Good Intentions Do Not Redeem Moral Flaws
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
The evils of our age did not start with the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Roe v. Wade. They did not start with the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Griswold v. Connecticut. They did not start with the appointment of California Governor Earl Warren, a thirty-third degree Freemason, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by President Dwight David Eisenhower in 1953. They did not start with the appointment of Freemasons Hugo Black, Stanley Reed, William Douglas, James F. Byrnes, Robert H. Jackson, Wiley B. Rutledge, Harold Burton, Fred Vinson, Tom Clark, and Sherman Minton by the thirty-third degree Freemasons named Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman between 1937 and 1949. The evils of our day are the direct result of the planned, intentional overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King begun by the Protestant Revolt in 1517 and institutionalized by the rise of contemporary Freemason in 1717 and thereafter.
Pope Leo XIII noted how the "rage for innovation" in the Sixteenth Century resulted in the deification of man in the context of the modern state. Writing in Immortale Dei in 1885, Pope Leo discussed the glories of Christendom and how they were overthrown by the very things that are extolled currently by Pope Benedict XVI:
There was once a time when States were governed by the philosophy of the Gospel. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people, permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, established firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favor of princes and the legitimate protection of magistrates; and Church and State were happily united in concord and friendly interchange of good offices. The State, constituted in this wise, bore fruits important beyond all expectation, whose remembrance is still, and always will be, in renown, witnessed to as they are by countless proofs which can never be blotted out or ever obscured by any craft of any enemies. Christian Europe has subdued barbarous nations, and changed them from a savage to a civilized condition, from superstition to true worship. It victoriously rolled back the tide of Mohammedan conquest; retained the headship of civilization; stood forth in the front rank as the leader and teacher of all, in every branch of national culture; bestowed on the world the gift of true and many-sided liberty; and most wisely founded very numerous institutions for the solace of human suffering. And if we inquire how it was able to bring about so altered a condition of things, the answer is -- beyond all question, in large measure, through religion, under whose auspices so many great undertakings were set on foot, through whose aid they were brought to completion.
A similar state of things would certainly have continued had the agreement of the two powers been lasting. More important results even might have been justly looked for, had obedience waited upon the authority, teaching, and counsels of the Church, and had this submission been specially marked by greater and more unswerving loyalty. For that should be regarded in the light of an ever-changeless law which Ivo of Chartres wrote to Pope Paschal II: "When kingdom and priesthood are at one, in complete accord, the world is well ruled, and the Church flourishes, and brings forth abundant fruit. But when they are at variance, not only smaller interests prosper not, but even things of greatest moment fall into deplorable decay."
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 authority of God is passed over in silence, just as if there were no God; or as if He cared nothing for human society; or as if men, whether in their individual capacity or bound together in social relations, owed nothing to God; or as if there could be a government of which the whole origin and power and authority did not reside in God Himself. Thus, as is evident, a State becomes nothing but a multitude which is its own master and ruler. And since the people is declared to contain within itself the spring-head of all rights and of all power, it follows that the State does not consider itself bound by any kind of duty toward God. Moreover. it believes that it is not obliged to make public profession of any religion; or to inquire which of the very many religions is the only one true; or to prefer one religion to all the rest; or to show to any form of religion special favor; but, on the contrary, is bound to grant equal rights to every creed, so that public order may not be disturbed by any particular form of religious belief.
And it is a part of this theory that all questions that concern religion are to be referred to private judgment; that every one is to be free to follow whatever religion he prefers, or none at all if he disapprove of all. From this the following consequences logically flow: that the judgment of each one's conscience is independent of all law; that the most unrestrained opinions may be openly expressed as to the practice or omission of divine worship; and that every one has unbounded license to think whatever he chooses and to publish abroad whatever he thinks.
Now, when the State rests on foundations like those just named -- and for the time being they are greatly in favor -- it readily appears into what and how unrightful a position the Church is driven. For, when the management of public business is in harmony with doctrines of such a kind, the Catholic religion is allowed a standing in civil society equal only, or inferior, to societies alien from it; no regard is paid to the laws of the Church, and she who, by the order and commission of Jesus Christ, has the duty of teaching all nations, finds herself forbidden to take any part in the instruction of the people. With reference to matters that are of twofold jurisdiction, they who administer the civil power lay down the law at their own will, and in matters that appertain to religion defiantly put aside the most sacred decrees of the Church. They claim jurisdiction over the marriages of Catholics, even over the bond as well as the unity and the indissolubility of matrimony. They lay hands on the goods of the clergy, contending that the Church cannot possess property. Lastly, they treat the Church with such arrogance that, rejecting entirely her title to the nature and rights of a perfect society, they hold that she differs in no respect from other societies in the State, and for this reason possesses no right nor any legal power of action, save that which she holds by the concession and favor of the government. If in any State the Church retains her own agreement publicly entered into by the two powers, men forthwith begin to cry out that matters affecting the Church must be separated from those of the State.
Pope Pius XII sounded a similar theme in his first encyclical letter, Summi Pontificatus, in 1939:
The denial of the fundamentals of morality had its origin, in Europe, in the abandonment of that Christian teaching of which the Chair of Peter is the depository and exponent. That teaching had once given spiritual cohesion to a Europe which, educated, ennobled and civilized by the Cross, had reached such a degree of civil progress as to become the teacher of other peoples, of other continents. But, cut off from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, not a few separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow the central dogma of Christianity, the Divinity of the Savior, and have hastened thereby the progress of spiritual decay.
The Holy Gospel narrates that when Jesus was crucified "there was darkness over the whole earth" (Matthew xxvii. 45); a terrifying symbol of what happened and what still happens spiritually wherever incredulity, blind and proud of itself, has succeeded in excluding Christ from modern life, especially from public life, and has undermined faith in God as well as faith in Christ. The consequence is that the moral values by which in other times public and private conduct was gauged have fallen into disuse; and the much vaunted civilization of society, which has made ever more rapid progress, withdrawing man, the family and the State from the beneficent and regenerating effects of the idea of God and the teaching of the Church, has caused to reappear, in regions in which for many centuries shone the splendors of Christian civilization, in a manner ever clearer, ever more distinct, ever more distressing, the signs of a corrupt and corrupting paganism: "There was darkness when they crucified Jesus" (Roman Breviary, Good Friday, Response Five).
Many perhaps, while abandoning the teaching of Christ, were not fully conscious of being led astray by a mirage of glittering phrases, which proclaimed such estrangement as an escape from the slavery in which they were before held; nor did they then foresee the bitter consequences of bartering the truth that sets free, for error which enslaves. They did not realize that, in renouncing the infinitely wise and paternal laws of God, and the unifying and elevating doctrines of Christ's love, they were resigning themselves to the whim of a poor, fickle human wisdom; they spoke of progress, when they were going back; of being raised, when they groveled; of arriving at man's estate, when they stooped to servility. They did not perceive the inability of all human effort to replace the law of Christ by anything equal to it; "they became vain in their thoughts" (Romans i. 21).
With the weakening of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the darkening in men's minds of the light of moral principles, there disappeared the indispensable foundation of the stability and quiet of that internal and external, private and public order, which alone can support and safeguard the prosperity of States.
It is true that even when Europe had a cohesion of brotherhood through identical ideals gathered from Christian preaching, she was not free from divisions, convulsions and wars which laid her waste; but perhaps they never felt the intense pessimism of today as to the possibility of settling them, for they had then an effective moral sense of the just and of the unjust, of the lawful and of the unlawful, which, by restraining outbreaks of passion, left the way open to an honorable settlement. In Our days, on the contrary, dissensions come not only from the surge of rebellious passion, but also from a deep spiritual crisis which has overthrown the sound principles of private and public morality.
Pope Pius XI had been even more explicit in his first encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, in 1922:
Because the Church is by divine institution the sole depository and interpreter of the ideals and teachings of Christ, she alone possesses in any complete and true sense the power effectively to combat that materialistic philosophy which has already done and, still threatens, such tremendous harm to the home and to the state. The Church alone can introduce into society and maintain therein the prestige of a true, sound spiritualism, the spiritualism of Christianity which both from the point of view of truth and of its practical value is quite superior to any exclusively philosophical theory. The Church is the teacher and an example of world good-will, for she is able to inculcate and develop in mankind the "true spirit of brotherly love" (St. Augustine, De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, i, 30) and by raising the public estimation of the value and dignity of the individual's soul help thereby to lift us even unto God.
Finally, the Church is able to set both public and private life on the road to righteousness by demanding that everything and all men become obedient to God "Who beholdeth the heart," to His commands, to His laws, to His sanctions. If the teachings of the Church could only penetrate in some such manner as We have described the inner recesses of the consciences of mankind, be they rulers or be they subjects, all eventually would be so apprised of their personal and civic duties and their mutual responsibilities that in a short time "Christ would be all, and in all." (Colossians iii, 11)
Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.
When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.
There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.
It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations.
Once again, as I noted in yesterday's commentary, Restoring the Catholic City, we are face to face with direct, incontrovertible contradictions of the Masonic spirit that has been embraced by the conciliar and postconciliar popes concerning the relationship between the Church and the State. The Popes of Tradition saw the problems of the world clearly through the eyes of the Catholic Faith, recognizing that the only way--and I do mean the only way--social evils can be ameliorated is by a return of men and their nations to the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen. All other approaches, no matter how well intentioned, are absolutely illusory. Pope Benedict XVI, however, believes in the illusions of Modernity, steeped in the errors of Modernism. Not even the pagans of yore embraced the concept of the secular state.
As the Vicar of Christ embraces a fundamental error of Modernity and Modernism, the secular state, it is easy to understand how most of the efforts to combat the evils of our day, such as contraception and abortion and perversion, among many others, are being undertaken either by poorly catechized Catholic laity, people who are completely ignorant of the authentic Social Teaching of the Church as a result of the ethos of the Second Vatican Council, or by well-intentioned Protestants who do not realize that the evils they are trying to combat are the direct result of what was let loose upon the world by the likes of Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer, John Wesley, et al. Thus, all manner of legislative initiatives have been undertaken in the past thirty-three years to try to chip away at and/or to undo the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Roe v. Wade in the belief that surgical baby-killing under cover of law can be ended by some sort of non-denominational or inter-denominational efforts. These efforts, no doubt well-intentioned, are usually fatally flawed morally and do nothing to retard the evils that have the proximate, contemporary origins in the overthrow of the confessionally Catholic State that began in the Sixteenth Century.
To wit, there is a great deal of excitement over the fact that the South Dakota State Senate has passed a bill, which will, in all likelihood, be passed by the South Dakota State House of Representatives, banning all abortions except for those deemed "necessary" to "save" the life of a mother. As well-intentioned as this effort is, ladies and gentlemen, it is fatally flawed in moral terms: it is never permissible for the civil law to admit that there any circumstances in which even one innocent human life can be exterminated. The South Dakota law is immoral. Period. End of argument.
Oh, yes, "pragmatists" and "incrementalists" will argue that such a law will "limit" the number of surgical abortions taking place in South Dakota. As I have noted repeatedly in the course of the past thirty years in my college teaching career and in my various campaigns for public office on the Right to Life Party line in the State of New York, those who kill for a living will never respect any "exceptions" proscribing the surgical dismemberment of innocent preborn human beings. Not only do not the ends justify the means. The means employed in all efforts to "limit" surgical baby-killings involve an admission that there are circumstances when baby-killings can take place. There is a word for this: absurdity.
Consider the words of Pope Leo XIII in Sapientiae Christianae, 1890:
Hence, they who blame, and call by the name of sedition, this steadfastness of attitude in the choice of duty have not rightly apprehended the force and nature of true law. We are speaking of matters widely known, and which We have before now more than once fully explained. Law is of its very essence a mandate of right reason, proclaimed by a properly constituted authority, for the common good. But true and legitimate authority is void of sanction, unless it proceed from God, the supreme Ruler and Lord of all. The Almighty alone can commit power to a man over his fellow men; nor may that be accounted as right reason which is in disaccord with truth and with divine reason; nor that held to be true good which is repugnant to the supreme and unchangeable good, or that wrests aside and draws away the wills of men from the charity of God.
Hallowed, therefore, in the minds of Christians is the very idea of public authority, in which they recognize some likeness and symbol as it were of the Divine Majesty, even when it is exercised by one unworthy. A just and due reverence to the laws abides in them, not from force and threats, but from a consciousness of duty; "for God hath not given us the spirit of fear."
But, if the laws of the State are manifestly at variance with the divine law, containing enactments hurtful to the Church, or conveying injunctions adverse to the duties imposed by religion, or if they violate in the person of the supreme Pontiff the authority of Jesus Christ, then, truly, to resist becomes a positive duty, to obey, a crime; a crime, moreover, combined with misdemeanor against the State itself, inasmuch as every offense leveled against religion is also a sin against the State. Here anew it becomes evident how unjust is the reproach of sedition; for the obedience due to rulers and legislators is not refused, but there is a deviation from their will in those precepts only which they have no power to enjoin. Commands that are issued adversely to the honor due to God, and hence are beyond the scope of justice, must be looked upon as anything rather than laws. You are fully aware, venerable brothers, that this is the very contention of the Apostle St. Paul, who, in writing to Titus, after reminding Christians that they are "to be subject to princes and powers, and to obey at a word," at once adds: "And to be ready to every good work." Thereby he openly declares that, if laws of men contain injunctions contrary to the eternal law of God, it is right not to obey them. In like manner, the Prince of the Apostles gave this courageous and sublime answer to those who would have deprived him of the liberty of preaching the Gospel: "If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard."
We must resist all unjust laws, no matter how well-intentioned they may appear to be at first glance. Laws containing exceptions to the inviolability of all innocent human life from the first moment of fertilization through all subsequent stages cannot be supported or extolled whatsoever. Legislators must seek to do their duty before God by conforming civil law in its entirety, without a single exception, to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law. It matters not if a court, whether state or national, decides to "invalidate" an effort to subordinate civil law to God's law without any exceptions. We must do our duty before God without regard to the consequences. For, you see, it would be the case in a Catholic nation that any law or court decision contrary to the law of God would be nullified by a Papal Nuncio or other legate, who would be recognized by a nation's organic documents as having such a right and whose suspensory veto would have no recourse or appeal to anyone other than the Pope himself.
That is, while the Church has taught from time immemorial that she can adapt herself to any legitimate form of government, all such forms of government must recognize her rights to defend the good of souls. This is the fatal flaw of the States of Modernity, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Immortale Dei:
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 delude ourselves, however, into thinking that political or legislative action will "save the day" for us. It will not. For it must be remembered that the laws of almost every state prior to 1967, when California Governor Ronald Reagan signed into law a bill that "liberalized" baby-killing in the Golden State, permitted surgical baby-killing in some circumstances, usually those alleging some "threat" to the life of a mother. The 1967 California law cited grounds of "mental health," which was a loophole through which hundreds of babies were killed prior to Roe v. Wade. The pro-abortion militants of the 1960s, including Dr. Bernard Nathanson and Bill Baird, used the existing "exceptions" in state laws in the 1960s to argue for a "wider access" to "women's health care." "Exceptions" do not "limit" abortions. "Exceptions" lead to abortions. Thus, a dose of hard, practical reality is called for to tamp down enthusiasm for the well-intentioned but morally flawed effort of the South Dakota State Legislature.
The Life Legal Defense Fund has done the most thorough and honest work in researching the status of pre-Roe v. Wade abortion laws in the fifty states and what the impact would be in those states if Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States. Unlike some other sources that make extravagant claims that surgical abortion would be greatly restricted if Roe is reversed, the Life Legal Defense Fund has methodically demonstrated that surgical abortions would continue to be available for all intents and purposes in forty-three states. The list that follows is drawn from the Life Legal Defense Fund's website: Life Legal Defense Fund (readers can go to this site and click on the individual states to discover the state of that state's pre-Roe laws and what the situation would look like if Roe v. Wade is reversed):
ABORTION ALLOWED (43 STATES)
1. Have eliminated old (pre-Roe) laws
† Have state reviewing court rulings that would or may block enforcement of abortion prohibitions.
1 Has enacted post-Roe prohibition; scope of grave medical health exception is uncertain.
2. Have old (pre-Roe) laws that would
not prohibit most abortions
These states have not repealed their pre-1973 laws but for reasons varying with each state (for example, state reviewing court rulings), the existing laws probably won't effectively prohibit most abortions:
† Have state reviewing court rulings that would or may block enforcement of abortion prohibitions.
2 Status of pre-Roe law uncertain
The seven remaining states would prohibit abortions except in cases where it is alleged that a mother's life is endangered, a claim that has been largely mooted as a result of advances in medical technology. That is, there is rarely an instance today when a mother's life is truly endangered by a pregnancy. Even in those instances when such an alleged threat does exist, however, it is never permissible to directly intend to kill one innocent human being to save the life of another. Pope John Paul II canonized Dr. Gianna Mollo, who gave up her life so that her preborn child could be born in 1961, to make that point in no uncertain terms.
Greater Love Hath No Man discussed the case of Mrs. Susan Torres, who was kept alive on a respirator prior to the birth of her daughter, Susan, last year. Mrs. Torres made it possible for her daughter, who died about a month her birth, to be born and baptized so as to have a happy, holy death. Quite literally, Mrs. Susan Torres, who died shortly after her daughter was born, gave up her life so as to permit her child to be born and thus have the chance to die after having Original Sin flooded out of her immortal soul in Baptism and becoming closer to God than the angels in her state of Baptismal innocence and glory. No Catholic can contend that any law containing a single exception to the inviolability of innocent human life is morally licit. It is not.
Additionally, the assaults on innocent human life are taking place at every stage of life. I noted repeatedly at this time last year that the case of Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler-Schiavo, a brain-damaged woman who was starved to death last year, only made headlines because she had relatives who wanted to save her life and to give her the care that was her due as an innocent human being. Countless are the people who are starved and dehydrated to death on a daily basis in hospitals and hospices across this nation without a word of notoriety because each of their relatives supports their murders. A world shaped by the aftermath of Protestantism and the rise of Judeo-Masonry has brought us to the point where handicapped human beings of all ages, including children, are now being starved to death with the full consent of everyone involved.
Consider the case of Dylan Wellborn, a five year-old boy suffering from cerebral palsy, who was starved and dehydrated to death over the course of twenty-four days in Denver, Colorado. The full-story, which appeared in the Denver Post, is heart-breaking. (see: Dylan Wellborn Story). You see, the logic of a anti-Catholic world is such that assaults against the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law are commonplace and impossible to stop. What's the big deal about starving and dehydrating a Dylan Wellborn to death when babies are dispatched by chemical and surgical means on a daily basis? What's the big deal about the rash of shootings among family members and close friends, chronicled recently in The New York Times, when disabled human beings can be starved and dehydrated to death? Men lose all compass of right and wrong when they lose sight of First and Last Things as they have been entrusted solely to the Catholic Church.
Pope Leo XIII noted this in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus on November 1, 1900:
From this it may clearly be seen what con sequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour's Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet, this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love: a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor self devotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ: but only on condition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God's law. By the law of Christ we mean not only the natural precepts of morality and the Ancient Law, all of which Jesus Christ has perfected and crowned by His declaration, explanation and sanction; but also the rest of His doctrine and His own peculiar institutions. Of these the chief is His Church. Indeed whatsoever things Christ has instituted are most fully contained in His Church. Moreover, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father by means of the ministry of the Church so gloriously founded by Himself. On the one hand He confided to her all the means of men's salvation, on the other He most solemnly commanded men to be subject to her and to obey her diligently, and to follow her even as Himself: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke x, 16). Wherefore the law of Christ must be sought in the Church. Christ is man's "Way"; the Church also is his "Way"-Christ of Himself and by His very nature, the Church by His commission and the communication of His power. Hence all who would find salvation apart from the Church, are led astray and strive in vain.
As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from "The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. "And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him" (Daniel vii., 14). "I am appointed King by Him . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psalm ii., 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at.
The chief emphasis in our work as Catholics, therefore, must be to seek to restore right doctrine in the Church as the fruit of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. This does not mean, as some traditional Catholics contend quite erroneously, that we remain inert and passive in the face of the daily carnage of the preborn by means of chemical and surgical abortion. Not at all. There will never be a time when at least a few practicing Catholics, including bishops and priests, will not be deceived by this or that error. Thus, we cannot wait until right doctrine is restored in the Church to fulfill the demands imposed upon us by the Spiritual and the Corporal Works of Mercy to oppose the evils of the day, including contraception and abortion, as Catholics.
This means that we must know the authentic Social Teaching of the Church, rejecting the novelties that are enunciated with such force by Pope Benedict XVI, and immersing ourselves exclusively in the glories of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition. We must spend time on our knees before the Real Presence of Our Lord in fervent prayer, being totally consecrated to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart and praying with great recollection her Most Holy Rosary every day of our lives. After fulfilling worshiping God in the Mass of all ages and praying to the Mother of God, it is then that we go out into the world to bear a witness, where and when possible, to the truths of the Catholic Faith. Traditional Catholics should organize their own prayerful Rosary assemblies in front of killing centers. We should hand out Miraculous Medals and Green Scapulars to those seeking to enter such centers. And we must perform acts of reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world, offering each act of reparation as the consecrated slave of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.
Continuing to pray for the miracle of a papal consecration of Russia to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, we must in the meantime retain our sensus Catholicus as well-intentioned people think that there is any other way than Our Lady's Fatima Message to retard evils of Modernity and the world and Modernism in the Church. The words of the popes quoted above are clear: The Social Reign of Christ the King must be restored. And restored it will be when there is the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint Matthias, pray for us.
Saint Casimir, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us.
Pope Saint Lucius, pray for us.
Saints Perpetua and Felicity, pray for us.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
Saint John of God, pray for us.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.
Saint Frances of Rome, pray for us.
The Forty Holy Martyrs of Sebaste, pray for us.
Pope Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Saint Maria Goretti, pray for us.
Blessed Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.
Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.
Blessed Francisco, pray for us.
Sister Lucia, pray for us.
