Contradictors Contradicting Each Other as They Contradict the Faith

by Thomas A. Droleskey

More than one commentator has noted that there is far from unanimity on matters of Liturgy and the application of moral and canonical principles in this time of apostasy and betrayal amongst true bishops and true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism and who reject, completely and utterly, the nonexistent legitimacy of the conciliar "pontiffs" and "bishops." This is true. Such divisions do indeed exist. Such divisions are the result of the fact that we do not have a true Holy Father to guide us and to command fealty to his decrees as the Visible Head of the Catholic Church on earth. The shepherd has been stricken and the sheep have been scattered.

This is not a new phenomenon in the history of the Church. Disagreements took place amongst those who opposed Arianism prior to and after the Council of Nicea, which took place in the year 325 A.D. Some wanted to exercise leniency on those who gone over to Arianism. Others wanted there to be more discipline imposed upon Catholics who had embraced this early heresy. Some of the Catholics in England who remained faithful to the Church following the breaks from Rome effected by King Henry VIII in 1534 and by his daughter Queen Elizabeth I in 1559 were often spending more time fighting each other than they were opposing the Anglican heretics and schismatics. The same was true of some of the Cristeros in Mexico in the early part of Twentieth Century. Nothing other than fallen human nature is responsible for dividing faithful Catholics in times of crises and persecutions.

It was about one hundred years before the Council of Nicea that Saint Hippolytus had himself proclaimed a pope in the early Third Century because he believed in the Novatian heresy, refusing absolution to those who had worshiped idols or who had eat meat offered to idols (or who had committed various Mortal Sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments), opposing the true pope, Saint Pontian, until the two were reconciled when they met in exile on the island of Sardinia, having been banished there by the Roman authorities. A genuine, honest-to-goodness antipope can be a saint if he gives up his life for the Faith after having abjured his errors, which Hippolytus had done. The standard of what makes a Catholic in good standing with the Church is not his degree of personal piety or even the large preponderance of doctrines with which he agrees. One must be in full communion with a legitimate Roman Pontiff and must submit to everything taught by the Catholic Church as it has been taught and understood over the centuries without one iota of dissent. Pope Leo XIII made this abundantly clear in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896 (see also: See also His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn's Opinionism and Father Anthony Cekada's The Errors of the Society of St Pius X.):

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

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

The need of this divinely instituted means for the preservation of unity, about which we speak is urged by St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians. In this he first admonishes them to preserve with every care concord of minds: "Solicitous to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. iv., 3, et seq.). And as souls cannot be perfectly united in charity unless minds agree in faith, he wishes all to hold the same faith: "One Lord, one faith," and this so perfectly one as to prevent all danger of error: "that henceforth we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive" (Eph. iv., 14): and this he teaches is to be observed, not for a time only - "but until we all meet in the unity of faith...unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ" (13). But, in what has Christ placed the primary principle, and the means of preserving this unity? In that - "He gave some Apostles - and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (11-12).

Wherefore, from the very earliest times the fathers and doctors of the Church have been accustomed to follow and, with one accord to defend this rule. Origen writes: "As often as the heretics allege the possession of the canonical scriptures, to which all Christians give unanimous assent, they seem to say: 'Behold the word of truth is in the houses.' But we should believe them not and abandon not the primary and ecclesiastical tradition. We should believe not otherwise than has been handed down by the tradition of the Church of God" (Vetus Interpretatio Commentariorum in Matt. n. 46). Irenaeus too says: "The doctrine of the Apostles is the true faith...which is known to us through the Episcopal succession...which has reached even unto our age by the very fact that the Scriptures have been zealously guarded and fully interpreted" (Contra Haereses, lib. iv., cap. 33, n. 8). And Tertullian: "It is therefore clear that all doctrine which agrees with that of the Apostolic churches - the matrices and original centres of the faith, must be looked upon as the truth, holding without hesitation that the Church received it from the Apostles, the Apostles from Christ and Christ from God....We are in communion with the Apostolic churches, and by the very fact that they agree amongst themselves we have a testimony of the truth" (De Praescrip., cap. xxxi). And so Hilary: "Christ teaching from the ship signifies that those who are outside the Church can never grasp the divine teaching; for the ship typifies the Church where the word of life is deposited and preached. Those who are outside are like sterile and worthless sand: they cannot comprehend" (Comment. in Matt. xiii., n. 1). Rufinus praises Gregory of Nazianzum and Basil because "they studied the text of Holy Scripture alone, and took the interpretation of its meaning not from their own inner consciousness, but from the writings and on the authority of the ancients, who in their turn, as it is clear, took their rule for understanding the meaning from the Apostolic succession" (Hist. Eccl., lib. ii., cap. 9).

Wherefore, as appears from what has been said, Christ instituted in the Church a living, authoritative and permanent Magisterium, which by His own power He strengthened, by the Spirit of truth He taught, and by miracles confirmed. He willed and ordered, under the gravest penalties, that its teachings should be received as if they were His own. As often, therefore, as it is declared on the authority of this teaching that this or that is contained in the deposit of divine revelation, it must be believed by every one as true. If it could in any way be false, an evident contradiction follows; for then God Himself would be the author of error in man. "Lord, if we be in error, we are being deceived by Thee" (Richardus de S. Victore, De Trin., lib. i., cap. 2). In this wise, all cause for doubting being removed, can it be lawful for anyone to reject any one of those truths without by the very fact falling into heresy? without separating himself from the Church? - without repudiating in one sweeping act the whole of Christian teaching? For such is the nature of faith that nothing can be more absurd than to accept some things and reject others. Faith, as the Church teaches, is "that supernatural virtue by which, through the help of God and through the assistance of His grace, we believe what he has revealed to be true, not on account of the intrinsic truth perceived by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Himself, the Revealer, who can neither deceive nor be deceived" (Conc. Vat., Sess. iii., cap. 3). If then it be certain that anything is revealed by God, and this is not believed, then nothing whatever is believed by divine Faith: for what the Apostle St. James judges to be the effect of a moral delinquency, the same is to be said of an erroneous opinion in the matter of faith. "Whosoever shall offend in one point, is become guilty of all" (Ep. James ii., 10). Nay, it applies with greater force to an erroneous opinion. For it can be said with less truth that every law is violated by one who commits a single sin, since it may be that he only virtually despises the majesty of God the Legislator. But he who dissents even in one point from divinely revealed truth absolutely rejects all faith, since he thereby refuses to honour God as the supreme truth and the formal motive of faith. "In many things they are with me, in a few things not with me; but in those few things in which they are not with me the many things in which they are will not profit them" (S. Augustinus in Psal. liv., n. 19). And this indeed most deservedly; for they, who take from Christian doctrine what they please, lean on their own judgments, not on faith; and not "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. x., 5), they more truly obey themselves than God. "You, who believe what you like, believe yourselves rather than the gospel" (S. Augustinus, lib. xvii., Contra Faustum Manichaeum, cap. 3).

For this reason the Fathers of the Vatican Council laid down nothing new, but followed divine revelation and the acknowledged and invariable teaching of the Church as to the very nature of faith, when they decreed as follows: "All those things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written or unwritten word of God, and which are proposed by the Church as divinely revealed, either by a solemn definition or in the exercise of its ordinary and universal Magisterium" (Sess. iii., cap. 3). Hence, as it is clear that God absolutely willed that there should be unity in His Church, and as it is evident what kind of unity He willed, and by means of what principle He ordained that this unity should be maintained, we may address the following words of St. Augustine to all who have not deliberately closed their minds to the truth: "When we see the great help of God, such manifest progress and such abundant fruit, shall we hesitate to take refuge in the bosom of that Church, which, as is evident to all, possesses the supreme authority of the Apostolic See through the Episcopal succession? In vain do heretics rage round it; they are condemned partly by the judgment of the people themselves, partly by the weight of councils, partly by the splendid evidence of miracles. To refuse to the Church the primacy is most impious and above measure arrogant. And if all learning, no matter how easy and common it may be, in order to be fully understood requires a teacher and master, what can be greater evidence of pride and rashness than to be unwilling to learn about the books of the divine mysteries from the proper interpreter, and to wish to condemn them unknown?" (De Unitate Credendi, cap. xvii., n. 35).

 

Despite the disagreements in some fully traditional circles where no concessions are made to conciliarism whatsoever over matters of liturgy, which revolve principally around which particular Missal to use for the celebration of Holy Mass (that of Pope Saint Pius X or that in place at the the death of Pope Pius XII) and on the application of moral and canonical principles in concrete circumstances, one will find amongst the fully traditional clergy a unanimity when it comes to the absolute and unswerving rejection of the principal defections from the Faith represented by conciliarism (the rejection of the nature of dogmatic truth, the new ecclesiology, the harmful nature of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service, false ecumenism and inter-religious "dialogue," religious liberty, episcopal collegiality, separation of the Church and State), as well as documenting and commenting upon various manifestations of these defections from the Faith exhibited by the false "pontiffs" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. There is an absolute and complete unity amongst the traditional clergy, yes, even among those who do not speak to and/or disparage the work of others in the Catholic catacombs, who make no concessions to conciliarism at all, in rejecting the conciliar revolution against the Catholic Faith.

(For superb analyses of the "new ecclesiology," see Bishop Donald Sanborn's The New Ecclesiology: An Overview, The New Ecclesiology: Documentation, and Ratzinger's Subsistent Error. The contradiction and rupture represented by Joseph Ratzinger's own rejection of the "theology of return" was discussed on this site a week ago today in Conciliarism's Sacred Duty.)

The revolutionaries within the counterfeit church of conciliarism, however, cannot agree amongst themselves as to the nature of their revolution against the  Catholic Faith, arguing amongst themselves as to whether conciliarism represents a rupture from the Faith, which it does, or whether one can see "continuity in discontinuity," which is Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's own Hegelian way of reconciling actual contradictions of the teaching of the Catholic Church with that of his counterfeit church by stating that the true popes of the past only saw a certain aspect of the truth at a given point in time and that other aspects become "clearer" as time passes and the "needs" of "modern man" dictate adjustment to past judgments. In either case, therefore, one is dealing with Modernists who contradict the Faith as they contradict each other about the method by which they have contradicted the Faith.

A recent article by Sandro Magister for Chiesa, an Italian journal that reports about conciliar activities, reveals this amazing conflict amongst these Modernist revolutionaries, which is somewhat akin to the conflicts that exist this day within and among various ideological camps (conservatives, libertarians, socialists, Communists, feminists, environmentalists, utilitarians, liberals, positivists, et al. all have their various internicene factions that make war upon each other as much as they make war the other ideologies). Indeed, conflicts exist even with the ranks of Zionism and Judeo-Masonry from time to time on various issues and on which particular group (say, York Rite as opposed to the Scottish Rite in Freemasonry) is the "true believer." Protestantism itself, denying the authority of a universal, visible, hierarchical Church founded by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, has given rise to over 33,000 sects in the past 490 years. One could not possibly even begin to count the number of factions within these sects. Revolutions do breed factionalism over which revolutionary group is most faithful to the particular revolutionary issues for which the revolution was instituted to effect.

The article by Sandro Magister goes into a good deal of a tedious detail about which school of conciliar revolutionary thought is correct, the "rupture" school (called the Bologna School) or the Ratzinger school ("the continuity in discontinuity" school). This is just so much sophistry among apostates, finding Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's December 22, 2005, address as the basis for this debate amongst themselves.

If you will recall, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI address his the members of the curia of the counterfeit church of conciliarism on December 22, 2005. Apart from blaspheming the martyrs of the first centuries of the Church by daring to claim that they were martyrs for conciliarism's heresy of "religious liberty," Ratzinger/Benedict gave his "papal" seal of approval, if you will, to his long-held and oft-stated view that our understanding of dogmatic truth "changes," a completely and purely Modernist contention that was condemned by the [First] Vatican Council and by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, and in the Oath Against Modernism that Father Joseph Ratzinger had to take several times before he was ordained to the priesthood on June 29, 1950.

This is what Ratzinger/Benedict said on December 22, 2005:

The hermeneutic of discontinuity is countered by the hermeneutic of reform, as it was presented first by Pope John XXIII in his Speech inaugurating the Council on 11 October 1962 and later by Pope Paul VI in his Discourse for the Council's conclusion on 7 December 1965.

Here I shall cite only John XXIII's well-known words, which unequivocally express this hermeneutic when he says that the Council wishes "to transmit the doctrine, pure and integral, without any attenuation or distortion". And he continues:  "Our duty is not only to guard this precious treasure, as if we were concerned only with antiquity, but to dedicate ourselves with an earnest will and without fear to that work which our era demands of us...". It is necessary that "adherence to all the teaching of the Church in its entirety and preciseness..." be presented in "faithful and perfect conformity to the authentic doctrine, which, however, should be studied and expounded through the methods of research and through the literary forms of modern thought. The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another...", retaining the same meaning and message (The Documents of Vatican II, Walter M. Abbott, S.J., p. 715).

It is clear that this commitment to expressing a specific truth in a new way demands new thinking on this truth and a new and vital relationship with it; it is also clear that new words can only develop if they come from an informed understanding of the truth expressed, and on the other hand, that a reflection on faith also requires that this faith be lived. In this regard, the programme that Pope John XXIII proposed was extremely demanding, indeed, just as the synthesis of fidelity and dynamic is demanding.

However, wherever this interpretation guided the implementation of the Council, new life developed and new fruit ripened. Forty years after the Council, we can show that the positive is far greater and livelier than it appeared to be in the turbulent years around 1968. Today, we see that although the good seed developed slowly, it is nonetheless growing; and our deep gratitude for the work done by the Council is likewise growing.

In his Discourse closing the Council, Paul VI pointed out a further specific reason why a hermeneutic of discontinuity can seem convincing.

In the great dispute about man which marks the modern epoch, the Council had to focus in particular on the theme of anthropology. It had to question the relationship between the Church and her faith on the one hand, and man and the contemporary world on the other (cf. ibid.). The question becomes even clearer if, instead of the generic term "contemporary world", we opt for another that is more precise:  the Council had to determine in a new way the relationship between the Church and the modern era. . . .

Secondly, it was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.

Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.

These are all subjects of great importance - they were the great themes of the second part of the Council - on which it is impossible to reflect more broadly in this context. It is clear that in all these sectors, which all together form a single problem, some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned. It is easy to miss this fact at a first glance.

It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.

On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change.

 

This is just pure Modernism, representing in and of itself a rupture with the Catholic Faith. This excerpt from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's December 22, 2005, is merely a reiteration of what he has always believed as a faithful student of the "new theologians" whose work was critiqued and condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. The last paragraph quoted immediate above an almost word-for-word embrace by one who considers himself to be a true Successor of Saint Peter of principles that were evaluated and condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907:

Hence it is quite impossible to maintain that they absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion

It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: "These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts." On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason"; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth." Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: "Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation."

 

Leaving aside Ratzinger's incredibly apostate assertion that the crimes of the Third Reich required a new way to "evaluate and define" "the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel," meaning, of course, that what was good for Saint Peter in seeking the unconditional conversion of Jews is no longer "valid" because of recent historical developments (which conditions the entire missionary work of the Church according to variables of history rather than basing that work solely on the injunction given the Eleven by the Divine Redeemer before He ascended to the Father's right hand in glory on Ascension Thursday), for another time, it should be clear that Joseph Ratzinger believes in the very embodiment of that which was condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis and was also roundly condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis:

Moreover they assert that when Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition, a way will be found to satisfy modern needs, that will permit of dogma being expressed also by the concepts of modern philosophy, whether of immanentism or idealism or existentialism or any other system. Some more audacious affirm that this can and must be done, because they hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. They add that the history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that have arisen over the course of the centuries.

It is evident from what We have already said, that such tentatives not only lead to what they call dogmatic relativism, but that they actually contain it. The contempt of doctrine commonly taught and of the terms in which it is expressed strongly favor it. Everyone is aware that the terminology employed in the schools and even that used by the Teaching Authority of the Church itself is capable of being perfected and polished; and we know also that the Church itself has not always used the same terms in the same way. It is also manifest that the Church cannot be bound to every system of philosophy that has existed for a short space of time. Nevertheless, the things that have been composed through common effort by Catholic teachers over the course of the centuries to bring about some understanding of dogma are certainly not based on any such weak foundation. These things are based on principles and notions deduced from a true knowledge of created things. In the process of deducing, this knowledge, like a star, gave enlightenment to the human mind through the Church. Hence it is not astonishing that some of these notions have not only been used by the Oecumenical Councils, but even sanctioned by them, so that it is wrong to depart from them.

Hence to neglect, or to reject, or to devalue so many and such great resources which have been conceived, expressed and perfected so often by the age-old work of men endowed with no common talent and holiness, working under the vigilant supervision of the holy magisterium and with the light and leadership of the Holy Ghost in order to state the truths of the faith ever more accurately, to do this so that these things may be replaced by conjectural notions and by some formless and unstable tenets of a new philosophy, tenets which, like the flowers of the field, are in existence today and die tomorrow; this is supreme imprudence and something that would make dogma itself a reed shaken by the wind. The contempt for terms and notions habitually used by scholastic theologians leads of itself to the weakening of what they call speculative theology, a discipline which these men consider devoid of true certitude because it is based on theological reasoning.

 

Pope Pius XII explained further that the very encyclical letters that the "new theologians (the neo-Modernists, if you will) believed did not bind the faithful are indeed binding as they represent but simple reiterations of the teaching of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church and are thus covered by the mantle of infallibility. They are irreformable. They are immutable:

Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: "He who heareth you, heareth me"; and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians.

 

Confining myself in this particular commentary to my own area of particular expertise in Catholic Social Teaching, it is quite plain that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI rejects the immutable nature of the Catholic teaching that the civil state must recognize the Catholic Church as the true religion and to accord her the favor and the protection of the laws. He believes in a direct and absolute contradiction of these irreformable reiteration of Catholic teaching made by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906:

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

 

This reiteration of the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church cannot be "re-thought." It is what it is. It is immutable. While the Church may have to make various concessions to the reality of the modern civil state and adapt herself as best she can so that he can continue her work in behalf of the salvation of souls, she never stops preaching the ideal nature of Church-State relations and she never makes any concession in principle to the false, naturalistic, religiously indifferentist and anti-Incarnational premises of the modern civil state. The scions counterfeit church of conciliarism, exemplified by Joseph Ratzinger himself, believe that such concessions are absolutely necessary and represent an "adjustment" to reflect changes in historical conditions. This is not Catholicism. This is Hegelianism with the gratuitous assertion of a "Catholic" gloss. The Catholic Church must and will always proclaim the Social Reign of Christ the King.

The contradiction and the rupture represented by conciliarism's approach to religious liberty and the separation of Church and State stands condemned by Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, and by Pope Pius XII in Ad Apostolorum Principis, June 29, 1958:

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.

It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements which We have made; it is no less necessary to reawaken that spirit of faith, of supernatural love, and of Christian discipline which alone can bring to these principles correct understanding, and can lead to their observance. This is particularly important in the case of youth, and especially those who aspire to the priesthood, so that in the almost universal confusion in which we live they at least, as the Apostle writes, will not be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians iv, 14) (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Assuming false and unjust premises, they are not afraid to take a position which would confine within a narrow scope the supreme teaching authority of the Church, claiming that there are certain questions -- such as those which concern social and economic matters -- in which Catholics may ignore the teachings and the directives of this Apostolic See.

This opinion -- it seems entirely unnecessary to demonstrate its existence -- is utterly false and full of error because, as We declared a few years ago to a special meeting of Our Venerable Brethren in the episcopacy:

"The power of the Church is in no sense limited to so-called 'strictly religious matters'; but the whole matter of the natural law, its institution, interpretation and application, in so far as the moral aspect is concerned, are within its power.

"By God's appointment the observance of the natural law concerns the way by which man must strive toward his supernatural end. The Church shows the way and is the guide and guardian of men with respect to their supernatural end."

This truth had already been wisely explained by Our Predecessor St. Pius X in his Encyclical Letter Singulari quadam of September 24, 1912, in which he made this statement: "All actions of a Christian man so far as they are morally either good or bad -- that is, so far as they agree with or are contrary to the natural and divine law -- fall under the judgment and jurisdiction of the Church."

Moreover, even when those who arbitrarily set and defend these narrow limits profess a desire to obey the Roman Pontiff with regard to truths to be believed, and to observe what they call ecclesiastical directives, they proceed with such boldness that they refuse to obey the precise and definite prescriptions of the Holy See. They protest that these refer to political affairs because of a hidden meaning by the author, as if these prescriptions took their origin from some secret conspiracy against their own nation. (Pope Pius XII, Ad Apostolorum Principis, June 29, 1958.)

 

Conciliarism's embrace of "democracy," albeit a "democracy with values," as the only legitimate form of government to assure the "dignity of man," providing that "human freedom" be respected and ethical relativism be rejected, is itself a contradiction and rupture from Pope Saint Pius X's reiteration of Catholic teaching in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, an encyclical that condemned the philosophy of the Sillon France, a philosophy that presaged conciliarism's own approach to society:

 

Teaching such doctrines, and applying them to its internal organization, the Sillon, therefore, sows erroneous and fatal notions on authority, liberty and obedience, among your Catholic youth. The same is true of justice and equality; the Sillon says that it is striving to establish an era of equality which, by that very fact, would be also an era of greater justice. Thus, to the Sillon, every inequality of condition is an injustice, or at least, a diminution of justice? Here we have a principle that conflicts sharply with the nature of things, a principle conducive to jealously, injustice, and subversive to any social order. Thus, Democracy alone will bring about the reign of perfect justice! Is this not an insult to other forms of government which are thereby debased to the level of sterile makeshifts? Besides, the Sillonists once again clash on this point with the teaching of Leo XIII. In the Encyclical on political government which We have already quoted, they could have read this: “Justice being preserved, it is not forbidden to the people to choose for themselves the form of government which best corresponds with their character or with the institutions and customs handed down by their forefathers.”

And the Encyclical alludes to the three well-known forms of government, thus implying that justice is compatible with any of them. And does not the Encyclical on the condition of the working class state clearly that justice can be restored within the existing social set-up - since it indicates the means of doing so? Undoubtedly, Leo XIII did not mean to speak of some form of justice, but of perfect justice. Therefore, when he said that justice could be found in any of the three aforesaid forms of government, he was teaching that in this respect Democracy does not enjoy a special privilege. The Sillonists who maintain the opposite view, either turn a deaf ear to the teaching of the Church or form for themselves an idea of justice and equality which is not Catholic.

The same applies to the notion of Fraternity which they found on the love of common interest or, beyond all philosophies and religions, on the mere notion of humanity, thus embracing with an equal love and tolerance all human beings and their miseries, whether these are intellectual, moral, or physical and temporal. But Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged, but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being. Catholic doctrine further tells us that love for our neighbor flows from our love for God, Who is Father to all, and goal of the whole human family; and in Jesus Christ whose members we are, to the point that in doing good to others we are doing good to Jesus Christ Himself. Any other kind of love is sheer illusion, sterile and fleeting.

Indeed, we have the human experience of pagan and secular societies of ages past to show that concern for common interests or affinities of nature weigh very little against the passions and wild desires of the heart. No, Venerable Brethren, there is no genuine fraternity outside Christian charity. Through the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ Our Saviour, Christian charity embraces all men, comforts all, and leads all to the same faith and same heavenly happiness.

By separating fraternity from Christian charity thus understood, Democracy, far from being a progress, would mean a disastrous step backwards for civilization. If, as We desire with all Our heart, the highest possible peak of well being for society and its members is to be attained through fraternity or, as it is also called, universal solidarity, all minds must be united in the knowledge of Truth, all wills united in morality, and all hearts in the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ. But this union is attainable only by Catholic charity, and that is why Catholic charity alone can lead the people in the march of progress towards the ideal civilization.

Finally, at the root of all their fallacies on social questions, lie the false hopes of Sillonists on human dignity. According to them, Man will be a man truly worthy of the name only when he has acquired a strong, enlightened, and independent consciousness, able to do without a master, obeying only himself, and able to assume the most demanding responsibilities without faltering. Such are the big words by which human pride is exalted, like a dream carrying Man away without light, without guidance, and without help into the realm of illusion in which he will be destroyed by his errors and passions whilst awaiting the glorious day of his full consciousness. And that great day, when will it come? Unless human nature can be changed, which is not within the power of the Sillonists, will that day ever come? Did the Saints who brought human dignity to its highest point, possess that kind of dignity? And what of the lowly of this earth who are unable to raise so high but are content to plow their furrow modestly at the level where Providence placed them? They who are diligently discharging their duties with Christian humility, obedience, and patience, are they not also worthy of being called men? Will not Our Lord take them one day out of their obscurity and place them in heaven amongst the princes of His people?

 

It is not enough, as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI contended in Deus Caritas Est, substantial parts of which can be viewed as a "counter-Notre Charge Apostolique," for people to be bound by "common interests" in the pursuit of  civic "justice." No, people need to be bound together by the true Faith, the Catholic Faith, the one and only foundation for personal and social order. The civil state, as Pope Saint Pius X noted in Vehementer Nos, must man in the pursuit of his Last End. This is not up for debate or "re-evaluation." This is. Period. Anyone, such as Ratzinger, who contends that the civil state has no such obligation has defected from the Catholic Faith, showing himself to embrace concepts that have been condemned, if not scorned by means of satire and ridicule, by the true popes of the Catholic Church.

Furthermore, Joseph Ratzinger's contention that the conciliar embrace of the condemned heresy of "religious liberty" represents a desire for "peaceful coexistence" with false religions is a total rupture with the Catholic Faith. The Catholic Church, as true popes have taught us, recognizes that the civil state may tolerate the existence of false religions and the private practice of false religious beliefs as long as there is no threat to the common good of society. The Catholic Church will indeed avail herself of the opportunities presented to in the midst of a false pluralism to proclaim the sacred truths that have been entrusted exclusively to her by her Divine Redeemer. In no way, however, does the Catholic Church teach that it is her mission to "peacefully coexist" with false religions. Her mission is to seek the unconditional conversion of all men in all nations at all times to her maternal bosom, outside of which there is no salvation. Saint Benedict and Saint Boniface and Saint Francis Xavier and Saint Hyacinth, to name just four of many saints, smashed the altars and images of false idols. They did not believe in the sort of "peaceful coexistence" as proclaimed by Joseph Ratzinger in the name of "religious liberty." And they did not believe, as does Ratzinger and his band of conciliar revolutionaries, that the beliefs of those who adhere to false religions can "contribute" to the betterment of man and his society.

Pope Pius VII, writing in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, termed the conciliar concept of "religious liberty," enshrined as it was in the French Constitution following the first exile of Napoleon Bonaparte, to be a heresy:

For We had hoped, affairs having so happily changed, not only that all impediments organized against the Catholic religion in France would be removed with the utmost speed (as We have unceasingly demanded), but also that, as the opportunity presented itself, provision would also be made for her splendour and ornament. We saw at once that a deep silence was preserved in the constitution concerning this, and that there was not even any mention made of Almighty God, by whom kings reign and princes command. You will find it easy, Venerable Brother, to convince yourself of how grave, how bitter and how painful this matter was to Us, to whom has been committed by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Our Lord, the whole of Christendom. For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me."

The Syllabus of Errors, 1864, demolishes Joseph Ratzinger's contentions concerning "religious liberty," which is why he has called the "Second" Vatican Council a "counter-syllabus of errors," an incredible slap in the face to Pope Pius IX and to the whole patrimony of the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church:

15. Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true. -- Allocution "Maxima quidem," June 9, 1862; Damnatio "Multiplices inter," June 10, 1851.

16. Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation. -- Encyclical "Qui pluribus," Nov. 9, 1846.

17. Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ. -- Encyclical "Quanto conficiamur," Aug. 10, 1863, etc.

18. Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church. -- Encyclical "Noscitis," Dec. 8, 1849. . .

55. The Church ought to be separated from the .State, and the State from the Church. -- Allocution "Acerbissimum," Sept. 27, 1852.

. . .

77. In the present day it is no longer expedient that the Catholic religion should be held as the only religion of the State, to the exclusion of all other forms of worship. -- Allocution "Nemo vestrum," July 26, 1855.

78. Hence it has been wisely decided by law, in some Catholic countries, that persons coming to reside therein shall enjoy the public exercise of their own peculiar worship. -- Allocution "Acerbissimum," Sept. 27, 1852.

79. Moreover, it is false that the civil liberty of every form of worship, and the full power, given to all, of overtly and publicly manifesting any opinions whatsoever and thoughts, conduce more easily to corrupt the morals and minds of the people, and to propagate the pest of indifferentism. -- Allocution "Nunquam fore," Dec. 15, 1856.

80. The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.- -Allocution "Jamdudum cernimus," March 18, 1861.

 

Conciliarism represents the sort of "reconciliation" with modern culture that was condemned by Pope Pius IX repeatedly in his thirty-two year pontificate and by Pope Leo XIII in the twenty-five years thereafter:

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi Di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

 

Joseph Ratzinger believe in the very sort of "reconciliation" between the Faith and the world that ha been condemned consistently by the true popes of the Catholic Church:

Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789. Only from this perspective can we understand, on the one hand, the ghetto-mentality, of which we have spoken above; only from this perspective can we understand, on the other hand, the meaning of the remarkable meeting of the Church and the world. Basically, the word "world" means the spirit of the modern era, in contrast to which the Church's group-consciousness saw itself as a separate subject that now, after a war that had been in turn both hot and cold, was intent on dialogue and cooperation.

 

This Modernist "evolution of dogma" concept of the Church's immutable teaching represents nothing but a firm and unequivocal contradiction of one condemned proposition after another. Rupture is indeed the only word to describe such a rejection of the immutably binding nature of Catholic teaching, masked in the language of Hegelian complexity and double-speaking that turns logic on its head and makes falsehoods appear to be true in the process.

Ultimately, you see, the two different sets of conciliar revolutionaries who are arguing with each other as to whose interpretation of the conciliar revolution is correct are both responsible for contradicting the Faith. One does so quite honestly. The other does so by means of Hegelian smoke and mirrors, attempting to reconcile the irreconcilable, to defend the indefensible, claiming that innovation and novelty and condemned propositions are merely different "aspects" of a "truth" that was not perceived in the past because of the 'subjective" element always present in the perception and presentation of what is considered to be true at any given point in time.

No one of Joseph Ratzinger's age who believes this is inculpable of his error. He swore that he believed in the following statements when he took the Oath Against Modernism (September 1, 1910) three times before he was ordained to the priesthood (at the time prior to his ordination to the sub-diaconate, to the diaconate, and to the priesthood itself):

Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .

Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.

 

Joseph Ratzinger tires to use the illogic and positivism of Hegelianism to claim that what he believes--and what is taught by the counterfeit church of conciliarism concerning its novelties and innovations and errors--is not a rupture but merely a "continuity" of past teaching  by understanding it anew. The Oath Against Modernism he took on three different occasions prior to his ordination as a priest demonstrates that he knew full well that his own personal embrace of Modernist concepts was specifically and categorically condemned by the Catholic Church. He has not only failed to uphold the Oath Against Modernism, as is patently evident, he has been for a very long one of the chief champions of the propositions condemned in its text.

Thus it is, ladies and gentlemen, that it is very much apart from the point to worry about how the contradictors who contradict the Faith contradict each other about the meaning of their conciliar revolution. No one who believes that the Catholic Church does not have a mission from her Divine Bridegroom and Invisible Head, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of all men to the true Faith is a friend of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. No amount of exhortations about the importance of personal piety or of opposing secularism, in an interdenominational way, mind you, redeems a single defection from the Catholic Faith, no less the multiple defections of the Catholic Faith represented by conciliarism and reiterated constantly by its false "popes," men who have engaged in the most scandalous of apostate behavior imaginable while they have reaffirmed people in false, demonic religions without for a single moment exhorting those steeped in such religions to convert to the true Faith. (See for just one example Voodoo You Trust, not to mention Joseph Ratzinger's entering into mosque in Turkey and taking off his shoes and assuming the Mohammedan prayer position as he turned with his Mohammedan host in the direction of Mecca or his having called Mount Hiei in Japan "sacred." Oh, I guess I just mentioned such things, didn't I? Oh, well.)

What do we do in the midst of this apostasy by the contradictors who contradict each other as they contradict the Faith? Remain in a state of Sanctifying Grace as we cleave to true bishops and true priests in the Catholic catacombs where no concessions are made to conciliarism or to the nonexistent "legitimacy" of the "shepherds" of its counterfeit church. Spend time before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer. Renew your total consecration to Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Pray as many Rosaries each day as your state-in-life permits. And, as His Excellency Bishop Daniel Dolan noted in his excellent sermon yesterday, “Humor and Joy,” we must maintain a spirit of humor and joy in these perilous times. We must take our own daily responsibilities seriously but never be unable to laugh at ourselves and our own frailties, to be joyful as we carry our own personal Crosses and as we keep Our Lady company during the Mystical Passion and Death of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Look, as I have said on numerous occasions in the past, God has known for all eternity that we would be alive in these particular times. The graces He won for us by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, are sufficient for us to prosper under each of the crosses we are asked to bear. Each cross--whether personal, social or ecclesiastical--has been perfectly fashioned for us from all eternity by the very hand of God. The Cross is the path to our daily sanctification and thus to our salvation. We must love the Cross We must lift the Cross high as we remember these most prophetic words of Pope Pius XI, contained in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925:

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

 

The Catholic Church cannot propagate error of any kind, no less heresy. The contradictors who contradict each other as they contradict the Faith believe in all manner of condemned propositions, errors and heresies. A general apostasy is one of the signs that the dogmatic books in eschatology that must occur before Our Lord's Second Coming to judge the Living and the Dead on the Last Day. There are other signs, including the conversion of the Jews (which has not occurred yet, obviously). Before that Second Coming, however, we have work to do.

We do not know when Our Lord will come for us at the moment our deaths. We must, therefore, continue remaining steadfast in the Faith no matter who calumniates us or humiliates us or no matter worldly honors or success or financial gain we may lose as a result of holding firm to everything that the Catholic Church taught prior to 1958. We must trust in Our Lady as we have our homes enthroned to the Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son and to her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, remaining ever confident, without for one moment being presumptuous, that she will plead for us "nunc et in hora mortis nostrae" as long as we remain faithful to her Divine Son's immutable teaching and die in a state of Sanctifying Grace.

Viva Cristo Rey!

 

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.

Saint Elizabeth, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Andrew the Apostle, pray for us.

Saint Eusebius, pray for us.

Saint Barbara, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Chrysologus, pray for us.

Saint Bibiana, pray for us.

Saint Sabbas, pray for us.

Saint Nicholas, pray for us.

Saint Ambrose, pray for us.

Pope Saint Melchiades, pray for us.

Pope Saint Damasus, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Sylvester the Abbot, pray for us.

Saint Gertrude the Great, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Dominic de Guzman, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.

Saint John Matha, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint John of God, pray for us.

Saint Philip Neri, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Brendan the Navigator, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Peregrine, pray for us.

Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, pray for us.

Saint John Fisher, pray for us.

Saint Thomas More, pray for us.

Saint Peter Canisius, pray for us.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.

Saint Francis Borgia, pray for us.

Saint John Francis Regis, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Casimir, pray for us.

Saint Hedwig, pray for us.

Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.

Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Brigid of Kildare, pray for us.

Saint Patrick, pray for us.

Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us.

Pope Saint Leo the Great, pray for us.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us.

Pope Saint Gregory VII, pray for us.

Saint Boniface, pray for us.

Saint Meinrad, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Siena, pray for us.

Saint Bernardine of Siena, pray for us.

Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Cupertino, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

Saint John Damascene, pray for us.

Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, pray for us.

Saints Isidore the Farmer and Maria de Cappella, pray for us.

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, pray for us.

Pope Saint Damasus I, pray for us.

Saint Jerome, pray for us.

Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Louise de Marillac, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, pray for us.

Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Turibius, 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 Irenaeus, pray for us.

Saint Polycarp, pray for us.

Blessed Rose Philippine Duchesne, pray for us.

Saint Rita, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Philip Neri, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Peter of Alcantara, pray for us.

Saint Stanislaus, pray for us.

Saint Stanislaus Kostka, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, pray for us.

Saint Adalbert, pray for us.

Saint Norbert, pray for us.

Saint John Chrysostom, pray for us.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, pray for us.

Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.

Saints Gervase and Protase, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Pope Saint Clement I, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saints Fabian Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence the Deacon, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence of Brindisi, pray for us.

Saint Eustachius and Companions, pray for us.

Saints Pontian and Hippolytus, pray for us.

Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity, pray for us.

Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.

Saint Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Margaret of Scotland, pray for us.

Saint Peter Lombard, pray for us.

Saint Albert the Great, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us.

Saint Anselm, pray for us.

Saint Canute, pray for us.

Saint Clotilde, pray for us.

Saint Brendan the Navigator, pray for us.

Saint Coleman, pray for us.

Saint Maria Goretti, pray for us.

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us.

Blessed Father Vincent Pallotti, pray for us.

Saint Josaphat, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Mary Claret, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Blessed Edmund Campion, pray for us.

Saint Saturninus, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us.

Venerable Juan Diego, pray for us.

Venerable Junipero Serra, pray for us.

Venerable Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.