For True Love of Country

by Thomas A. Droleskey

[March 3, 2005, Introduction: Florida Judge George Greer is to hold a hearing at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, March 4, 2005, to consider motions being made by the parents of Mrs. Terri Schindler-Schiavo, Bob and Mary Schindler. We must pray that Judge Greer will be moved by the prayers and sacrifices and penances of millions of people around the world to put aside his previous injustices and do justice for Mrs. Schiavo.

[Some have written about the judicial activism of Judge Greer. Judicial activism? Well, this is true as far as it goes. However, Judge George Greer is merely the logical and inexorable result of a governmental system that is founded on a specific and categorical rejection of  the necessity of a belief in the Incarnation of the God-Man in His Most Blessed Mother's virgininal and immaculate womb and a rejection of the Deposit of Faith He entrusted to His true Church as being the foundation of all personal happiness and hence all social order. The overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King, brought about by the Protestant Revolt and nurtured by the rise of Freemasonry and all modern political ideologies, has resulted the Modern State. The Modern State, including the government United States of America, is thus destined to spin out of control over the course of time. Just as Protestantism must mutate and give rise to ever-increasing numbers of sects that differ with each other on points of "private interpretation of of the Bible, so too is the Modern State destined to mutate over time and produce petty little figures in the history of man such as George Greer. A system that does not recognize the Social Kingship of Christ is defenseless against assaults on the binding precepts contained in the Divine positive law and the natural law. No election, no political program, no "philosophy" (such as conservatism) is going to retard the advances of the logical degeneration of a society that is founded on false premises.

[Although this article may appear similar to others on this website, it was written on Saturday, May 8, 2004, nearly ten months ago now. In light of the civil attacks on Terri Schiavo (which have been made all the more possible because her shepherds have been unfaithful to Catholic moral theology), it important to republish this article now so as to reiterate basic Catholic truths that have been attacked by modernity and flushed down the Orwellian memory hole by the the disciples of Modernity in the world and by the Modernist doctrinal and liturgical revolutionaries within the Church herself. It is my hope that some who are unwilling to accept the universally binding truth of the Social Reign of Christ the King will read this essay dispassionately, coming to realize that their blithe acceptance of modernity is contrary to the good of souls and thus the right ordering of nations.]

It appears as though a number of Catholics, laden with the emotionalism and illogic engendered by the ethos of conciliarism, cannot grasp basic distinctions that exist between criticizing the mythology of one's nation and the actual patria (or true love of country) that we called to foster for the land in which we had our birth or have taken up citizenship. I have addressed this distinction any number of times in the past decade, doing so in a detailed manner in "Catholicism and State," an extensive treatise that was published in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos in early 2003 and online at www.dailycatholic.org. As my critique of the heresy of Americanism and the ills that continue to be bred thereby has aroused the nationalistic ire of some individuals, I want to use this particular article as a means of briefly summarizing the concept of patria and how the American sense of patriotism is really nothing other than nationalism, a heresy that idolizes and idealizes a nation to such an extent that any criticism of national myths or of certain national leaders is considered be in se an act of disloyalty.

True love is an act of the will. God's love for us is an act of His Divine Will. God, Who is all good and omnipotent and omniscient, wills the good for his rational creatures, the ultimate expression of which is the salvation of their immortal souls. It is God's will that every human being on this earth becomes a baptized member of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church so that he can be nourished by the worthy reception of Holy Communion, absolved and fortified in the Sacrament of Penance, and have access to all of the sanctifying and actual graces administered to him by Holy Mother Church. It is God's will that each person will desire to scale the heights of personal sanctity and thus be ready at all times for the moment of his own Particular Judgment. God's love for us is not an expression of empty sentimentality that is somehow divorced from the Deposit of Faith He has entrusted to His true Church and the sacraments He Himself instituted for the sanctification and salvation of our souls.

Each of us must choose to love God as He has revealed Himself through His true Church with our whole hearts, minds, bodies, souls, and strength. Anyone who says he knows and loves God but rejects in whole or in part the revelation He has deposited in the Catholic Church does not truly know God and thus "loves" a concept of God that is deficient and bound, ultimately, to reaffirm him in his own misconceptions. "Well, that's not how my God would act" is a common rejoinder of people who are either badly formed Catholics or are outside of the One Sheepfold of Christ that is the Catholic Church. Our love for God must thus be premised on acceptance of everything that is contained in the Deposit of Faith and thus makes up the actual patrimony of the Church. Our Lord does not want us to have a divided heart, seeking to find some accommodation to the false currents of the world while clinging to the Faith. This is one of the principal problems with the entire thrust of Pope John XXIII's "opening up to the world" that was the foundation of the Second Vatican Council. (The Second Vatican Council included such "experts" as Father Edward Schillebeeckx, who has now, on March 2, 2005, stated that "God has no Son," concluding that Our Lord was the "natural son" of Saint Joseph. Let those dreamers who say that the problems began only after the Council ended continue to dream on). We must love God entirely. This mandate obliges each of us, including popes and bishops, who must adhere to that which has been handed down to them and taught always and everywhere and have been believed by everyone. It is when the shepherds themselves begin to stray that the sheep are thus left open for the attacks of ravenous wolves seeking to privatize the Faith as a matter of personal piety, if not seeking to replace it with all manner of political ideologies and slogans that are absolutely inimical to the honor and glory of God and thus the good of souls and the common good of nations.

Similarly, our love for ourselves and our relatives and friends (and even our enemies) must be premised upon willing the good. A proper love of self is an act of the will we make to seek to do everything at every moment to cooperate with the graces won for us on the wood of the Holy Cross by the shedding of Our Lord's Most Precious Blood to save our souls as faithful sons and daughters of the Catholic Church. We do not love ourselves or others if we do or say anything, either by omission or commission, which in any way reaffirms us or others in objectively sinful behavior and/or false opinions. To admonish the sinner and to instruct the ignorant are two of the Spiritual Works of Mercy. It is therefore an act of mere sentimentality and disordered self-love that shuns the opportunity to remonstrate with our relatives and friends who are living lives of unrepentant sin and/or who are persisting in errors, even going so far as to propagate errors as subjective "truths." To love another means that must be willing to run the risk of being misunderstood and/or rejection by him in order to try to plant the seeds that might result, please Our Lord and His Most Blessed Mother, in his conversion back to the practice of the Faith and back to the acceptance of all that is contained in the Deposit of Faith.

Our love for our country is based on the same principles. That is, authentic love of one's country is an act of the will in which we will the good of the country, the ultimate expression of which is the subordination of everything in her national life to the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen as exercised by the Catholic Church. This is not a matter of opinion. This is a matter of Catholic dogma. None of the conciliar and postconciliar documents and papal pronouncements of the past forty-six years can undo the binding nature of this dogma, no matter how many times popes and cardinals and bishops and theologians and commentators adhering to various political ideologies have tried to undo the past. Any document or pronouncement, even if made by a pope, that is contrary to that which has been taught always, everywhere, and by everyone is a novelty that must be rejected by the faithful as contrary to the truth. The Social Reign of Christ the King is an absolute dogma of the Catholic Faith. No Catholic may dissent legitimately from this teaching, which mandates that the civil order recognize the primacy of the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law as they have been entrusted to and explicated by the Catholic Church.

As I have noted in all of my essays on this subject, the Church has never pronounced on the specific institutional arrangements by which men organize themselves in the civil state. Men are free to choose this or that form of government as long as they keep in mind that there are truths that exist in the nature of things and revealed positively by God Himself and taught infallibly by His true Church which they may not legitimately transgress. It was to recapture this truth as the foundation of a just civil order and as an antidote to the heresy of the modern state that Pope Leo XIII wrote Immortale Dei and Sapientiae Christianae, among other encyclical letters.

Pope Leo XIII noted in Immortale Dei:

But that harmful and deplorable passion for innovation which was aroused in the sixteenth century threw first of all into confusion the Christian religion, and next, by natural sequence, invaded the precincts of philosophy, whence it spread amongst all classes of society. From this source, as from a fountain-head, burst forth all those later tenets of unbridled license which, in the midst of the terrible upheavals of the last century, were wildly conceived and boldly proclaimed as the principles and foundation of that new conception of law which was not merely previously unknown, but was at variance on many points with not only the Christian, but even the natural law.

Amongst these principles the main one lays down that as all men are alike by race and nature, so in like manner all are equal in the control of their life; that each one is so far his own master as to be in no sense under the rule of any other individual; that each is free to think on every subject just as he may choose, and to do whatever he may like to do; that no man has any right to rule over other men. In a society grounded upon such maxims all government is nothing more nor less than the will of the people, and the people, being under the power of itself alone, is alone its own ruler. It does choose, nevertheless, some to whose charge it may commit itself, but in such wise that it makes over to them not the right so much as the business of governing, to be exercised, however, in its name.

The modern state is founded on the lie that a belief in the Incarnation of the God-Man and His Redemptive Act on the wood of the Cross is absolutely essential for the good of men individually and of their nations collectively. It is founded on the lie that the state should not embrace a particular religious faith so as to afford a sense of  "civil peace" and "brotherhood," which are of the essence of Freemasonry. The following statement from Pope Leo XIII is either true or it is not. If it is true, then the foundation of the modern state, including the United States of America, is a lie--and is thus bound to demonstrate the perfection of its inherent degeneracy over time. This is not an expression of emotion. This is a statement of pure logic founded in truth. As Pope Leo noted:

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.

Religious indifferentism leads to atheism, plain and simple. The whole of American culture, for example, is founded on the belief that overt expressions of denominationalism in public discourse are counter-productive to the good of the civil society. Religious indifferentism also enshrines the Protestant and Masonic belief that belief in, access to and cooperation with sanctifying grace is not essential for the right ordering of men and their societies. Pope Leo XIII noted this in Testem Benevolentiae, his apostolical letter to James Cardinal Gibbons about the heresy of Americanism, issued on January 22, 1899:

To practice virtue there is absolute need of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, yet we find those who are fond of novelty giving an unwarranted importance to the natural virtues, as though they better responded to the customs and necessities of the times and that having these as his outfit man becomes more ready to act and more strenuous in action. It is not easy to understand how persons possessed of Christian wisdom can either prefer natural to supernatural virtues or attribute to them a greater efficacy and fruifulness. Can it be that nature conjoined with grace is weaker than when left to herself?

Can it be that those men illustrious for sanctity, whom the Church distinguishes and openly pays homage to, were deficient, came short in the order of nature and its endowments, because they excelled in Christian strength? And although it be allowed at times to wonder at acts worthy of admiration which are the outcome of natural virtue-is there anyone at all endowed simply with an outfit of natural virtue? Is there any one not tried by mental anxiety, and this in no light degree? Yet ever to master such, as also to preserve in its entirety the law of the natural order, requires an assistance from on high These single notable acts to which we have alluded will frequently upon a closer investigation be found to exhibit the appearance rather than the reality of virtue. Grant that it is virtue, unless we would "run in vain" and be unmindful of that eternal bliss which a good God in his mercy has destined for us, of what avail are natural virtues unless seconded by the gift of divine grace? Hence St. Augustine well says: "Wonderful is the strength, and swift the course, but outside the true path." For as the nature of man, owing to the primal fault, is inclined to evil and dishonor, yet by the help of grace is raised up, is borne along with a new greatness and strength, so, too, virtue, which is not the product of nature alone, but of grace also, is made fruitful unto everlasting life and takes on a more strong and abiding character.

The American spirit is one of human self-redemption, that we can use our own ingenuity to improve the lot of the country and the world and that we are "special people" who have the ability to "do" things that people in others cannot do without our assistance, sometimes "given" in the form of unjust military invasions and occupations in order to force down the throats of ignorant foreigners the glories of American cultural pluralism and religious indifferentism. However, a system based on these falsehoods breeds the heresy of nationalism, which is the opposite of the true love of country that is meant to be represented by the word "patriotism."

Pope Pius XI noted the fruits of modernity in his first encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, issued in December of 1922, which was in the immediate aftermath of World War I,  a conflict that United States President Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) believed would pave the way for the Americanization--and thus the salvation--of the world. Please read carefully the prophetic insight of the passages from this encyclical letter:

The inordinate desire for pleasure, concupiscence of the flesh, sows the fatal seeds of division not only among families but likewise among states; the inordinate desire for possessions, concupiscence of the eyes, inevitably turns into class warfare and into social egotism; the inordinate desire to rule or to domineer over others, pride of life, soon becomes mere party or factional rivalries, manifesting itself in constant displays of conflicting ambitions and ending in open rebellion, in the crime of lese majeste, and even in national parricide.

These unsuppressed desires, this inordinate love of the things of the world, are precisely the source of all international misunderstandings and rivalries, despite the fact that oftentimes men dare to maintain that acts prompted by such motives are excusable and even justifiable because, forsooth, they were performed for reasons of state or of the public good, or out of love for country. Patriotism -- the stimulus of so many virtues and of so many noble acts of heroism when kept within the bounds of the law of Christ -- becomes merely an occasion, an added incentive to grave injustice when true love of country is debased to the condition of an extreme nationalism, when we forget that all men are our brothers and members of the same great human family, that other nations have an equal right with us both to life and to prosperity, that it is never lawful nor even wise, to dissociate morality from the affairs of practical life, that, in the last analysis, it is "justice which exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable."

Perhaps the advantages to one's family, city, or nation obtained in some such way as this may well appear to be a wonderful and great victory (this thought has been already expressed by St. Augustine), but in the end it turns out to be a very shallow thing, something rather to inspire us with the most fearful apprehensions of approaching ruin. "It is a happiness which appears beautiful but is brittle as glass. We must ever be on guard lest with horror we see it broken into a thousand pieces at the first touch." (St. Augustine de Civitate Dei, Book iv, Chap. 3)

There is over and above the absence of peace and the evils attendant on this absence, another deeper and more profound cause for present-day conditions. This cause was even beginning to show its head before the War and the terrible calamities consequent on that cataclysm should have proven a remedy for them if mankind had only taken the trouble to understand the real meaning of those terrible events. In the Holy Scriptures we read: "They that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed." (Isaias i, 28) No less well known are the words of the Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ, Who said: "Without me you can do nothing" (John xv, 5) and again, "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." (Luke xi, 23)

These words of the Holy Bible have been fulfilled and are now at this very moment being fulfilled before our very eyes. Because men have forsaken God and Jesus Christ, they have sunk to the depths of evil. They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. It was a quite general desire that both our laws and our governments should exist without recognizing God or Jesus Christ, on the theory that all authority comes from men, not from God. Because of such an assumption, these theorists fell very short of being able to bestow upon law not only those sanctions which it must possess but also that secure basis for the supreme criterion of justice which even a pagan philosopher like Cicero saw clearly could not be derived except from the divine law.

Authority itself lost its hold upon mankind, for it had lost that sound and unquestionable justification for its right to command on the one hand and to be obeyed on the other. Society, quite logically and inevitably, was shaken to its very depths and even threatened with destruction, since there was left to it no longer a stable foundation, everything having been reduced to a series of conflicts, to the domination of the majority, or to the supremacy of special interests.

Again, legislation was passed which did not recognize that either God or Jesus Christ had any rights over marriage -- an erroneous view which debased matrimony to the level of a mere civil contract, despite the fact that Jesus Himself had called it a "great sacrament" (Ephesians v, 32) and had made it the holy and sanctifying symbol of that indissoluble union which binds Him to His Church. The high ideals and pure sentiments with which the Church has always surrounded the idea of the family, the germ of all social life, these were lowered, were unappreciated, or became confused in the minds of many. As a consequence, the correct ideals of family government, and with them those of family peace, were destroyed; the stability and unity of the family itself were menaced and undermined, and, worst of all, the very sanctuary of the home was more and more frequently profaned by acts of sinful lust and soul-destroying egotism -- all of which could not but result in poisoning and drying up the very sources of domestic and social life.

Added to all this, God and Jesus Christ, as well as His doctrines, were banished from the school. As a sad but inevitable consequence, the school became not only secular and non-religious but openly atheistical and anti-religious. In such circumstances it was easy to persuade poor ignorant children that neither God nor religion are of any importance as far as their daily lives are concerned. God's name, moreover, was scarcely ever mentioned in such schools unless it were perchance to blaspheme Him or to ridicule His Church. Thus, the school forcibly deprived of the right to teach anything about God or His law could not but fail in its efforts to really educate, that is, to lead children to the practice of virtue, for the school lacked the fundamental principles which underlie the possession of a knowledge of God and the means necessary to strengthen the will in its efforts toward good and in its avoidance of sin. Gone, too, was all possibility of ever laying a solid groundwork for peace, order, and prosperity, either in the family or in social relations. Thus the principles based on the spiritualistic philosophy of Christianity having been obscured or destroyed in the minds of many, a triumphant materialism served to prepare mankind for the propaganda of anarchy and of social hatred which was let loose on such a great scale.

Is it to be wondered at then that, with the widespread refusal to accept the principles of true Christian wisdom, the seeds of discord sown everywhere should find a kindly soil in which to grow and should come to fruit in that most tremendous struggle, the Great War, which unfortunately did not serve to lessen but increased, by its acts of violence and of bloodshed, the international and social animosities which already existed?

False ideas always lead to disastrous results, no matter the intentions of those who held and propagated those false ideas. The modern state, including the United States of America, is founded on false ideas. Pope Leo XIII stated in the paragraph below, found in Immortale Dei, that a state that excludes the Church founded by God Himself from the business of social life is doomed to failure. Was Pope Leo XIII right or wrong? Was he summarizing Catholic truth or engaging in a novelty alien to that truth? The patrimony of the Church itself proves that he was merely reiterating what had been taught always and everywhere.

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

We must love God as He has revealed Himself through His true Church before all else. This love is the only foundation of personal sanctity and hence all social order. Our love of country, therefore, is subordinate to our love of God as He has implanted it in our immortal souls at the time of our baptism as members of His true Church. As Pope Leo XIII noted in Sapientiae Christianae, which was issued in 1890:

It cannot be doubted that duties more numerous and of greater moment devolve on Catholics than upon such as are either not sufficiently enlightened in relation to the Catholic faith, or who are entirely unacquainted with its doctrines. Considering that forthwith upon salvation being brought out for mankind, Jesus Christ laid upon His Apostles the injunction to "preach the Gospel to every creature," He imposed, it is evident, upon all men the duty of learning thoroughly and believing what they were taught. This duty is intimately bound up with the gaining of eternal salvation: "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be condemned." But the man who has embraced the Christian faith, as in duty bound, is by that very fact a subject of the Church as one of the children born of her, and becomes a member of that greatest and holiest body, which it is the special charge of the Roman Pontiff to rule with supreme power, under its invisible head, Jesus Christ .

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.

There is no way to reconcile the errors of modernity and the modern state with Catholic dogma concerning the Social Reign of Christ the King. It is not to hate one's nation to be critical of its false foundations and of the policies of its leaders at any given moment of its history. A Catholic must think and speak as a Catholic, not as an apologist for the false ideas of Protestants and Freemasons, no matter how those ideas have been repackaged by Modernists in the Church by the use of doublespeak and rank positivism. Pope Leo XIII stated the following with particular firmness in Sapientiae Christianae:

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. So soon as Catholic truth is apprehended by a simple and unprejudiced soul, reason yields assent.

We must profess Catholic doctrine, yes, even in the midst of a culturally pluralistic and religiously indifferentist nation. It is only the Catholic Faith that save men individually and thus order their nations to advance the common good below so as to facilitate man's pursuit of his Last End, the possession of the Beatific Vision for all eternity in Heaven. It is only a Catholic, therefore, who can make the best citizen possible, for a Catholic who assents completely to all that is contained in the Deposit of Faith, including the Social Reign of Christ the King, sees it as his solemn duty to plant seeds that might, if given to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart as her consecrated slave, result in the flowering of yet another Christendom.

Pope Pius XI stated this so very clearly in Divini Illius Magistri, his encyclical letter on the Christian Education of Youth, issued in 1929:

Whoever refuses to admit these principles, and hence to apply them to education, must necessarily deny that Christ has founded His Church for the eternal salvation of mankind, and maintain instead that civil society and the State are not subject to God and to His law, natural and divine. Such a doctrine is manifestly impious, contrary to right reason, and, especially in this matter of education, extremely harmful to the proper training of youth, and disastrous as well for civil society as for the well-being of all mankind. On the other hand from the application of these principles, there inevitably result immense advantages for the right formation of citizens. This is abundantly proved by the history of every age. Tertullian in his Apologeticus could throw down a challenge to the enemies of the Church in the early days of Christianity, just as St. Augustine did in his; and we today can repeat with him: Let those who declare the teaching of Christ to be opposed to the welfare of the State, furnish us with an army of soldiers such as Christ says soldiers ought to be; let them give us subjects, husbands, wives, parents, children, masters, servants, kings, judges, taxpayers and tax gatherers who live up to the teachings of Christ; and then let them dare assert that Christian doctrine is harmful to the State. Rather let them not hesitate one moment to acclaim that doctrine, rightly observed, the greatest safeguard of the State.

While treating of education, it is not out of place to show here how an ecclesiastical writer, who flourished in more recent times, during the Renaissance, the holy and learned Cardinal Silvio Antoniano, to whom the cause of Christian education is greatly indebted, has set forth most clearly this well established point of Catholic doctrine. He had been a disciple of that wonderful educator of youth, St. Philip Neri; he was teacher and Latin secretary to St. Charles Borromeo, and it was at the latter's suggestion and under his inspiration that he wrote his splendid treatise on The Christian Education of Youth . In it he argues as follows: The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquility by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity.

These words are either universally and eternally true or they are not. If they are a statement of the authentic patrimony of the Church, based as it is on the Deposit of Faith Our Lord entrusted to her, then the entire foundation of modernity is erroneous and thus harmful to men individually and to nations collectively. If they are true, you see, no refusal to embrace them by contemporary popes can undo their binding nature. These words are not merely prudential judgments. No, they are a statement of a Catholic doctrine that no pope or council has the authority to vitiate or to redefine in order to demonstrate an "openness" to the world. We must, therefore, pray and work assiduously for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King, a work that is intimately tied in to the restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass and the proper fulfillment of Our Lady's Fatima requests, as I indicate in "The Consecration Has Been Done?," an article that was posted on this website on May 8, 2004.

The Traditional Latin Mass stresses the importance of the Incarnation throughout its various component parts, which consist of such a beautiful perfection that no man could have put it together by means of a committee. The Traditional Mass grew organically over time under the guidance of God Himself. It is the case in most Masses of the traditional liturgical calendar that the Immemorial Mass of Tradition ends with the reading of the beginning of the Gospel of Saint John the Evangelist, which is a theological treatise on the Incarnation. The fact that the Word became Flesh and dwelt amongst us is important to keep in mind as we leave the unbloody representation of the Sacrifice of Calvary, in which Our Lord is made incarnate by an alter Christus acting in persona Christi under the appearances of bread and wine. The Traditional Latin Mass is timeless in its beauty. It is not an enshrinement of one time or one place or one culture. It is an expression of the timelessness and unchangeableness of God Himself. It is the Mass of Tradition that best equips souls to do battle with the forces of the world, the flesh and the devil, which is why the Adversary sought to use churchmen themselves to eradicate with great hatred and fury the Mass to which was added a prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel by Pope Leo XIII to drive him, the devil, out of our midst.

Pope Pius XI gave us the call to arms for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King in Quas Primas, which was issued in 1925 to institute the liturgical feast of Christ the King on the last Sunday in October. It was placed at that point in the liturgical calendar to emphasize the fact that just as there are yet another four weeks or so left in the liturgical year prior to the beginning of the season of Advent, so is it the case that there is time left before Our Lord comes in glory at the end of time on the Last Day. He is meant to reign as King of both men and nations until He comes in glory at the end of time, which is why the transfer of this feast to the last Sunday in the liturgical year by the liturgical revolutionaries who concocted the synthetic entity known as the Novus Ordo Missae was meant to de-emphasize, if not deny altogether, the Social Reign of Christ the King in order to focus on His eschatological Kingship at the end of time. Men who did not believe in the Catholic doctrine quoted herein could not retain the true meaning of a feast instituted by a pope who knew that the only way to retard and conquer the errors of modernity was to work for the Catholicization of the whole world.

Pope Pius XI noted this in Quas Primas:

Nations will be reminded by the annual celebration of this feast that not only private individuals but also rulers and princes are bound to give public honor and obedience to Christ. It will call to their minds the thought of the last judgment, wherein Christ, who has been cast out of public life, despised, neglected and ignored, will most severely avenge these insults; for his kingly dignity demands that the State should take account of the commandments of God and of Christian principles, both in making laws and in administering justice, and also in providing for the young a sound moral education.

The faithful, moreover, by meditating upon these truths, will gain much strength and courage, enabling them to form their lives after the true Christian ideal. If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God. If all these truths are presented to the faithful for their consideration, they will prove a powerful incentive to perfection. It is Our fervent desire, Venerable Brethren, that those who are without the fold may seek after and accept the sweet yoke of Christ, and that we, who by the mercy of God are of the household of the faith, may bear that yoke, not as a burden but with joy, with love, with devotion; that having lived our lives in accordance with the laws of God's kingdom, we may receive full measure of good fruit, and counted by Christ good and faithful servants, we may be rendered partakers of eternal bliss and glory with him in his heavenly kingdom.

One of the reasons I am no longer commenting on partisan political matters is that to continue to do so is an utter waste of time. We must no longer concentrate on the trees in the forest. We must concentrate on the forest itself, which is composed of an utter darkness caused by the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King as a result of the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Freemasonry. All of the petty professional politicians, including men like George Greer, who concern us so much now will be consigned one day to minor footnotes in the history of the world if they do not convert to the true Faith and embrace the totality of the Deposit of Faith and the Church's actual patrimony and tradition. We must, as I noted in "The Consecration Has Been Done?," pray that some pope will actually consecrate Russia to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

The fruit of the Triumph of Our Lady's Immaculate Heart will be a Catholic world. The devil knows this, which is why he desires to sow so much confusion within the Church herself. For if popes and bishops and priests can speak as naturalists and embrace the concept of the secular, religiously indifferentist state as an irreversible reality of modernity, then it is far easier for the devil to raise up minions to lead people into states of abject rebellion against everything that redounds to the salvation of their souls and thus the right ordering of societies and the world.

To point out the errors of modernity and the errors of one's own nation is not to hate one's nation. No, it is simply to assert the absolute Sovereignty of Christ the King and Mary our Queen as the only foundation for social order domestically and an authentic peace internationally.

May Our Lady, who is the Patroness of this country under the title of her Immaculate Conception, help us to be so focused on the rooting out of sin from our own lives that we will be ever more ready to fight valiantly under the banner of Christ the King, ever ready to exclaim with Blessed Miguel Augustin Pro, Viva Cristo Rey!

Saint Casimir, Prince of Poland an examplar of Christ the King, pray for the restoration of Christendom.

An Afterword

As was noted recently in The Remnant, my next book, Restoring Christ as the King of All Nations, will be published later this year, probably in June as it looks now. The book is a three volume collection of my political commentaries, including the one republished above, based on the Social Reign of Christ the King dating back to 1997 (earlier ones no longer exist). We are accepting pre-publication orders at present, providing a substantial discount for the three volume set. The pre-publication price is $47.50 for the three volume set. This price will rise when the book is published. To pre-order this book, please send a check for $47.50 to: Chartres Communications, Post Office Box 188, Pine Island, New York 10969.