Crushed By The Weight of Error

Part Two

by Thomas A. Droleskey

As noted in part one of this brief series yesterday, the world in which we live is being crushed by the weight of the anti-Incarnational errors upon which it is founded. Error is never any kind of foundation for the "restoration" of social order, which is why those who believe that there are merely natural means to combat such lunacy need to be reminded of the truths articulated so well by our true popes concerning the degeneration that must take place in a world being crushed by the proliferation of error in the name of "civil liberty:"

 

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again? (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

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."

And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that "the people's will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right." But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests? (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)

So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

Why is this so difficult to accept?

How can anyone possessed of a modicum of the sensus Catholicus believe that he must be silent about the simple fact that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order, that he must seek to appeal to non-Catholics by making reference to the very errors of Modernity and Modernism that have brought us to the point of social collapse and statist totalitarianism?

How can one express outrage at the hideous pro-abortion, pro-perversity Nanny State Mayor of the City of New York, New York, Michael Rubens Bloomberg, for distributing the so-called "Plan B" "emergency" abortifacient to children in the concentration camps known as the New York City Public School system when the conciliar "bishops" of Germany are considering endorsing the use of this baby-killing pill by women who have been assaulted?

 

(Reuters) - Germany's Catholic Church may approve some so-called morning-after pills for rape victims after a leading cardinal unexpectedly announced they did not induce abortions and could be used in Catholic hospitals.

Cardinal Joachim Meisner of Cologne, an ally of German-born Pope Benedict, changed his policy after two Catholic hospitals refused to treat a rape victim because they could not prescribe the pill, which is taken after sex to avoid pregnancy.

The Catholic Church firmly opposes abortion and artificial birth control. Many Catholics see all emergency contraceptives as abortion-inducing drugs banned by this policy, but Meisner said some prevent fertilization and could be used in rape cases.

"The German Bishops' Conference is holding a regular meeting in two weeks and the issue will certainly be on the agenda," Cologne archdiocese spokeswoman Nele Harbeke said on Monday.

"The bishops' conference must in principle agree on a common line."

Meisner, 79, has in the past rejected emergency contraceptives as producing a "just-in-case abortion".

The pills have become a hot issue in the United States as many Catholics oppose President Barack Obama's health reform in part because it mandates Catholic hospitals to provide birth control for female employees.

One pill, marketed as "Plan B" in the United States and based on the synthetic hormone levonorgestrel, is rejected by these critics as an abortifacient, but might meet Meisner's criteria.

The Cologne incident sparked uproar in Germany last month and the cardinal apologized publicly, saying it "shames us deeply because it contradicts our Christian mission and our purpose".

Meisner's change of mind made headlines because he is known for his outspoken conservative views. The surprise was compounded when another conservative, Berlin Archbishop Rainer Woelki, urged the Church to debate the issue.

Meisner said he had changed his view after learning from scientists that some newer pills did not abort fertilized eggs but rather prevented fertilization altogether.

"If a medication that hinders conception is used after a rape with the purpose of avoiding fertilization, then this is acceptable in my view," he said.

His office stressed in an accompanying statement that this exception was valid only in rape cases and not within Catholic marriage, where artificial contraception is banned.

It also said there was no change to the ban on the so-called abortion pill, based on the drug mifepristone or RU-486, and marketed as Mifegyne or Mifeprex.

Harbeke said Meisner had consulted the Vatican as well as a 2009 directive for Catholic hospitals in the United States that says a rape victim "may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation or fertilization".

That directive by the U.S. bishops' conference does not name the Plan B pill - marketed elsewhere as Levonelle, NorLevo, Postinor-2 or Optinor - which some U.S. Catholic hospitals use and others do not, depending on their reading of Church teaching.

The German Catholic Hospitals' Association hailed Meisner's statement for spelling out what they can do for rape victims.

"We are still against the abortion pill," association official Thomas Vortkamp told Cologne's Catholic broadcaster Domradio. "But it helps to know we can give a 'morning-after pill' in cases of raped women who must be helped urgently." (German Apostate "Bishops" Church may back some "morning-after pills".)

And sedevacantists are the ones who are "outside" of the Catholic Church?

Sure. Go tell me the one about the tooth fairy, too. Patently absurd.

The willingness of supposed Catholic "bishops" to accept the word of "scientists" who are committed to the killing of innocent human beings under cover of the civil law should be entirely unsurprising. Men who believe in every theological falsehood imaginable and who offend God grievously by means of staging the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service and who engage in various acts of false ecumenism must yield to the alleged expertise of "scientists" on various issues, including the ideology of evolutionism and on matters of life and death (chemical and surgical baby-killing, "brain death," "vital organ donation," etc.).

We should not be surprised that the officials of the Occupy Vatican Movement are taking positions on matters of moral theology that align themselves with their like-minded revolutionaries in the civil realm, men and women who are equally committed to "separation of Church and State" and "liberty of conscience" as they are.

Fifty years of theological errors and liturgical sacrilege have instituted such a regime of ceaseless, unremitting change that the average Catholic is absolutely bereft of a genuine sensus Catholicus that would cause them to recoil from error and reject any association with those who promote them, no less those who do so, albeit falsely, in the name of the Catholic Church.

Even "conservative" Catholics who are as of yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism do not understand or accept the simple truth that the errors of Modernity are crushing us with such intensity now because the lords of Modernism have offended God grievously in matters of Faith, Morals, and Worship.

Indeed, we should not be surprised in the slightest that the head of the "Pontifical" Council for the Family believes that laws criminalizing perverse acts in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments should be repealed and that some kind of "legal protection" must be sought for "couples" engaged in such acts when one considers the wholesale defections from the Catholic Faith, starting with the very nature of dogmatic truth, that are propagated on a daily basis by the conciliar revolutionaries, starting with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

We should not be surprised in the slightest that the conciliar "bishops" of Germany are considering endorsing the use of a "new" version of the "Plan B" "emergency" abortifacient when many of their number, Joseph Ratzinger, Karl Lehman, Walter Kasper, Robert Zollitsch, Ranier Woelki, Joachim Meisner, and Gerhard Ludwig Muller, are notorious in their support for one apostasy after another, including the assertion by Muller, who has been the conciliar prefect of the so-called Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith since July 1, 2012, that Protestants are "inside" the "Church of Christ":

 

 

During a ceremony at the Catholic Academy of Bavaria on October 11, 2011, Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Muller, later chosen by Benedict XVI to be Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, presented an ecumenical award to Lutheran bishop Johannes Friedrich.

In the speech Muller delivered on that occasion, he affirmed that the base upon which relations between Catholics and heretics are established is no longer doctrine or the concept of Church, but rather the baptism that is common to both true and false religions.

Below we present to our readers a photocopy of the first page of the 9-page-text of Muller's speech in German published by the Catholic Academy of Bavaria, and then the two more important excerpts from his speech. After the photocopies of these excerpts are our translations to English in blue. The full original document can be found here.

"With much clarity, the paradigm shift away from polemics and controversies constitutes the present and the future of ecumenism. Its core is this: We determine our relationship to each other no longer with regard to the differences that actually exist in the doctrine, life and constitution of the Church, but rather on the common foundation upon which we stand. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 'Know you not that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in your midst?' (1 Cor 3:11, 16).

"Baptism is the fundamental sign that we are sacramentally united in Christ, and that presents us as the one visible Church before the world. Thus, we as Catholic and Protestant Christians, are already united even in what we call the visible Church. Strictly speaking, there are not several Churches, one beside the other, but rather these are separations and divisions within the one people and one house of God." (Müller: Catholics & Protestants are united in the same visible Church.)

Who cares that this is heresy?

Not many people, including most Catholics.

Who says that this is heresy?

Judge for yourselves:

Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful - "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages certainly need no interpreter; they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides, all who profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It is of the greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to which many are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity should be recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ. (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

Can't this "teaching" change?

No. Never. God is immutable:

The divine Spirit has been sent to secure unity to the bride of Christ; and we have seen have faithfully He fulfils His mission by giving to the members of the Church to be one, as He Himself is one. But the bride of a God, who is, as He calls Himself, the truth, must be in the truth, and can have no fellowship with error. Jesus entrusted His teachings to her care, and has instructed her in the person of the apostles. He said to them: 'All things whatsoever I have heard of My Father, I have made known to you.' And yet, if left unaided, how can the Church preserve free from all change, during the long ages of her existence, that word which Jesus has not written, that truth which He came from came from heaven to teach her? Experiences proves that everything changes here below; that written documents are open to false interpretations; and that unwritten traditions are frequently so altered in the course of time, as to defy recognition.

Here again we have a proof of our Lord's watchful love. In order to realize the wish He had to see us one, as He and His Father are one, He sent us His Spirit; and in order to keep us in the truth, He sent us this same Spirit who is called the Spirit of truth. 'When the Spirit of truth is come,' said He, 'He will teach you all truth.' And what is the truth which this Spirit will teach us? 'He will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.'

So that nothing of what the divine Word spoke to men is to be lost. The beauty of His bride is to be based on truth, for 'beauty' is the splendour of truth.' Her fidelity to her Jesus shall be of the most perfect kind; for if He be the truth, how could she ever be out of the truth? Jesus had said: 'I will ask the Father, and He shall give you another Paraclete, that He may abide with you for ever; and He shall be in you.' It is by the Holy Ghost, then, that the Church is ever to possess the truth, and that nothing can rob her of it; for this Spirit, who is sent by the Father and the Son, will abide unceasingly with and in her.

The magnificent theory of St. Augustine comes most appropriately here. According to his teaching--which, after all, is but the explanation of the texts just cited--the Holy Ghost is the principle of the Church's life; and He, being the Spirit of truth, preserves and directs her in the truth, so that both her teaching and her practice cannot be other than expressions of the truth. He makes Himself responsible for her words, just as our spirit is responsible for what our tongue utters. Hence it is that the Church, by her union with the Holy Ghost, is so identified with truth, that the apostle did not hesitate to call her 'the pillar and ground of the truth'. The Christian, therefore, may well rest on the Church in all that regards faith. He knows that the Church is never alone; that she is always with the holy Spirit who lives within her; that her word is not her own, but the word of the Spirit, which is the word of Jesus.

Now, this word of Jesus is preserved in the Church by the Holy Ghost, and in two ways. He guards it as contained in the four Gospels, which the evangelists wrote under His inspiration. It is by His watchful care that these holy writings have been kept free from all changes during the past ages. The same is to be said of the other books of the new Testament, which were also written under the guidance of the same Spirit. Those of the old Testament are equally the result of the inspiration of the Holy Ghost: and, although they do not give us the words spoken by our Saviour during His mortal life, yet do they speak of Him, and foretell His coming, and contain, moreover, the primitive revelations made by God to mankind. The Books of sacred Writ are replete with mysteries, the interpretation of which is communicated to the Church by the Holy Ghost.

The other channel of Jesus' word is tradition. It was impossible for everything to be written; and even before the Gospels were composed, the Church was in existence. Tradition, like the written word itself, is from God; but unless the Spirit of truth watch over and protect it, how can it remain pure and intact? He therefore fixes it in the memory of the Church, He preserves it from any change: it is His mission; and thanks to the fidelity wherewith He fulfils His mission, the Church remains in possession of the whole treasure left her by her Spouse.

But it is not enough that the Church possesses the word, written and traditional: she must also have the understanding of that word, in order that she may explain it to her children. Truth came down from heaven that it might be communicated to men; for it is their light, and without it they would be in darkness, knowing not whither they are going. The Spirit of truth could not, therefore, be satisfied if the word of Jesus were kept as a hidden treasure; no, He will have it thrown open to men, that they may thence draw life to their souls. Consequently, the Church will have to be infallible in her teaching; for how can she be deceived herself, or deceive others, seeing it is the Spirit of truth who guides her in al things and speaks by her mouth? He is her soul; and we have already had St. Augustine telling us that wen the tongue speaks, the soul is responsible.

The infallibility of our holy mother the Church is the direct and immediate result of her having the spirit of truth abiding within her. It is the promise of the presence of the holy Spirit. The man who does not acknowledge the Church to be infallible, should, if he is consistent, admit that the Son of God has not been able to fulfil His promise, and that the Spirit of truth is a Spirit of error. But he that reasons thus, has strayed fro the path of life; he thought he was denying a prerogative to the Church, whereas, in reality, he was refused to believe God Himself. It is this that constitutes the sin of heresy. Want of due reflection may hide the awful conclusion; but the conclusion is strictly implied in his principle. The heretic is at variance with the Holy Ghost, because he is at variance with the Church; he may become once more a living member, by humbly returning to the bride of Christ; but at present he is dead, for the soul is not animating him. Let us again give ear to the great St. Augustine: 'It sometimes happens,' he says, 'that a member--say a hand, or a finger, or foot--is cut from the human body; tell me, does the soul follow the member that is thus severed? As long as it was in the body, it lived; now that it is cut off, it is dead. In the same manner, a Christian is a Catholic so long as he lives in the body (of the Church); cut off, he is a heretic; the Spirit follows not a member that is cut off.

Glory, then, be to the holy Spirit, who has conferred upon the bride the 'splendour of truth!' With regard to ourselves: could we, without incurring the greatest of dangers, put limits to the docility with which we receive the teachings which come to us simultaneously from 'the Spirit and the bride,' who are so indissolubly united? Whether the Church imitates what we are to believe, by showing us her own practice, or by simply expressing her sentiments, or by solemnly pronouncing a definition on the subject, we must receive her word with submission of heart. Her practice is ever in harmony with the truth, ad it is the Holy Ghost, her life-giving principle, that keeps it so; the utterance of her sentiments is but an aspiration of the same Spirit, who never leaves her; and as to the definitions she decrees, it is not she alone that decrees them, but the Holy Ghost who decrees them in and by her. If it be the visible head of the Church who utters the definition, we know that Jesus prayed that peer's faith might never fail, that He obtained it from the Father, and that He gave the Holy Ghost the mission of perpetuating the precious prerogative granted to Peter. If it be the sovereign Pontiff and bishops, assembled in council, who proclaim what is the faith on any given subject, it is the Holy Ghost who speaks by this collective judgment, make truth triumph, and puts error to flight. It tis this divine Spirit that has given to the bride to crush all heresies beneath her feet; it is He that, in all ages, has raised up within her learned men, who have confuted error whensoever or wheresoever it was broached.

So that our beloved mother the Church is gifted with infallibility; she is true, always and in all things; and she is indebted to Him who proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son. But there is another glory which she owes to Him. The bride of the thrice holy God could not but be holy. She is so; and it is from the Spirit of holiness that receives her holiness. Truth and holiness are inseparably united in God. Hence it is hat our Saviour, who has willed us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, and, creatures as we are, would have us take the infinite good as our model, prayed that we might be sanctified in the truth. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Paschal Time Book III: Volume 9, pp. 393-399.)

 

We must flee from heresy and those who promote it, something that was made clear in a book, Voice of the Church, published in 1899 by the American bishops (that, not surprisingly, was filled Americanist errors galore, including complete texts of speeches made by Archbishop John Ireland and James Cardinal Gibbons that will be examined in detail if circumstances and funding (major funding) permit me to write Volume 2 of Conversion in Reverse: How the Ethos of Americanism Converted Catholics and Contributed to the Rise of Conciliarism):

The Intolerance of the Faith

What else do the following examples show? St. Paul, who was omnia omnibus, all things to all men, so large was his heart, so gentle and universal his sympathy, comes across false teachers among his Galatian converts, and his nature at once seems changed. Where now his tender compassion for the weakly, the scandalized, the erring? He does not inquire into the nature of the new doctrines or the character of the teachers, but curses them on the spot. (Gal I, 8) So again with St. John, the apostle of love. He tells his children not to receive a heretic into the house or to say as much as “God speed you” to him, “for that he that saith to him ‘God speed you’ communicateth with his wicked works.” (2 Ep. St. John, x, 11) And as he spoke he acted. In his life we learn that he refused to enter a bath-house because Cerinthus the heretic was within. He feared lest the roof should fall in on them were he to stay in such company. St. Peter calls heretics “irrational beasts, naturally tending to snare and destruction.” (3 Peter ii, 12) St. Jude says “they are corrupted in what they naturally know, and blaspheme what they know not: they are clouds without water which are carried about by the winds, trees of the autumn unfruitful, twice dead.” (Jude I, 10, 12,) And the Saints in every age are one with the Apostles in their attitude to apostates and heretic. When the apostate Marcion met St. Polycarp at Rome, he asked the aged Saint if he knew him. “Yes,” St. Polycarp answered, “I know you for the first-born of Satan.” The answer came instinctively from his burning love of God. St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, in his book on the unity of the Church in the century after St. Polycarp, demonstrates that the Church is essentially and visibly one because it is built upon Peter, who alone has the keys. He then continues: “He can never gain the reward promised by Christ to His followers who deserts His Church. He becomes thence unsanctified and alien, and a down-right enemy. He cannot have God for His father who has not the Church for his mother.” St. Jerome proves the faith of St. Paula by external actions which shower her opposition to heretics. “A certain crafty knave, who thought himself very learned and wise, began without any authority to put questions to her and ask: What sin hath an infant done that it should be seized by the devil? Of what age shall we be at the resurrection, because if we rise at the same age at which we die there will be need of nurses after the resurrection, but if otherwise then it will not be a resurrection but a transformation?” then he goes on to mention other similar cavils, which he says she answered according to Catholic truth, and then adds, “from henceforth she so detested that man and all of the same opinions, that she publicly proclaimed them to be ‘enemies of the Lord,’ and so much I have said to show the faith of this woman, who preferred to endure the constant enmities of men rather that provoke the anger of God by dangerous friendships.”

Saintly Hatred of Heresy

Pass on to later times and we shall find the same loyalty, witnessed to not only by bishops and teachers, but by the faithful at large, of every age and sex. St. Louis of France, the flower of Christian knights, the defender of the fatherless and poor, passed a law that blasphemers should be branded on their lips, and when his courtiers remonstrated with him for his severity, “I would willingly,” he said, “have my own lips branded to root out blasphemy from my kingdom.” God’s honor was his own, and he would defend it with his life. Nay, more, he was convinced that without the faith the highest natural virtue was untrustworthy, and that no safe dependence could be placed on its possessor. Once in Palestine an emir held a dagger to his throat and threatened to stab him unless he raised him to the rank of Christian knighthood. “No unbeliever,” Louis calmly replied, “could perform the duties of a Christian knight.” Mere children felt the same inherent repugnance to heresy and dread of its poison. St. Jane Frances when only eight years old left her father’s dinner-table on perceiving there was a heretic among the guests. When a Protestant sought her hand she replied: “How can I marry an enemy of God and His Church?” Her master, St. Francis of Sales, the gentlest of saints, place the Calvinists under most sever penal laws, and excluded them from all offices of the State. In all temptations against faith, he writes, “Say to the devil, O wretch, thou hast left the Church of the Angels, and thou wouldst that I should leave the Church of the Saints. Begone Satan; I will not dispute to please you. I adhere to holy Church and never will forsake her.” Such instances could be multiplied indefinitely from the lives of the Saints. They all bear witness to the sacredness of the truth and to the duty laid upon every individual Catholic of protecting it from contagion and of witnessing at all cost against unbelief. (The Voice of the Church, 1899. The page number will be provided when I recover the data stored in the hard drive of the computer that crashed three days ago now. The technician who is working on this told me yesterday that it would be several days before I get the data because so much of it was stored on the hard drive.)

 

Any Catholic attached to the counterfeit church of concilairism who believes that he is expressing "love" for God by being "loyal" to the Catholic Church while not recognizing the conciliar revolutionaries, starting with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI himself, are apostates and blasphemers with whom all contact must be avoided are deceiving themselves, doing so all too frequently with a good deal of righteous sanctimony when they are simply unwilling to state the truth publicly out of fear of what others would think and say about them. Those who let human respect and the desire to be "successful" in the world get in the way of avoiding all contact with heretics and heresy show themselves to be accomplices of the lords of Modernity and of Modernism who are crushing us with so many errors. God does not want us wandering around in a fog of error, the likes of which are alien to the very Divine Constitution of Holy Mother Church.

We must strive, especially as Ash Wednesday approaches one week from today, to understand, as Pope Saint Pius X taught us, that maintaining the integrity of the Faith is not an "option" for a Catholic. Catholics are not permitted to be "conflicted" and "confused" and then spread their confusion and error in the minds of others:

 

Watch, O priests, that the doctrine of Christ, not your fault for losing the face of integrity. Always maintain purity and integrity of the doctrine ... Many do not understand the zealous care and caution  that should be used to preserve the purity of doctrine ... When this doctrine can not be kept longer incorruptible and that the rule of truth is no longer possible in this world, then the Son of God appear a second time. But until that day we must keep intact the sacred tank and repeat the statement of the glorious Saint Hilary: 'Better to die in this century than corrupt the chastity of the truth.” (Pie X, Jérome Dal-Gal, OFM Conv., 1953, pp. 107-108).

To Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart belongs the triumph that will vanquish the lords of Modernity and Modernism once and for all. May our own efforts to make reparation for our sins, many though they may be, to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary help to plant a few seeds so that more and more Catholics, clergy and laity alike, yet attached to the false structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism will leave that false church in order to receive true Sacraments from true bishops and true priests who make absolutely no concessions to conciliarism, men who are never afraid to speak the truth and act with complete integrity in its behalf, knowing that no true pope can do, say or act as the conciliar "pontiffs" and "bishops" have done, said and acted.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon.

May each Rosary we pray help to effect this miracle that the devil fears and for which we must be uncompromising in working to achieve as soldiers in the Army of Christ.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us

Saint Joseph, pray for us

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

Saint Titus, pray for us.

Saint Dorothy, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints