Birds of a Naturalist Feather

by Thomas A. Droleskey

To these evils we must add the contests between political parties, many of which struggles do not originate in a real difference of opinion concerning the public good or in a laudable and disinterested search for what would best promote the common welfare, but in the desire for power and for the protection of some private interest which inevitably result in injury to the citizens as a whole. From this course there often arise robberies of what belongs rightly to the people, and even conspiracies against and attacks on the supreme authority of the state, as well as on its representatives. These political struggles also beget threats of popular action and, at times, eventuate in open rebellion and other disorders which are all the more deplorable and harmful since they come from a public to whom it has been given, in our modern democratic states, to participate in very large measure in public life and in the affairs of government. Now, these different forms of government are not of themselves contrary to the principles of the Catholic Faith, which can easily be reconciled with any reasonable and just system of government. Such governments, however, are the most exposed to the danger of being overthrown by one faction or another. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922)

 

The artificial "conflict" between naturalists of the "left" and naturalists on the "right" in the United States of America (and throughout the world) was well documented by Mr. Craig Heimbichner in Blood on the Altar. That so few people see through the artificial "conflict" that constitutes "partisan politics"  in and public discourse about it in the United States of America is one of the most significant victories of the devil in this his age, the age wherein he is reigning supreme through various naturalist philosophies and programs as the aftermath of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King that he engineered in the Renaissance and the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry (as well as the veritable potpourri of related naturalistic "philosophies" and ideologies that offer their prescriptions, to one extent or another, as the means of secular salvation).

 

This artificial "conflict" is on full display every day as various well-paid "experts" "debate" each other on the Faux News Channel (FNC) or the Clinton News Network (CNN) or on the Mocking Sanity as Never Before Contemplated (MSNBC) network. The "debates" make for fine theater. I remember them well from the days before we stopped watching television for good in 2003. They "resolve" nothing, however, as they give vent to one naturalist screaming at another naturalist, men and women who agree on one basic principle, whether or not they realize it: that is, that it is not necessary to subordinate everything in human life to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted to His true Church, the Catholic Church, and that human beings have the capability of finding "solutions" to social problems that have their remote cause in Original Sin and their proximate cause in the Actual Sins of men. In other words, what is played out on the screens (and over the radio airwaves) every day is a gigantic exercise in semi-Pelagianism, the heresy that contends that fallen men more or less "stir up grace" in their own souls and are, therefore, pretty much self-redemptive.

As I have noted on many other occasions over the past few decades, the television programs of the 1950s bombarded people with this message of naturalist self-redemption every night of the week. Problems in the Jim and Betty Anderson family on Father Knows Best and in the Alex and Donna Stone family on The Donna Reed Show and in the Ward and June Cleaver family on Leave It to Beaver and with the Kramdens and the Nortons on The Honeymooners and with the Ricardos and the Mertzes on I Love Lucy and in the Steve Douglas family on My Three Sons were all handled on the level of mere human reason. Writers and producers wouldn't have dreamt of running the "risk" of "offending" unbelievers in our pluralist culture. The "American way" is one of religious indifferentism and cultural pluralism. The "average" family simply need not need any religious faith, no less that of the true Faith, to "get along" and "solve" family problems.

The passive acceptance (television watching is a passive activity that exposes those who lack any discernment or right judgment to be brainwashed by the images transmitted into their immortal souls) of the naturalism of the 1950s led producers to "push the envelope" in the 1960s and thereafter, creating programs dealing with the occult (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, My Mother the Car) and ghouls (The Addams Family, The Munsters) before mainstreaming immorality and indecency very directly in the 1970s and the 1980s, thereby creating a cultural climate very receptive to the thoroughly pornographic and vulgar fare that is served up to millions upon millions of Americans on a nightly basis. As most of these viewers have not a blessed clue as to the meaning of human existence and that they will face the terrible moment of their Particular Judgments when they die, they permit themselves to be "catechized," if you will, by whatever the organized forces of naturalism what them to learn and to accept without any deviation or dissent.

It is this same sort of passive acceptance of the naturalist agenda in the popular culture that makes it possible for the false opposites of the organized crime families known as political parties in the United States of America to engender so much passion and emotion when one artificially concocted "crisis" or news event captures the attention of the general public (or of that part of the public that pays attention to partisan politics and public policy with a degree of obsessiveness by which devotees of a particular sports team or television program follow their false idols). Placing one's trust reflexively in a particular band of criminals is easier than taking the time to read the papal encyclical letters on the right ordering of the civil state and far more "entertaining" that taking the family to a true Catholic Church to pray before Our Lord's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament or to pray the family Rosary each and every night without the distractions of the ubiquitous "tabernacle" of the television.

Thus it is that we see at the present time a manufactured "drama" being played out over President George Walker Bush's commutation of the prison sentence that was meted out to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby had been the Chief of Staff to Vice President Richard N. Cheney until his indictment in 2005 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice into an investigation as to which Bush administration official leaked the name of Central Intelligence Agency officer Valerie Plame Wilson to reporter/columnist Robert Novak in retaliation for her husband's criticism of the administration's claim that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein tired to purchased enriched uranium from the country of Niger in Africa (a claim that was bogus but included in Bush's 2003 State of the Union address). He was convicted in United States District Court for the District of Columbia on March 6, 2007, and sentence subsequently to serve thirty months in prison and to pay a $250,.000 fine.

Many "conservatives" took up Libby's cause, urging Bush to pardon Libby, who had been a major player in the late-1990s in trying to make the case for an invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Libby was part of something called the Project for the New American Century, which issued the following "open letter" to then President William Jefferson Clinton on January 26, 1998:

We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War.  In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat.  We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world.  That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime from power.  We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.

The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months.  As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections.  Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished.  Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production.  The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets.  As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.

Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East.  It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard.  As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.

Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.

We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk. Sincerely, Elliott Abrams    Richard L. Armitage    William J. Bennett  Jeffrey Bergner    John Bolton    Paula Dobriansky Francis Fukuyama    Robert Kagan    Zalmay Khalilzad William Kristol    Richard Perle    Peter W. Rodman  Donald Rumsfeld    William Schneider, Jr.    Vin Weber  Paul Wolfowitz    R. James Woolsey    Robert B. Zoellick (Letter to President Clinton on Iraq)

 

Irve Lewis Libby, whose name does not appear in the open letter, was, however, an active participant in the the deliberations that went into the drafting of the letter. One can see from the list provided on the following website (Project for the New American Century - dKosopedia) that Libby was one of the twenty-five original signatories of the Project for the New American Century. There are, in addition to those listed in the open letter to Bill Clinton, a number of prominent "neoconservatives" who helped to form the organization that militated for an invasion of Iraq. Some of these include Gary Bauer, Jeb Bush, William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, James Danforth Quayle (yes, the James Danforth Quayle) and the Catholic neoconservative George Weigel (whose loyalty to Karol Wojtyla was trumped by his loyalty to George W. Bush and to the PNAC agenda during the build-up to the Iraq War in 2002 and early-2003).

Libby's efforts, therefore, to do the administration's bidding in seeking to intimidate those who were trying to publish facts about the bogus claims made by the current administration concerning the "justifications" for invading Iraq were not a matter of idle subservience to Vice President Cheney. Irve Lewis Libby was very much committed to defending the project that he had helped to plan at the Project for the New American Century, to build a veritable "Pax Americana" by overthrowing Saddam Hussein in Iraq and installing a "democratic" regime there that would not pose a threat to the State of Israel, thus presaging a "domino" effect of "democratic regime change" throughout the Middle East. The fact that this sort of Americanist exercise in social engineering called "nation-building" (which required American taxpayers to fund the destruction of the entire infrastructure of Iraq so that more of their taxpayer dollars could be doled out to American contractors to rebuild what American bombs destroyed) has never worked (see Thomas Woodrow Wilson's schemes for providing "peace" in Europe by means of the breakup of the Second Reich and of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), of course, meant nothing to these naturalists who were intent on doing the work of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which was founded in 1954 by the former head of the American Zionist Committee, Isaiah Kenen.

Irve Lewis Libby, therefore, is not simply an innocent bystander who got caught up in events that forced him to give misleading information to those investigating the leak of Valerie Plame's name to Robert Novak. He was part and parcel of the insane plan to put the lives of American service personnel at risk needlessly in the American invasion and subsequent occupation of a sovereign country, Iraq, that posed no real, legitimate, imminent threat to the security of the United States of America. That George W. Bush chose to commute Libby's sentence, which is fully within the constructional prerogatives of the American presidency, demonstrates not that Bush is compassionate (he once mocked a woman who has about to be put to death while he was governor of Texas; although the woman may have deserved the death penalty, Bush is so bereft of decency that his only thought was to mock the woman rather than to ask for prayers for her immortal soul as she was about to die) but that birds of a naturalist feather always flock together and that he will go to great lengths to protect his inner circle. One wonders if he will extend blanket pardons to his inner circle, including Libby himself, before he leaves office on January 20, 2009, to protect them from possible criminal investigations in the future.

As is ever the case, however, in our world of false opposites, the naturalist members of the other major organized crime family in the United States of America, the Democrat Party, are howling over Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence. Although this howling is laughable, it is so very predictable. You've got to give the leftist naturalists a lot of credit for never, however. I mean, what does it say about the United States of America when a former president, Bill Clinton, who entered into a plea agreement on giving false evidence in the Paula Jones harassment lawsuit and who was doling out pardons to the highest bidder, including financier Marc Rich, before he left office on January 20, 2001, comes out swinging so righteously against Bush's commutation of Libby's prison sentence? What is says, ladies and gentlemen, is that we are living witnesses to a staged farce that makes Green Acres seem like a serious exercise in social commentary.

Bush commutes Libby's sentence. Bill Clinton comes out swinging against Bush. Bush's press secretary, Tony Snow, finally brings up the issue of Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich, which Bush himself refused to comment upon at all after he had assumed the presidency on January 20, 2001 (perhaps because he, Bush, knew that he would might entertain the notion of pardons for contributions to his presidential library at some point), to point out that Clinton is the last person in the world to criticize a president for the exercise of his powers of commutation and pardoning. Democrats who defended Clinton's perjury and obstruction of justice, including those in the United States Senate who voted to acquit him of charges he later acknowledged, albeit in his "more or less," misleading and incomplete style, in his "consent agreement" with Independent Counsel Robert Ray on January 19, 2001, come out swinging against Bush. Republicans who had criticized Clinton for his conduct while in office cite the Marc Rich pardon to defend Bush's commutation of Libby. Hillary Clinton, who righteously said in 1992 that Gennifer Flowers had given "trash for cash" although she knew full well that Flowers was telling the truth, denounces Bush for the commutation of Libby's sentence. And on and on and on and on and on.

What does all of this mean? Nothing, that's what. Nothing whatsoever, nothing at all. What we are witnessing is what happens when men live their entire lives on the level of mere naturalism. One set of careerist political criminals acquires power in an "election" one year. Another set of careerist political criminals acquires power in another election. Both feign outrage now and again over each other's actions.

Ah, the hollow nature of this naturalist charade can be demonstrate by how quickly some of the false opposites become friends with one another. The late Leslie Lynch King, Jr., better known by his adopted name of Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., a thirty-third degree Mason, became fast friends with the man who defeated him for the presidency in 1976, James Earl Carter, Jr. George Herbert Walker Bush has become fast friends with the man who defeated him for re-election in 1992, William Jefferson Clinton. George Walker Bush has developed a close working relationship with Edward Moore Kennedy, especially on "immigration" "reform." This will all remain the same for years and years ahead of us, assuming, that is, that some cataclysmic event does not overtake the United States as a means of God's chastisement on this country for its sins. One can imagine that the 2016 presidential election might feature the daughter of the outgoing president, Hillary Rodham Clinton, against her predecessor's nephew, George P. Bush, the son of Jeb Bush. Chelsea versus "P." Doesn't that have sterling sound to it? (Chelsea will be thirty-six years of age in 2016; "P" will be forty years of age.)

A country not founded on the truths of the Catholic Faith must degenerate over the course of time into petty squabbles among competing band of naturalist criminals, men and women who believe that we, the citizens, exist to enable us to pick our pockets as they fund abject evils and as they claim, quite paternalistically, of course, to be using our money better than we could if we permitted to keep it. There is no stopping this. That is, those of you out there who think that this or that "conservative" is going to 'win" the day for the country are deluding yourselves on two levels.

The first level of delusion involves the belief that naturalism of any type can "solve" or even "ameliorate" any problem. It cannot. As I have noted consistently in my writing, to the complete and utter scorn of so many naturalists and to their Catholic enablers who think and act and speak as naturalistically as the naturalists themselves, we can only understand the problems of the world by accepting the truths of the Catholic Faith and by seeking to replicate Christendom in our own lives, starting with the enthronement of our homes to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. (See: A Catechism of the Social Reign of Christ the King)

The second level of delusion involves the belief that the average American, including the tattooed lady you might see walking down the aisle at Kroger's, has any interest in anything other than his or her own material well-being and sensual pleasure. You see, the ultimate product of a country founded on naturalist, religiously indifferentist principles that glorifies cultural pluralism is a nation of narcissistic selfists who do not think rationally but have limited spans-of-attention and are swayed mostly by sentimentality and irrationality (which is the basis of all advertising, both commercial and political). In other words, conservative naturalists expecting that the country will "come around" when the "right" candidate emerges refuse to recognize the fact that no country is capable of true reform unless it places itself under the sweet yoke of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen.

Pope Leo XIII noted in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, that public life was "stained with crime" at that time because of secularism. The situation is even worse now. Consider, once again, please, the prophetic insight of his Catholic wisdom:

It is surely unnecessary to prove, what experience constantly shows and what each individual feels in himself, even in the very midst of all temporal prosperity-that in God alone can the human will find absolute and perfect peace. God is the only end of man. All our life on earth is the truthful and exact image of a pilgrimage. Now Christ is the "Way," for we can never reach God, the supreme and ultimate good, by this toilsome and doubtful road of mortal life, except with Christ as our leader and guide. How so? Firstly and chiefly by His grace; but this would remain "void" in man if the precepts of His law were neglected. For, as was necessarily the case after Jesus Christ had won our salvation, He left behind Him His Law for the protection and welfare of the human race, under the guidance of which men, converted from evil life, might safely tend towards God. "Going, teach ye all nations . . . teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matthew xxviii., 19-20). "Keep my commandments" john xiv., 15). Hence it will be understood that in the Christian religion the first and most necessary condition is docility to the precepts of Jesus Christ, absolute loyalty of will towards Him as Lord and King. A serious duty, and one which oftentimes calls for strenuous labour, earnest endeavour, and perseverance! For although by Our Redeemer's grace human nature hath been regenerated, still there remains in each individual a certain debility and tendency to evil. Various natural appetites attract man on one side and the other; the allurements of the material world impel his soul to follow after what is pleasant rather than the law of Christ. Still we must strive our best and resist our natural inclinations with all our strength "unto the obedience of Christ." For unless they obey reason they become our masters, and carrying the whole man away from Christ, make him their slave. "Men of corrupt mind, who have made shipwreck of the faith, cannot help being slaves. . . They are slaves to a threefold concupiscence: of will, of pride, or of outward show" (St. Augustine, De Vera Religione, 37). In this contest every man must be prepared to undergo hard ships and troubles for Christ's sake. It is difficult to reject what so powerfully entices and delights. It is hard and painful to despise the supposed goods of the senses and of fortune for the will and precepts of Christ our Lord. But the Christian is absolutely obliged to be firm, and patient in suffering, if he wish to lead a Christian life. Have we forgotten of what Body and of what Head we are the members? "Having joy set before Him, He endured the Cross," and He bade us deny ourselves. The very dignity of human nature depends upon this disposition of mind. For, as even the ancient Pagan philosophy perceived, to be master of oneself and to make the lower part of the soul, obey the superior part, is so far from being a weakness of will that it is really a noble power, in consonance with right reason and most worthy of a man. Moreover, to bear and to suffer is the ordinary condition of man. Man can no more create for himself a life free from suffering and filled with all happiness that he can abrogate the decrees of his Divine Maker, who has willed that the consequences of original sin should be perpetual. It is reasonable, therefore, not to expect an end to troubles in this world, but rather to steel one's soul to bear troubles, by which we are taught to look forward with certainty to supreme happiness. Christ has not promised eternal bliss in heaven to riches, nor to a life of ease, to honours or to power, but to longsuffering and to tears, to the love of justice and to cleanness of heart.

From this it may clearly be seen what consequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour's Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet, this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love: a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor selfdevotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ: but only on condition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God's law. By the law of Christ we mean not only the natural precepts of morality and the Ancient Law, all of which Jesus Christ has perfected and crowned by His declaration, explanation and sanction; but also the rest of His doctrine and His own peculiar institutions. Of these the chief is His Church. Indeed whatsoever things Christ has instituted are most fully contained in His Church. Moreover, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father by means of the ministry of the Church so gloriously founded by Himself. On the one hand He confided to her all the means of men's salvation, on the other He most solemnly commanded men to be subject to her and to obey her diligently, and to follow her even as Himself: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke x, 16). Wherefore the law of Christ must be sought in the Church. Christ is man's "Way"; the Church also is his "Way"-Christ of Himself and by His very nature, the Church by His commission and the communication of His power. Hence all who would find salvation apart from the Church, are led astray and strive in vain.

As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from "The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. "And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him" (Daniel vii., 14). "I am appointed King by Him . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psalm ii., 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at.

Just as it is the height of misfortune to go astray from the "Way," so is it to abandon the "Truth." Christ Himself is the first, absolute and essential "Truth," inasmuch as He is the Word of God, consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, He and the Father being One. "I am the Way and the Truth." Wherefore if the Truth be sought by the human intellect, it must first of all submit it to Jesus Christ, and securely rest upon His teaching, since therein Truth itself speaketh. There are innumerable and extensive fields of thought, properly belonging to the human mind, in which it may have free scope for its investigations and speculations, and that not only agreeably to its nature, but even by a necessity of its nature. But what is unlawful and unnatural is that the human mind should refuse to be restricted within its proper limits, and, throwing aside its becoming modesty, should refuse to acknowledge Christ's teaching. This teaching, upon which our salvation depends, is almost entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God hath received and drunk it in entirely from His Father: "The words which thou gavest me, I have given to them" john xvii., 8). Hence this teaching necessarily embraces many subjects which are not indeed contrary to reasonfor that would be an impossibility-but so exalted that we can no more attain them by our own reasoning than we can comprehend God as He is in Himself. If there be so many things hidden and veiled by nature, which no human ingenuity can explain, and yet which no man in his senses can doubt, it would be an abuse of liberty to refuse to accept those which are entirely above nature, because their essence cannot be discovered. To reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity. Our intellect must bow humbly and reverently "unto the obedience of Christ," so that it be held captive by His divinity and authority: "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians x., 5). Such obedience Christ requires, and justly so. For He is God, and as such holds supreme dominion over man's intellect as well as over his will. By obeying Christ with his intellect man by no means acts in a servile manner, but in complete accordance with his reason and his natural dignity. For by his will he yields, not to the authority of any man, but to that of God, the author of his being, and the first principle to Whom he is subject by the very law of his nature. He does not suffer himself to be forced by the theories of any human teacher, but by the eternal and unchangeable truth. Hence he attains at one and the same time the natural good of the intellect and his own liberty. For the truth which proceeds from the teaching of Christ clearly demonstrates the real nature and value of every being; and man, being endowed with this knowledge, if he but obey the truth as perceived, will make all things subject to himself, not himself to them; his appetites to his reason, not his reason to his appetites. Thus the slavery of sin and falsehood will be shaken off, and the most perfect liberty attained: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" john viii., 32). It is, then, evident that those whose intellect rejects the yoke of Christ are obstinately striving against God. Having shaken off God's authority, they are by no means freer, for they will fall beneath some human sway. They are sure to choose someone whom they will listen to, obey, and follow as their guide. Moreover, they withdraw their intellect from the communication of divine truths, and thus limit it within a narrower circle of knowledge, so that they are less fitted to succeed in the pursuit even of natural science. For there are in nature very many things whose apprehension or explanation is greatly aided by the light of divine truth. Not unfrequently, too, God, in order to chastise their pride, does not permit men to see the truth, and thus they are punished in the things wherein they sin. This is why we often see men of great intellectual power and erudition making the grossest blunders even in natural science.

It must therefore be clearly admitted that, in the life of a Christian, the intellect must be entirely subject to God's authority. And if, in this submission of reason to authority, our self-love, which is so strong, is restrained and made to suffer, this only proves the necessity to a Christian of long-suffering not only in will but also in intellect. We would remind those persons of this truth who desire a kind of Christianity such as they themselves have devised, whose precepts should be very mild, much more indulgent towards human nature, and requiring little if any hardships to be borne. They do not properly under stand the meaning of faith and Christian precepts. They do not see that the Cross meets us everywhere, the model of our life, the eternal standard of all who wish to follow Christ in reality and not merely in name.

God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.

So great is this struggle of the passions and so serious the dangers involved, that we must either anticipate ultimate ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is of course both right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible way: but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation of the nations must be looked for higher. A power greater than human must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken in them the sense of duty, and make them better. This is the power which once before saved the world from destruction when groaning under much more terrible evils. Once remove all impediments and allow the Christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away; mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realise that they must observe justice and charity, the latter self-restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved. Domestic life will be firmly established (by the salutary fear of God as the Lawgiver. In the same way the precepts of the natural law, which dictates respect for lawful authority and obedience to the laws, will exercise their influence over the people. Seditions and conspiracies will cease. Wherever Christianity rules over all without let or hindrance there the order established by Divine Providence is preserved, and both security and prosperity are the happy result. The common welfare, then, urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,-and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to this His own rightful possession. All elements of the national life must be made to drink in the Life which proceedeth from Him- legislation, political institutions, education, marriage and family life, capital and labour. Everyone must see that the very growth of civilisation which is so ardently desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows not so much by material wealth and prosperity, as by the spiritual qualities of morality and virtue.

 

A good way to avoid getting caught up in the false conflicts between the false opposites of the naturalist organized crime families known as political parties is to refuse to participate in their utterly useless disputes. That's right, turn off the television for good, as in forever. You will never miss it (and this is being written by one who was a longtime television news addict). Don't listen to the mindless blatherers on radio who know nothing about First and Last Things. Make a visit to the Most Blessed Sacrament in a true Catholic Church. Pray more Rosaries. As my dear wife said just yesterday, "Tell your readers that when they have prayed all of the Rosaries they can as befits their state-in-life that they should pray even more!" We should not let ourselves fall prey to the games of the naturalists. We must pray and think and speak and act as Catholics at all times. This is not what the naturalist believe. It is not what their conciliarist enablers in the counterfeit church of conciliarism believe. It is, however, what happens to be the truth.

Pope Saint Pius X wrote in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, that we must work to restore all things in Christ. There can be no compromise with the spirit of the world. We must work for the restoration of the Catholic City:

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

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

 

May our dear, dear Blessed Mother helps us to have the humility to submit our minds and wills at all times to the Deposit of Faith that her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church and thus to have the courage to defend His Holy Truths no matter what names we are called and how much material wealth we lose as a result by giving all to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. The rewards for doing so are truly Heavenly.

What are we waiting for?

 

Viva Cristo Rey!

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.

Pope Saint Leo II, pray for us, pray for us.

All of the Holy Roman Pontiffs, 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 John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius 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.

 

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.