Ever Seeking a Loophole from the Truth

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Ever seeking a loophole from the truth, Americanists and conciliarists try to exculpate themselves from adhering to the immutable doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King by appealing, seemingly endlessly, to the bad example given by Catholic prelates during the years when the Church enjoyed the favor and protection of the civil state in Europe and in Latin America. That is, the fact that some cardinals and bishops and priests looked the other away as civil potentates ruled in a selfish and/or unjust manner is supposed to vindicate the belief of the American founding fathers that the lack of a nationally-established church is actually a "protection" to the best interests of the church and the state, affording each the autonomy they "deserve" in discharging the responsibilities proper to their own spheres of competency. The Church, it is argued, is best not identified too closely with the civil state so that her leaders will not be coopted by the blandishments of those in civil power.

Such a line of reasoning ignores the simple fact that human beings are prone to give bad examples no matter at what point in history they are alive and no matter what institutional arrangements of civil governance may exist in their own nations. Bad examples do not disprove or exculpate one from adhering to doctrinal truths. The Social Reign of Christ the King happens to be a doctrinal truth that is part of the Ordinary Magisterium of the Catholic Church and is thus endowed with the charism of infallibility. The fact that prelates have done the bidding of civil potentates in no way "proves" that it is "harmful" for the Church to be recognized by the civil state. Does the bad example given by a father to his children "prove" that the truths of the Catholic Faith he enunciates are nothing other than lofty "ideals" that cannot be realized in the "real" world?  Does the bad example we give in our own lives vitiate the binding nature of the immutable moral laws we break when we sin by giving such bad example?

In like manner, you see, the bad example given in some instances by prelates who permitted themselves to be coopted and/or corrupted by the blandishments of those in civil power does not "prove" that it is harmful for the Church to be recognized by the civil state. Such bad example only proves the fallen nature of the human being and the necessity of everyone, including those who hold ecclesiastical office, to keep close to Our Lord in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament, to be totally consecrated to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, praying as many Rosaries as possible during the course of a day, and getting oneself to the Sacrament of Penance once a week. Bad example does not vitiate doctrinal truths. Bad example does not vitiate the binding force of moral laws.

Apologists for the Constitution of the United States of America and for conciliarism's error of "religious liberty" like to point to the bad examples of Catholic prelates to point out how it is "best" for the state to be "religiously neutral." As Pope Leo XIII pointed out in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, official "neutrality" concerning religion leads to atheism as the lowest common denominator in society, creating an environment in which the average person believes in the Judeo-Masonic lie that denominational differences must not get in the way of finding "common ground" to "resolve" pressing social problems, each of which is the result of Original Sin and Actual Sins and can only be ameliorated by the daily conversion of individual souls in cooperation with the Sanctifying Graces made present in the world by the Catholic Church. The very pluralism which is enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America and which is considered to be an irreversible fact of life for "modern" man by Benedict XVI is the direct and immediate result of the Protestant Revolt and the subsequent rise of Judeo-Masonry and all of the various political ideologies that see themselves as the means by which "secular salvation" can be wrought.

No Catholic in his right mind can embrace pluralism as a good. No Catholic in his right mind can reject the simple doctrinal truth that the civil state must recognize the true Church and afford her the protection of the civil laws as she exercises her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation to remind everyone, both in the citizenry-at-large and in the ruling classes, that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted the entirely of His Deposit of Faith exclusively to her, the Catholic Church, and that she has the divinely-instituted authority to interpose herself as a last resort in matters of civil governance when the good of souls requires her to do so. No Catholic in his right mind can contend that it is possible for any nation on earth to maintain social order domestically and/or to relate justly to other nations unless its citizens have belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace. To contend, as the founders of the United States of America did, that it is possible for men to be virtuous without any specific religious profession, no less that of the true Faith, is to descend into the depths of the heresy of semi-Pelagianism, which asserts, more or less, that men can "stir up" grace in their own souls, that men are, more or less, self-redemptive.

However, man is not self-redemptive. Man needs the Catholic Church in his own personal life. His nation needs the direction of the Catholic Church in matters pertaining to the good of souls. Men and nations need to be reminded that the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law have been entrusted by God Himself to the Catholic Church, which alone has the right to remonstrate with civil rulers who defy those precepts and thus place into jeopardy the rights of God and the good of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross (something I pointed out in A Martyr for the Church's Liberties). This is a simple truth of the Catholic Faith from which no one is free to dissent. Men, especially those in ecclesiastical office, must strive to live up to the demands of this simple truth by scaling the heights of sanctity as the consecrated slaves of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

The obligation of the civil state to help to foster those conditions in society wherein citizens could better sanctify and save their souls as members of the Catholic Church has been articulated eloquently by many, including Saint Louis IX, King of France, in a letter to his son Philip III. This letter demonstrates that the papal encyclical letters on the State in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries were merely reiterating the plain truths that were understood so well by the saintly kings of the Middle Ages, men who understood the truths of the Faith very well and who attempted, despite their own limitations and sins, to realize them in the administration of the affairs of civil governance:

1. To his dear first-born son, Philip, greeting, and his father's love.

2. Dear son, since I desire with all my heart that you be well "instructed in all things, it is in my thought to give you some advice this writing. For I have heard you say, several times, that you remember my words better than those of any one else.

3. Therefore, dear son, the first thing I advise is that you fix your whole heart upon God, and love Him with all your strength, for without this no one can be saved or be of any worth.

4- You should, with all your strength, shun everything which you believe to be displeasing to Him. And you ought especially to be resolved not to commit mortal sin, no matter what may happen and should permit all your limbs to be hewn off, and suffer every manner of torment , rather than fall knowingly into mortal sin.

5. If our Lord send you any adversity, whether illness or other in good patience, and thank Him for it, thing, you should receive it in good patience and be thankful for it, for you ought to believe that He will cause everything to turn out for your good; and likewise you should think that you have well merited it, and more also, should He will it, because you have loved Him but little, and served Him but little, and have done many things contrary to His will.

6. If our Lord send you any prosperity, either health of body or other thing you ought to thank Him humbly for it, and you ought to be careful that you are not the worse for it, either through pride or anything else, for it is a very great sin to fight against our Lord with His gifts.

7. Dear son, I advise you that you accustom yourself to frequent confession, and that you choose always, as your confessors, men who are upright and sufficiently learned, and who can teach you what you should do and what you should avoid. You should so carry yourself that your confessors and other friends may dare confidently to reprove you and show you your faults.

8. Dear son, I advise you that you listen willingly and devoutly the services of Holy Church, and, when you are in church, avoid to frivolity and trifling, and do not look here and there; but pray to God with lips and heart alike, while entertaining sweet thoughts about Him, and especially at the mass, when the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are consecrated, and for a little time before.

9. Dear son, have a tender pitiful heart for the poor, and for all those whom you believe to be in misery of heart or body, and, according to your ability, comfort and aid them with some alms.

10. Maintain the good customs of your realm, and put down the bad ones. Do not oppress your people and do not burden them with tolls or tailles, except under very great necessity.

11. If you have any unrest of heart, of such a nature that it may be told, tell it to your confessor, or to some upright man who can keep your secret; you will be able to carry more easily the thought of your heart.

12. See to it that those of your household are upright and loyal, and remember the Scripture, which says: "Elige viros timentes Deum in quibus sit justicia et qui oderint avariciam"; that is to say, "Love those who serve God and who render strict justice and hate covetousness"; and you will profit, and will govern your kingdom well.

13. Dear son, see to it that all your associates are upright, whether clerics or laymen, and have frequent good converse with them; and flee the society of the bad. And listen willingly to the word of God, both in open and in secret; and purchase freely prayers and pardons.

14. Love all good, and hate all evil, in whomsoever it may be.

15. Let no one be so bold as to say, in your presence, words which attract and lead to sin, and do not permit words of detraction to be spoken of another behind his back.

!6. Suffer it not that any ill be spoken of God or His saints in your presence, without taking prompt vengeance. But if the offender be a clerk or so great a person that you ought not to try him, report the matter to him who is entitled to judge it.

17. Dear son, give thanks to God often for all the good things He has done for you, so that you may be worthy to receive more, in such a manner that if it please the Lord that you come to the burden and honor of governing the kingdom, you may be worthy to receive the sacred unction wherewith the kings of France are consecrated.

18. Dear son, if you come to the throne, strive to have that which befits a king, that is to say, that in justice and rectitude you hold yourself steadfast and loyal toward your subjects and your vassals, without turning either to the right or to the left, but always straight, whatever may happen. And if a poor man have a quarrel with a rich man, sustain the poor rather than the rich, until the truth is made clear, and when you know the truth, do justice to them.

19. If any one have entered into a suit against you (for any injury or wrong which he may believe that you have done to him), be always for him and against yourself in the presence of your council, without showing that you think much of your case (until the truth be made known concerning it); for those of your council might be backward in speaking against you, and this you should not wish; and command your judges that you be not in any way upheld more than any others, for thus will your councillors judge more boldly according to right and truth.

20. If you have anything belonging to another, either of yourself or through your predecessors, if the matter is certain, give it up without delay, however great it may be, either in land or money or otherwise. If the matter is doubtful, have it inquired into by wise men, promptly and diligently. And if the affair is so obscure that you cannot know the truth, make such a settlement, by the counsel of s of upright men, that your soul, and the soul your predecessors, may be wholly freed from the affair. And even if you hear some one say that your predecessors made restitution, make diligent inquiry to learn if anything remains to be restored; and if you find that such is the case, cause it to be delivered over at once, for the liberation of your soul and the souls of your predecessors.

21. You should seek earnestly how your vassals and your subjects may live in peace and rectitude beneath your sway; likewise, the good towns and the good cities of your kingdom. And preserve them in the estate and the liberty in which your predecessors kept them, redress it, and if there be anything to amend, amend and preserve their favor and their love. For it is by the strength and the riches of your good cities and your good towns that the native and the foreigner, especially your peers and your barons, are deterred from doing ill to you. I will remember that Paris and the good towns of my kingdom aided me against the barons, when I was newly crowned.

22. Honor and love all the people of Holy Church, and be careful that no violence be done to them, and that their gifts and alms, which your predecessors have bestowed upon them, be not taken away or diminished. And I wish here to tell you what is related concerning King Philip, my ancestor, as one of his council, who said he heard it, told it to me. The king, one day, was with his privy council, and he was there who told me these words. And one of the king's councillors said to him how much wrong and loss he suffered from those of Holy Church, in that they took away his rights and lessened the jurisdiction of his court; and they marveled greatly how he endured it. And the good king answered: "I am quite certain that they do me much wrong, but when I consider the goodnesses and kindnesses which God has done me, I had rather that my rights should go, than have a contention or awaken a quarrel with Holy Church." And this I tell to you that you may not lightly believe anything against the people of Holy Church; so love them and honor them and watch over them that they may in peace do the service of our Lord.

23. Moreover, I advise you to love dearly the clergy, and, so far as you are able, do good to them in their necessities, and likewise love those by whom God is most honored and served, and by whom the Faith is preached and exalted.

24. Dear son, I advise that you love and reverence your father and your mother, willingly remember and keep their commandments, and be inclined to believe their good counsels.

25. Love your brothers, and always wish their well-being and their good advancement, and also be to them in the place of a father, to instruct them in all good. But be watchful lest, for the love which you bear to one, you turn aside from right doing, and do to the others that which is not meet.

26. Dear son, I advise you to bestow the benefices of Holy Church which you have to give, upon good persons, of good and clean life, and that you bestow them with the high counsel of upright men. And I am of the opinion that it is preferable to give them to those who hold nothing of Holy Church, rather than to others. For, if you inquire diligently, you will find enough of those who have nothing who will use wisely that entrusted to them.

27. Dear son, I advise you that you try with all your strength to avoid warring against any Christian man, unless he have done you too much ill. And if wrong be done you, try several ways to see if you can find how you can secure your rights, before you make war; and act thus in order to avoid the sins which are committed in warfare.

28. And if it fall out that it is needful that you should make war (either because some one of your vassals has failed to plead his case in your court, or because he has done wrong to some church or to some poor person, or to any other person whatsoever, and is unwilling to make amends out of regard for you, or for any other reasonable cause), whatever the reason for which it is necessary for you to make war, give diligent command that the poor folk who have done no wrong or crime be protected from damage to their vines, either through fire or otherwise, for it were more fitting that you should constrain the wrongdoer by taking his own property (either towns or castles, by force of siege), than that you should devastate the property of poor people. And be careful not to start the war before you have good counsel that the cause is most reasonable, and before you have summoned the offender to make amends, and have waited as long as you should. And if he ask mercy, you ought to pardon him, and accept his amende, so that God may be pleased with you.

29. Dear son, I advise you to appease wars and contentions, whether they be yours or those of your subjects, just as quickly as may be, for it is a thing most pleasing to our Lord. And Monsignore Martin gave us a very great example of this. For, one time, when our Lord made it known to him that he was about to die, he set out to make peace between certain clerks of his archbishopric, and he was of the opinion that in so doing he was giving a good end to life.

30. Seek diligently, most sweet son, to have good baillis and good prevots in your land, and inquire frequently concerning their doings, and how they conduct themselves, and if they administer justice well, and do no wrong to any one, nor anything which they ought not do. Inquire more often concerning those of your household if they be too covetous or too arrogant; for it is natural that the members should seek to imitate their chief; that is, when the master is wise and well-behaved, all those of his household follow his example and prefer it. For however much you ought to hate evil in others, you should have more hatred for the evil which comes from those who derive their power from you, than you bear to the evil of others; and the more ought you to be on your guard and prevent this from happening.

3!. Dear son, I advise you always to be devoted to the Church of Rome, and to the sovereign pontiff, our father, and to bear him the the reverence and honor which you owe to your spiritual father.

32. Dear son, freely give power to persons of good character, who know how to use it well, and strive to have wickednesses expelled from your land, that is to say, nasty oaths, and everything said or done against God or our Lady or the saints. In a wise and proper manner put a stop, in your land, to bodily sins, dicing, taverns, and other sins. Put down heresy so far as you can, and hold in especial abhorrence Jews, and all sorts of people who are hostile to the Faith, so that your land may be well purged of them, in such manner as, by the sage counsel of good people, may appear to you advisable.

33. Further the right with all your strength. Moreover I admonish you you that you strive most earnestly to show your gratitude for the benefits which our Lord has bestowed upon you, and that you may know how to give Him thanks therefore

34. Dear son, take care that the expenses of your household are reasonable and moderate, and that its moneys are justly obtained. And there is one opinion that I deeply wish you to entertain, that is to say, that you keep yourself free from foolish expenses and evil exactions, and that your money should be well expended and well acquired. And this opinion, together with other opinions which are suitable and profitable, I pray that our Lord may teach you.

35. Finally, most sweet son, I conjure and require you that, if it please our Lord that I should die before you, you have my soul succored with masses and orisons, and that you send through the congregations of the kingdom of France, and demand their prayers for my soul, and that you grant me a special and full part in all the good deeds which you perform.

36. In conclusion, dear son, I give you all the blessings which a good and tender father can give to a son, and I pray our Lord Jesus Christ, by His mercy, by the prayers and merits of His blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, and of angels and archangels and of all the saints, to guard and protect you from doing anything contrary to His will, and to give you grace to do it always, so that He may be honored and served by you. And this may He do to me as to you, by His great bounty, so that after this mortal life we may be able to be together with Him in the eternal life, and see Him, love Him, and praise Him without end. Amen. And glory, honor, and praise be to Him who is one God with the Father and the Holy Spirit; without beginning and without end. Amen.

 

This is a letter that stands in quite some contrast to the spirit of the men of the "Age of Enlightenment" who wrote the Constitution of the United States of America, which created the first non-confessional national government in history, and it stands in quite some contrast to the spirit of Benedict XVI and conciliarism, a spirit which contends that "modern" man is just not "ready" to be confronted by direct evangelization, that it is "enough" to simply talk about "God" and "religion" generically in our highly secularized age. However, this highly secularized age is the result of the overthrow of Catholicism, the very thing that provided order, albeit imperfectly, in Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West at the beginning of the Fifth Century A.D. Man needs now what he has always needed since the Incarnation, Nativity, Hidden Years, Public Ministry, Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ: the truths of the Catholic Faith to inform his life at all times in all places in all circumstances, whether he is acting individually or collectively with others in the institutions of civil governance.

Father Fahey explained in his The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World that men must accept the Divine Plan that God Himself had instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church, both personally and socially:

The supreme law, illustrated in the actual historical world, is that it is well or ill with it, simply and absolutely (simplicter), in proportion as it accepts or rejects God’s plan for the restoration of our Real Life, the Life of Grace, lost by original sin. The events of our age, as of every age, are in the last analysis, the results of man’s acceptance or rejection of the Divine Plan for ordered human life. They are, therefore, the consequences of the application to action of the ideas of what is order and what is disorder, which have been held by different minds. Accordingly, the appreciation of these events and of their consequences for the future must be based on what we Catholics know by faith about the order of the world, and we must turn, first all, to the documents in which the Vicar of Christ have outlined for us what is in accordance with the Divine Plan and what is opposed to it. The theology of history must therefore never lose sight of Papal pronouncements on the tendencies of an age or its spirit. Now, one such outstanding pronounce with regard to the political order of our day is the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX, and it is my intention to lay particular stress on it. The study is rendered more attractive by the fact that the enemies of the Catholic Church attack this Papal document continually. For example, the French Masonic review, L’Acacia (November 1930), published the Syllabus with an introduction, of which a portion runs as follows:

‘We have considered it well to publish again the text of the famous Syllabus, which has become almost impossible to find. As the Church does not wish the Syllabus to be subjected to the judgments and criticisms of the Catholics of the present day, she has systematically bought up and burned the copies in the vernacular which were being offered for sale.’

These statements are needless to say, foul calumnies of the Catholic Church in the usual Masonic style. The Church is only too anxious that the Syllabus should be well known to Catholics. Pope Leo XIII, the successor of Pope Pius IX, alludes to it in the following terms: ‘. . . Pius IX branded publicly many false opinions which were gaining ground and afterwards ordered them to be considered in summary form, in order that, in this sea of error, Catholics might have a light that they might safely follow.’ (Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, 1885.)

Papal documents, treating of the Mystical Body in relation to Politics and Economics, as well as those which deal with the influence of the saints, the truly great men of the world, on their times, are of paramount importance for the study of the theology of history. The Syllabus and the various condemnations of Liberalism by the Sovereign Pontiffs aimed at fixing certain truths firmly in the minds of Catholics. The return to sane thinking about social organization demanded as a prerequisite the purification of thought and the elimination of error.

We can thus easily see that the entrance of Christianity into the world has meant two things. Primarily and principally, it has meant the constitution of a supernatural society, the Mystical Body of Christ, absolutely transcending every natural development of culture and civilization. Secondly, it has had for result that this supernatural society, the Catholic Church, began to exercise a profound influence on culture and civilization and modified in far-reaching fashion the existing temporal or natural social order.

The indirect power of the Church over temporal affairs, whenever the interests of the Divine Life of souls are involved, presupposes, of course, a clear distinction of nature between the ecclesiastical authority, charged with the care of divine things, and the civil authority, whose mission is concerned with purely temporal matters.”

In proportion as the Mystical Body of Christ was accepted by mankind, political and economic thought and action began to respect the jurisdiction and guidance of the Catholic Church, endowed, as she is, with the right of intervention in temporal affairs whenever necessary, because of her participation in the spiritual Kingship of Christ. Thus the natural or temporal common good of States came to be sought in a manner calculated to favour the development of true personality, in and through the Mystical Body of Christ, and social life came more and more fully under the influence of the supreme end of man, the vision of God in Three Divine Persons.

Accordingly, Catholic Social Order, viewed as a whole, is not primarily the political and social organization of society. It is primarily the supernatural social organism of the Church, and then, secondarily, the temporal or natural social order resulting from the influence of Catholic doctrine on politics and economics and from the embodiment of that influence in social institutions. If instead of Catholic Social Order we use the wider but more convenient expression of Kingdom of God, we may say that the Kingdom of God on earth is in its essence the Church, but, in its integrity, comprises the Church and the temporal social order which the influence of the Church upon the world is every striving to bring into existence. Needless to say, while the general principles of social order remain always the same, social structures will present great differences at different epochs. No particular temporal social order will ever realize all that the Church is capable of giving to the world. The theology of history must include, then, primarily, the study of the foundation and development of the Church, and secondarily, the examination of the ebb and flow of the world’s acceptance of the Church’s supernatural mission.

As the popes have taught from time immemorial, the Church can adapt herself to this or that particular form of civil governance. She does insist, however, that she be recognized as the true Church by the civil state and that it, the civil state, must yield to her when the good of souls demands such deference. While the Church, as a good and wise mother, does not expect the impossible from her sons and daughters who find themselves in the situations brought about by the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry, she nevertheless insists on maintaining the doctrinal truths of the Social Reign of Christ the King in order inspire Catholics to seek to plant the seeds for the conversion of their nations to the one and only true Faith, Catholicism.

As Pope Pius XII noted in Summi Pontificatus, October 10, 1939, and as Father Fahey noted in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, the time of Christendom was far from perfect. That era did, however, provide a framework to guide men and their nations in light of the Deposit of Faith.

The denial of the fundamentals of morality had its origin, in Europe, in the abandonment of that Christian teaching of which the Chair of Peter is the depository and exponent. That teaching had once given spiritual cohesion to a Europe which, educated, ennobled and civilized by the Cross, had reached such a degree of civil progress as to become the teacher of other peoples, of other continents. But, cut off from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, not a few separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow the central dogma of Christianity, the Divinity of the Savior, and have hastened thereby the progress of spiritual decay.

The Holy Gospel narrates that when Jesus was crucified "there was darkness over the whole earth" (Matthew xxvii. 45); a terrifying symbol of what happened and what still happens spiritually wherever incredulity, blind and proud of itself, has succeeded in excluding Christ from modern life, especially from public life, and has undermined faith in God as well as faith in Christ. The consequence is that the moral values by which in other times public and private conduct was gauged have fallen into disuse; and the much vaunted civilization of society, which has made ever more rapid progress, withdrawing man, the family and the State from the beneficent and regenerating effects of the idea of God and the teaching of the Church, has caused to reappear, in regions in which for many centuries shone the splendors of Christian civilization, in a manner ever clearer, ever more distinct, ever more distressing, the signs of a corrupt and corrupting paganism: "There was darkness when they crucified Jesus" (Roman Breviary, Good Friday, Response Five).

Many perhaps, while abandoning the teaching of Christ, were not fully conscious of being led astray by a mirage of glittering phrases, which proclaimed such estrangement as an escape from the slavery in which they were before held; nor did they then foresee the bitter consequences of bartering the truth that sets free, for error which enslaves. They did not realize that, in renouncing the infinitely wise and paternal laws of God, and the unifying and elevating doctrines of Christ's love, they were resigning themselves to the whim of a poor, fickle human wisdom; they spoke of progress, when they were going back; of being raised, when they groveled; of arriving at man's estate, when they stooped to servility. They did not perceive the inability of all human effort to replace the law of Christ by anything equal to it; "they became vain in their thoughts" (Romans i. 21).

With the weakening of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the darkening in men's minds of the light of moral principles, there disappeared the indispensable foundation of the stability and quiet of that internal and external, private and public order, which alone can support and safeguard the prosperity of States.

It is true that even when Europe had a cohesion of brotherhood through identical ideals gathered from Christian preaching, she was not free from divisions, convulsions and wars which laid her waste; but perhaps they never felt the intense pessimism of today as to the possibility of settling them, for they had then an effective moral sense of the just and of the unjust, of the lawful and of the unlawful, which, by restraining outbreaks of passion, left the way open to an honorable settlement. In Our days, on the contrary, dissensions come not only from the surge of rebellious passion, but also from a deep spiritual crisis which has overthrown the sound principles of private and public morality. (Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, October 10, 1939.)

 

Father Fahey sounded a similar theme in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World:

“The organization of the Europe of the thirteenth century furnishes us with one concrete realization of the Divine Plan. It is hardly necessary to add that there were then to be seen defects in the working of the Divine Plan., due to the character of fallen man, as well as to an imperfect mastery of physical nature. Yet, withal, the formal principle of ordered social organization in the world, the supremacy of the Mystical Body, was grasped and, in the main, accepted. The Lutheran revolt, prepared by the cult of pagan antiquity at the Renaissance, and by the favour enjoyed by the Nominalist philosophical theories, led to the rupture of that order.”

The great cardinal principle of Protestantism is that every man attains salvation by entering into an immediate relation with Christ, with the aid of that interior faith by which he believes that, though his sins persist, they are no longer imputed to him, thanks to the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ. All men are thus priests for themselves and carry out the work of their justification by treating directly and individually with God. The Life of Grace, being nothing else than the external favour of God, remains outside of us and we continue, in fact, in spite of Lutheran faith in Christ, corrupt and sinful. Each human being enters into an isolated relation with our Lord, and there is no transforming life all are called to share. Luther never understood the meaning of faith informed by sanctifying grace and charity. Accordingly, the one visible Church and the Mystical Body is done away with, as well as the priesthood and the sacrifice of the Mystical Body, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The only purpose of preaching and such ceremonies were retained by Protestants was to stir up the individual’s faith.”

Hence the True Church of Christ, according to the Protestant view, is noting else than the assembly of those who, on account of the confidence interiorly conceived of the remission of their sins, have the justice of God imputed to them by God and are accordingly predestined to eternal life. And this Church, known to God alone, is the unique Church of the promises of indefectibility, to which our Lord Jesus Christ promised His assistance to the consummation of the world. Since, however, true believers, instructed by the Holy Ghost, can manifest their faith exteriorly, can communicate their impressions and feelings to other and may employ the symbols of the Sacraments to stir up their faith, they give rise to a visible church which, nevertheless, is not the Church instituted by Christ. Membership of this Church is not necessary for salvation, and it may assume different forms according to different circumstances. The true invisible Church of Christ is always hidden, unseen in the multitude.

Protestantism, therefore, substituted for the corporate organization of society, imbued with the spirit of the Mystical Body and reconciling the claims of personality and individuality in man, a merely isolated relation with our Divine Lord. This revolt of human individual against order on the supernatural level, this uprise of individualism, with its inevitable chaotic self-seeking, had dire consequences both in regard to ecclesiastical organization and in the realms of politics and economics. Let us take these in turn.

The tide of revolt which broke away from the Catholic Church had the immediate effect of increasing the power of princes and rulers in Protestant countries. The Anabaptists and the peasants in Germany protested in the name of ‘evangelical liberty,’ but they were crushed. We behold the uprise of national churches, each of which organizes its own particular form of religion, mixture of supernatural and natural elements, as a department of State. The orthodox Church in Russia was also a department of State and as such exposed to the same evils. National life was thus withdrawn from ordered subjection to the Divine Plan and the distinction laid down by our Divine Lord Himself, between the things that are God’s and the things that are Caesar’s, utterly abolished. Given the principle of private judgment or of individual relation with Christ, it was inevitable that the right of every individual to arrange his own form of religion should cause the pendulum to swing from a Caesarinism supreme in Church and State to other concrete expressions of ‘evangelical liberty.’ One current leads to the direction of indefinite multiplication of sects. Pushed to its ultimate conclusion, this would, this would give rise to as many churches as there are individuals, that is, there would not be any church at all. As this is too opposed to man’s social nature, small groups tend to coalesce. The second current tends to the creation of what may be termed broad or multitudinist churches. The exigencies of the national churches are attenuated until they are no longer a burden to anybody. The Church of England is an example of this. As decay in the belief of the Divinity of Jesus continues to increase, the tendency will be to model church organization according to the political theories in favour at the moment. The democratic form of society will be extolled and a ‘Reunion of Christendom,’ for example, will be aimed at, along the lines of the League of Nations. An increasing number of poor bewildered units will, of course, cease to bother about any ecclesiastical organization at all.

The first [political] result was an enormous increase in the power of the Temporal Rulers, in fact a rebirth of the pagan regime of Imperial Rome. The Spiritual Kingship of Christ, participated in by the Pope and the Bishops of the Catholic Church being no longer acknowledged, authority over spiritual affairs passed to Temporal Rulers. They were thus, in Protestant countries, supposed to share not only in His Temporal Kingship of Christ the King, but also in His spiritual Kingship. As there was no Infallible Guardian of order above the Temporal Rulers, the way was paved for the abuses of State Absolutism. The Protestant oligarchy who ruled England with undisputed sway, from Charles the Second’s time on, and who treated Ireland to the Penal Laws, may be cited, along with that cynical scoundrel, Frederick of Prussia, as typical examples of such rulers. Catholic monarchs, like Louis XIV of France and Joseph II of Austria, by their absolutist tendencies and pretensions to govern the Catholic Church show the influence of the neighboring Protestant countries. Gallicanism and Josephism are merely a revival of Roman paganism.”

 

Ah, you see, the Catholic Church was weakened even in traditionally Catholic countries as a result of the Protestant Revolt. A Louis XIV in France, for example, could threaten to take his country out of the Church as Henry VIII had done in England if he did not get his way. Mind you, this is no excuse for bishops who might have been too supine with Louis XIV. However, the fact that bishops in France and Austria were in less of a position to rein in Catholic monarchs who took advantage of the Protestant Revolt to govern in an absolutist manner does not mean in the slightest that the concord between the Catholic Church and the civil state was wrong. Indeed, the reverse is true. It was the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King that was wrought by Luther that gave rise to the monarchical despots in Europe, paving the way for the rise of democratic despots in our own day, men who do not know and/or do not accept the fact that God Himself demands that their actions be in conformity with the Deposit of Faith that He has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church and that they must seek first His Kingdom in order to govern justly in light of the eternal good of their citizens.

Daily before us is the spiritual and bodily carnage of the rise of the Modern State, the entity that is either indifferent or hostile to the Incarnation of the Word made Man in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb and is thus indifferent or hostile to His true Church's authority to safeguard the good of souls. Men who live in nations that do not reference Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen must perforce degenerate into barbarism. Pope Pius XI pointed  out in Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, that it is only the Catholic Church that can maintain order in the souls of men and thus in nations.

In teaching this enlightening doctrine, the Church has no other intention than to realize the glad tidings sung by the Angels above the cave of Bethlehem at the Redeemer’s birth: ‘Glory to God and peace to men of good will.’ True peace and true happiness, even here below as far as it is possible, in preparation for the happiness of heaven–but to men of good will. This doctrine is equally removed from all extremes of error. It maintains a constant equilibrium of truth and justice, which it vindicates in theory and applies and promotes in practice, bringing into harmony the rights and duties of all parties. Thus authority is reconciled with liberty, the dignity of the individual with that of the State, the human personality of the subject with the divine delegation of the superior; and in this way a balance is struck between the due dependence and well-ordered love of a man for himself, his family and country, and his love of other families and other peoples, founded on the love of God, the Father of all, their first principle and last end. The Church does not separate a proper regard for temporal welfare from the solicitude for the eternal. If she subordinates the former to the latter according to the words of her divine Founder, ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you,’ she is nevertheless so far from being unconcerned with human affairs, so far from hindering civil progress and material advancement, that she actually fosters and promotes them even in the most sensible and efficacious manner. Thus even in the sphere of socio-economics, although the Church has never proposed a definite technical system, since this is not her field, she has nevertheless clearly outlined the guiding principles which, while susceptible of varied concrete applications according to the diversified conditions of times and places and peoples, indicate the safe way of securing the happy progress of society.

Pope Pius XI was merely reiterating the perennial teaching of the Church, which Pope Leo XIII, for example, had done throughout his twenty-five year pontificate, doing so very clearly in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900:

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

There is a special irony here, ladies and gentlemen: those who ignore the positive obligation of the civil state to recognize the Catholic Church and to shape public policy in all that pertains to the good of souls in accord with the Deposit of Faith that has been entrusted to her by God Himself must also ignore the simple reality that the "religiously neutral" state, which is an offense to God and thus harmful to souls, has been as closely identified with Catholic prelates as the confessional state. Mrs. Randy Engel pointed out in The Rite of Sodomy how eager Francis Cardinal Spellman and Richard Cardinal Cushing were to do the bidding of the statist Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he pursued policies in direct contradiction of Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno and Divini Redemptoris. I noted in Christ in the Voting Booth the long history of accommodation of Catholic prelates to the policies of thorough anti-Catholic presidents such as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson and William Jefferson Blythe Clinton.

The late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin and the very much alive Roger Cardinal Mahony have continued continuing their sordid legacy (and that of John Ireland and James Gibbons and John Purcell and Peter Richard Kenrick and John Lancaster Spalding, et al.) in our own day, giving their approval to pro-abortion, pro-perversity candidates who are considered to be "champions" of the poor and marginalized in society. No, the "religiously neutral" state has not prevented Catholic prelates from becoming closely identified with the scions of civil power. Indeed, a number of "conservative" conciliar bishops have become as much embedded in the machinery of the Republican Party, which is considered, erroneously, to be "pro-life," as others remain enmeshed in the cogs of the Democrat Party. None of the conciliar bishops--not a single, solitary one--believes that it is either obligatory or advisable of them to seek to convert this nation and everyone and everything in it to the Catholic Faith without a single exception in any aspect of personal or social life.

We live in a land of barbarism. We live in a land that belongs to the devil. You see, my friends, the devil reigns in our souls if, God forbid, we are ever in states of Mortal Sin. He reigns as the king of nations when Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not recognized confessionally as King of all men and all nations through His Catholic Church. Neither men nor their nations can ever be "neutral" about Christ the King. Not once. Not in any circumstances. Not at any time.

Although many Americans "feel good" about the hanging of a brutal reprobate and murderer and self-delusional thug named Saddam Hussein, the plain fact is that over 4,000 babies were put to death in this country under cover of law yesterday, December 30, 2006, when Hussein was executed in Iraq. Tell me who is civilized? Tell me, please? Who is going to curb, no less prosecute, the "civilized" men who fund the chemical assassination of millions of babies by means of domestic and international "family planning" programs? Who is going to curb, no less prosecute, the crimes of the "civilized" men who introduced "family planning" pills and devices into Iraq almost immediately upon American "liberation" of that country in March of 2003? Who is going to bring to the bar of justice the "civilized" men who have presided over the torture and execution of thousands upon thousands of innocent Iraqis, men, women and children who had nothing to do with Saddam Hussein or his brutal regime, in the name of "liberation"? The only dividing line between what is considered "civilized" and "barbarous" in a world where Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ does not reign as King through His true Church is the possession of a superior supply of military and economic power.

Indeed, the barbarism extant in the realm of civil governance as a result of the overthrow of Christendom by the likes of Martin Luther and John Calvin and Henry VIII and Elizabeth I and their fellow fiends is also quite apparent in the corporate and academic worlds. A world where Christ is not king, particularly a world where the apparent holders of ecclesiastical office reject the doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King, is one where unbridled self-interest, both personal and corporate, rules the day, placing into jeopardy the good of souls and the temporal welfare of family-run businesses. Consider this brief excerpt from a very interesting story (which is not very well-edited; oh, I can catch the mistakes of others in a flash; my own????, not quite that easily!) contained in The Hibernian, a copy of which was sent to me by a reader of this site:

Here are some basic facts on GM [genetically modified foods] as detailed on the GM-FREE Ireland website. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) include patented viruses, bacteria, seeds, crops, trees, insects, fish, crustaceans, poultry and livestock infected with foreign DNA from viruses, bacteria, plants and/or animals. Sixty percent of GM crops currently on the market are resistant to weedkillers, 40% produce built-in pesticides, and many contain genes that may spread antibiotic resistance to livestock and humans. Experimental GM plants include pharma crops (which produce plastics, industrial chemicals and drugs such as blood-thinners, blood clotters and contraceptives); traitor crops (whose growth cycle is disrupted if not sprayed with an antidote); and terminator crops (which produce sterile seeds). Once release, GMO seeds and crops can never be recalled. Contamination incidents in 39 countries prove that GMO crops infect related species, unrelated species, agricultural seed supplies and the human food chain. (See GM Contamination Register)

GM foods are created in laboratory conditions by huge corporations. The crops and products created are patented and thereby wholly owned by whoever holds the patent. There is also a race on by these same corporations to patent the genetic makeup of all seeds and variety of seed used in production or held in seed banks for the purposes of conservation. That includes non GM crops and seeds of all sorts and varieties. In fact, the very seeds mankind has been using and storing forever. As ludicrous as it sounds, in the US you can legally patent life. It's merely a case of who races to the patent office first. There is also a lobby to harmonise global patent laws so that whatever seeds/crops are patented in the US (or anywhere else) can be controlled in Ireland, Tasmania or Tibet. Anyone who infringes the patent--i.e. anyone who grows or has been growing with the newly patented seed, regardless of where the seeds originated, is liable to be sued and fined by the legal representatives of the patent holder. This has already happened in the US and Canada. Farmers have lost their livelihoods and their life-savings as the majority of cases have resulted in awards in favour of the agri-dictators and their legal bully boys.

"The Future of Food," a documentary film on the issue made by Deborah Koons Garcia is a brilliant introduction to the issue. Various farmers interviewed describe their legal ordeal with companies such as Monsanto, a name synonymous with GM crops. One farmer went as far as to suggest that these companies profile and scout out farms to be targeted by virtue of their size and how profitable they will be for lawyers and Corporations. The targeted farm is then deliberately contaminated by the corporation, although it is just as easy for accidental contamination to occur by virtue of wind and bird activity. Contamination occurs when GM seed takes root amongst the farmers's crop. Not only has his crop become contaminated but he has now infringed the insidious patent laws even though he actually hasn't done anything. Judges in the main, have upheld the Corporations claims in these cases against the bewildered farmers and there is no reason to believe anything different would happen here in Ireland. The dark spectre of GM supported by international Law in its invasive takeover of farms should be of serious concern to all of us here in Ireland. The farmers were initially approached by seemingly well meaning people conducting scientific surveys who asked permission to take samples away for testing; then--BAM! Letters arrive informing the farmer that he is being sued for infringing patent law. His initial goodwill and cooperation is repaid with the theft of his wealth and independence regarding what he grows in the future.

Under the World Trade Organization's Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement, contaminated farmers lose ownership of their crops and the right to save and plant their own seeds. They face demands for patent royalties, extortion letters and patent infringement lawsuits, as has happened to thousands.

According to the Irish Patent Office, EU [European Union] and Irish patent law offers no protection to contaminated farmers here.

Central control of food supply has been a standard ingredient for social and political control throughout history. By creating a monopoly position, Monsanto can force dangerous experiments like the release of GMO's into the environment on the unwilling public. They can ensure that GMOs will be sold and consumed wherever they say they will. By claiming global monopoly patent rights throughout the entire food chain, Monsanto seeks to maker farmers and food produces, and ultimately consumers, entirely dependent and reliant on one single corporate entity for a basic human need. It's the same dependence that Russian peasants had on the Soviet Government following the Russian revolution.

GMOs are a serious threat to human and animal health. GMOs are genetically unstable, contain novel proteins that our immune systems do not recognise and impact living organisms and ecosystems in ways that are impossible to predict. No long-term health studies justify industry claims that GM food is safe. The fact of it being in the good chain at all is a serious crime for which those responsible should be brought to book. Scientific investigations of death and disease attributable to GM food in laboratory animals, livestock and the human population have led to accusations of criminal negligence and corruption by the US Food and Drug Administration, the European Food Safety Authority (FSA), the UK Food Standards Agency, and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. Most if not all of these organisations are infiltrated by biotech lobbyists and routinely accept biased and pseudo-scientific risk assessments submitted by the corporations they are supposed to regulate. The FSAI's CEO, Dr. John O'Brien-- a former Director of International Life Sciences Institute lobby group, actually denies the existence of any evidence of GM food health risks.

 

Thank you, John Calvin. Thank you, Adam Smith. Thank you, the "invisible hand" of the market-place. Such an absurdity as patenting seeds created by God Himself would not be possible in a world that submitted itself humbly to the authority of Christ the King through His true Church, that is, the Catholic Church. Such an absurdity, however, is but the logical consequence of a whole series of events that cannot be turned back by the non-denominationalism of Modernity or the inter-denominationalism of Modernism in the conciliar Church. There is only one way to turn back the barbarism that attacks the innocent preborn and the brain-damaged and the elderly and the unwanted and to turn back the lawlessness of corporations directed by death-dealing merchants of profit: the restoration of the Catholic City, as Pope Saint Pius X noted in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:

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

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

 

The insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants are to be found in the ranks of those who, for one reason or another, reject, this clear and unequivocal statement of Pope Saint Pius X, contained in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, concerning the positive, irrevocable duty of the civil state to recognize the Catholic Church:

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."

 

May our "resolution" for the New Year of Our Lord that begins in but a few hours be to champion the rights of Christ the King as the consecrated slaves of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary our Immaculate Queen. The devil has used the errors of Modernity (Protestantism, Judeo-Masonry, various political ideologies) and of Modernism in the conciliar church to attack the rights of Christ the King. We must, as Pope Pius XI noted in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, "all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights."

Pope Pius XI called us to spiritual combat in Quas Primas. It is a spiritual combat as relevant in 2007 as it was in 1925:

But if the faithful were generally to understand that it behooves them ever to fight courageously under the banner of Christ their King, then, fired with apostolic zeal, they would strive to win over to their Lord those hearts that are bitter and estranged from him, and would valiantly defend his rights.

 

May Our Lady, who is the Help of Christians, help us in this new year to be spirited defenders of Christ the King as we give all things unto Him through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart in these times of apostasy and betrayal. May we never seek to find loopholes from being her consecrated slaves and from being champions of the Most Sacred Heart of the King of Kings to Whom she gave birth painlessly on Christmas Day. May the King of Kings Who was served so selflessly by Saint Joseph, the Patron of the Universal Church, reign in every aspect of our personal and social lives at every moment of our existence.

A blessed, holy New Year to you all.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady, Help of Christians, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Thomas the Apostle, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.

The Holy Innocents, pray for us.

Saint Thomas a Becket, pray for us.

Pope Saint Sylvester I, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gregory Lalamont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.

Saint Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Basil, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Juan Diego, pray for us.

 

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.