Cause and Effect

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Intellectual dishonesty is one of the chief hallmarks of conciliarism. That is, conciliarists make contentions that fly in the face of the teaching of the Catholic Church, frequently relying upon half-truths and intellectually dishonest quotations from the encyclicals of true popes and/or the Church Fathers to support the "orthodoxy" of such things as religious liberty and separation of Church and State and the new ecclesiology and false ecumenism and inter-religious prayer and the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service itself. All manner of Hegelian gymnastics are performed to demonstrate how anathematized propositions can become "true" as a result of understanding them in different ways as befits the circumstances of the mythical entity known as "modern man."

Intellectual dishonesty is one of the chief hallmarks of the condemned heresy of Americanism. That is, Americanists make contentions that fly in the face of the teaching of the Catholic Church, frequently relying upon half-truths and intellectually dishonest quotations from the encyclicals of true pope and/or the Church Fathers to support the "orthodoxy" of the naturalistic, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian principles that are at the foundation of the government of the United States of America. It is no wonder that intellectual dishonesty characterizes the shallowness of Americanism as its principal tenets are important constituent elements of conciliarism's Judeo-Masonic view of Church-State relations.

One of the chief papal encyclical letters that is represented in an intellectually dishonest way by Americanists is Pope Leo XIII's Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895. We find those who support the condemned heresy of Americanism resorting to cheap, shallow, intellectually dishonest tricks to claim that Pope Leo XIII was an unabashed enthusiast of the American founding. He was not. While he used diplomatic language to praise the natural virtues of George Washington and the particular institutional arrangements represented by the Constitution of the United States of America, Pope Leo XIII specifically condemned the status of the Catholic Church under that Constitution, stating in Longiqua that it is not the model to be followed in the rest of the world, which is precisely what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes it to be.

Almost every hard-core Americanist omits last part of the last paragraph quoted below from Longiqua, giving the deliberately false and reprehensibly irresponsible impression that Pope Leo XIII was strong supporter of the American constitutional regime:

 

Nor, perchance did the fact which We now recall take place without some design of divine Providence. Precisely at the epoch when the American colonies, having, with Catholic aid, achieved liberty and independence, coalesced into a constitutional Republic the ecclesiastical hierarchy was happily established amongst you; and at the very time when the popular suffrage placed the great Washington at the helm of the Republic, the first bishop was set by apostolic authority over the American Church. The well-known friendship and familiar intercourse which subsisted between these two men seems to be an evidence that the United States ought to be conjoined in concord and amity with the Catholic Church. And not without cause; for without morality the State cannot endure-a truth which that illustrious citizen of yours, whom We have just mentioned, with a keenness of insight worthy of his genius and statesmanship perceived and proclaimed. But the best and strongest support of morality is religion. She, by her very nature, guards and defends all the principles on which duties are founded, and setting before us the motives most powerful to influence us, commands us to live virtuously and forbids us to transgress. Now what is the Church other than a legitimate society, founded by the will and ordinance of Jesus Christ for the preservation of morality and the defence of religion? For this reason have We repeatedly endeavored, from the summit of the pontifical dignity, to inculcate that the Church, whilst directly and immediately aiming at the salvation of souls and the beatitude which is to be attained in heaven, is yet, even in the order of temporal things, the fountain of blessings so numerous and great that they could not have been greater or more numerous had the original purpose of her institution been the pursuit of happiness during the life which is spent on earth.

That your Republic is .progressing and developing by giant strides is patent to all; and this holds good in religious matters also. For even as your cities, in the course of one century, have made a marvellous increase in wealth and power, so do we behold the Church, from scant and slender beginnings, grown with rapidity to be great and exceedingly flourishing. Now if, on the one hand, the increased riches and resources of your cities are justly attributed to the talents and active industry of the American people, on the other hand, the prosperous condition of Catholicity must be ascribed, first indeed, to the virtue, the ability, and the prudence of the bishops and clergy; but in so slight measure also, to the faith and generosity of the Catholic laity. Thus, while the different classes exerted their best energies, you were enabled to erect unnumbered religious and useful institutions, sacred edifices, schools for the instruction of youth, colleges for the higher branches, homes for the poor, hospitals for the sick, and convents and monasteries. As for what more closely touches spiritual interests, which are based upon the exercise of Christian virtues, many facts have been brought to Our notice, whereby We are animated with hope and filled with joy, namely, that the numbers of the secular and regular clergy are steadily augmenting, that pious sodalities and confraternities are held in esteem, that the Catholic parochial schools, the Sunday-schools for imparting Christian doctrine, and summer schools are in a flourishing condition; moreover, associations for mutual aid, for the relief of the indigent, for the promotion of temperate living, add to all this the many evidences of popular piety.

The main factor, no doubt, in bringing things into this happy state were the ordinances and decrees of your synods, especially of those which in more recent times were convened and confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic See. But, moreover (a fact which it gives pleasure to acknowledge), thanks are due to the equity of the laws which obtain in America and to the customs of the well-ordered Republic. For the Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority. (Pope Leo XIII, Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895.)

 

Pope Leo XIII was warning the likes of John Ireland, the arch-Americanist Bishop and Archbishop of Saint Paul from 1884 to 1918, that the growth of the Catholic Church in the United States of America was not the result of the "free exercise of religion" clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America but of the graces won for us on Calvary by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. "Religious liberty" as enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America was not the reason that the Catholic Church had experienced such growth. God Himself was responsible for effecting this growth in spite of, not because of, the "dissevered and divorced" status of the Church from the civil state in the United States of America.

Ah, the shallow group of intellectually dishonest people who have defected from the Faith by embracing the tenets of the condemned heresy of Americanism do not provide their readers with the full context of those opening quotes from Longiqua, stopping right at the sentences highlighted in bold above. This misleads readers into drawing the conclusion that true popes gave their unquestioned support to the nature of the American constitutional regime. This is not so.

Although scores of articles have been written on this subject, I am going to address it once again, drawing upon a great deal of the material that I have used in past articles.

It is important to make some careful distinctions when discussing the heresy of Americanism:

First, the Catholic Church's condemnation of the heresy of Americanism has nothing to do with whether the conditions extant in the thirteen English colonies situated alongside the eastern seaboard of what became the United States of America justified a revolt from the authority of King George III. This is a matter about which the Church has nothing to say. Arguments could be made in support of a revolt. Arguments could be made against such a revolt. It is interesting to note, however, that only about a third of the colonists supported a break from the United Kingdom in 1776 and that many of those who did not support the revolt were harassed rather mercilessly by the self-styled "patriots" (gee, where have we seen this phenomenon lately?). The Americanist heresy, however, has nothing to do with a debate over whether the conditions of a justified revolt, which are more or less synonymous with the tenets of the Theory of the Just War, existed in the thirteen English colonies in what became the United States of America.

Second, the Catholic Church's condemnation of the heresy of American has nothing to do with the specific institutional arrangements created by the Constitution of the United States of America. Holy Mother Church has taught from time immemorial that she can adapt herself to any legitimate form of government provided that she be recognized as the true Church and that she be accorded the ultimate right, following the discharge of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation, to interpose herself, albeit rarely and judiciously, with the civil authorities when the good of souls demands her motherly intervention. Holy Mother Church, however, has no specific models of government to which men must adhere. She can adapt herself to a monarchy or to a presidential-congressional or parliamentary-ministerial form or to some other sort of government.

So many Americanists emote about these red herrings that have nothing to do with Americanism at all. Those who want to continue to emote can do so. Those who want to understand why Americanism is a heresy can continue to read this article.

What is at issue in the Americanist heresy are the false principles upon which the American founding were premised and how those false principles adversely influence the minds, hearts and souls of Catholics in the United States of America to view the Church through the eyes of the world rather than viewing the world through the eyes of the true Faith. I explained this in A Catechism of the Social Reign of Christ the King:

3) How did naturalism and Protestantism influence the founding of the United States of America?

The sons of the so-called Enlightenment, influenced by the multifaceted and inter-related consequences of the errors of the Renaissance and the Protestant Revolt, brought forth secular nations that contended the source of governing authority was the people. Ultimately, all references to “God” were in accord with the Freemasonic notion of a “supreme intelligence” without any recognition of the absolute necessity of belief in and acceptance of the Incarnation and of the Deposit of Faith as it has been given to Holy Mother Church for personal happiness and hence al social order.

The Founding Fathers of the United States of America did not believe that it was necessary to refer all things in civil life to Christ the King as He had revealed Himself through His true Church, believing that men would be able to pursue “civic virtue” by the use of their own devices and thus maintain social order in the midst of cultural and religious pluralism. This leads, as Pope Leo XIII noted of religious indifferentism, to the triumph of the lowest common denominator, that is, atheism.

4) What is the principal defect, therefore, of the Constitution of the United States of America?

As the Constitution of the United States of America admits of no authority higher than its own words, it, like the Bible for a Protestant (as mentioned above), is utterly defenseless when the plain meanings of its words are distorted and used to advance ends that its framers would have never thought imaginable, no less approved in fact.

This is but the secular version of Antinomianism: the belief advanced by those who took the logic of Luther’s argument of being “saved by faith alone” to its inexorable conclusion that one could live a wanton life of sin and still be saved. Luther himself did not see where the logic of his rejection of Catholic doctrine would lead and fought against the Antinomians.

In like manner, you see, the Constitutionalists and Federalists of today do not see that what is happening today in Federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, is the inexorable result of a Constitution that rejects Christ the King and the Catholic Church. These Constitutionalists and Federalists will fight time and time again like Sisyphus pushing the bolder up a hill. They will always lose because they cannot admit that the thing they admire, the Constitution, is the proximate problem that has resulted in all of the evils they are trying to fight.

5) Are you saying that the founders of the United States of America had evil intentions?

Intentions are irrelevant. What matters is the truth or the falsity of the ideas that men possess. It is not true that men can organize themselves socially without referencing the true Faith and by permitting false religions to propagate their false beliefs openly.

6) What is wrong with giving each "religion" the ability to speak publicly to win adherents to its cause?

To give false religions the civil "right" to speak publicly, which is different than tolerating their existence and their private practice of their false worship, is to blaspheme God, Who does not want the souls for whom he shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood confused about Who He is and what He has revealed and how they are to be happy here in this life as a prelude to eternal happiness in Heaven.

7) Has the Catholic Church condemned the "religious liberty" enshrined in the First Amendment to Constitution of the United States of America?

Many times. Pope Pius VII did so in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814. Pope Gregory XVI did so in Mirari Vos, cited above. Pope Pius IX did so in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864:

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."

8) Are you saying that the Catholic Church condemns the form of government created in the Constitution of the United States of America?

No. As noted above, the Church can adapt to any particular form of government. She does insist, however, that she be recognized by the civil government as the true religion and that her right to intervene with civil officials as a last resort after the exhausting of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation be acknowledged in a civil state's organic documents and/or a concordat with the Holy See. Everything else is left to the free judgment of men, who are nevertheless bound to pursue their actions in the civil realm in light of their eternal destiny.

 

Can it get any clearer?

Father Isaac Thomas Hecker, the founder of the Paulist Fathers and one of the chief promoters of Americanism in the Nineteenth Century, believed in the very false principles outlined above, seeing in these false principles the future of the Catholic Church. One can see that Hecker's beliefs foreshadow Ratzinger's own Modernism so very perfectly:

How so? Fr. Hecker tells us: "A call is made to men who possess this new synthesis of truth who are able to solve the problems of eliminating antagonisms, of being reconciled with the need of our era; of men who will take hold of all the aspirations of modern genius effected by science, of social activity, of politics, of spirituality (accordingly, spirituality itself would be called upon to defend the Church and to procure her universal triumph), of religion, and of the transformation of everything by means of the defense and universal triumph for the Church" (The Life of Fr. Hecker.).

 

Monsignor Henri Delassus went on to quote the view of some of Hecker's Americanist successors in his Americanism and the Anti-Christian Conspiracy (available from Catholic Action Resource Center):

 

"American Catholicism" is not, in the thought of is promoters, a way of thinking and of practicing Catholicism solely in the contingent and changing things that would be common to the United States, in accordance with the particular conditions that are found on American soil. If this had been so, we would not have believed it incumbent upon us to be concerned with it.

No, their pretension is to speak to the entire universe: "The ear of the world is open to our thinking, if we know what to say to them," Msgr. [Bishop of Richmond, John] Keane had written to the Congress of Brussels. And in fact they are speaking, and their word has not been without echo upon each part of France. If, at least, they had not put into the ear of the world anything other than what the Church leaves to our free discussion; but, no, as we shall see, we shall come to understand that their words are more or less imposed upon that which belongs to the very fundamentals of the Catholic faith.

The Abbot Klein had said in the preface he gave to The Life of Fr. Hecker: "His [Fr. Hecker's] unique and original work is to have shown the profound harmonies joining the new state of the human spirit to the true Christianity." "The American ideas that he recommended are, he knew, those which GOD wanted all civilized people of our time to be at home with  ..."

"The times are solemn," Msgr. Ireland had said, in his discourse, The Church and the Age. "At such an epoch of history ... the desire to know is intense ... The ambition of the spirit, fired up by the marvelous success in every field of human knowledge ... The human heart lets itself go to the strangest ideals ... Something new! Such is the ordered word of humanity, and to renew all things is its firm resolution.

"The moment is opportune for men of talent and character among the children of the Church of God. Today the routine of old times is dead;  today the ordinary means lead to the decrepitude of the aged; the crisis demands something new, something extraordinary; and it is upon this condition that the Church shall record the greatest of victories in the greatest of historical ages" (Discourse given in the Cathedral of Baltimore, October 18, 1893, on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Episcopal consecration of Cardinal Gibbons.) (Monsignor Delassus, pp. 9-10.)

 

Cause and effect. Americanism leads directly to conciliarism's One World Church. Anyone who would deny this is either blind or intellectually dishonest or both.

Furthermore, Pope Leo XIII's Longiqua Oceani not only was not a ringing endorsement of the American regime but included stinging rebukes to how some of the the American bishops were permitting themselves to be coopted by the religious indifferentism and egalitarianism and individualism extant in the Americanist ethos by opposing the appointment of a papal legate or nuncio to represent the Vatican in the United States of America:

But when the Council of Baltimore had concluded its labors, the duty still remained of putting, so to speak, a proper and becoming crown upon the work. This, We perceived, could scarcely be done in a more fitting manner than through the due establishment by the Apostolic See of an American Legation. Accordingly, as you are well aware, We have done this. By this action, as We have elsewhere intimated, We have wished, first of all, to certify that, in Our judgment and affection, America occupies the same place and rights as other States, be they ever so mighty and imperial. In addition to this We had in mind to draw more closely the bonds of duty and friendship which connect you and so many thousands of Catholics with the Apostolic See. In fact, the mass of the Catholics understood how salutary Our action was destined to be; they saw, moreover, that it accorded with the usage and policy of the Apostolic See. For it has been, from earliest antiquity, the custom of the Roman Pontiffs in the exercise of the divinely bestowed gift of the primacy in the administration of the Church of Christ to send forth legates to Christian nations and peoples. And they did this, not by an adventitious but an inherent right. For "the Roman Pontiff, upon whom Christ has conferred ordinary and immediate jurisdiction, as well over all and singular churches, as over all and singular pastors and faithful, since he cannot personally visit the different regions and thus exercise the pastoral office over the flock entrusted to him, finds it necessary from time to time, in the discharge of the ministry imposed on him, to despatch legates into different parts of the world, according as the need arises; who, supplying his place, may correct errors, make the rough ways plain, and administer to the people confided to their care increased means of salvation."

But how unjust and baseless would be the suspicion, should it anywhere exist, that the powers conferred on the legate are an obstacle to the authority of the bishops! Sacred to Us (more than to any other) are the rights of those "whom the Holy Ghost has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God." That these rights should remain intact in every nation in every part of the globe, We both desire and ought to desire, the more so since the dignity of the individual bishop is by nature so interwoven with the dignity of the Roman Pontiff that any measure which benefits the one necessarily protects the other. "My honor is the honor of the Universal Church. My honor is the unimpaired vigor of My brethren. Then am I truly honored when to each one due honor is not denied." Therefore, since it is the office and function of an apostolic legate, with whatsoever powers he may be vested, to execute the mandates and interpret the will of the Pontiff who sends him, thus, so far from his being of any detriment to the ordinary power of the bishops, he will rather bring an accession of stability and strength. His authority will possess no slight weight for preserving in the multitude a submissive spirit; in the clergy discipline and due reverence for the bishops, and in the bishops mutual charity and an intimate union of souls. And since this union, so salutary and desirable, consists mainly in harmony of thought and action, he will, no doubt, bring it to pass that each one of you shall persevere in the diligent administration of his diocesan affairs; that one shall not impede another in matters of government; that one shall not pry into the counsels and conduct of another; finally, that with disagreements eradicated and mutual esteem maintained, you may all work together with combined energies to promote the glory of the American Church and the general welfare. It is difficult to estimate the good results which will flow from this concord of the bishops. Our own people will receive edification; and the force of example will have its effect on those without who will be persuaded by this argument alone that the divine apostolate has passed by inheritance to the ranks of the Catholic episcopate.

 

Pope Leo XIII was condemning in these just quoted passages from Longiqua the American spirit of pride and "independence" that was so exemplified by the opposition to a papal nuncio or legate by John Lancaster Spalding, the Bishop of Peoria, Illinois, from 1877 to 1908:

This opposition arises in part from a fixed and strongly-rooted desire, which exists throughout the English-speaking world, to manage as far as possible one's own affairs. The firm determination of the American people to permit no needless foreign interference is shown in the Monroe Doctrine, and it was more practically demonstrated by the overthrow and death of Maximilian. Catholics who live here, and who, wherever they were born, are true American citizens, feel the impulse of this desire and wish to manage as far as possible their own affairs. They are devoted to the Church; they recognize in the Pope Christ's Vicar, and gladly receive from him faith and morals; but for rest, they ask him to interfere as little as possible. (quoted in Robert Leckie, American and Catholic, Garden City, New York, Doubleday and Company, 1970.)

 

In other words, some of the American bishops did not want any papal representative in the United States of America as they viewed it as "interference" in their affairs analogous to a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Once again, Pope Leo XIII used diplomatic language to refer to this opposition ("should it anywhere exist"). However, he knew this opposition existed amongst the American hierarchy and he sought to remind them that a papal legate would be of benefit to the Faith, especially insofar as assuring unity among the bishops. Pope Leo knew full well that his encyclical letters on the State were not being taught from the pulpits, that most Catholics in the United States of America did not understand that Holy Mother Church merely tolerated the separation of Church and State in the United States of America and that she she wanted them, her children, to know her immutable Social Teaching and to pray and to work for its realization within their own country.

Pope Leo made this abundantly clear in Longiqua, noting also that Catholics cannot believe one thing "privately" and act another way "publicly" in the political arena:

As regards civil affairs, experience has shown how important it is that the citizens should be upright and virtuous. In a free State, unless justice be generally cultivated, unless the people be repeatedly and diligently urged to observe the precepts and laws of the Gospel, liberty itself may be pernicious. Let those of the clergy, therefore, who are occupied with the instruction of the multitude, treat plainly this topic of the duties of citizens, so that all may understand and feel the necessity, in political life, of conscientiousness, self restraint, and integrity; for that cannot be lawful in public which is unlawful in private affairs. On this whole subject there are to be found, as you know, in the encyclical letters written by Us from time to time in the course of Our pontificate, many things which Catholics should attend to and observe. In these writings and expositions We have treated of human liberty, of the chief Christian duties, of civil government, and of the Christian constitution of States, drawing Our principles as well from the teaching of the Gospels as from reason. They, then, who wish to be good citizens and discharge their duties faithfully may readily learn from Our Letters the ideal of an upright life. In like manner, let the priests be persistent in keeping before the minds of the people the enactments of the Third Council of Baltimore, particularly those which inculcate the virtue of temperance, the frequent use of the sacraments and the observance of the just laws and institutions of the Republic.

 

Pope Leo XIII saw all of the problems created by an uncritical acceptance of the false premises of the American founding. He knew that some of the bishops of the United States of America, at the very least, believed that everything about the founding of the country was perfectly compatible with the Faith, a judgment that Orestes Brownson understood in 1846 was absolutely contrary to the truth. (See National Greatness.) Indeed, Pope Leo XIII, conscious of the fact that many of the American bishops did not understand, whether intentionally or not, his subtleties in Longiqua, lowered the hammer on them in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899.

Although I have written extensively on Testem, which was an apostolical letter from Pope Leo XIII to the longtime Americanist Archbishop of Baltimore, James Cardinal Gibbons, here are a few excerpts from a recent analysis of its text as contained in Admiringly Understanding the Mind of an Arch-Americanist, which dealt with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's embrace of every scintilla of Americanism as a full-throated expression of conciliarism's own dissident view of Church-State relations, and in Babbling Inanities of Americanism:

Americanism is the exaltation of the measure of personal and national greatness on the basis of naturalistic standards over the necessity of referring all things at all times to the final end of man, the possession of the glory of the Beatific Vision of God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for all eternity. It is thus the exaltation of the Judeo-Masonic spirit of  "brotherhood" over the Catholic teaching of the Communion of the Saints.

Americanism is the exaltation of the spirit of egalitarianism over the truth of the hierarchy that exists in the Order of Creation and in the Order of Grace, that is, the Order of Redemption, making it necessary for there to a separation of Church and State in order that "free men" can choose for themselves how to live. Americanism is, all of its invocations of a generic "God" notwithstanding, the exaltation of the deification of man over man's due submission to God and the authority of His true Church in all that pertains to the good of souls and to matters of fundamental justice in according with the binding precepts of His Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

Americanism is the exaltation of the spirit of "civil" and "religious" liberty" over the true sense of liberty that comes only from the Catholic Faith. That is, Americanism is the exaltation of human independence over a due submission to and reliance upon the magisterial authority of the Catholic Church that sees in the Cross the very means by which we are truly free, that is, free from an enslavement to the power of sin and eternal death.

Americanism is the exaltation of individualism over the due submission that we must render in all humility to Christ the King as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through the Catholic Church. Americanism thus feeds into Protestant Pentecostalism and the whole ethos of the "Catholic Charismatic Renewal" as it eschews a complete submission of one's mind and will to the binding teaching of Holy Mother Church's magisterium in favor of an "individual relationship" with God the Holy Ghost whereby people think that they have a "private pipeline" to God and can decide for themselves what part of the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church they will and will not follow. There is thus no need to know or to follow the Church's Social Teaching in such a Catholic expression of Protestant individualism.

Pope Leo XIII noted this rejection of the exterior guidance of the Catholic Church in his Apostolical Letter on Americanism, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae:

Coming now to speak of the conclusions which have been deduced from the above opinions, and for them, we readily believe there was no thought of wrong or guile, yet the things themselves certainly merit some degree of suspicion. First, all external guidance is set aside for those souls who are striving after Christian perfection as being superfluous or indeed, not useful in any sense -the contention being that the Holy Spirit pours richer and more abundant graces than formerly upon the souls of the faithful, so that without human intervention He teaches and guides them by some hidden instinct of His own. Yet it is the sign of no small over-confidence to desire to measure and determine the mode of the Divine communication to mankind, since it wholly depends upon His own good pleasure, and He is a most generous dispenser 'of his own gifts. "The Spirit breatheth whereso He listeth." -- John iii, 8.

"And to each one of us grace is given according to the measure of the giving of Christ." -- Eph. iv, 7.

And shall any one who recalls the history of the apostles, the faith of the nascent church, the trials and deaths of the martyrs- and, above all, those olden times, so fruitful in saints-dare to measure our age with these, or affirm that they received less of the divine outpouring from the Spirit of Holiness? Not to dwell upon this point, there is no one who calls in question the truth that the Holy Spirit does work by a secret descent into the souls of the just and that He stirs them alike by warnings and impulses, since unless this were the case all outward defense and authority would be unavailing. "For if any persuades himself that he can give assent to saving, that is, to gospel truth when proclaimed, without any illumination of the Holy Spirit, who give's unto all sweetness both to assent and to hold, such an one is deceived by a heretical spirit."-From the Second Council of Orange, Canon 7.

Moreover, as experience shows, these monitions and impulses of the Holy Spirit are for the most part felt through the medium of the aid and light of an external teaching authority. To quote St. Augustine. "He (the Holy Spirit) co-operates to the fruit gathered from the good trees, since He externally waters and cultivates them by the outward ministry of men, and yet of Himself bestows the inward increase."-De Gratia Christi, Chapter xix. This, indeed, belongs to the ordinary law of God's loving providence that as He has decreed that men for the most part shall be saved by the ministry also of men, so has He wished that those whom He calls to the higher planes of holiness should be led thereto by men; hence St. Chrysostom declares we are taught of God through the instrumentality of men.-Homily I in Inscrib. Altar. Of this a striking example is given us in the very first days of the Church.

For though Saul, intent upon blood and slaughter, had heard the voice of our Lord Himself and had asked, "What dost Thou wish me to do?" yet he was bidden to enter Damascus and search for Ananias. Acts ix: "Enter the city and it shall be there told to thee what thou must do."

Nor can we leave out of consideration the truth that those who are striving after perfection, since by that fact they walk in no beaten or well-known path, are the most liable to stray, and hence have greater need than others of a teacher and guide. Such guidance has ever obtained in the Church; it has been the universal teaching of those who throughout the ages have been eminent for wisdom and sanctity-and hence to reject it would be to commit one's self to a belief at once rash and dangerous.

A thorough consideration of this point, in the supposition that no exterior guide is granted such souls, will make us see the difficulty of locating or determining the direction and application of that more abundant influx of the Holy Spirit so greatly extolled by innovators To practice virtue there is absolute need of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, yet we find those who are fond of novelty giving an unwarranted importance to the natural virtues, as though they better responded to the customs and necessities of the times and that having these as his outfit man becomes more ready to act and more strenous in action. It is not easy to understand how persons possessed of Christian wisdom can either prefer natural to supernatural virtues or attribute to them a greater efficacy and fruifulness. Can it be that nature conjoined with grace is weaker than when left to herself? (Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, January 22, 1899.)

 

Americanism represents the exaltation the mania of "action" divorced from prayer, making false distinctions between "active" and "passive" virtue," leading many Catholics to consider praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, for example, as "doing nothing" to help one's country. Popes Leo XIII and Saint Pius X both discussed this aspect of Americanism:

This overesteem of natural virtue finds a method of expression in assuming to divide all virtues in active and passive, and it is alleged that whereas passive virtues found better place in past times, our age is to be characterized by the active. That such a division and distinction cannot be maintained is patent-for there is not, nor can there be, merely passive virtue. "Virtue," says St. Thomas Aquinas, "designates the perfection of some faculty, but end of such faculty is an act, and an act of virtue is naught else than the good use of free will," acting, that is to say, under the grace of God if the act be one of supernatural virtue.

He alone could wish that some Christian virtues be adapted to certain times and different ones for other times who is unmindful of the apostle's words: "That those whom He foreknew, He predestined to be made conformable to the image of His Son."- Romans viii, 29. Christ is the teacher and the exemplar of all sanctity, and to His standard must all those conform who wish for eternal life. Nor does Christ know any change as the ages pass, "for He is yesterday and to-day and the same forever."-Hebrews xiii, 8. To the men of all ages was the precept given: "Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart."-Matt. xi, 29.

To every age has He been made manifest to us as obedient even unto death; in every age the apostle's dictum has its force: "Those who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences." Would to God that more nowadays practiced these virtues in the degree of the saints of past times, who in humility, obedience and self-restraint were powerful "in word and in deed" -to the great advantage not only of religion, but of the state and the public welfare.

From this disregard of the - angelical virtues, erroneously styled passive, the step was a short one to a contempt of the religious life which has in some degree taken hold of minds. That such a value is generally held by the upholders of new views, we infer from certain statements concerning the vows which religious orders take. They say vows are alien to the spirit of our times, in that they limit the bounds of human liberty; that they are more suitable to weak than ›o strong minds; that so far from making for human perfection and the good of human organization, they are hurtful to both; but that this is as false as possible from the practice and the doctrine of the Church is clear, since she has always given the very highest approval to the religious method of life; nor without good cause, for those who under the divine call have freely embraced that state of life did not content themselves with the observance of precepts, but, going forward to the evangelical counsels, showed themselves ready and valiant soldiers of Christ. Shall we judge this to be a characteristic of weak minds, or shall we say that it is useless or hurtful to a more perfect state of life?

Those who so bind themselves by the vows of religion, far from having suffered a loss of liberty, enjoy that fuller and freer kind, that liberty, namely, by which Christ hath made us free. And this further view of theirs, namely, that the religious life is either entirely useless or of little service to the Church, besides being injurious to the religious orders cannot be the opinion of anyone who has read the annals of the Church. Did not your country, the United States, derive the beginnings both of faith and of culture from the children of these religious families? to one of whom but very lately, a thing greatly to your praise, you have decreed that a statue be publicly erected. And even at the present time wherever the religious families are found, how speedy and yet how fruitful a harvest of good works do they not bring forth! How very many leave home and seek strange lands to impart the truth of the gospel and to widen the bounds of civilization; and this they do with the greatest cheerfulness amid manifold dangers! Out of their number not less, indeed, than from the rest of the clergy, the Christian world finds the preachers of God's word, the directors of conscience, the teachers of youth and the Church itself the examples of all sanctity.

Nor should any difference of praise be made between those who follow the active state of life and those others who, charmed with solitude, give themselves to prayer and bodily mortification. And how much, indeed, of good report these have merited, and do merit, is known surely to all who do not forget that the "continual prayer of the just man" avails to placate and to bring down the blessings of heaven when to such prayers bodily mortification is added.

But if there be those who prefer to form one body without the obligation of the vows let them pursue such a course. It is not new in the Church, nor in any wise censurable. Let them be careful, however, not to set forth such a state above that of religious orders. But rather, since mankind are more disposed at the present time to indulge themselves in pleasures, let those be held in greater esteem "who having left all things have followed Christ." (Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae, January 22, 1899.)

 

To read these passages with care is to understand how the Modernist rejection of bodily mortification and and outward penance (see Paragraph 15 of the General Instruction to the Roman Missal) owes much of its origins to Americanism's penchant for "action" and immersion in the naturalistic activities of the world.

As has been noted so frequently on this site, the whole of Catholic teaching about the proper relationship between the true Church and the civil state is summarized succinctly by Pope Saint Pius X in Paragraph Three of Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, which emphasized the immutable truth that the civil state has a responsibility to help to foster those conditions in which its citizens could save their souls. In other words, those at the helm of civil authority have the responsibility to pursue the common temporal good in light of First and Last Things:

 

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error." (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

 

Does anyone in his right mind and who is possessed of an iota of true intellectual honesty want to assert that the Protestants and Freemasons and Deists and naturalists who founded the United States of America believed one blessed word of this? And it does not matter that they could not be expected to believe in one blessed word of this because they were Protestants and Freemasons and Deists and other assorted naturalists. False ideas are never redeemed by the "good intentions" or the ignorance of those who possess them. We must oppose false ideas and point out how those false ideas have manifested their inherent degeneracy more perfectly over the course of the past 232 years.

Does doing so make one "un-American" or even "anti-American"? By no means! This land was Catholic before it was Protestant and Judeo-Masonic. To be a truly good American, a truly good patriot, is to will the good of his country, the ultimate expression of which is her Catholicization in every single aspect of her political and social lives without any exception whatsoever.

Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. Period. End of argument. A nation not founded on right principles is bound to degenerate over the course of time into the situation which we face at the present moment, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error.

 

Many of the founders of the United States of America hated the Church that the Word Incarnate Himself founded on the Rock of Peter, the Pope. What do you want to follow? The immutable Social Teaching of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's true Church or the "insights" of these egregious enemies of the Catholic Faith and thus of all social order itself?

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion? (John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821)

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! (John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, quoted in 200 Years of Disbelief, by James Hauck)

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."—James Madison, letter to William Bradford, Jr„ April I, 1774

". . . Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which pervades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest."—James Madison, spoken at the Virginia convention on ratification of the Constitution, June 1778

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."—-James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance," addressed to the Virginia General Assembly, 1785

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December, 1813.)

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Roger Weigthman, June 24, 1826, ten days before Jefferson's death.)

 

It is once again useful to point out that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ must reign as the King of men and of their nations. Holy Mother Church does not expect the impossible from her children. She will let them make necessary accommodations to the pragmatic, concrete realities in which they find themselves. She does insist, however, that her children know her immutable Social Teaching and to pray and to work for its realization in their own homes and in their own nations.

The lie of Americanism is the lie of Martin Luther and Judeo-Masonry all rolled into one, that is, the lie that the true Church must not be recognized by the civil state as its official religion. This is false, as I quoted Pope Saint Pius X's firm declaration in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, to this effect endless numbers of times on this site. This lie was also exploded by the late Louis-Edouard-François-Desiré Cardinal Pie, as can be see in this passage from Selected Writings of Cardinal Pie of Poitiers (which is available from Mr. Hugh Akin's Catholic Action Resource Center):

"If Jesus Christ," proclaims Msgr. Pie in a magnificent pastoral instruction, "if Jesus Christ Who is our light whereby we are drawn out of the seat of darkness and from the shadow of death, and Who has given to the world the treasure of truth and grace, if He has not enriched the world, I mean to say the social and political world itself, from the great evils which prevail in the heart of paganism, then it is to say that the work of Jesus Christ is not a divine work. Even more so: if the Gospel which would save men is incapable of procuring the actual progress of peoples, if the revealed light which is profitable to individuals is detrimental to society at large, if the scepter of Christ, sweet and beneficial to souls, and perhaps to families, is harmful and unacceptable for cities and empires; in other words, if Jesus Christ to whom the Prophets had promised and to Whom His Father had given the nations as a heritage, is not able to exercise His authority over them for it would be to their detriment and temporal disadvantage, it would have to be concluded that Jesus Christ is not God". . . .

"To say Jesus Christ is the God of individuals and of families, but not the God of peoples and of societies, is to say that He is not God. To say that Christianity is the law of individual man and is not the law of collective man, is to say that Christianity is not divine. To say that the Church is the judge of private morality, but has nothing to do with public and political morality, is to say that the Church is not divine."

In fine, Cardinal Pie insists:

"Christianity would not be divine if it were to have existence within individuals but not with regard to societies."

Fr. de St. Just asks, in conclusion:

"Could it be proven in clearer terms that social atheism conduces to individualistic atheism?"

Moving ahead several pages in Fr. de St. Just's The Kingship of Christ According to Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, we continue with Msgr. Pie's observations:

"There is no more public morality, no more justice, you will say. These results astonish you; it should have been easy to predict. Isn't this as a pagan saying has it, that it would be easier to build a city in the air than to have a society without God. Isn't this what the Roman orator [Cicero] had said, that the stability of commerce and the greatest of virtues, which in justice, would be undermined along with loss of respect for a strong faith in the divinity? Hasn't the Holy Ghost declared in the most energetic language that when impious men rule men can expect nothing other than ruin: 'When the wicked shall bear rule, the people shall mourn' (Prov. 9: 2)

"You add: all is going, all is in decline. And still you are astonished again, this should have been easy to foresee ... Because the legislation has made a profession of neutrality and of abstention concerning the existence of God, upon what foundation will its proper authority be established? In permitting me to not acknowledge God, am I not authorized to belittle God Himself? We have not elected to place dogma in the law, you tell me. And I reply: if the dogma of the existence of God i snot found in the law, then the law is no longer so in the true sense of the word, it is nothing but a pipedream." (pp. 50-53, 63).

"Neither in His Person," Card, Pie said in a celebrated pastoral instruction, "nor in the exercise of His rights, can Jesus Christ be divided, dissolved, split up; in Him the distinction of natures and operations can never be separated or opposed; the divine cannot be incompatible to the human, nor the human to the divine. On the contrary, it is the peace, the drawing together, the reconciliation; it is the very character of union which has made the two things one: 'He is our peace, Who hat made both one. . .'  (Eph. 2:14). This is why St. John told us: 'every spirit that dissolveth Jesus is not of God. And this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh: and is now already in the world' (1 John 4:3; cf. also 1 John 2:18, 22; 2 John: 7). "So then, Card. Pie continues, "when I hear certain talk being spread around, certain pithy statements (i.e., 'Separation of Church and State,' for one, and the enigmatic axiom 'A free Church in a free State,' for another) prevailing from day to day, and which are being introduced into the heart of societies, the dissolvent by which the world must perish, I utter this cry of alarm: Beware the Antichrist."

Fr. de St. Just adds:

"Accordingly, the Bishop of Poitiers had always fought against THE SEPARATION OF Church and State. Moreover, he opposed all separations, that of reason and faith, of nature and grace, of natural religion and revealed religion, the separation of the philosopher and the Christian, of private man and public man. He saw in all these [separations] a resurgence of Manichean dualism and he had fought all these with, the supreme argument, the law formed by Christ. Therefore, it is in all truth, writing to [Minister of the Interior] the Count of Presigny, that he could render this testimony:

'We have nothing in common with the theorists of disunion and opposition of two orders, temporal and spiritual, natural and supernatural. We struggle, on the contrary, with all our strength against these doctrines of separation which is leading to the denial of religion itself and of revealed religion.'"

Fr. de St. Just returns at this point and introduces us to what is perhaps Msgr. Pie's strongest language, with regard to this entire subject:

"To this doctrine of the Church, which Msgr. Pie brought to the mind of the rulers of nations, the liberals would oppose acts favoring separation.

"Certain countries, Belgium and America, for example, haven't they proclaimed the separation of Church and State, and doesn't the Church enjoy a more complete liberty under such a system?"

Cardinal Pie responded firmly to this question:

'THE AMERICAN AND BELGIUM SYSTEM, this system of philosophical-political indifference, shall eternally be a bastard system" (pp. 122-124 in Fr. de St. Just's book) (Selected Writings of Selected Writings of Cardinal Pie of Poitiers, Catholic Action Resource Center, Orlando, Florida, October, 2007, pp. 21-23.)

 

Anyone, no matter where they fall across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide, who defends the rights of Christ the King and who speaks of the Masonic premises at work in the principles of the American founding must be praised for doing so, not criticized. Such a person understands the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church perfectly, a social teaching that Joseph Ratzinger himself denied in the very presence of the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre on July 14, 1987.

Under pressure, Rome gave in. On July 14 [1987], Cardinal Ratzinger received Archbishop Lefebvre at the Holy Office. At first the Cardinal persisted in arguing that "the State is incompetent in religious matters."

"But the State must have an ultimate and eternal end," replied the Archbishop.

"Your Grace, that is the case for the Church, not the State. By itself the State does not know."

Archbishop Lefebvre was distraught: a Cardinal and Prefect of the Holy Office wanted to show him that the State can have no religion and cannot prevent the spread of error. However, before talking about concessions, the Cardinal made a threat: the consequence of an illicit episcopal consecration would be "schism and excommunication."

"Schism?" retorted the Archbishop. "If there is a schism, it is because of what the Vatican did at Assisi and how you replied to our Dubiae: the Church is breaking with the traditional Magisterium. But the Church against her past and her Tradition is not the Catholic Church; this is why being excommunicated by a liberal, ecumenical, and revolutionary Church is a matter of indifference to us."

As this tirade ended, Joseph Ratzinger gave in: "Let us find a practical solution. Make a moderate declaration on the Council and the new missal a bit like the one that Jean Guitton has suggested to you. Then, we would give you a bishop for ordinations, we could work out an arrangement with the diocesan bishops, and you could continue as you are doing. As for a Cardinal Protector, and make your suggestions."

How did Marcel Lefebvre not jump for joy? Rome was giving in! But his penetrating faith went to the very heart of the Cardinal's rejection of doctrine. He said to himself: "So, must Jesus no longer reign? Is Jesus no longer God? Rome has lost the Faith. Rome is in apostasy. We can no longer trust this lot!" To the Cardinal, he said:

"Eminence, even if you give us everything--a bishop, some autonomy from the bishops, the 1962 liturgy, allow us to continue our seminaries--we cannot work together because we are going in different directions. You are working to dechristianize society and the Church, and we are working to Christianize them.

"For us, our Lord Jesus Christ is everything. He is our life. The Church is our Lord Jesus Christ; the priest is another Christ; the Mass is the triumph of Jesus Christ on the cross; in our seminaries everything tends towards the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. But you! You are doing the opposite: you have just wanted to prove to me that our Lord Jesus Christ cannot, and must not, reign over society.

Recounting this incident, the Archbishop described the Cardinal's attitude" "Motionless, he looked at me, his eyes expressionless, as if I had just suggested something incomprehensible or unheard of." Then Ratzinger tried to argue that "the Church can still say whatever she wants to the State," while Lefebvre, the intuitive master of Catholic metaphysics, did not lose sight of the true end of human societies: the Reign of Christ." Fr. de Tinguy hit the nail on the head when he said of Marcel Lefebvre: "His faith defies those who love theological quibbles." (His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, The Biography of Marcel Lefebvre, Kansas City, Missouri: Angelus Press, 2004, pp. 547-548.)

 

Leaving aside the fact that the late Archbishop did not accept the fact that he was dealing with a man who represented a counterfeit church that was and remains an ape of the Catholic Church, he did defend the Social Reign of Christ the King in front of a man, Ratzinger, who does not believe that the civil state has any obligation to recognize the true Church and to accord her, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Longiqua Oceani, the "favor and the protection of the laws." We defend Christ the King, not the false principles used by Protestants and Freemasons and Deists and other assorted naturalists.

Father Frederick Faber, writing in The Precious Blood, explained the logic of the naturalism at work in the world in his day, a naturalism that is at the very heart of the American founding (please read Dr. John C. Rao's Founding Fathers vs. Church Fathers: 666-0 to disabuse yourself of any notion that the founders were influenced in some fashion or another by the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas or Saint Robert Bellarmine):

Moreover, a devotion to the Sacraments is very needful for the times in which we live. The spirit of the age must necessarily affect both our theology and our asceticism. Under its depressing constraints we shall be tempted to sacrifice the supernatural to the natural, the passive to the active, and the infused to the acquired. Theology will be allured to merge into metaphysics. Devotion will be considered a vocation, priests a caste, and theology a private professional training. The substance of the old Condemned Propositions about spiritual direction will be adroitly renewed. Men will sneer at perfection in the world. Education will be bidden to throw off what it will be taught to consider the last relics of its monastic trammels. Men will chafe at the condemnation of books, and indeed at all acts of intellectual authority on the part of the Church. The study of dogmatics will be discouraged. The whole theory of Condemned Propositions will be disliked. A discontent with the existing Church, or at least a want of cordial forward sympathy with it, will grow up, while the wickedness of the "respectful silence" of Jansenism will be renewed. The sovereignty of the Church, the pope's temporal power, and the hallowed truths enshrined in canon law, will provoke impatience as obstinate things which will not die although their hour of death has come. The mystical side of the Gospel will become more distasteful while it grows less intelligible. Heroism will have to rank lower than the ordinary attainments of conscientious piety. The privileges of the Church will be less esteemed, and heresy less hated. The Sacraments will count for almost nothing in a man's system. The influence of the Incarnation will be far less recognized and acknowledged in the world; and a modern mixture of Judaism and Pelagianism will take possession of many minds, to the grievous disadvantage of Christian perfection. Such is the spirit which will try to waylay souls on their road to Calvary or to Thabor. Such was not the temper or the genius of the saints. Such, by the blessing of God, will not be ours, if we foster in ourselves a deep, a tender, and an intelligent devotion to the Sacraments. I repeat, as I said before, that, in an ascetical point of view, I hardly know any thing upon which I should lay greater stress in these days, than a fervent devotion to the Sacraments. (Father Frederick Faber, The Precious Blood, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 121-222.)

 

The anti-Incarnational bias of the American founding is both Judaic and Pelagian. Father Faber saw this dangerous admixture so clearly. It is time that Americanists quit their wretched heresy once and for all and recognize that a nation that makes no place for Christ the King in its founding documents and its public life is in the grip of the devil himself. And Pope Leo XIII saw precisely where the Americanist ethos was going to lead if it was left unchecked:

But if this [the term Americanism] is to be so understood that the doctrines which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn it as being most injurious to themselves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world. (Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899.)

 

That "church" does indeed exist in the rest of the world at the present time: it is the counterfeit church of conciliarism, presaged by the abject lie of Americanism.

 

As I wrote nearly two months ago now:

Praying our Rosaries, therefore, for the day that there will be a Catholic States of America, let us ask Our Lady of Guadalupe to help us exclaim with all of our hearts at all times Viva Cristo Rey! as we remind one and all that Catholicism--and nothing else--is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. And may Saint Joseph, the Patron of the Universal Church and the Protector of the Faithful, help us to cleave to true bishops and true priests in the Catholic catacombs where no concessions are made to any of the errors and apostasies of conciliarism, including Americanism, or to the nonexistent legitimacy of the shepherds who prefer the "wisdom" of Protestants and Masons to the truths of the Catholic Church.

 

Let us give all of our efforts to restore all things in Christ the King to His Most Sacred Heart through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, being always conscious to make sincere reparation for our sins and those of the whole world, making sure to fulfill Our Lady's Fatima Message in our own daily lives.

By the way, today is the First Saturday in the month of the Most Sacred Heart, June. Shouldn't we pray some extra Rosaries today in reparation for the sins against the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen committed by those who want to subordinate the Catholic Faith to the false, naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian beliefs of men who hated the Catholic Church?

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

See also: A Litany of Saints