by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Sentimentality and irrationality are the order of the day in the modern world that is the product of the effects of the Protestant Revolt and all of the organized forces of naturalism, including Judeo-Masonry. Sentimentality and irrationality are such a part of the Americanist ethos that the lion's share of Catholics believe that it is "extreme" to think in strictly supernatural terms at all times, thereby placing themselves above the wisdom of a true pope, Saint Pius X, as expressed so succinctly in Singulari Quadam, September 24, 1912:
These are fundamental principles: No matter what the Christian does, even in the realm of temporal goods, he cannot ignore the supernatural good. Rather, according to the dictates of Christian philosophy, he must order all things to the ultimate end, namely, the Highest Good. All his actions, insofar as they are morally either good or bad (that is to say, whether they agree or disagree with the natural and divine law), are subject to the judgment and judicial office of the Church.
We must think rationally and logically in light of the truths of the Holy Faith at all times and in all circumstances, especially when we are required to defend the Faith directly. We can be no "respecter of persons" as we defend the Faith, which means that we must be so attached to God and His greater honor and glory that we will count it as gain to be estranged, if only temporarily in this passing, mortal vale of tears, from those with whom we have been associated and with whom we have developed close bonds of friendship, love and respect in order to defend the integrity of the Catholic Faith. Our Lord spoke us to most directly about this as recorded in the Gospel According to Saint Matthew:
The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come. The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?
Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops. And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows. Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law
And as a man's enemies shall be they of his own household.He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. (Mt. 10: 21-40)
The defense of the Faith comes before everything else in our lives. It is an act of true love for God to defend the Faith, an adherence to which in all of its parts without any dissent whatsoever is essential to our own salvation to that of all others in the world, including those with whom we must remonstrate now and again. There were people, for instance, who were trying to convince me as early as 1976 that there had been a Communist and Masonic conspiracy to infiltrate the Church. I thought that they were crazy. They did not care. They understood that it was their obligation to at least plant the seeds that might, please God and by means of the graces He won for us on Calvary and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, take root one day. Others did so ten years later, some doing so rather fiercely. I was not ready to accept what I was told. However, I listened. I remembered. They did not care how I would "receive" their corrections. They believed that it was more important to correct me than it was that I be liked by them. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, they were doing their Catholic duty for the good of my immortal souls.
We live at a time when it is, most regrettably, to be sure, a reality that we are going to be estranged from others with whom we have been associated, including family members. This does not mean that any of us are one whit better than anyone else. It means, however, that we must place the integrity of the Faith above human respect, recognizing that all disagreements and difficulties are reconciled on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead for those who have died in states of Sanctifying Grace. There is no place for rejecting the truths of the Catholic Faith and the necessity of seeing all of the circumstances of our lives clearly through the eyes of the Holy Faith in order to maintain a false sense of "peace" and "unity." We must avoid all emotionalism and sentimentality and irrationality. Loving God comes before a sentimental attachment to His creatures, which means that we must will for others what He wills for us and for them: salvation as members of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation.
The saints were so perfectly attached to God in this life that the thought of offending Him in even the slightest way caused them to suffer physical pain. Although the point that follows will be difficult for some to accept, given the fact that we are flesh and blood human beings who have an understandable attachment to our family members and friends, it is nevertheless true that the souls of the just in Heaven are so perfectly attached to the love of God and His Holy Will that they rejoice if their closest family member has gone to Hell. Why do they rejoice? Because they are so perfectly attached to the love of God that they rejoice always in His perfect Justice and Mercy. Once again, I know that this is a difficult truth to grasp and to accept. However, it is nevertheless true. The souls of the just in Heaven, being stripped of all earthly attachments and mere human sentimentality and emotionalism, so love God that they rejoice in each of His judgments and decrees.
Our lives here below as members of the Church Militant on earth are meant to be a foretaste of Heaven, which is why we are called to assist at the daily offering of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition (offered by true bishops and true bishops who make no concessions to conciliarsm or to the "legitimacy" of the false shepherds in the counterfeit church of conciliarism) as frequently as possible and to spend time with Our Beloved in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament outside of Holy Mass.
This is why we are called to foster and deep and tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by means of total consecration to her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, the wearing of the Brown Scapular, the distribution of the Green Scapular to those who have quit the practice of the Faith and/or who are outside of Holy Mother Church entirely, the wearing of blessed Miraculous Medals and the keeping of the First First Saturdays and, most importantly, praying as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit, especially the family Rosary prayed in the home, on a daily basis.
This is why we are called to enthrone our homes to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, offering our daily prayers and acts of reparation and penances and mortifications to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
This is why we are called to petition our Guardian Angels frequently during the day and to ask our own patron saints to help us to avoid sin and to climb the ladder of personal sanctity.
This is why we seek, as His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn, noted to us on Saturday, July 21, 2007, that we build a "wall around the modern culture" so as to protect ourselves and our children from the nefarious, multifaceted influences of the world, the flesh and the devil.
We do not just "get" to Heaven. We must help to foster a supernatural atmosphere and outlook in our homes at all times, and this means avoiding all bad company, all bad associations that could in any way influence ourselves and/or our children to defect from the Faith and to apostatize into the world of conciliarism or into the naturalistic, materialistic, consumerist, self-seeking, relativistic, positivistic and anti-Incarnational world-at-large.
Those who pray well and who have studied the lives of the saints know that it is necessary at times to remonstrate with those whom we love, understanding that our efforts might be greeted with scorn, contempt, insults, ridicule and endless calumnies, which can be spread now far and wide by means of e-mails and internet postings. It is no work of the Supernatural Virtue of Charity to reaffirm someone in error, either by omission or commission, no less to stand by as other souls are put into jeopardy as a result of our own failure to defend the Faith by remonstrating with those who are in error.
Rejecting all naturalism and the sentimentality and emotionalism it breeds and nurtures, Father Frederick Faber explained to us that we must hate heresy because God hates it, that there is no true love of God without hatred of heresy:
This [the hatred of heresy] 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. (The Dolors of Mary, 1857.)
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. (The Precious Blood, 1860)
Are there any questions out there amongst the sentimentalists? Sure, this is not the ethos of conciliarism, which is precisely one of the proofs that conciliarism is not Catholicism, thank you. However, Father Faber's reiteration of basic Catholic teaching concerning the hatred of heresy is what we are supposed to embrace for ourselves, rejecting the Americanist ethos of sappy sentimentality and emotionalism that places human ties above a true love of God and the defense of His Holy Faith.
Pope Leo XIII made similar points in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:
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.
Pope Pius VI used his first encyclical letter, Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775, to remind the world's bishops of their obligations to root out error and to call to correction those who had strayed from the integrity of the Holy Faith:
We thought it useful to speak to you lovingly on these matters in order to strengthen your excellent resolve. But a much more serious subject demands that We speak of it, or rather mourn over it. We refer to the pestilent disease which the wickedness of our times brings forth. We must unite our minds and strength in treating this plague before it grows rife and becomes incurable in the Church through Our oversight. For in recent days, the dangerous times foretold by the Apostle Paul have clearly arrived, when there will be "men who love themselves, who are lifted up, proud, blasphemous, traitors, lovers of pleasure instead of God, men who are always learning but never arriving at the knowledge of truth, possessing indeed the appearance of piety but denying its power, corrupt in mind, reprobate about the faith." These men raise themselves up into "lying" teachers, as they are called by Peter the prince of the Apostles, and bring in sects of perdition. They deny the Lord who bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. They say they are wise and they have become fools, and their uncomprehending heart is darkened.
You yourselves, established as scouts in the house of Israel, see clearly the many victories claimed by a philosophy full of deceit. You see the ease with which it attracts to itself a great host of peoples, concealing its impiety with the honorable name of philosophy. Who could express in words or call to mind the wickedness of the tenets and evil madness which it imparts? While such men apparently intend to search out wisdom, "they fail because they do not search in the proper way. . . and they fall into errors which lead them astray from ordinary wisdom."They have come to such a height of impiety that they make out that God does not exist, or if He does that He is idle and uncaring, making no revelation to men. Consequently it is not surprising that they assert that everything holy and divine is the product of the minds of inexperienced men smitten with empty fear of the future and seduced by a vain hope of immortality. But those deceitful sages soften and conceal the wickedness of their doctrine with seductive words and statements; in this way, they attract and wretchedly ensnare many of the weak into rejecting their faith or allowing it to be greatly shaken. While they pursue a remarkable knowledge, they open their eyes to behold a false light which is worse than the very darkness. Naturally our enemy, desirous of harming us and skilled in doing so, just as he made use of the serpent to deceive the first human beings, has armed the tongues of those men with the poison of his deceitfulness in order to lead astray the minds of the faithful. The prophet prays that his soul may be delivered from such deceitful tongues. In this way these men by their speech "enter in lowliness, capture mildly, softly bind and kill in secret." This results in great moral corruption, in license of thought and speech, in arrogance and rashness in every enterprise.
When they have spread this darkness abroad and torn religion out of men's hearts, these accursed philosophers proceed to destroy the bonds of union among men, both those which unite them to their rulers, and those which urge them to their duty. They keep proclaiming that man is born free and subject to no one, that society accordingly is a crowd of foolish men who stupidly yield to priests who deceive them and to kings who oppress them, so that the harmony of priest and ruler is only a monstrous conspiracy against the innate liberty of man.
Everyone must understand that such ravings and others like them, concealed in many deceitful guises, cause greater ruin to public calm the longer their impious originators are unrestrained. They cause a serious loss of souls redeemed by Christ's blood wherever their teaching spreads, like a cancer; it forces its way into public academies, into the houses of the great, into the palaces of kings, and even enters the sanctuary, shocking as it is to say so.
Conscious of his duty as a Successor the Apostles in these times of apostasy and betrayal, His Excellency Bishop Mark A. Pivarunas has sought to protect the integrity of the Faith by insisting that the Sisters of the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen accept the Congregation's position concerning sedevacantism (or agree to be silent about any private disagreement they may have with it) or to leave the Congregation. No religious Congregation can exist if its members are in open rebellion against the very reason for which the Congregation exists. Indeed, as has been noted before, it defies all logic and rationality to assert that one has a "right" to have contacts with the officials of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, men and women who have done so much to molest souls and bodies, while holding office and teaching in the facilities of a Congregation that has no right to exist if those conciliar officials are indeed legitimate and there is a valid holder of the Throne of Saint Peter at the present time.
Thus, those among the laity at Mount Saint Michael's and elsewhere who continue to put sentimentality and human emotion above simple logic and the sensus Catholicus need yet another reminder that a religious Congregation is not a democracy and that it is not an exercise of "cult-like control" for a superior, in this case Bishop Pivarunas, to demand obedience to the stated position of the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen. Bishop Pivarunas is demanding simple obedience, which is the foundation of the consecrated religious life. Those who do not see this clearly have, I am afraid, adopted an Americanist/conciliarist view of the Faith, preferring to assert non-existent personal "rights" and "freedom of expression" over obedience to one's lawful superiors.
Those who point out the past scandals in the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen to seek to discredit Bishop Pivarunas and thus to ignore his authority as the Superior-General of the Congregation have forgotten that it was then Brother Tarcisius Mary Pivarunas who was one of those who helped to oust Bishop Francis Schuckhardt and to divest the Congregation of his truly cult-like control over the lives of its members. The courageous actions of the late Father Denis Chicoine and others, including the now Bishop Pivarunas, stand in sharp contrast with the deliberate covering up of the abuses engaged in by perverted priests in the Diocese of Spokane under the direction of "Bishop" William Skylstad, who reassigned priests once they had been accused of such abuse, which is one of the reasons he took his diocese into bankruptcy court to avoid full disclosure of his nefarious actions.Why is it that "Bishop" Skylstad's protection of perverted priests and his undermining of the innocence and purity of the young by means of graphic classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments is ignored by those steeped in sentimentality over how "unfair" it was for Bishop Pivarunas to demand the departure of the Sisters in the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen for their going beind his, Bishop Pivarunas's, back and establishing and maintaining regular contacts with Skylstad and his apparatchiks?
Also defying the ken of those who do not understand the Catholic Faith is the simple fact that the actions taken by the departed Sisters in posting things on the internet, as happened in November of 2006 when one-side of a private conversation I had with a now departed Sister wound up on the internet in a distorted manner, and going behind their Superior-General's back (while swearing other Sisters to confidence, thereby creating many crises of conscience) are as novel as the novelties of conciliarism. Seriously, ladies and gentlemen, does any sane, right-thinking Catholic believe that Saint Bernadette Soubirous or Saint Catherine Laboure or Saint Therese Lisieux would take to publicly undermining their superiors if they believed that they had been the victims of injustice or humiliation? They would--and did frequently--offer up any and all injustices, recognizing these as opportunities to unite themselves more fully with the Cross of the Divine Redeemer. Anyone who thinks that these great saints of the consecrated religious life would have undermined their superiors or sought to justify themselves in the court of public opinion is truly ignorant of the Catholic Faith.
Another area of ignorance concerns the simple fact that no Catholic is to have anything to do with any "system," no matter its alleged "powers" to "heal" the body, that originates in the demonic religion of Buddhism. Buddhism is a false religion. False religions are from the devil. This is the teaching of the Catholic Church. Consider the words of Pope Pius VIII in Traditi Humilitati Nostrae, May 24, 1828:
Among these heresies belongs that foul contrivance of the sophists of this age who do not admit any difference among the different professions of faith and who think that the portal of eternal salvation opens for all from any religion. They, therefore, label with the stigma of levity and stupidity those who, having abandoned the religion which they learned, embrace another of any kind, even Catholicism. This is certainly a monstrous impiety which assigns the same praise and the mark of the just and upright man to truth and to error, to virtue and to vice, to goodness and to turpitude. Indeed this deadly idea concerning the lack of difference among religions is refuted even by the light of natural reason. We are assured of this because the various religions do not often agree among themselves. If one is true, the other must be false; there can be no society of darkness with light. Against these experienced sophists the people must be taught that the profession of the Catholic faith is uniquely true, as the apostle proclaims: one Lord, one faith, one baptism. Jerome used to say it this way: he who eats the lamb outside this house will perish as did those during the flood who were not with Noah in the ark. Indeed, no other name than the name of Jesus is given to men, by which they may be saved. He who believes shall be saved; he who does not believe shall be condemned.
No Catholic can have anything do with "Reiki," no matter its alleged "healing" powers, as it comes out of a demonic religion and involves a chant that is a full and complete violation of the First Commandment. I mean, this is, shall we say, real, real simple: a Catholic prays to the Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her Most Chaste Spouse, Saint Joseph, and to the great cloud of witnesses in the Church Triumphant in Heaven (as well as to the members of the Church Suffering in Purgatory) for their spiritual and temporal needs. As I noted a few days ago, a Catholic seeks to offer up his physical aches and pains to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary in reparation for his sins. There are plenty of natural, homeopathic remedies available for those seeking to avoid the poisons of the worldwide pharmaceutical conglomerate that seeks to use us as guinea pigs to make more and more profit as the side effects of their experiments require us to be medicated by more of their products. We do not need to "dabble" in anything that originates in Buddhism or any other "Eastern" "spirituality." We rely upon Our Lady and the saints. Period.
Obviously, those steeped in the irrationality and sentimentality and emotionalism of the naturalistic and Protestant ethos of Americanism and conciliarism will not be ready to accept firm and unequivocal declarations of Catholic teaching, believing that such firm and unequivocal declarations are "harsh" and "judgmental" and representative of a great deal of "anger" and "hatred." Those who use such ready slogans to try to dismiss a firm defense of Catholicism have never read one word of the Fathers of the Church, who were very firm in their defense of the Faith and who never minced words about those who were attempting to undermine its purity and integrity, understanding that the good of souls was at stake.
Consider these words of Saint Cyril of Alexandria in a letter he wrote to Emperor Theodosius concerning Julian the Apostate:
It is necessary for me to say now what kind of work I am offering you here.
Forgive me for having resolved to speak not only against a king, but also for the glory of Christ, the great King, who reigns with his Father over the world; it is with him alone that it is true to say: "Through me kings reign", because he is the "Lord of glory" in heaven and on earth. It necessarily follows that the champions of the divine teachings - us, in fact - given this office by Christ, must oppose to those who intend to defile his glory the arguments able to plead his cause, to appear sound to readers, to be a more useful aid for those whose heart is easily led astray and is inclined to yield to difficulties, and for those on the other hand who are well established in the faith to be a kind of stick able to support them in the strengthening of this faith and to maintain undimmed the tradition of orthodoxy.
However who is it that has entered into war against the glory of Christ? They are legion, those who at various periods have let themselves go at this foolishness, driven by the perversity of the devil; but none as went far as Julian, who damaged the prestige of the Empire by refusing to recognize Christ, dispenser of royalty and power. Before his accession to the throne, he was counted among the believers: he had even been admitted to Holy Baptism and had studied the Holy Scriptures.
But some sinister characters, followers of superstition, entered I do not know how into connections with him and sowed in him the maxims of apostasy; then, allied with Satan in this design, they led him towards the practices of the Greeks and transformed into a servant of impure demons one who had been raised in holy churches and monasteries: "bad company corrupts good upbringing", as the very wise Paul says. However, I affirm that those who wish to preserve a solid thought, and who keep in their spirit, like an invaluable pearl, the tradition of the true faith, do not have to offer to the peddlers of superstition any occasion to insinuate themselves, in any case to speak to them freely. Is it not written: "You will be holy with the holy, irreproachable with the irreproachable, chosen with the chosen, and you will outwit the cheat"? The eloquence with which he was gifted the all-powerful Julian used against our common Saviour Christ; he composed three books against the holy gospels and against the very pure Christian religion, he used them to shake many spirits and to cause them uncommon wrongs. Indeed, the light-minded and easily seduced fall easily into his sights, and constitute a welcome amusement for the demonic powers; but not spirits strengthened in the faith which do not let themselves be disturbed sometimes: they believe that Julian knows the holy and divine Scriptures, since he accumulates in his own works — without otherwise knowing well what it says!... — a number of testimonies that he borrows from them.
Very many followers of superstition, when they meet Christians, overpower them with any kind of sarcastic remarks, and rely on the works of Julian to attack us, which they proclaim to be of an incomparable effectiveness, adding that there never was a learned man on our side able to refute them, or even show them at fault; also, at the instigation of more than one person, and full of confidence once again in the word of God: "Get under way, and I will open your mouth!", I put myself to the duty of rebutting this Greek eyebrow raised against the glory of Christ, to help to the extent of my abilities those which have been deceived, in order to convict of error and of ignorance of the Scriptures the man who has accused our common Saviour Christ.
I dedicate my work on this subject to Your Greatness devoted to Christ and very august: may God always keep him, guarantee success against his enemies in an inimitable felicity, place the whole universe at his feet, grant to him to transmit his august power to the sons of his sons, with the approval of Christ, by whom and with whom glory to God the Father and to the Holy Ghost, for all the centuries! Amen.
Prefatory address to the Emperor Theodosius
We thought that it was by no means unjustified, that it was even useful and necessary to say before all what is the chronological sequence of the characters, and also what idea each has of God: therefore we have carried out with much precision the exposition of these details.
We could be reproached for this by saying: "Why then, having undertaken to defend Christian doctrines and taking in mind to oppose a victorious argumentation to the blasphemies of Julian, did you not decide to engage from the start in that way? Why on the contrary have you diverted the energy which began your exposition into a different goal, to launch into genealogies and to undertake a study of Hebraic and Greek doctrines?"
So let us remove the objections that have been made to us about this choice, by affirming that we intentionally directed our matter towards this digression. Indeed, (Julian), following the example of the Babylonian Rhapsaces, doesn't hesitate to utter in unrestrained language his mocking remarks against the glory of God, and after tossing impious vociferations against our holy religion he quotes the wise ones of Greece unceasingly, crowns their condemnable opinions with all possible praise, desperate to attack the crowned teachings of the Church, to smile at the books of Moses and to put in the dock all these holy people; therefore we were fully justified in accumulating, before passing to the refutation, material which enables us to show in a clear way that the works of the greatest of all, Moses, were prior to those of the wise Greeks, and, moreover, that the Christian faith as it has been transmitted, appears incomparably superior to their dogmatic positions. It was thus, and not differently, that next books could avoid too long digressions and avoid appearing to deviate sometimes very far from the the subject. But enough now on this point.
It is now necessary to come to (Julian's) own book. We will reproduce his text word for word, and will oppose our own arguments to his lies in the appropriate order, because we realize that it is necessary to firmly neutralize them. But, as I said, from his open mouth without reserve he spreads every kind of calumny against our common Saviour Christ, and pours against him ill-sounding remarks: I will abstain from responding with similar details, and, advising the wise party to ignore that in his words which risks dirtying the spirit by simple contact, I will endeavour to combat this (method of) 'combat', by denouncing on all occasions his habit of scoffing which speaks wrongly and irrelevantly without ever being able to arrive at saying a true thing.
Book 2 (start)
Here is a letter written by Saint Jerome to Vigilantius about Origen (and Vigiliantius's belief that Saint Jerome was favorably disposed to the heresies and errors in Origen's works). One can just a bit of sarcasm in his letter!
Since you have refused to believe your own ears, I might justly decline to satisfy you by a letter; for, if you have failed to credit the living voice, it is not likely that you will give way to a written paper. But, since Christ has shown us in Himself a pattern of perfect humility, bestowing a kiss upon His betrayer and receiving the robber's repentance upon the cross, I tell you now when absent as I have told you already when present, that I read and have read Origen only as I read Apollinaris, or other writers whose books in some things the Church does not receive. I by no means say that everything contained in such books is to be condemned, but I admit that there are things in them deserving of censure. Still, as it is my task and study by reading many authors to cull different flowers from as large a number as possible, not so much making it an object to prove all things as to choose what are good. I take up many writers that froth the many I may learn many things; according to that which is written "reading all things, holding fast those that are good."(1) Hence I am much surprised that you have tried to fasten upon me the doctrines of Origen, of whose mistaken teaching on many points you are up to the present altogether unaware. Am I a heretic? Why pray then do heretics dislike me so? And are you orthodox, you who either against your convictions and the words of your own mouth signed(2) unwillingly and are consequently a prevaricator, or else signed deliberately and are consequently a heretic? You have taken no account of Egypt; you have relinquished all those provinces where numbers plead freely and openly for your sect; and you have singled out me for assault, me who not only censure but publicly condemn all doctrines that are contrary to the church.
Origen is a heretic, true; but what does that take from me who do not deny that on very many points he is heretical? He has erred concerning the resurrection of the body, he has erred concerning the condition of souls, he has erred by supposing it possible that the devil may repent, and--an error more important than these--he has declared in his commentary upon Isaiah that the Seraphim mentioned by the prophet(1) are the divine Son and the Holy Ghost. If I did not allow that he has erred or if I did not daily anathematize his errors I should be partaker of his fault. For while we receive what is good in his writings we must on no account bind ourselves to accept also what is evil. Still in many passages he has interpreted the scriptures well, has explained obscure places in the prophets, and has brought to light very great mysteries, both in the old and in the new testament. If then I have taken over what is good in him and have either cut away or altered or ignored what is evil, am I to be regarded as guilty on the score that through my agency those who read Latin receive the good in his writings without knowing anything of the bad? If this be a crime the confessor Hilary must be convicted; for he has rendered from Greek into Latin Origen's Explanation of the Psalms and his Homilies on Job. Eusebius of Vercellae, who witnessed a like confession, must also be held in fault; for he has translated into our tongue the Commentaries upon all the Psalms of his heretical namesake, omitting however the unsound portions and rendering only those parts which are profitable. I say nothing of Victorinus of Petavium and others who have merely followed and expanded Origen in their explanation of the scriptures. Were I to do so, I might seem less anxious to defend myself than to find for myself companions in guilt. I will come to your own case: Why do you keep copies of his treatises on Job? In these, while arguing against the devil and concerning the stars and heavens, he has said certain things which the Church does not receive. Is it for you alone, with that very wise head of yours, to pass sentence upon all writers Greek and Latin, with a wave of your censor's wand to eject some from our libraries and to admit others, and as the whim takes you to pronounce me either a Catholic or a heretic? And am I to be forbidden to reject things which are wrong and to condemn what I have often condemned already? Read what I have written upon the epistle to the Ephesians, read my other works, particularly my commentary upon Ecclesiastes, and you will clearly see that from my youth up I have never been terrified by any man's influence into acquiescence in heretical pravity.
It is no small gain to know your own ignorance. It is a man's wisdom to know his own measure, that he may not be led away at the instigation of the devil to make the whole world a witness of his incapacity. You are bent, I suppose, on magnifying yourself and boast in your own country that I found myself unable to answer your eloquence and that I dreaded in you the sharp satire of a Chrysippus.(1) Christian modesty holds me back and I do not wish to lay open the retirement of my poor cell with biting words. Otherwise I should soon shew up all your bravery and your parade of triumph.(2) But these I leave to others either to talk of or to laugh at; while for my own part as a Christian speaking to a Christian I beseech you my brother not to pretend to know more than you do, lest your pen may proclaim your innocence and simplicity, or at any rate those qualities of which I say nothing but which, though you do not see them in yourself others see in you. For then you will give everyone reason to laugh at your folly. From your earliest childhood you have been taught other lessons and have been used to a different kind of schooling. One and the same person can hardly be a tester both of gold coins on the counter and also of the scriptures, or be a connoisseur of wines and an adept in expounding prophets or apostles.(3) As for me, you tear me limb from limb, our reverend brother Oceanus you charge with heresy, you dislike the judgment of the presbyters Vincent and Paulinian, and our brother Eusebius also displeases you. You alone are to be our Cato, the most eloquent of the Roman race, and you wish us to accept what you say as the words of prudence herself. Pray call to mind the day when I preached on the resurrection and on the reality of the risen body, and when you jumped up beside me and clapped your hands and stamped your feet and applauded my orthodoxy. Now, however, that you have taken to sea travelling the stench of the bilge water has affected your head, and you have called me to mind only as a heretic. What can I do for you? I believed the letters of the reverend presbyter Paulinus, and it did not occur to me that his judgment concerning you could be wrong. And although, the moment that you handed me the letter, I noticed a certain incoherency in your language, yet I fancied this due to want of culture and knowledge in you and not to an unsettled brain. I do not censure the reverend writer who preferred, no doubt, in writing to me to keep back what he knew rather than to accuse in his missive one who was both under his patronage and entrusted with his letter; but I find fault with myself that I have rested in another's judgment rather than my own, and that, while my eyes saw one thing, I believed on the evidence of a scrap of paper something else than what I saw.
Wherefore cease to worry me and to overwhelm me with your scrolls. Spare at least your money with which you hire secretaries and copyists, employing the same persons to write for you and to applaud you. Possibly their praise is due to the fact that they make a profit out of writing for you. If you wish to exercise your mind, hand yourself over to the teachers of grammar and rhetoric, learn logic, have yourself instructed in the schools of the philosophers; and when you have learned all these things you will perhaps begin to hold your tongue. And yet I are acting foolishly in seeking teachers for one who is competent to teach everyone, and in trying to limit the utterance of one who does not know how to speak yet cannot remain silent. The old Greek proverb is quite true "A lyre is of no use to an ass."(1) For my part I imagine that even your name was given you out of contrariety.(2) For your whole mind slumbers and you actually snore, so profound is the sleep--or rather the lethargy--in which you are plunged. In fact amongst the other blasphemies which with sacrilegious lips you have uttered you have dared to say that the mountain in Daniel(2) out of which the stone was cut without hands is the devil, and that the stone is Christ, who having taken a body from Adam (whose sins had before connected him with the devil) is born of a virgin to separate mankind from i the mountain, that is, from the devil. Your tongue deserves to be cut out and torn into fragments. Can any true Christian explain this image of the devil instead of referring it to God the Father Almighty, or defile the ears of the whole world with so frightful an enormity? If your explanation has ever been accepted by any--I will not say Catholic but--heretic or heathen, let your words be regarded as pious. If on the other hand the Church of Christ has never yet heard of such an impiety, and if yours has been the first mouth through which he who once said "I will be like the Most High"(4) has declared that he is the mountain spoken of by Daniel, then repent, put on sackcloth and ashes, and with fast-flowing tears wash away your awful guilt; if so be that this impiety may be forgiven you, and, supposing Origen's heresy to be true, that you may obtain pardon when the devil himself shall obtain it, the devil who has never been convicted of greater blasphemy than that which he has uttered through you. Your insult offered to myself I bear with patience: your impiety towards God I cannot bear. Accordingly I may seem to have been somewhat more acrid in this latter part of my letter than I declared I would be at the outset. Yet having once before repented and asked pardon of me, it is extremely foolish in you again to commit a sin for which you must anew do penance. May Christ give you grace to hear and to hold your peace, to understand and so to speak.
THE LETTERS OF ST. JEROME: LETTERS CXXX TO CXLIII
In other words, Saint Jerome was telling Vigiliantius at the end of his letter to shut up and not to write to him again. It is truly amazing how some people just don't take "no" for an answer and continue to insist on maintaining a correspondence when they have been told to cease and desist. Saint Jerome had thought problem in his own day. Perhaps it would have been better for me to have Saint Jerome's letter without identify him as the author so as to see how many sentimentalists would have condemned it as being "harsh" and "uncharitable."
No, ladies and gentlemen, those who shrink at firm statements in defense of the Faith in the midst of apostasy and betrayal have had very little exposure to Patristics or to a serious study of Church history. Those steeped in sentimentality and emotionalism and illogic over their attachment to Sisters who wanted to stay at Mount Saint Michael's while maintaining contacts with conciliar offices (and while proselytizing the lies of conciliarism in classrooms in the final few weeks of the 2006-2007 scholastic year) ought to read a bit of the writings of the Fathers and a little bit about the history of the Catholic Church to come to a realization that their sentimentality and illogic and emotionalism are not of the Catholic Faith, which demands firmness in the midst of apostasy and betrayal and a holy attachment to God rather than to the respect of His creatures, for whose salvation we must pray very fervently even though circumstances may cause us to be estranged from them in this life and to remonstrate with them now and again.
Everything gets revealed on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead. Those who believe themselves more learned that Bishop Pivarunas (or more learned that other true bishops, such as Bishops Dolan, Sanborn, McKenna, et al.) may discover on the Last Day that they did not know quite as much as they thought they did, that these bishops' commitment to the truths of the Faith and their desire to defend its holy purity and integrity made it possible for untold numbers of souls to be saved at a time when Our Lord, mystically speaking, as some believe, is in the tomb and most Catholics in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have been deprived of true bishops and true priests and true sacraments.
God has known from all eternity that we would be alive in these challenging times. This means that He has work for us do, starting with the salvation of souls by clinging to those true bishops and priests in the catacombs who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the false shepherds in its counterfeit church and by being as singularly attached to God as they are in seeking His greater honor and glory by defending His Sacred Truths without being a respecter of persons, no matter how close they may be to us personally.
Our Lady is our sure refuge in this time of apostasy and betrayal. She will help us to weather the storms of the moment. The graces won for us by the shedding of her Divine Son's Most Precious Blood and that flow into our souls through her own loving hands are more than sufficient to handle our own personal crosses and those we face in the world in the life of the Church Militant on earth. We need to beseech her through her Most Holy Rosary as we offer her our very selves--and all of our sufferings and whatever merit we are able to earn during the course of a day--to the Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son through her own Immaculate Heart.
Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Apollinaris, pray for us.
Saint Mary Magdalen, pray for us.
Saint James the Greater, pray for us.
Simon Stock, pray for us.
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.
Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.
Saints Monica, pray for us.
Saint Jude, pray for us.
Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.
Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.
Saint John Bosco, pray for us.
Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.
Saint Scholastica, pray for us.
Saint Benedict, pray for us.
Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.
Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.
Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.
Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Monica, pray for us.
Saint Agatha, pray for us.
Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.
Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Saint Cecilia, pray for us.
Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.
Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.
Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.
Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.
Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.
Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.
Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.
Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.
Saint Dominic, pray for us.
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.
Saint Basil, 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 Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.
Saint Genevieve, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us
Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.
Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.
Saint Louis de Montfort, 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.
Sister Teresa Benedicta, 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.
