrats who staff the offices of the very misnamed United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, District of Columbia, and in many of the state conferences of conciliar "bishops" throughout the country.

As has been noted in several other recent commentaries, including Bound To Come To This Point, the thin-skinned Caesar Barackus Obamus Ignoramus is playing a very clever game now with the hierarchy of what he thinks is the Catholic Church here in the United States of America. Obama and his equally cynical team of professional agitators know full well that it is possible for them to drive a wedge between just enough Catholics who are still attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and their "bishops" over the issue of mandating that all employers, including what calls itself the Catholic Church in this country, provided insurance coverage for contraception and other "family planning" services. Obama and "senior political advisor" David Axelrod know that most Catholics who are married use contraception of some form or another. They also know that there are just enough of those Catholics in "swing" states who will accept their argument that contraception is a "fundamental right" guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America and that employees who desire to have insurance coverage to pay for frustrating the primary end of marriage (the procreation and education of children) must honor that particular "right" as the protection of "religious freedom" must yield to "individual" rights.

I am not going to argue the demerits of this insanity as the conciliar "bishops," victims of the accommodations made by the the first American bishop and those who succeeded him to the prevailing ethos of religious indifferentism as a "protection" of the "religious liberty" of Catholics, are attempting to do at this time. Obama's full-bore assault on the Catholic Faith is the only possible end result of a nation founded in the false belief that men can pursue the common temporal good without the maternal guidance and supernatural helps provided by the Holy Mother Church. False ideas lead to bad consequences. Always. The whole false fabric of the modern civil state that is so exalted by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his conciliar "bishops" is bound to wind up expediting the coming of Antichrist and his One World Religion and One World Governance. Totalitarianism is the only result possible when the state does not recognize the true religion and submit to the teaching of Holy Mother Church in all that pertains the good of souls, upon which depends the entirety of social order.

Even though Barack Hussein Obama has made war upon the Catholic Faith and the institutions that were once in the control of the Catholic Church, he never ceases of wrapping us his statism in some kind of religious context, claiming that "charity" is the work of the government, not of individuals. Obama is  heedless of the fact that charity is to be extended by individuals, not governments. He is also heedless of the fact that the extent to which many millions of people have become dependent upon the civil state is the direct result of the Judeo-Masonic attack on the family and the subsequent loss of the sense of of subsidiarity, that it is the duty of relatives to care for their own, something that is, of course, harder to do when parents limit the size of the families and children grow up in a world of such material self-indulgence that it is anathema to them to even think of making sacrifices for their own parents when they become elderly and are in need of assistance.

This was all on evident display in Obama's address to the ecumenical gathering known as "The National Prayer Breakfast," which was held at The Washington Hilton in Washington, District of Columbia, on Friday, February 2, 2012, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary:

And so when I talk about our financial institutions playing by the same rules as folks on Main Street, when I talk about making sure insurance companies aren’t discriminating against those who are already sick, or making sure that unscrupulous lenders aren’t taking advantage of the most vulnerable among us, I do so because I genuinely believe it will make the economy stronger for everybody.  But I also do it because I know that far too many neighbors in our country have been hurt and treated unfairly over the last few years, and I believe in God’s command to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”  I know the version of that Golden Rule is found in every major religion and every set of beliefs -– from Hinduism to Islam to Judaism to the writings of Plato. 

And when I talk about shared responsibility, it’s because I genuinely believe that in a time when many folks are struggling, at a time when we have enormous deficits, it’s hard for me to ask seniors on a fixed income, or young people with student loans, or middle-class families who can barely pay the bills to shoulder the burden alone.  And I think to myself, if I’m willing to give something up as somebody who’s been extraordinarily blessed, and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that’s going to make economic sense.

But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that “for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.”  It mirrors the Islamic belief that those who’ve been blessed have an obligation to use those blessings to help others, or the Jewish doctrine of moderation and consideration for others. (Remarks by the Caesar at the National Prayer Breakfast.)

 

Here's what Pope Saint Pius X had to say about this madness:

Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. The new Sillonists cannot pretend that they are merely working on “the ground of practical realities” where differences of belief do not matter. Their leader is so conscious of the influence which the convictions of the mind have upon the result of the action, that he invites them, whatever religion they may belong to, “to provide on the ground of practical realities, the proof of the excellence of their personal convictions.” And with good reason: indeed, all practical results reflect the nature of one’s religious convictions, just as the limbs of a man down to his finger-tips, owe their very shape to the principle of life that dwells in his body.

This being said, what must be thought of the promiscuity in which young Catholics will be caught up with heterodox and unbelieving folk in a work of this nature? Is it not a thousand-fold more dangerous for them than a neutral association? What are we to think of this appeal to all the heterodox, and to all the unbelievers, to prove the excellence of their convictions in the social sphere in a sort of apologetic contest? Has not this contest lasted for nineteen centuries in conditions less dangerous for the faith of Catholics? And was it not all to the credit of the Catholic Church? What are we to think of this respect for all errors, and of this strange invitation made by a Catholic to all the dissidents to strengthen their convictions through study so that they may have more and more abundant sources of fresh forces? What are we to think of an association in which all religions and even Free-Thought may express themselves openly and in complete freedom? For the Sillonists who, in public lectures and elsewhere, proudly proclaim their personal faith, certainly do not intend to silence others nor do they intend to prevent a Protestant from asserting his Protestantism, and the skeptic from affirming his skepticism. Finally, what are we to think of a Catholic who, on entering his study group, leaves his Catholicism outside the door so as not to alarm his comrades who, “dreaming of disinterested social action, are not inclined to make it serve the triumph of interests, coteries and even convictions whatever they may be”? Such is the profession of faith of the New Democratic Committee for Social Action which has taken over the main objective of the previous organization and which, they say, “breaking the double meaning which surround the Greater Sillon both in reactionary and anti-clerical circles”, is now open to all men “who respect moral and religious forces and who are convinced that no genuine social emancipation is possible without the leaven of generous idealism.”

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

We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the "Kingdom of God". - "We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind." (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

 

Case closed, Mister President.

Can government do nothing to assist those who are in genuine need? The Catholic Church teaches no such thing. Pope Pius XI explained this very carefully in Quadragesimo Anno, especially in light of the calamity then facing the world as a result of the worldwide economic depression at the time he wrote. He did note, as alluded to before, that government intervention is a last resort and one to be undertaken for as limited a time as possible in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity. Such programs are not meant to provide a cradle-to-grave subsidy from the civil state that has brought Greece and Ireland and Portugal to the point of bankruptcy and has brought social unrest to both France and the United Kingdom. Here is what Pope Pius XI wrote:

As history abundantly proves, it is true that on account of changed conditions many things which were done by small associations in former times cannot be done now save by large associations. Still, that most weighty principle, which cannot be set aside or changed, remains fixed and unshaken in social philosophy: Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.

The supreme authority of the State ought, therefore, to let subordinate groups handle matters and concerns of lesser importance, which would otherwise dissipate its efforts greatly. Thereby the State will more freely, powerfully, and effectively do all those things that belong to it alone because it alone can do them: directing, watching, urging, restraining, as occasion requires and necessity demands. Therefore, those in power should be sure that the more perfectly a graduated order is kept among the various associations, in observance of the principle of "subsidiary function," the stronger social authority and effectiveness will be the happier and more prosperous the condition of the State. (Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931.)

 

The establishment and institutionalization of the welfare state has indeed destroyed and absorbed the right ordering of social relations, and the pretended scholars who support it as a matter of veritable "received truth" have indeed attempted to lay aside the principle of subsidiarity in favor by making gratuitous claims as how its programs have "helped" the poor. Their contentions fly in the face of authentic Catholic Social Teaching.

Moreover, there is no foundation in the Constitution of the United States of America for most of the cherished programs that have created a ready caste of voters eager to support candidates of the naturalist "left" in the naturalistic farce that are called elections. Just as the old ward-heelers of the Boss System used patronage and other favors to win lasting support from the voters, particularly among the Catholic immigrants to this country in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, who were dependent upon such jobs and favors, so has it become the case that the welfare state has created a class of dependency that provides the "left" with eager supports who can be "mobilized" into demand the continuation of programs that are unjust in se and even unjust to those so aided as they are kept from ever taking responsibility for their own lives. As Alexis de Tocqueville observed in Democracy in America, which is a mixture of all kinds of truth and error, politicians as early as the 1830s were beginning to learn how to bribe the people with their own money. It is as true today with respect to the welfare state and those who serve as its propagandists bribe their clients with our money.

 

Remember readers, few in number though you may be, that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order:

. . For there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

 

Every Rosary we pray can help plant a seed or two to help bring this about. We may not see the fruits of our efforts with our own eyes. We can, however, have confidence in Our Lady's Fatima Message that her Immaculate Heart will triumph in the end and that our own Rosaries of reparation will indeed help to convert sinners as we seek to make reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world.

We must be calm in the storms that beset us, both ecclesiastically and civilly. The words of Our Lady to Juan Diego on Tepeyac Hill are as relevant now as they were in 1531:

Know for certain that I am the perfect and perpetual Virgin Mary, Mother of the True God. . . . Here I will show and offer my love, my compassion, my help and my protection to the people. I am your merciful Mother, the Mother of all those who love me, of those who cry to me, of those who have confidence in me. Here I will hear their weeping and their sorrows and will remedy and alleviate their suffering, necessities and misfortunes. . . . Listen and let it penetrate into your heart. . . . Do not be troubled or weighed down with grief. So do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else that you need?

 

As we remain calm in the midst of the storms as we enfold ourselves in the crossing of Our Lady's arms, we should also remember this injunction of Pope Pius XI, contained in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:

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 would be 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.

 

May we pray to Our Lady for the day the likes of the Antichrists in the civil government and their comrades in the counterfeit church of conciliarism will be be vanquished by her the Triumph of her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart in complete fulfillment of her Fatima Message, which included a specific request for the institution of the First Saturday devotions that we will perform today

 

Viva Cristo Rey!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

 

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!

 

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Andrew Corsini, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints