Fascists for "Freedom"

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Many citizens of the United States of America fancy themselves as "experts" on the topic of "freedom." This "expertise" on "freedom" is so extensive in some instances as to denounce anyone who dares to disagree with the "received truth" that the United States of America is indeed the "land of the free and the home of the brave." These "fascists for freedom" do not want to hear any criticism of the following things (and this is not an exclusive list whatsoever):

1. The founding principles of the United States of America.

2. The Declaration of Independence.

3. The founding fathers of the United States of America.

4. Thomas Jefferson.

5 George Washington.

6. John Adams.

7. James Madison

8. Benjamin Franklin

9. The Constitution of the United States of America.

10. Freedom of speech

11. Freedom of press.

12. Freedom of religion.

13. The War of 1812.

14. The Mexican-American War.

15. The Spanish-American War.

16. World War I.

17. World War II.

18. The Cold War.

19. The Korean War.

20. The Vietnam War.

21. The Persian Gulf War.

22. The Iraq War.

23. The Global War on Terror.

24. Conservatism.

25. Libertarianism.

26. Separation of Church and State.

27. Capitalism.

28. Ronald Reagan.

29. George W. Bush.

30. Rush Limbaugh.

31. Sean Hannity.

32. Michael Savage.

33. Bob Grant.

34. Bill O'Reilly.

35. The Pledge of Allegiance.

 

America's "freedom fascists" do not take any sort of criticism about the mythologies of the United States of America very well at all. It is as though they believe that the United States of America is the "last, best hope of mankind," not the true Church that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. Anyone dissenting in the slightest from the mythologies of American nationalism must must be denounced in the most bitter, strident terms. Obviously, there is long tradition of such denunciation, which manifests itself every once in a while in the use of physical violence against party-poopers who will not assent to the demigods of Americanism. It was not uncommon, for example, for colonists who were neutral in the American Revolutionary War to be beaten up and harassed by "patriots" who were incensed by their neutrality, to say nothing of the plight of Tories who actually supported the British, of all things.

You mean to say that a case could be made in defense of King George III? Well, let's re-cast the issue a bit, please. A case could be made that the abuses attributed to King George III were insufficient to launch a revolt on the part of English-speaking colonists in the colonies up and down the Atlantic seaboard. This is a matter open to debate and interpretation. Looking at the matter in retrospect, however, one sees that American citizens at present are living under far more oppressive conditions and with an amount of taxation and government regulation of even the legitimate use of one's own private property now than King George III could have ever imagined was possible for any government to impose upon its subjects (or citizens). And there were some colonists at the time in the 1760s and early 1770s who made cogent arguments against a break with England for a variety of quite legitimate reasons. The mania of the mythology of American nationalism has, however, cast most of these arguments into the Orwellian memory hole as being unworthy of even being acknowledged as having existed, no less reading them carefully so as to come to a realization that the Declaration of Independence does not tell the full story concerning how colonists viewed the matter of revolution.

One of those who was the most vocal in arguing against a break from the United Kingdom was an Episcopalian preacher by the name of Jonathan Boucher, who lived between 1738 and 1804. He spent much of his time in the the Colony of Maryland, packing two pistols to protect himself from angry crowds who were livid with him for using his pulpit to denounce any break from the English Crown no matter what injustices had been visited upon the colonists. Boucher had to flee back to his native England in 1775 because of the fascistic hostility to his very well-reasoned sermons. Mind you, Boucher's arguments in opposition to revolts against duly constituted authority are incomplete as he did not realize that those same arguments could be applied to Martin Luther and John Calvin and Henry VIII, the founder of his own heretical and schismatic sect, and Thomas Cranmer and others. However, one can see in the excerpt from one of Boucher's sermons below that he raised serious issues, some of them reflecting a thoroughly Catholic understanding of the nature of authority and the inequality of persons, that were met with scorn by the irrational multitudes:

Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. (Galatians 5:1).

. . . I entreat your indulgence, whilst, without too nicely scrutinizing the propriety of deducing from a text a doctrine which it clearly does not suggest, I once more adopt a plan already chalked out for me, and deliver to you what occurs to me as proper for a Christian audience to attend to on the subject of Liberty....

Obedience to government is every man's duty, because it is every man's interest; but it is particularly incumbent on Christians, because (in addition to its moral fitness) it is enjoined by the positive commands of God; and, therefore, when Christians are disobedient to human ordinances, they are also disobedient to God. If the form of government under which the good providence of God has been pleased to place us be mild and free, it is our duty to enjoy it with gratitude and with thankfulness and, in particular, to be careful not to abuse it by licentiousness. If it be less indulgent and less liberal than in reason it ought to be, still it is our duty not to disturb and destroy the peace of the community by becoming refractory and rebellious subjects and resisting the ordinances of God. However humiliating such acquiescence may seem to men of warm and eager minds, the wisdom of God in having made it our duty is manifest. For, as it is the natural temper and bias of the human mind to be impatient under restraint, it was wise and merciful in the blessed Author of our religion not to add any new impulse to the natural force of this prevailing propensity but, with the whole weight of his authority, altogether to discountenance every tendency to disobedience.

If it were necessary to vindicate the Scriptures for this their total unconcern about a principle which so many other writings seem to regard as the first of all human considerations, it might be observed that, avoiding the vague and declamatory manner of such writings, and avoiding also the useless and impracticable subtleties of metaphysical definitions, these Scriptures have better consulted the great general interests of mankind, by summarily recommending and enjoining a conscientious reverence for law whether human or divine. To respect the laws is to respect liberty in the only rational sense in which the term can be used, for liberty consists in a subserviency to law. "Where there is no law," says Mr. Locke, "there is no freedom." The mere man of nature (if such an one there ever was) has no freedom: all his lifetime he is subject to bondage. It is by being included within the pale of civil polity and government that he takes his rank in society as a free man.

Hence it follows that we are free, or otherwise, as we are governed by law, or by the mere arbitrary will, or wills, of any individual, or any number of individuals. And liberty is not the setting at nought and despising established laws -- much less the making our own wills the rule of our own actions, or the actions of others -- and not bearing (whilst yet we dictate to others) the being dictated to, even by the laws of the land; but it is the being governed by law and by law only. The Greeks described Eleutheria, or Liberty, as the daughter of Jupiter, the supreme fountain of power and law. And the Romans, in like manner, always drew her with the pretor's wand (the emblem of legal power and authority), as well as with the cap. Their idea, no doubt, was that liberty was the fair fruit of just authority and that it consisted in men's being subjected to law. The more carefully well-devised restraints of law are enacted, and the more rigorously they are executed in any country, the greater degree of civil liberty does that country enjoy. To pursue liberty, then, in a manner not warranted by law, whatever the pretense may be, is clearly to be hostile to liberty; and those persons who thus promise you liberty are themselves the servants of corruption.

"Civil liberty (says an excellent writer) is a severe and a restrained thing; implies, in the notion of it, authority, settled subordinations, subjection, and obedience; and is altogether as much hurt by too little of this kind, as by too much of it. And the love of liberty, when it is indeed the love of liberty, which carries us to withstand tyranny, will as much carry us to reverence authority, and to support it; for this most obvious reason, that one is as necessary to the being of liberty, as the other is destructive of it. And, therefore, the love of liberty which does not produce this effect, the love of liberty which is not a real principle of dutiful behavior toward authority, is as hypocritical as the religion which is not productive of a good life. Licentiousness is, in truth, such an excess of liberty as is of the same nature with tyranny. For, what is the difference betwixt them, but that one is lawless power exercised under pretense of authority, or by persons vested with it; the other, lawless power exercised under pretense of liberty, or without any pretense at all? A people, then, must always be less free in proportion as they are more licentious, licentiousness being not only different from liberty but directly contrary to it -- a direct breach upon it."

True liberty, then, is a liberty to do everything that is right, and the being restrained from doing anything that is wrong. So far from our having a right to do everything that we please, under a notion of liberty, liberty itself is limited and confined -- but limited and confined only by laws which are at the same time both its foundation and its support. It can, however, hardly be necessary to inform you that ideas and notions respecting liberty, very different from these, are daily suggested in the speeches and the writings of the times; and also that some opinions on the subject of government at large, which appear to me to be particularly loose and dangerous, are advanced in the sermon now under consideration; and that, therefore, you will acknowledge the propriety of my bestowing some farther notice on them both.

It is laid down in this sermon, as a settled maxim, that the end of government is "the common good of mankind." I am not sure that the position itself is indisputable; but, if it were, it would by no means follow that "this common good being matter of common feeling, government must therefore have been instituted by common consent." There is an appearance of logical accuracy and precision in this statement; but it is only an appearance. The position is vague and loose; and the assertion is made without an attempt to prove it. If by men's "common feelings" we are to understand that principle in the human mind called common sense, the assertion is either unmeaning and insignificant, or it is false. In no instance have mankind ever yet agreed as to what is, or is not, "the common good." A form or mode of government cannot be named, which these "common feelings" and "common consent," the sole arbiters, as it seems, of "common good," have not, at one time or another, set up and established, and again pulled down and reprobated. What one people in one age have concurred in establishing as the "common good," another in another age have voted to be mischievous and big with ruin. The premises, therefore, that "the common good is matter of common feeling," being false, the consequence drawn from it, viz., that government was instituted by "common consent," is of course equally false.

This popular notion, that government was originally formed by the consent or by a compact of the people, rests on, and is supported by, another similar notion, not less popular, nor better founded. This other notion is that the whole human race is born equal; and that no man is naturally inferior, or, in any respect, subjected to another; and that he can be made subject to another only by his own consent. The position is equally ill-founded and false both in its premises and conclusions. In hardly any sense that can be imagined is the position strictly true; but, as applied to the case under consideration, it is demonstrably not true. Man differs from man in everything that can be supposed to lead to supremacy and subjection, as one star differs from another star in glory. It was the purpose of the Creator that man should be social; but, without government, there can be no society; nor, without some relative inferiority and superiority, can there be any government. A musical instrument composed of chords, keys, or pipes, all perfectly equal in size and power, might as well be expected to produce harmony, as a society composed of members all perfectly equal to be productive of order and peace. If (according to the idea of the advocates of this chimerical scheme of equality) no man could rightfully be compelled to come in and be a member even of a government to be formed by a regular compact, but by his own individual consent, it clearly follows, from the same principles, that neither could he rightfully be made or compelled to submit to the ordinances of any government already formed, to which he has not individually or actually consented. On the principle of equality, neither his parents, nor even the vote of a majority of the society (however virtuously and honorably that vote might be obtained), can have any such authority over any man. Neither can it be maintained that acquiescence implies consent; because acquiescence may have been extorted from impotence or incapacity. Even an explicit consent can bind a man no longer than he chooses to be bound. The same principle of equality that exempts him from being governed without his own consent clearly entitles him to recall and resume that consent whenever he sees fit; and he alone has a right to judge when and for what reasons it may be resumed.

Any attempt, therefore, to introduce this fantastic system into practice would reduce the whole business of social life to the wearisome, confused, and useless task of mankind's first expressing, and then withdrawing, their consent to an endless succession of schemes of government. Governments, though always forming, would never be completely formed; for the majority today might be the minority tomorrow, and, of course, that which is now fixed might and would be soon unfixed. Mr. Locke indeed says that, "by consenting with others to make one body-politic under government, a man puts himself under an obligation to every one of that society to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it." For the sake of the peace of society, it is undoubtedly reasonable and necessary that this should be the case; but, on the principles of the system now under consideration, before Mr. Locke or any of his followers can have authority to say that it actually is the case, it must be stated and proved that every individual man, on entering into the social compact, did first consent, and declare his consent, to be concluded and bound in all cases by the vote of the majority. In making such a declaration, he would certainly consult both his interest and his duty; but at the same time he would also completely relinquish the principle of equality, and eventually subject himself to the possibility of being governed by ignorant and corrupt tyrants. Mr. Locke himself afterward disproves his own position respecting this supposed obligation to submit to the "determination of the majority", when he argues that a right of resistance still exists in the governed; for, what is resistance but a recalling and resuming the consent heretofore supposed to have been given, and in fact refusing to submit to the "determination of the majority"? It does not clearly appear what Mr. Locke exactly meant by what he calls "the determination of the majority"; but the only rational and practical public manner of declaring "the determination of the majority" is by law: the laws, therefore, in all countries, even in those that are despotically governed, are to be regarded as the declared "determination of a majority'' of the members of that community; because, in such cases, even acquiescence only must be looked upon equivalent to a declaration. A right of resistance, therefore, for which Mr. Locke contends, is incompatible with the duty of submitting to the determination of "the majority," for which he also contends.

It is indeed impossible to carry into effect any government which, even by compact, might be framed with this reserved right of resistance. Accordingly there is no record that any such government ever was so formed. If there had, it must have carried the seeds of its decay in its very constitution. For, as those men who make a government (certain that they have the power) can have no hesitation to vote that they also have the right to unmake it, and as the people, in all circumstances, but more especially when trained to make and unmake governments, are at least as well disposed to do the latter as the former, it is morally impossible that there should be anything like permanency or stability in a government so formed. Such a system, therefore, can produce only perpetual dissensions and contests and bring back mankind to a supposed state of nature, arming every man's hand, like Ishmael's, against every man, and rendering the world an aceldama, or field of blood.

Such theories of government seem to give something like plausibility to the notions of those other modern theorists who regard all governments as invasions of the natural rights of men, usurpations, and tyranny. On this principle it would follow, and could not be denied, that government was indeed fundamentally, as our people are sedulously taught it still is, an evil. Yet it is to government that mankind owe their having, after their fall and corruption, been again reclaimed, from a state of barbarity and war, to the conveniency and the safety of the social state; and it is by means of government that society is still preserved, the weak protected from the strong, and the artless and innocent from the wrongs of proud oppressors. It was not without reason, then, that Mr. Locke asserted that a greater wrong cannot be done to prince and people than is done by "propagating wrong notions concerning government."

Ashamed of this shallow device, that government originated in superior strength and violence, another party, hardly less numerous, and certainly not less confident than the former, fondly deduce it from some imaginary compact. They suppose that, in the decline perhaps of some fabulous age of old, a multitude of human beings, who, like their brother-beasts, had hitherto ranged the forests, without guide, overseer, or ruler -- at length convinced, by experience, of the impossibility of living either alone with any degree of comfort or security, or together in society, with peace, without government, had (in some lucid interval of reason and reflection) met together in a spacious plain for the express purpose of framing a government. Their first step must have been the transferring to some individual, or individuals, some of those rights which are supposed to have been inherent in each of them: of these it is essential to government that they should be divested; yet can they not, rightfully, be deprived of them, otherwise than by their own consent. Now, admitting this whole supposed assembly to be perfectly equal as to rights, yet all agreed as to the propriety of ceding some of them, on what principles of equality is it possible to determine, either who shall relinquish such a portion of his rights, or who shall be invested with such new accessory rights? By asking another to exercise jurisdiction over me, I clearly confess that I do not think myself his equal; and by his consenting to exercise such authority, he also virtually declares that he thinks himself superior. And, to establish this hypothesis of a compact, it is farther necessary that the whole assembly should concur in this opinion -- a concurrence so extremely improbable that it seems to be barely possible. The supposition that a large concourse of people, in a rude and imperfect state of society, or even a majority of them, should thus rationally and unanimously concur to subject themselves to various restrictions, many of them irksome and unpleasant, and all of them contrary to all their former habits, is to suppose them possessed of more wisdom and virtue than multitudes in any instance in real life have ever shown. Another difficulty respecting this notion may yet be mentioned. Without a power of life and death, it will, I presume, be readily admitted that there could be no government. Now, admitting it to be possible that men, from motives of public and private utility, may be induced to submit to many heavy penalties, and even to corporal punishment, inflicted by the sentence of the law, there is an insuperable objection to any man's giving to another a power over his life: this objection is that no man has such a power over his own life and cannot therefore transfer to another, or to others, be they few or many, on any conditions, a right which he does not himself possess. He only who gave life can give the authority to take it way; and as such authority is essential to government, this argument seems very decidedly to prove, not only that government did not originate in any compact, but also that it was originally from God....

. . . The glory of God is much concerned that there should be good government in the world; it is, therefore, the uniform doctrine of the Scriptures that it is under the deputation and authority of God alone that kings reign and princes decree justice. Kings and and princes (which are only other words for supreme magistrates) were doubtless created and appointed, not so much for their own sakes, as for the sake of the people committed to their charge; yet are they not, therefore, the creatures of the people. So far from deriving their authority from any supposed consent or suffrage of men, they receive their commission from Heaven; they receive it from God, the source and original of all power. However obsolete, therefore, either the sentiment or the language may now be deemed, it is with the most perfect propriety that the supreme magistrate, whether consisting of one or of many, and whether denominated an emperor, a king, an archon, a dictator, a consul, or a senate, is to be regarded and venerated as the vicegerent of God....

Nor let this be deemed a degrading and servile principle: it is the very reverse; and it is this its superior dignity which proves its celestial origin. For, whilst other doctrines and other systems distract the world with disputes and debates which admit of no decision, and of wars and fightings which are almost as endless as they are useless, it is the glory of Christianity to teach her votaries patiently to bear imperfections, inconveniences, and evils in government, as in everything else that is human. This patient acquiescence under some remediless evils is not more our duty than it is our interest for, the only very intolerable grievance in government is when men allow themselves to disturb and destroy the peace of the world by vain attempts to render that perfect which the laws of our nature have ordained to be imperfect. And there is more magnanimity, as well as more wisdom, in enduring some present and certain evils than can be manifested by any projects of redress that are uncertain; but which, if they fail, may bring down irretrievable ruin on thousands of others, as well as on ourselves, since to suffer nobly indicates more greatness of mind than can be shown even by acting valiantly. Wise men, therefore, in the words of a noted philosopher, will "rather choose to brook with patience some inconveniences under government" (because human affairs cannot possibly be without some) than self-opinionatedly disturb the quiet of the public. And, weighing the justice of those things you are about, not by the persuasion and advice of private men, but by the laws of the realm, you will no longer suffer ambitious men, through the streams of your blood, to wade to their own power but esteem it better to enjoy ourselves in the present state, though perhaps not the best, than, by waging war, endeavor to procure a reformation.... Jonathan Boucher: On Civil Liberty, Passive Obedience, and Nonresistance

 

Jonathan Boucher did not realize that the very reason the matters he raised were being discussed publicly was as a logical consequence of the Protestant Revolt against the authority of Christ the King that had been exercised by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages, thus failing to recognize that it was a revolution against Divinely-established authority that created his own false church. That having been noted, however, one can see that much of Boucher's train of thought was thoroughly in line with Catholic teaching and was a serious effort to address the issues facing the colonists in the years leading up to the shots being fired at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Boucher was absolutely hated for his efforts, which were caricatured and denounced in the most villainous manner possible.

Let us be clear for the sake of the purposes of this particular commentary that what is being discussed is the fact that there people such as Jonathan Boucher who raised serious arguments against any revolution against the authority of the English Crown and that his arguments were as unwelcome by irrational fascists then as those who oppose the Iraq War, for example, in our own day are denounced as traitors and supporters of global terrorism for refusing to "toe the line" of nationalist mythology, that whatever the United States of America does is received from the hand of God and only modern-day Benedict Arnolds dare to dissent from this mythology. We are not, however, discussing the merits of the arguments, although they are weighty, or that the Catholic kingdoms of France and Spain supported those colonists in the thirteen colonies in North America who wanted to break from the English Crown (mostly for geopolitical reasons: what was bad for England was good for France and Spain). We are discussing the fact that false patriots used jingoism and mob violence to intimidate anyone who dared to criticize the break from the United Kingdom wrought by the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolutionary War.

The same sort of rank intimidation against political opponents was used during the administration of President John Adams by means of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. The Sedition Act, enacted on July 14, 1798, made it a crime to publish "false, scandalous, and malicious" writing against the government of the United States of America and its officials. President Abraham Lincoln, a consummate statist, used the full power of the government of the United States of America to silence dissent during the War Between the States. President Thomas Woodrow Wilson did so to such an extent during World War I that Senator Hiram Johnson (R-California) observed "that it is now illegal to criticize the government of the United States at any time for any reason." President Franklin Delano Roosevelt did so during World War II. And it can be argued very plausibly that President George Walker Bush has taken all of this American "tradition" of intimidation and control to newer and more sophisticated and all-encompassing levels than have ever been seen in the history of the not-so-free United States of America.

We are living at a time of rank nationalism, which is a Mortal Sin, objectively speaking against the First Commandment. Pope Pius XI noted this in Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1939:

Take care, Venerable Brethren, that above all, faith in God, the first and irreplaceable foundation of all religion, be preserved in Germany pure and unstained. The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God.

Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community -- however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things -- whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.

Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your influence on the Faithful, that they refuse to yield to this aberration. Our God is the Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, one in the Trinity of Persons, tri-personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all existence. Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the history of the world, who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival God by His side.

This God, this Sovereign Master, has issued commandments whose value is independent of time and space, country and race. As God's sun shines on every human face so His law knows neither privilege nor exception. Rulers and subjects, crowned and uncrowned, rich and poor are equally subject to His word. From the fullness of the Creators' right there naturally arises the fullness of His right to be obeyed by individuals and communities, whoever they are. This obedience permeates all branches of activity in which moral values claim harmony with the law of God, and pervades all integration of the ever-changing laws of man into the immutable laws of God.

None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xI, 15).

The Bishops of the Church of Christ, "ordained in the things that appertain to God (Heb. v, 1) must watch that pernicious errors of this sort, and consequent practices more pernicious still, shall not gain a footing among their flock. It is part of their sacred obligations to do whatever is in their power to enforce respect for, and obedience to, the commandments of God, as these are the necessary foundation of all private life and public morality; to see that the rights of His Divine Majesty, His name and His word be not profaned; to put a stop to the blasphemies, which, in words and pictures, are multiplying like the sands of the desert; to encounter the obstinacy and provocations of those who deny, despise and hate God, by the never-failing reparatory prayers of the Faithful, hourly rising like incense to the All-Highest and staying His vengeance.

We thank you, Venerable Brethren, your priests and Faithful, who have persisted in their Christian duty and in the defense of God's rights in the teeth of an aggressive paganism. Our gratitude, warmer still and admiring, goes out to those who, in fulfillment of their duty, have been deemed worthy of sacrifice and suffering for the love of God.

No faith in God can for long survive pure and unalloyed without the support of faith in Christ. "No one knoweth who the Son is, but the Father: and who the Father is, but the Son and to whom the Son will reveal Him" (Luke x. 22). "Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent" (John xvii. 3). Nobody, therefore, can say: "I believe in God, and that is enough religion for me," for the Savior's words brook no evasion: "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. He that confesseth the Son hath the Father also" (1 John ii. 23).

 

Pope Leo XIII, writing in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890, reminded Catholics that love of one's nation is a duty of the Natural Law. Our love of nation, however, is secondary to our love of God as He has Revealed Himself to us exclusively through the true Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. We must never subordinate our Catholic Faith to anyone, including our closest relatives, or anything, including our nation:

Now, if the natural law enjoins us to love devotedly and to defend the country in which we had birth, and in which we were brought up, so that every good citizen hesitates not to face death for his native land, very much more is it the urgent duty of Christians to be ever quickened by like feelings toward the Church. For the Church is the holy City of the living God, born of God Himself, and by Him built up and established. Upon this earth, indeed, she accomplishes her pilgrimage, but by instructing and guiding men she summons them to eternal happiness. We are bound, then, to love dearly the country whence we have received the means of enjoyment this mortal life affords, but we have a much more urgent obligation to love, with ardent love, the Church to which we owe the life of the soul, a life that will endure forever. For fitting it is to prefer the good of the soul to the well-being of the body, inasmuch as duties toward God are of a far more hallowed character than those toward men.

Moreover, if we would judge aright, the supernatural love for the Church and the natural love of our own country proceed from the same eternal principle, since God Himself is their Author and originating Cause. Consequently, it follows that between the duties they respectively enjoin, neither can come into collision with the other. We can, certainly, and should love ourselves, bear ourselves kindly toward our fellow men, nourish affection for the State and the governing powers; but at the same time we can and must cherish toward the Church a feeling of filial piety, and love God with the deepest love of which we are capable. The order of precedence of these duties is, however, at times, either under stress of public calamities, or through the perverse will of men, inverted. For, instances occur where the State seems to require from men as subjects one thing, and religion, from men as Christians, quite another; and this in reality without any other ground, than that the rulers of the State either hold the sacred power of the Church of no account, or endeavor to subject it to their own will. Hence arises a conflict, and an occasion, through such conflict, of virtue being put to the proof. The two powers are confronted and urge their behests in a contrary sense; to obey both is wholly impossible. No man can serve two masters, for to please the one amounts to contemning the other.

As to which should be preferred no one ought to balance for an instant. It is a high crime indeed to withdraw allegiance from God in order to please men, an act of consummate wickedness to break the laws of Jesus Christ, in order to yield obedience to earthly rulers, or, under pretext of keeping the civil law, to ignore the rights of the Church; "we ought to obey God rather than men." This answer, which of old Peter and the other Apostles were used to give the civil authorities who enjoined unrighteous things, we must, in like circumstances, give always and without hesitation. No better citizen is there, whether in time of peace or war, than the Christian who is mindful of his duty; but such a one should be ready to suffer all things, even death itself, rather than abandon the cause of God or of the Church.

 

Catholics who lived in the first centuries of the Church were faced frequently with the prospect of losing their lives if they did not obey the unjust laws of the Roman Empire concerning the worship of idols. Catholics who lived in the Roman Empire in the period between the onset of the persecutions of Emperor Nero in 67 A.D. and Emperor Constantine's Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. obeyed just laws and paid their taxes. Some even performed their military duties in the service of the empire. They would not, however, worship the Emperor as a "god" nor would they sacrifice to the idols or participate in any way in any ceremony that gave even the least impression that false "gods" were on a level of equality with the true God: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. As Saint Alphonsus de Liguori noted, over thirteen million Catholics were put to death by the brute power of the statism of the Roman emperors in the first centuries of the Church. These Catholics were called "enemies of the empire" when they were nothing of the sort. They were true patriots who loved their native land but who would not assent to falsehoods that blasphemed the true God and that arrogated unto the civil state and its false "gods" the worship that is due to Him alone through His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.

True patriotism--that is, true love of one's nation--is to will its good, the ultimate expression of which is her Catholicization in every single aspect of her national life without any exception whatsoever. The measure of true patriotism in the Roman Empire was not whether citizens worshiped the false idols. The measure of true patriotism in the years before the American Revolutionary War was not whether one supported a possible break from the English Crown. The measure of true patriotism during the War between the States was not whether one supported Abraham Lincoln. The measure of true patriotism in World War I was not whether one supported the war that made the world "safe" for World War II. The measure of true patriotism in World War II was not whether one supported the lies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he goaded the Japanese Empire into war against the United States of America and as he supported the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (a move in 1941 that was criticized by even then United States Senator Harry S. Truman, D-Missouri) after Adolph Hitler broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty and invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The measure of true patriotism today is not whether one supports the Iraq War. The measure of true patriotism today is not whether one recites a "Pledge of Allegiance" that was composed by a "Christian Socialist" and a Freemason, Francis Bellamy, who believed that "government" was the solution to all human problems.

Once again, however, so many well-meaning Catholics have become so accustomed to the prevailing nationalist myths that they find themselves doing voluntarily what our Catholic ancestors gave up their very lives rather than consent to doing: namely, reciting words that are not in accord with the Catholic Faith and that contain abject falsehoods that blaspheme God and denigrate the truths that He has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. How sad it is that Catholics who even raise questions about the propriety of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance are denounced by their fellow Catholics in the most virulent terms as unpatriotic and disloyal citizens.

The American Pledge of Allegiance, however, is not part of the Deposit of Faith. It is not received from the hand of God. Indeed, it is an offense against Him as it claims that we can exalt a republic which does not acknowledge His Social Kingship over us and which propagates the life that sovereignty resides with the "people," not with Him through His Catholic Church. A nation that is not under Christ the King is not "under God." As Pope Pius XI wrote in Mit Brennender Sorge, we must avoid all usage of the Holy Name of God that signifies a "generic" or a "national" "God." By way of reiteration: a nation that is not under the authority of Christ the King and His Catholic Church is not under God. Each nation on the face of this earth must recognize the authority of the Catholic Church in all matters pertaining to the good of the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. Liberty and justice for all? Who is kidding whom?

Two articles, both written by libertarian-minded authors and suffering from an exaltation of the "rights" of the "people," provide a very good summary of the true history of the Pledge of Allegiance and how it is an exercise in the false worship of the state:

Well, we’ve had another federal judge rule that making children in public schools recite the "under God" portion of the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, because it amounts to establishing a religion. As long as the topic is likely to be in the news again – and probably a godsend for Republicans concerned about the Bush administration’s performance in Iraq and our own Gulf in the 2006 election – we might as well widen the debate.

It’s not the "under God" part I object to; although I can see an abstract argument that this is a first step on a slippery slope toward establishing a religion, it really isn’t. If I thought it really meant the nation was to submit itself to God, which would mean a lot fewer wars of choice and a lot less stealing in the "public interest," I might even be enthusiastic. But this formulation is one of vague public piety more meant to imply that God is on our side than to express fealty to His commandments.

I object to the very idea of making students "pledge allegiance" to a rapacious state mechanism – and that is unquestionably what the pledge was designed to do, to encourage an attitude of unquestioning obedience that is unworthy of a free people.

As this article by Gene Healy of Cato asks, "What’s Conservative about the Pledge of Allegiance?" The pledge was drafted in virtually its present form in 1892 by Francis Bellamy, an unapologetic socialist who had been pushed out of his position as a Baptist minister because his sermons reflected more socialism than Gospel. Francis was cousin to Edward Bellamy, who wrote the 1888 utopian socialist novel Looking Backward, which I had to read in college in a class on utopian thinking. I guess it was valuable to know that to Bellamy utopia meant a highly regimented place where all incomes were equal and men were drafted into the state’s "industrial army" at age 21 and did whatever the state decided they should do. It helped to cement my distaste for such a system.

After being kicked out of the pulpit Francis Bellamy went to work for a magazine called Youth’s Companion, and decided to work through the public schools rather than the church to advance his notion of a socialist worker’s paradise. The Pledge was unquestionably part of this campaign. Bellamy even recommended that the ceremony start with a military salute and "At the words, ‘to my Flag,’ the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, towards the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation." For better or worse (and to be fair, long after Bellamy’s recommendation) the Nazis adopted this same salute. It was quietly dropped from American practice, but the intention was similar – to encourage a quasi-religious subordination to government.

In a country founded on "unalienable rights" of individuals, in which the government’s job is supposedly to "preserve these rights" and not much else, the government should be pledging allegiance to citizens and their rights, not the other way around.

It is curious that people who call themselves conservatives now consider this overtly socialist inducement to state-worship part of the sacred tradition of liberty and justice. (That Other Statist 'Pledge' by William L. Anderson.)

 

Obviously, Mr. Anderson is opposed to the confessionally Catholic civil state and has false notions about the "rights" of individuals. However, there is much good history here for us to consider as Catholics in order to realize how we have been brainwashed by the religious indifferentists of Freemasonry to pledge allegiance to a symbol of a governmental system based on false premises.

The other article, written by a Gene Healy of the Cato Institute (no, you won't find me quoting from too many authors associated with the Cato Institute), makes similar points to the ones made by Mr. Anderson:

It seems there's no escaping America's culture wars for the Supreme Court: On Tuesday, Oct. 14, the Court announced that it would hear Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, a case on the constitutionality of the Pledge of Allegiance. Newdow arose out of a California parent's attempt to get the phrase "under God" stripped from the Pledge, on the grounds that it represents an establishment of religion.

The Newdow case is a Republican campaign strategist's dream. It gives G.O.P. candidates a grand old opportunity to position themselves as defenders of tradition against militant atheists and liberal judges. George Bush the elder used the Pledge to similar effect in his 1988 campaign against Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, who had vetoed a bill requiring public school teachers to lead their classes in the Pledge.

It's probably too much to ask politicians to reflect a little before they lunge for a political hot-button issue. But any conservatives so inclined should think about what they're defending. What's so conservative about the Pledge?

Very little, as it turns out. From its inception, in 1892, the Pledge has been a slavish ritual of devotion to the state, wholly inappropriate for a free people. It was written by Francis Bellamy, a Christian Socialist pushed out of his post as a Baptist minister for delivering pulpit-pounding sermons on such topics as "Jesus the Socialist." Bellamy was devoted to the ideas of his more-famous cousin Edward Bellamy, author of the 1888 utopian novel Looking Backward. Looking Backward describes the future United States as a regimented worker's paradise where everyone has equal incomes, and men are drafted into the country's "industrial army" at the age of 21, serving in the jobs assigned them by the state. Bellamy's novel was extremely popular, selling more copies than other any 19th century American novel except Uncle Tom's Cabin. Bellamy's book inspired a movement of "Nationalist Clubs," whose members campaigned for a government takeover of the economy. A few years before he wrote the Pledge of Allegiance, Francis Bellamy became a founding member of Boston's first Nationalist Club.

After leaving the pulpit, Francis Bellamy decided to advance his authoritarian ideas through the public schools. Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance for Youth's Companion, a popular children's magazine. With the aid of the National Education Association, Bellamy and the editors of Youth's Companion got the Pledge adopted as part of the National Public School Celebration on Columbus Day 1892.

Bellamy's recommended ritual for honoring the flag had students all but goosestepping their way through the Pledge: "At a signal from the Principal the pupils, in ordered ranks, hands to the side, face the Flag. Another signal is given; every pupil gives the Flag the military salute--right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it... At the words, 'to my Flag,' the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, towards the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation; whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side." After the rise of Nazism, this form of salute was thought to be in poor taste, to say the least, and replaced with today's hand-on-heart gesture.

Hands on their hearts, more than 100 Republican members of Congress gathered on the steps of the Capitol to recite the pledge shortly after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled for Newdow in June 2002. It was an effective photo-op, allowing the G.O.P. to cast itself as the defender of tradition. But not every tradition deserves defending. Though no one can be legally compelled to salute the flag, encouraging the ritual smacks of promoting a quasi-religious genuflection to the state. That's not surprising, given that the Pledge was designed by an avowed socialist to encourage greater regimentation of society.

Regardless of the legal merits of Newdow's case -- which rests on a rather ambitious interpretation of the First Amendment's Establishment clause -- it's ironic to see conservatives rally to such a questionable custom. Why do so many conservatives who, by and large, exalt the individual and the family above the state, endorse this ceremony of subordination to the government? Why do Christian conservatives say it's important for schoolchildren to bow before a symbol of secular power? Indeed, why should conservatives support the Pledge at all, with or without "under God"? (What's Conservative about the Pledge of Allegiance?)

 

More the point for us as Catholics, however, is to ask "What's Catholic about the Pledge of Allegiance?" Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The Pledge of Allegiance would have pleased the Roman Emperors no end if it had been devised in their own day and were imposed upon Catholics as a test of their loyalty and patriotism.

But what about the phrase "under God" some might ask. Go ahead, ask. I'll answer. It's real simple. The phrase, which was inserted in the Pledge of Allegiance at the insistence of President Dwight David Eisenhower (who was born as David Dwight Eisenhower) in 1954, originated with a proposal made by the Knights of Columbus in 1952 as a means of indicating that the United States of America was "under God" whereas the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was not. Pure sentimentality having nothing to do with the inconvenient little fact that Catholics cannot use the Name of God generically or in a way that allows others to project their own false beliefs about a deity into the word "God." The members of the Knights of Columbus may have been well-meaning, to be sure. As true sons of Americanism, however, they did not realize that the secular, anti-Incarnational, semi-Pelagian nature of the American founding had much more in common on a philosophical level with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics than they could even dare to imagine, no less to admit.

Moreover, President Eisenhower, who was raised as a Jehovah's Witness but converted to Presbyterianism shortly after his presidential inauguration in 1953, himself understood the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance to be representative of religious indifferentism. Dr. Paul Johnson, writing in A History of the American People, quoted Eisenhower as follows about the subject of religion.

Our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is."

 

Pope Leo XIII, writing in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, explained the fallacy of such a stupid statement:

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God.

 

It is up to individual pastors of parishes and principals of Catholic schools to make their own determinations on ending the practice of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, a statement whose words cannot be squared with the Catholic Faith. This is a matter of great delicacy, rife with the irrationality of emotionalism. Efforts to educate Catholics on this matter would involve much catechesis, without, humanly speaking, that is, much guarantee of success. A lot of Catholics in the United States of America really, really, really don't want to "get it" concerning the false nature of their country's founding and the various nationalist myths and pledges to which we are supposed to subscribe in order to "prove" our patriotism.

The principal point of this commentary, however, is that those who have come to recognize the real foundation and meaning of the "pledge" and who refuse any longer to recite it are no more "unpatriotic" than the Catholics in the Roman Empire who, while doing their duty as citizens and praying for the conversion of the Emperor and the Empire, refused to render under Caesar and his false "gods" the worship and homage that is due God alone. Perhaps the time has come to pray a Hail Mary for the conversion of the nation to the Catholic Faith at the beginning of a school day or a meeting rather than to recite a pledge written by a socialist and a Mason and "augmented" by a religious indifferentist.

As noted before true love of one's nation wills her good, the ultimate expression of which is her Catholicization. We must keep these stirring words of Pope Pius XI, contained in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, ever in our minds:

If We ordain that the whole Catholic world shall revere Christ as King, We shall minister to the need of the present day, and at the same time provide an excellent remedy for the plague which now infects society. We refer to the plague of anti-clericalism, its errors and impious activities. This evil spirit, as you are well aware, Venerable Brethren, has not come into being in one day; it has long lurked beneath the surface. The empire of Christ over all nations was rejected. The right which the Church has from Christ himself, to teach mankind, to make laws, to govern peoples in all that pertains to their eternal salvation, that right was denied. Then gradually the religion of Christ came to be likened to false religions and to be placed ignominiously on the same level with them. It was then put under the power of the state and tolerated more or less at the whim of princes and rulers. Some men went even further, and wished to set up in the place of God's religion a natural religion consisting in some instinctive affection of the heart. There were even some nations who thought they could dispense with God, and that their religion should consist in impiety and the neglect of God. The rebellion of individuals and states against the authority of Christ has produced deplorable consequences. We lamented these in the Encyclical Ubi arcano; we lament them today: the seeds of discord sown far and wide; those bitter enmities and rivalries between nations, which still hinder so much the cause of peace; that insatiable greed which is so often hidden under a pretense of public spirit and patriotism, and gives rise to so many private quarrels; a blind and immoderate selfishness, making men seek nothing but their own comfort and advantage, and measure everything by these; no peace in the home, because men have forgotten or neglect their duty; the unity and stability of the family undermined; society in a word, shaken to its foundations and on the way to ruin. We firmly hope, however, that the feast of the Kingship of Christ, which in future will be yearly observed, may hasten the return of society to our loving Savior. It would be the duty of Catholics to do all they can to bring about this happy result. Many of these, however, have neither the station in society nor the authority which should belong to those who bear the torch of truth. This state of things may perhaps be attributed to a certain slowness and timidity in good people, who are reluctant to engage in conflict or oppose but a weak resistance; thus the enemies of the Church become bolder in their attacks. 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.

Moreover, the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them. While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights.

 

Unlike the man who blasphemed Our Lady three days ago when he disparaged the power of her Most Holy Rosary to "change things," we must ever believe in the power of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, using this great spiritual weapon as a shield against sin in our own lives and as the means by which the blinded eyes and the hardened hearts of Catholics steeped in the jingoistic ways of nationalism and naturalism will be, respectively, opened and softened to accept the simple truth stated by Our Lord Himself to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque:

"I will reign in spite of all who oppose Me."

 

May it be our privilege, therefore, to plant a few seeds for the restoration of Christendom. True, the hour may be too late for such a restoration. We must continue to do the work of apostles no matter the likelihood of any tangible, earthly success. We must seek to be faithful to the cause of our King by serving Him through His Immaculate Queen's Immaculate Heart, enthroning our own homes to His Most Sacred Heart and to that same Immaculate Heart, helping at least a few souls to His champions as we remember these words that Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J., uttered as the bullets fired at him by the Masonic revolutionaries in Mexico pierced his flesh on November 23, 1927:

 

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

 

Behold the only standard of true human liberty (not the "liberty bell" or the Masonic "goddess" in New York Harbor.)

The Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome, Italy, Sunday, May 22, 2005.

A painting of the Catholic martyrs of Gorkum, The Netherlands, who were tortured and executed in 1572 by Dutch Calvinists, the theological soul-mates of the "Pilgrims" who came to North America less than half a century later who were so "grateful" that they had had a bountiful harvest in a land where there was no Catholic Mass. (Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel, Monroe, Connecticut, the Feast of Saint Cecilia, Thursday, November 22, 2007.)

Here is a description of their martyrdom as found at the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia site:

The year 1572, Luther and Calvin had already wrested from the Church a great part of Europe. The iconoclastic storm had swept through the Netherlands, and was followed by a struggle between Lutheranism and Calvinism in which the latter was victorious. In 1571 the Calvinists held their first synod, at Embden. On 1 April of the next year the Watergeuzen (Sea-beggars) conquered Briel and later Vlissingen and other places. In June, Dortrecht and Gorkum fell into their hands and at Gorkum they captured nine Franciscans. These were: Nicholas Pieck, guardian of Gorkum, Hieronymns of Weert, vicar, Theodorus van der Eem, of Amersfoort, Nicasius Janssen, of Heeze, Willehad of Denmark, Godefried of Mervel, Antonius Of weert, Antonius of Hoornaer, and Franciseus de Roye, of Brussels. To these were added two lay brothers from the same monastery, Petrus of Assche and Cornelius of Wyk near Duurstede. Almost at the same time the Calvinists laid their hands on the learned parish priest of Gorkum, Leonardus Vechel of Bois-le-Duc, who had made distinguished studies in Louvain, and also has assistant Nicolaas Janssen, surnamed Poppel, of Welde in Belgium. With the above, were also imprisoned Godefried van Duynsen, of Gorkum who was active as a priest in his native city, and Joannes Lenartz of Oisterwljk, an Augustinian and director of the convent of Augustinian nuns in Gorkum. To these fifteen, who from the very first underwent all the sufferings and torments of the persecution, were later added four more companions: Joannes van Hoornaer, a Dominican of the Cologne province and parish priest not far from Gorkum, who, when apprised of the incarceration of the clergy ot Gorkum, hastened to the city in order to administer the sacraments to them and was seized and imprisoned with the rest, Jacobus Lacops of Oudenaar, a Norbertine, who after leading a frivolous life, being disobedient to his order, and neglectful of his religious duties, reformed, became a curate in Monster, Holland and was imprisoned in 1572; Adrianus Janssen of Hilvarenbeek, at one time a Premonstratensian and parish priest in Monster, who was sent to Brielle with Jacobus Lacops; and lastly Andreas Wouters of Heynoord, whose conduct was not edifying up to the time of his arrest, but who made ample amends by his martyrdom.

After enduring much suffering and abuse in the prison at Gorkum (26 June-6 July) the first fifteen martyrs were transferred to Brielle. On their way to Dortrecht they were exhibited for money to the curious and arrived at Brielle 13 July. On the following day, Lumey, the commander of the Watergeuzen, caused the martyrs to be interrogated and ordered a sort of disputation. In the meantime the four other martyrs also arrived. It was exacted of each that he abandon his belief in the Blessed Sacrament and in papal supremacy. All remained firm in their faith. Meanwhile there came a letter from William of Orange which enjoined all those in authority to leave priests and religious unmolested. Nevertheless Lumey caused the martyrs to be hanged in the night of 9 July, in a turfshed amid cruel mutilations. Their beatification took place on 14 Nov., 1675, and their canonization on 29 June, 1865. For many years the place of their martyrdom in Brielle has been the scene of numerous pilgrimages and processions. The Martyrs of Gorkum

One will notice that the Calvinists, ever eager to make a buck--or the Dutch equivalent thereof, charged admission for the curious to see the martyrs, who would not renounce their belief in the Blessed Sacrament and in papal supremacy. It is that very truth of papal supremacy that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is prepared to "discuss" with the heretical and schismatic Orthodox on the basis of The Ravenna Document. Today the Orthdox and tomorrow the descendants of the Dutch Calvinists and all other Protestants.

Remember this and remember it well: where there is no Mass there is no Christianity. We must seek to plant the seeds for the Catholicization of the United States of America, never ever seeking to lionize people who rejected the true Faith and whose heresies helped to pave the way for the social problems we face today.

 

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saint Elizabeth, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Andrew the Apostle, pray for us.

Saint Barbara, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Chrysologus, pray for us.

Saint Bibiana, pray for us.

Saint Sabbas, pray for us.

Saint Nicholas, pray for us.

Saint Ambrose, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Sylvester the Abbot, pray for us.

Saint Gertrude the Great, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Dominic de Guzman, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.

Saint John Matha, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint John of God, pray for us.

Saint Philip Neri, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Brendan the Navigator, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Peregrine, pray for us.

Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, pray for us.

Saint John Fisher, pray for us.

Saint Thomas More, pray for us.

Saint Peter Canisius, pray for us.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.

Saint Francis Borgia, pray for us.

Saint John Francis Regis, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Casimir, pray for us.

Saint Hedwig, pray for us.

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

Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Brigid of Kildare, pray for us.

Saint Patrick, pray for us.

Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us.

Pope Saint Leo the Great, pray for us.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us.

Pope Saint Gregory VII, pray for us.

Saint Boniface, pray for us.

Saint Meinrad, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Siena, pray for us.

Saint Bernardine of Siena, pray for us.

Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Cupertino, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

Saint John Damascene, pray for us.

Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, pray for us.

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

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, pray for us.

Pope Saint Damasus I, pray for us.

Saint Jerome, pray for us.

Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Louise de Marillac, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, pray for us.

Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Turibius, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.

Saint Polycarp, pray for us.

Blessed Rose Philippine Duchesne, pray for us.

Saint Rita, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Philip Neri, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Peter of Alcantara, pray for us.

Saint Stanislaus, pray for us.

Saint Stanislaus Kostka, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, pray for us.

Saint Adalbert, pray for us.

Saint Norbert, pray for us.

Saint John Chrysostom, pray for us.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, pray for us.

Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.

Saints Gervase and Protase, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Pope Saint Clement I, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saints Fabian Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence the Deacon, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence of Brindisi, pray for us.

Saint Eustachius and Companions, pray for us.

Saints Pontian and Hippolytus, pray for us.

Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity, pray for us.

Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.

Saint Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Margaret of Scotland, pray for us.

Saint Peter Lombard, pray for us.

Saint Albert the Great, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us.

Saint Anselm, pray for us.

Saint Canute, pray for us.

Saint Clotilde, pray for us.

Saint Brendan the Navigator, pray for us.

Saint Coleman, pray for us.

Saint Maria Goretti, pray for us.

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us.

Blessed Father Vincent Pallotti, pray for us.

Saint Josaphat, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Mary Claret, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Blessed Edmund Campion, pray for us.

Saint Saturninus, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us.

Venerable Juan Diego, pray for us.

Venerable Junipero Serra, pray for us.

Venerable Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

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

The Christmas Novena, begun today, the Feast of Saint Andrew (said fifteen times daily until Christmas Day)

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold.  In that hour vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.  

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.