August 28, 2012

Good Rule of Thumb: Reject What Conciliarists Promote

by Thomas A. Droleskey

[21] Hear, O foolish people, and without understanding: who have eyes, and see not: and ears, and hear not. [22] Will not you then fear me, saith the Lord: and will you not repent at my presence? I have set the sand a bound for the sea, an everlasting ordinance, which it shall not pass over: and the waves thereof shall toss themselves, and shall not prevail: they shall swell, and shall not pass over it. [23] But the heart of this people is become hard of belief and provoking, they are revolted and gone away. [24] And they have not said in their heart: let us fear the Lord our God, who giveth us the early and the latter rain in due season: who preserveth for us the fullness of the yearly harvest. [25] Your iniquities have turned these things away, and your sins have withholden good things from you.

[26] For among my people are found wicked men, that lie in wait as fowlers, setting snares and traps to catch men. [27] As a net is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit: therefore are they become great and enriched. [28] They are grown gross and fat: and have most wickedly transgressed my words. They have not judged the cause of the widow, they have not managed the cause of the fatherless, they have not judged the judgement of the poor. [29] Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? or shall not my soul take revenge on such a nation? [30] Astonishing and wonderful things have been done in the land.

[31] The prophets prophesied falsehood, and the priests clapped their hands: and my people loved such things: what then shall be done in the end thereof? (Jeremias 5: 21-31.)

 

The prophets of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have been prophesying faslehood for over fifty years now.

The conciliar prophets have told us that the Catholic Church had to "open up" to the world, from which she has to learn nothing and to which she has been sent by her Divine Founder and Invisible Head to convert.

The conciliar prophets have told us that it is impossible for dogmatic truth to be expressed adequately at any one time, that its expression is dependent upon the historical circumstances in which it was pronounced, thus necessitating "adjustments" from time to time, a proposition that is at the heart of Modernism and has been condemned dogmatically. (See Appendix A below for a refutation of this belief, expressed throughout the apostate priestly career of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.

The conciliar prophets have told us that non-Catholic Protestant sects are in "partial communion" with the Catholic Church even though this is a total falsehood. (See Appendix B below).

The conciliar prophets have told us that us that adherents of false religions that reject the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ can help establish a "better" world by fighting "irreligion" with "religion."

The conciliar prophets have engaged in the sacrilegious exercise of "inter-religious prayer" services that are repugnant in the sight of the Most Blessed Trinity and represent direct violations of the First and Second Commandments.

The conciliar prophets have stated that "religious liberty" is a God-given "right" that is at the at the cornerstone of the "just society," which is nothing other than a blasphemous, heretical contention. (See Appendix C below.)

The conciliar prophets have exalted the falsehood is "separate of Church and State" guarantees the "life of the Church" in the modern civil state even though true pope after true pope condemned this falsehood in the most stark terms imaginable. (See Appendix D below.)

The conciliar prophets have praised the United Nations as a the "last hope for peace and concord" in the world. (See Appendix E below).

While opposed to "artificial" means to prevent the conception of children, the conciliar prophets have inverted the ends of marriage and have thus promoted a "natural" means of limiting family that was promoted by moral ethicists in the 1950s who coopted Pope Pius XII's October 29, 1951, Address to Midwives on the Nature of Their Profession, a notion that was condemned in the strongest terms by Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, who knew the mind of Pope Pius XII very well, at the "Second" Vatican Council. (See Forty-Three Years After Humanae Vitae, Always Trying To Find A Way and Planting Seeds of Revolutionary Change.)

The conciliar prophets have even changed the terms of opposition to the direct, intentional killing of innocent human life by almost never referring to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law, substituting instead such anthropocentric (man-centered) slogans as "human dignity" and "solidarity" that make complex the very simple words of the Fifth Commandment: Thou shalt not kill.

These false prophets of a false church have misused the words "mercy" and "compassion" and "human dignity" to oppose the death penalty as a matter of principle, thereby making it appear as though there is no distinction between the life of an innocent human being and that of one adjudged after full due process of law to be guilty of a heinous crime deserving of death.

The conciliar prophets have opposed abortion with conciliarspeak and have opposed the death penalty as a matter of principle while supporting the imposition of the death penalty upon those deemed by the false prophets of the death-dealing medical industry in the United States of America and elsewhere in the civilized world  to be "brain dead." Countless numbers of Catholics have signed up to be participants in their own execution by vivisection and/or have agreed to the vivisection of their relatives in order to "give the gift of life." How tragic it is that not an insubstantial number of priests in fully traditional venues where no concessions are made to the falsehoods of conciliarism or to the nonexistent authority clap their hands quite vigorously in response to the false prophets when they prophesy in behalf of the falsehood known as "brain death," even urging parishioners to sign up to be "organ donors," thus making them instruments in their own vivisection should they be unfortunate enough to be considered a "candidate" for body snatching.

Not even the hard evidence that the parameters what constitutes acceptance of "brain death" keep being pushed more and more by the body snatchers in the medical industry does anything to dissuade this vigorous applause, no, not even a report such as this one:

A BMA [British Medical Association] report has revived the debate about how far doctors should go to help save the lives of patients with organ failure.

Patients could be kept alive solely so they can become organ donors, hearts could be retrieved from newborn babies for the first time, and body parts could be taken from high-risk donors as part of an urgent medical and ethical revolution to ease Britain's chronic shortage of organs, doctors' leaders say .

Hearts could also be taken from recently deceased patients and restarted in those needing a cardiac transplant, under controversial proposals from the British Medical Association intended to stop up to 1,000 people a year dying because of the country's chronic shortage of organs.

A new BMA report on ways to increase the supply of organs, which it has shown to the Guardian, has revived the intense ethical debate about how far doctors should go to help save the lives of the growing number of patients with organ failure.

The BMA wants a debate about the use of an ethically contentious practice called "elective ventilation", in which patients diagnosed as dead using brain stem tests – such as those who have suffered a massive stroke – are kept alive purely to enable organ retrieval.

While such patients are usually put on artificial ventilation for a short while to enable their relatives to say goodbye or for organ donation, the report says, "elective ventilation is different in that it involves starting ventilation, once it is recognised that the patient is close to death, with the specific intention of facilitating organ donation".

This procedure led to a 50% jump in the number of organs available when it was carried out by the Royal Devon and Exeter hospital from 1988, but it was declared unlawful by the Department of Health in 1994. However there are fears that elective ventilation could induce a persistent vegetative state, and concern it is unethical to give patients treatment to benefit other people rather than them.

"I worry about it. It's very difficult," said Dr Kevin Gunning of the Intensive Care Society, which represents staff. But Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the BMA's head of ethics, said the practice might be deemed permissible, at least for patients who had signed the organ donor register.

Spain and the US already use the technique, said Nigel Heaton, professor of transplant surgery at King's College hospital, London. "People have qualms about it. The concern is that you are prolonging or introducing futile treatment that has no benefit for the patient.

"But I expect that views will gradually change around this [in its favour]. It's an ongoing tragedy that so many people are still dying in this country for want of an organ," he said.

One of the report's other most radical suggestions is that – with the permission of the deceased's family – surgeons could remove the heart of someone who has just suffered circulatory death, maintain its function by putting blood and oxygen into it, and give it to a patient who needs a new heart.

"The fact that an individual is declared dead following cessation of cardio-respiratory function but the heart is subsequently restarted and transplanted into another person is a difficult concept and one that requires careful explanation," the report says. At the moment only livers, kidneys and lungs are retrieved from such patients.

The surgery, which has been used successfully in the US, is "an acceptable and important area of research to pursue" and "represents a possibility of both increasing the number of hearts available for donation and also facilitating the wishes of more people who wish to be donors", the report says.

Nathanson said: "When it's well explained, relatives understand that their loved one's heart isn't being jumpstarted and going back to normal or near-normal function in the way that it is with someone with an arrhythmia, the way you see it in Casualty or Holby City."

But the report admits that some intensive care doctors oppose the practice, "questioning whether frustration over the falling number of DBD [donation after brain death] donors has resulted in 'interventions that could jeopardise professional and public confidence in all forms of donation' and arguing that such practices are 'at the very edge of acceptability'".

However, Heaton said the technique was "an important development", which was the subject of much ongoing research and that "it will come through into clinical practice" eventually.

Gunning said the restarting of hearts would need strict safeguards, but could help overcome the severe lack of donated hearts.

Sally Johnson of the NHS's Blood and Transplant agency said the critical shortage of organs meant it was "keen to engage in any discussions about increasing the donor pool and availability of healthy, viable organs". But she warned: "Many issues, ethical and clinical … need to be considered and addressed before anything can be introduced in relation to heart donation from donors after circulatory death."

Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS's medical director, said the BMA's report was "a welcome contribution to the debate about how we encourage more people to be organ donors".

A Department of Health spokesman said: "Any action taken prior to death must be in the patient's best interests. Anything that places the person at risk of serious harm or distress is unlikely to ever be in the person's best interests."

The BMA said it welcomed recent increases in organ donation, but wanted more action, including a switch to an opt-out system, where everyone would be assumed to be a willing organ donor unless they explicitly said otherwise.

"At the moment between 500 and 1,000 people die each year from a treatable condition because they don't get the transplant because there aren't enough organs. Society should decide if it's prepared to tolerate that repeated loss of life or take action to stop it," said Nathanson.

The report also suggests:

• Bringing in a test for brain stem death in newborns aged less than three months so the UK can retrieve hearts from babies who have died, for example of birth asphyxia, and stop importing hearts for this age group.

• Easing the exclusion criteria that forbid some people from donating because of their age or medical history. "Slightly stretching" eligibility rules, particularly revising the upper age limit, could cut the 7,800-strong transplant waiting list.

• Encouraging A&E staff to identify more dying patients who might donate, as relatives of up to 400 people who die in A&E each year are not being asked about it.

• Advertising campaigns to reduce the 35% refusal rate among families who are asked to allow their loved one's organs to be retrieved.

• Action to highlight the "moral disparity" of those who say they would accept an organ but would not donate one.

• Extending the obligation, introduced last summer, to answer a question about donation when applying for or renewing documents, such as a driving licence or a passport, tax returns, registration with a GP or even admission to the electoral roll.

Gunning said that while many of the BMA's ideas were "controversial", all deserved an airing and many were of merit.

Despite a big increase in organ donation since the Organ Donation Task Force kickstarted improvements in 2008, the UK still lags behind many countries in its low donation rates. He backed the BMA's call for more intensive care beds, and claimed that "the UK has the lowest number of them in the western world".

Refusal rates are "a huge problem", said Heaton, and accessing more kidneys would save the NHS "huge amounts of money" as each patient on kidney dialysis – as 85% of those on the transplant waiting-list are – costs the service about £25,000 a year. (Doctors' radical plan to tackle organ shortage.)

 

This report from The Guardian in the United Kingdom contains so many falsehoods as to boggle a tired and much hated writer's mind.

For the sake of brevity, perhaps five principal falsehoods can be summarized as follows:

1) Vital body members such as hearts can be taken only from living human beings. There is no such thing as "brain death" (please see Dr. Paul Byrne on Brain Death, From The Michael Fund Newsletter, Triumph of the Body Snatchers and Dr. Paul A. Byrne's Refutation).

2) The use of ventilators to keep people alive who are said, falsely, to be "brain dead" simply prolongs unnecessarily the lives of living human beings who would otherwise die the natural death that God intends them to have. Such people are kept alive solely so that they can be dissected alive when a suitable "match" for their body members is found in the international body snatching network.

3) The refusal of around a third of the residents of the United Kingdom to sign up to be accomplices to their own executions by means of dissection is not something to be changed. It is something to be applauded. There is some residual grace still left in the British Isles, evidently, despite the paganism that abounds in these once thoroughly Catholic lands.

4) There is no such thing as a "persistent vegetative state" as brain-damaged human beings are not vegetables nor are they, to the use the words of a traditional prelate in an e-mail exchange with me nearly four years ago, "headless corpses."

5) Human beings are not "products" whose bodily integrity can be violated by  those seeking to deny the simple truth that God has given each man the specific set of body members that he is to take with him to the grave barring accident, injury or illness.

One can see from this report in The Guardian that the body snatchers desire to cast their net wider and wider so as to increase their harvest.

Thus it is that babies who are alive must be deemed to be dead.

Those who might otherwise be considered "unsuitable" because of age or health problems should be included in the pool of those from whom body members are to be dissected alive.

All for what? For profit, that's what. For profit. For profit at the expense of the lives of innocent human beings as the false prophets prophesy falsehoods in order to maximize their "profits" in the name of "giving the gift of life." The very same people who believe that the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage can be frustrated by pills and devices and who believe that innocent human beings can be executed in the sanctuaries of their mothers' wombs are supposedly dedicated to "giving the gift of life"? Not on your life. Not on your physical life and, much more importantly, not on your eternal life.

What does any of this mean to the false prophets of concilairism? Nothing. They keep right on promoting the diabolical falsehood of "brain death:"  Organ donation, not excluding vital organ "donation," is even considered morally licit by the so-called Catechism of the Catholic Church:

 

2296 Organ transplants are in conformity with the moral law if the physical and psychological dangers and risks to the donor are proportionate to the good sought for the recipient. Organ donation after death is a noble and meritorious act and is to be encouraged as a expression of generous solidarity. It is not morally acceptable if the donor or his proxy has not given explicit consent. Moreover, it is not morally admissible to bring about the disabling mutilation or death of a human being, even in order to delay the death of other persons. (Catechism of the Conciliar Church, 2296.)

 

Notice the language in this amazing passage of falsehood and confusion. Organ "donation" after death is considered to be "noble and meritorious" and to be "encouraged as an expression of solidarity (what did I tell you above?) while at the same time it is not considered morally admissible to "bring about the disabling mutilation or death of a human being, even in order to delay the death of other persons" even though the only way that vital organs can be "transplanted" from one human being to another is if the "donor" [victim] is alive. Brain-death is a fiction.

Yet, of course, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II accepted this fiction, noting it with approval in a speech that he gave to the Eighteenth International Congress of the Transplantation Society on August 29, 2000, the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist:

 

 

Here it can be said that the criterion adopted in more recent times for ascertaining the fact of death, namely the complete and irreversible cessation of all brain activity, if rigorously applied, does not seem to conflict with the essential elements of a sound anthropology. Therefore a health-worker professionally responsible for ascertaining death can use these criteria in each individual case as the basis for arriving at that degree of assurance in ethical judgement which moral teaching describes as "moral certainty". This moral certainty is considered the necessary and sufficient basis for an ethically correct course of action.  Only where such certainty exists, and where informed consent has already been given by the donor or the donor's legitimate representatives, is it morally right to initiate the technical procedures required for the removal of organs for transplant. (Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Speech to the Eighteenth Congress of the Transplantation Society, August 29, 2000.)

Sound anthropology? Whatever happened to sound medical science and simple facts of biology?

Dr. Peter Colosi, a seminary professor from Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, said in an interview with Our Sunday Visitor that many in his conciliar church, which he thinks is the Catholic Church, believe that "Pope" John Paul II "settled" the matter of the morally licit nature of "vital organ transplantation" with this speech, noting also that the ultimate answer would depend upon whether it can be determined with certainty that that brain death does seem to conflict with a sound anthropology" (see Bioethics of organ donation).

However, the premise that there must be no "conflict" with "sound anthropology" is false.

Dr. Paul A. Byrne wrote a brilliant refutation of a certain bishop's support for the concept of brain death and the encouragement some of his priests give to parishioners to sign up to "give the gift of life" on the grounds that only a true pope can decide the matter:

 

 

OR ANYONE WHO CAN REASON AND HAS EVER HAD A GOLDFISH STOP SWIMMING, THEN LAY ON SIDE WITH GILL MOVING, THEN GILL STOPS, THEN ODOR BEGINS (PUTREFACTION). DO YOU REALY NEED A POPE? The crux of this matter is the definition of death. THE DEFINITION OF DEATH CANNOT CHANGE.

Some might object that "vital organ donations" should proceed as long as there is a "dispute" within the medical community as to whether "brain death" constitutes a true criterion or is what, in all truth, it is: a manufactured myth to harvest human body members for the sake of profit. Sure, the "dispute" exists. The dispute is based on false premises. And even those who claim that it is morally licit to proceed with a "vital organ donation" because the matter is in dispute and has not been pronounced definitively by a true pope forget one little-bitty qualification that blows their contention right of of the water with that dead goldfish: if there is doubt as to what constitutes genuine death, the doubt goes in the favor of human life.

However, there is no doubt at al. The facts are plain. The medical-industry invented this false notion of "brain death" in 1968 to justify the killing of human beings for heart transplantation surgery.

That Our Sunday Visitor saw fit to publish an article, Catholics testify to benefits of organ donation, from which one is permitted to copy only a single paragraph in story where one needs to have a series of paragraphs for any quoted text to make sense, boasting of the "benefits" derived from the killing of living human beings to "give the gift of life" represents once again there is a good rule of thumb for Catholics to follow when it comes to what passes for Catholic "teaching" and "information" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Reject what the conciliarists promote.

Mind you, this is a rule of thumb, not an ironclad rule. One has to use his reason and put aside all prejudice against a particular author or his position to examine with dispassion the merits of various statements and positions. Broken clocks are, of course, correct twice a day. It is thus necessary to read with care the arguments advanced by a speaker or a writer to promote or oppose a particular position. And even in those rare instances when the conciliarists are correct on an issue, it is almost invariably (again, there is a qualifier adverb, almost) that they do so for the wrong reasons, turning themselves into intellectual pretzels to avoid using any language that can be construed as belong to an "outdated age in the history of the Church" (to wit, opposing the Obama administration's mandate to provide health-insurance coverage for "family planning services" on the grounds of the heresy of religious liberty").

That having been noted, the conciliarists themselves reject the plain facts of what the body-snatchers themselves are doing. How can we do so? Facts matter. Take a look once again for yourselves:

 

 

TORONTO, November 1, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Because organ donors are often alive when their organs are harvested, the medical community should not require donors to be declared dead, but instead adopt more “honest” moral criteria that allow the harvesting of organs from “dying” or “severely injured” patients, with proper consent, three leading experts have argued.

This approach, they say, would avoid the “pseudo-objective” claim that a donor is “really dead,” which is often based upon purely ideological definitions of death designed to expand the organ donor pool, and would allow organ harvesters to be more honest with the public, as well as ensure that donors don’t feel pain during the harvesting process.

The chilling comments were offered by Dr. Neil Lazar, director of the medical-surgical intensive care unit at Toronto General Hospital, Dr. Maxwell J. Smith of the University of Toronto, and David Rodriguez-Arias of Universidad del Pais Vasco in Spain, at a U.S. bioethics conference in October and published in a recent paper in the American Journal of Bioethics.

The authors state frankly that under current practices donors may be technically still alive when organs are harvested – a necessary condition to produce healthy, living organs. Because of this, they say that protocol requiring a donor’s death is “dangerously misleading,” and could overlook the well-being of the donor who may still be able to suffer during the harvesting procedure.

“Because there is a general assumption that dead individuals cannot be harmed, veneration of the dead-donor rule is dangerously misleading,” they write. “Ultimately, what is important for the protection and respect of potential donors is not to have a death certificate signed, but rather to be certain they are beyond suffering and to guarantee that their autonomy is respected.” 

Instead of the so-called Dead Donor Rule (DDR), the authors propose that donors should be “protected from harm” (i.e given anesthesia so that they cannot feel pain during the donation process), that informed consent should be obtained, and that society should be “fully informed of the inherently debatable nature of any criterion to declare death.”

The doctors note that developing the criteria for so-called “brain death,” which is often used by doctors to declare death before organ donation, was an “ideological strategy” aimed at increasing the donor pool that has been found to be “empirically and theoretically flawed.” They also criticize the latest attempts to create new, even looser definitions of death, such as circulatory death, which they argue amount to simply “pretending” that the patient is dead in order to get his organs.

The legitimacy of “brain death,” “cardiac death,” and even “circulatory death” - which can be declared only 75 seconds after circulatory arrest - as actual death has been an ongoing debate in public commentary on organ donation. Many experts assert that doctors familiar with organ donation are aware that the terms, intended to delineate a threshold of probable death, is different from actual bodily death, rendering highly uncertain the moral status of organ donation.

Meanwhile, countless stories have emerged of “miraculous” awakenings following brain death, providing weight to the arguments of doctors and others who say that the process of procuring viable organs not only fails to ensure that a patient has certainly died, but is impossible unless a body is still technically alive.

Dr. Paul Byrne, an experienced neonatologist, clinical professor of pediatrics at the University of Toledo, and president of Life Guardian Foundation, said he was not surprised at the recent statements, which he said merely reflect a long-open secret in the organ donation field.

“All of the participants in organ transplantation know that the donors are not truly dead,” Byrne told LifeSiteNews.com in a telephone interview Tuesday.

“How can you get healthy organs from a cadaver? You can’t.”

Byrne affirmed that giving pain medication to organ donors is routine. Doctors taking organs from brain-dead donors “have to paralyze them so they don’t move so when they cut into them to take organs, and when they paralyze them without anesthetics, their heart rate goes up and their blood pressure goes up,” he observed. “This is not something that happens to someone who’s truly dead.”

The neonatologist said he has personally studied the theory of “brain death” since 1975, seven years after the first vital organ transplant in 1968, and has found that death criteria has continually been changed to accommodate a demand for fresh organs. The idea of a “dead donor rule” did not even emerge until the 1980s, he said, and didn’t enter common parlance until years later.

“There really is no dead donor rule, although they’re trying to make it seem like there is,” said Byrne.

Byrne led a Vatican conference on “brain death” criteria in 2008 in which a large group of international experts, many of whom are world leaders in their fields, attested to the illegitimacy of “brain death” as an accepted criterion for organ removal.

The comments by the Canadian and Spanish experts have come under fire from the organ donor community, some members of which have expressed concern that the statements could lead people to opt out of donating their organs.

“In the overwhelming majority of cases, the concept of death is easy, obvious and not really subject to any complex interpretation. It’s very clear,” Dr. Andrew Baker, the medical director of the Trillium Gift of Life Network, which oversees Ontario’s transplant system, told the National Post. “They’re dead, you can see it, there is no return of anything.”

James DuBois, a health ethics professor at Saint Louis University, also criticized the comments, saying that removing the Dead Donor Rule could “have negative consequences: decreasing organ donation rates, upsetting donor family members and creating distress among health care workers.” (Shock: requiring death before organ donation is unnecessary, say doctors)

One lie begets other lies.

The lie of the Protestant Revolution has resulted in the proliferation of Protestant sects numbering as many as thirty-three thousand, producing irreligion in its work as a logical consequence.

The lie of "civil liberty" without the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be exercised by His true Church, the Catholic Church, has resulted in the lie of the monster civil state of Modernity that is now being used by God as a chastisement upon us for refusing to take seriously Holy Mother Church's Social Teaching.

The lie of "religious liberty" has led people to believe that the path to social order and personal salvation can be found in any religion or in no religion at all.

The lie of "public education" has led to a taxpayer-subsidized machine to program their captives to be steeped in one ideologically-laden slogan after another to make them willing servants of the monster civil state and to participate merrily in neo-barbaric practices that were eradicated in Europe in during the First Millennium and in most parts of the Americas in the second half of the Second Millennium by the missionary work of the Catholic Church.

The lie of contraception and "family planning" led to increases in the rates of marital infidelity, the abandonment of spouses and children, the proliferation children with stepmothers and stepfathers and and step-siblings, leaving many children rootless and without any sense of being loved unto eternity that each person craves for whether or not he realizes it.

The lie of contraception led steadily to the acceptance of eugenic sterilization and then sterilization for any reasons and, ultimately, to the acceptance of surgical baby-killing on demand.

The lies of contraception and explicit instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments broke down the natural psychological resistance of children to matters that are age inappropriate, robbing them of their innocence and purity, turning them into hedonists as they have grown older, leading eventually to the widespread acceptance of the sins that destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha with fire and brimstone.

The lies that were told by Fathers Annibale Bugnini, C.M., and Ferdinando Antontelli, O.F.M., in the 1950s gave us unprecedented and most radical changes in the Holy Week ceremonies that started to accustom Catholics to ceaseless change as an ordinary feature of the liturgical life of the Catholic Church, climaxing in the Trojan Horse that was the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service that, no matter how many times the conciliarists to "fix it," will always be an instrument of innovation and experimentation as it was designed to be precisely that from the moment Bugnini and Antonelli began their plans for the "Mass of the Future."

Thus it is that the lie of "brain death" has accustomed most people, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, into accepting uncritically the representations made by a medical industry that endorses the violation of the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage and of the violation of the surgical dismemberment of the innocent preborn and that is in league with the pharmaceutical industry to use us a walking guinea pigs for drugs designed to keep us dependent on them as the "high priests and priestesses" of "modern medicine."

When did the lie of "brain death" originate? At the beginning:

 

 

[1] Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise? [2] And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat: [3] But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die. [4] And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. [5] For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3: 1-5.)

It is very easy to be deceived.

It is very easy to be deceived by the lie of how "special" we are, of how we are "not like others."

It is very easy to be deceived by others and to let human respect get in the way of a firm defense of the truth when necessity compels such a defense lest souls be imperiled.

It is very easy to be deceived by the prevailing trends in what passes for popular culture, to give unto the "high priests and high priestesses" of banking, commerce, industry, education, law, entertainment, social science, politics, law, government, news and information and medicine the status of near-infallibility as even Catholics have been convinced to live as naturalists without regard for anything supernatural whatsoever.

Do not believe the false prophets. Do not follow the priests and presbyters who have swallowed the falsehoods of the false prophets of the medical industry hook, line and sinkers. Suffer for the truth without compromise as consecrated slaves of Christ the King through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, our Immaculate Queen, no matter what you might have to suffer in this passing, mortal vale of tears.

Never sign up to be an "organ donor."

Tell your family members that they must never sign up to be "organ donors"--or, if they have, to rescind the "permission" that they have given to be unwitting accomplices and accessories in their own execution by means of being dissected alive.

Do not delay. Do not follow their false prophets or the priests/presbyters who proselytize in their behalf.

We must pray to Our Lady to keep us from being so deceived, especially by the lies that we tell to ourselves, which is why we must be assiduous in praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

We must always raise the standard of Christ the King as we exhort one and all to recognize that Our King, Who awaits in tabernacles for our acts of love and thanksgiving and reparation and petition, must reign over each man and each nation and that His Most Blessed Mother, Mary our Immaculate Queen, is to be honored publicly by each man and each nation, including by the government of the United States of America, in order to know what it is to be blessed abundantly by the true God of Divine Revelation. May each Rosary we pray this day and every day help to plant seeds for this as we seek to serve Christ the King through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary our Immaculate Queen, who do not view any living human being as a ready product for dismemberment in the name of the lie "providing the gift of life."

May Saint Augustine, who converted to the Faith after a life of sin, and became one of the foremost defenders of the Holy Faith, a Doctor of the Church, help us to be so converted from our own sins so that we can reject quite readily the falsehoods of the false prophets of Modernity in the world and of Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now ?

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us, pray for us!

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

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

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Hermes, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix A

The Catholic Church Contra Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI on Dogmatic Truth

(These appendices contain selected examples. Many, many more are found in hundreds of articles on this site for each of these appendices)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's Modernist Warfare Against the Nature of Dogmatic Truth:

 

In theses 10-12, the difficult problem of the relationship between language and thought is debated, which in post-conciliar discussions was the immediate departure point of the dispute.

The identity of the Christian substance as such, the Christian 'thing' was not directly ... censured, but it was pointed out that no formula, no matter how valid and indispensable it may have been in its time, can fully express the thought mentioned in it and declare it unequivocally forever, since language is constantly in movement and the content of its meaning changes. (Fr. Ratzinger: Dogmatic formulas must always change.)

The text [of the document Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation] also presents the various types of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms - perhaps for the first time with this clarity - that there are decisions of the magisterium that cannot be the last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. The nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times influenced, may need further correction.

In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century [19th century] about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time [on evolutionism]. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from falling into the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they became obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at their proper time.

(Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, "Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation," published with the title "Rinnovato dialogo fra Magistero e Teologia," in L'Osservatore Romano, June 27, 1990, p. 6, Card. Ratzinger: The teachings of the Popes against Modernism are obsolete.)

"It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.

"On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)

The above as condemned by the Catholic Church:

• For the doctrine of the faith which God has revealed is put forward

  • not as some philosophical discovery capable of being perfected by human intelligence,
  • but as a divine deposit committed to the spouse of Christ to be faithfully protected and infallibly promulgated.
• Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.

God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever be in opposition to truth.

The appearance of this kind of specious contradiction is chiefly due to the fact that either: the dogmas of faith are not understood and explained in accordance with the mind of the church, or unsound views are mistaken for the conclusions of reason.

Therefore we define that every assertion contrary to the truth of enlightened faith is totally false. . . .

3. If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from that which the church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

And so in the performance of our supreme pastoral office, we beseech for the love of Jesus Christ and we command, by the authority of him who is also our God and saviour, all faithful Christians, especially those in authority or who have the duty of teaching, that they contribute their zeal and labour to the warding off and elimination of these errors from the church and to the spreading of the light of the pure faith.

But since it is not enough to avoid the contamination of heresy unless those errors are carefully shunned which approach it in greater or less degree, we warn all of their duty to observe the constitutions and decrees in which such wrong opinions, though not expressly mentioned in this document, have been banned and forbidden by this holy see. (Pope Pius IX, Vatican Council, Session III, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Chapter 4, On Faith and Reason, April 24, 1870. SESSION 3 : 24 April 1.)

Hence it is quite impossible [the Modernists assert] to maintain that they [dogmatic statements] absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion.

It is thus, Venerable Brethren, that for the Modernists, whether as authors or propagandists, there is to be nothing stable, nothing immutable in the Church. Nor, indeed, are they without forerunners in their doctrines, for it was of these that Our predecessor Pius IX wrote: 'These enemies of divine revelation extol human progress to the skies, and with rash and sacrilegious daring would have it introduced into the Catholic religion as if this religion were not the work of God but of man, or some kind of philosophical discovery susceptible of perfection by human efforts.' On the subject of revelation and dogma in particular, the doctrine of the Modernists offers nothing new. We find it condemned in the Syllabus of Pius IX, where it is enunciated in these terms: ''Divine revelation is imperfect, and therefore subject to continual and indefinite progress, corresponding with the progress of human reason'; and condemned still more solemnly in the Vatican Council: ''The doctrine of the faith which God has revealed has not been proposed to human intelligences to be perfected by them as if it were a philosophical system, but as a divine deposit entrusted to the Spouse of Christ to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence also that sense of the sacred dogmas is to be perpetually retained which our Holy Mother the Church has once declared, nor is this sense ever to be abandoned on plea or pretext of a more profound comprehension of the truth.' Nor is the development of our knowledge, even concerning the faith, barred by this pronouncement; on the contrary, it is supported and maintained. For the same Council continues: 'Let intelligence and science and wisdom, therefore, increase and progress abundantly and vigorously in individuals, and in the mass, in the believer and in the whole Church, throughout the ages and the centuries -- but only in its own kind, that is, according to the same dogma, the same sense, the same acceptation.' (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .

Finally, I declare that I am completely opposed to the error of the modernists who hold that there is nothing divine in sacred tradition; or what is far worse, say that there is, but in a pantheistic sense, with the result that there would remain nothing but this plain simple fact-one to be put on a par with the ordinary facts of history-the fact, namely, that a group of men by their own labor, skill, and talent have continued through subsequent ages a school begun by Christ and his apostles. I firmly hold, then, and shall hold to my dying breath the belief of the Fathers in the charism of truth, which certainly is, was, and always will be in the succession of the episcopacy from the apostles. The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910; see also Nothing Stable, Nothing Secure.)

These new opinions, whether they originate from a reprehensible desire of novelty or from a laudable motive, are not always advanced in the same degree, with equal clarity nor in the same terms, nor always with unanimous agreement of their authors. Theories that today are put forward rather covertly by some, not without cautions and distinctions, tomorrow are openly and without moderation proclaimed by others more audacious, causing scandal to many, especially among the young clergy and to the detriment of ecclesiastical authority. Though they are usually more cautious in their published works, they express themselves more openly in their writings intended for private circulation and in conferences and lectures. Moreover, these opinions are disseminated not only among members of the clergy and in seminaries and religious institutions, but also among the laity, and especially among those who are engaged in teaching youth.

In theology some want to reduce to a minimum the meaning of dogmas; and to free dogma itself from terminology long established in the Church and from philosophical concepts held by Catholic teachers, to bring about a return in the explanation of Catholic doctrine to the way of speaking used in Holy Scripture and by the Fathers of the Church. They cherish the hope that when dogma is stripped of the elements which they hold to be extrinsic to divine revelation, it will compare advantageously with the dogmatic opinions of those who are separated from the unity of the Church and that in this way they will gradually arrive at a mutual assimilation of Catholic dogma with the tenets of the dissidents.

Moreover they assert that when Catholic doctrine has been reduced to this condition, a way will be found to satisfy modern needs, that will permit of dogma being expressed also by the concepts of modern philosophy, whether of immanentism or idealism or existentialism or any other system. Some more audacious affirm that this can and must be done, because they hold that the mysteries of faith are never expressed by truly adequate concepts but only by approximate and ever changeable notions, in which the truth is to some extent expressed, but is necessarily distorted. Wherefore they do not consider it absurd, but altogether necessary, that theology should substitute new concepts in place of the old ones in keeping with the various philosophies which in the course of time it uses as its instruments, so that it should give human expression to divine truths in various ways which are even somewhat opposed, but still equivalent, as they say. They add that the history of dogmas consists in the reporting of the various forms in which revealed truth has been clothed, forms that have succeeded one another in accordance with the different teachings and opinions that have arisen over the course of the centuries.

It is evident from what We have already said, that such tentatives not only lead to what they call dogmatic relativism, but that they actually contain it. The contempt of doctrine commonly taught and of the terms in which it is expressed strongly favor it. Everyone is aware that the terminology employed in the schools and even that used by the Teaching Authority of the Church itself is capable of being perfected and polished; and we know also that the Church itself has not always used the same terms in the same way. It is also manifest that the Church cannot be bound to every system of philosophy that has existed for a short space of time. Nevertheless, the things that have been composed through common effort by Catholic teachers over the course of the centuries to bring about some understanding of dogma are certainly not based on any such weak foundation. These things are based on principles and notions deduced from a true knowledge of created things. In the process of deducing, this knowledge, like a star, gave enlightenment to the human mind through the Church. Hence it is not astonishing that some of these notions have not only been used by the Oecumenical Councils, but even sanctioned by them, so that it is wrong to depart from them.

Hence to neglect, or to reject, or to devalue so many and such great resources which have been conceived, expressed and perfected so often by the age-old work of men endowed with no common talent and holiness, working under the vigilant supervision of the holy magisterium and with the light and leadership of the Holy Ghost in order to state the truths of the faith ever more accurately, to do this so that these things may be replaced by conjectural notions and by some formless and unstable tenets of a new philosophy, tenets which, like the flowers of the field, are in existence today and die tomorrow; this is supreme imprudence and something that would make dogma itself a reed shaken by the wind. The contempt for terms and notions habitually used by scholastic theologians leads of itself to the weakening of what they call speculative theology, a discipline which these men consider devoid of true certitude because it is based on theological reasoning.

Unfortunately these advocates of novelty easily pass from despising scholastic theology to the neglect of and even contempt for the Teaching Authority of the Church itself, which gives such authoritative approval to scholastic theology. This Teaching Authority is represented by them as a hindrance to progress and an obstacle in the way of science. Some non Catholics consider it as an unjust restraint preventing some more qualified theologians from reforming their subject. And although this sacred Office of Teacher in matters of faith and morals must be the proximate and universal criterion of truth for all theologians, since to it has been entrusted by Christ Our Lord the whole deposit of faith -- Sacred Scripture and divine Tradition -- to be preserved, guarded and interpreted, still the duty that is incumbent on the faithful to flee also those errors which more or less approach heresy, and accordingly "to keep also the constitutions and decrees by which such evil opinions are proscribed and forbidden by the Holy See,"[2] is sometimes as little known as if it did not exist. What is expounded in the Encyclical Letters of the Roman Pontiffs concerning the nature and constitution of the Church, is deliberately and habitually neglected by some with the idea of giving force to a certain vague notion which they profess to have found in the ancient Fathers, especially the Greeks. The Popes, they assert, do not wish to pass judgment on what is a matter of dispute among theologians, so recourse must be had to the early sources, and the recent constitutions and decrees of the Teaching Church must be explained from the writings of the ancients.

Although these things seem well said, still they are not free from error. It is true that Popes generally leave theologians free in those matters which are disputed in various ways by men of very high authority in this field; but history teaches that many matters that formerly were open to discussion, no longer now admit of discussion.

Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: "He who heareth you, heareth me"; and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

Appendix B

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI Contra the Catholic Church on Who is a Member of the Catholic Church

From the words of "Pope" Benedict XVI himself:

Now perhaps one might say: all well and good, but what has this to do with our ecumenical situation?  Could this just be an attempt to talk our way past the urgent problems that are still waiting for practical progress, for concrete results?  I would respond by saying that the first and most important thing for ecumenism is that we keep in view just how much we have in common, not losing sight of it amid the pressure towards secularization – everything that makes us Christian in the first place and continues to be our gift and our task.  It was the error of the Reformation period that for the most part we could only see what divided us and we failed to grasp existentially what we have in common in terms of the great deposit of sacred Scripture and the early Christian creeds.  For me, the great ecumenical step forward of recent decades is that we have become aware of all this common ground, that we acknowledge it as we pray and sing together, as we make our joint commitment to the Christian ethos in our dealings with the world, as we bear common witness to the God of Jesus Christ in this world as our inalienable, shared foundation.

To be sure, the risk of losing it is not unreal.  I would like to make two brief points here.  The geography of Christianity has changed dramatically in recent times, and is in the process of changing further.  Faced with a new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem at a loss.  This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability.  This worldwide phenomenon – that bishops from all over the world are constantly telling me about –  poses a question to us all: what is this new form of Christianity saying to us, for better and for worse?  In any event, it raises afresh the question about what has enduring validity and what can or must be changed – the question of our fundamental faith choice.

The second challenge to worldwide Christianity of which I wish to speak is more profound and in our country more controversial: the secularized context of the world in which we Christians today have to live and bear witness to our faith.  God is increasingly being driven out of our society, and the history of revelation that Scripture recounts to us seems locked into an ever more remote past.  Are we to yield to the pressure of secularization, and become modern by watering down the faith?  Naturally faith today has to be thought out afresh, and above all lived afresh, so that it is suited to the present day.  Yet it is not by watering the faith down, but by living it today in its fullness that we achieve this.  This is a key ecumenical task in which we have to help one another: developing a deeper and livelier faith.  It is not strategy that saves us and saves Christianity, but faith – thought out and lived afresh; through such faith, Christ enters this world of ours, and with him, the living God.  As the martyrs of the Nazi era brought us together and prompted that great initial ecumenical opening, so today, faith that is lived from deep within amid a secularized world is the most powerful ecumenical force that brings us together, guiding us towards unity in the one Lord.  And we pray to him, asking that we may learn to live the faith anew, and that in this way we may then become one. (Meeting with representatives of the German Evangelical Church Council in the Chapter Hall of the Augustinian Convent Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011.)

“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through them” (Jn 17:20).  These words Jesus addressed to the Father in the Upper Room.  He intercedes for coming generations of believers.  He looks beyond the Upper Room, towards the future.  He also prayed for us.  And he prayed for our unity.  This prayer of Jesus is not simply something from the past.  He stands before the Father, for ever making intercession for us.  At this moment he also stands in our midst and he desires to draw us into his own prayer.  In the prayer of Jesus we find the very heart of our unity.  We will become one if we allow ourselves to be drawn into this prayer.  Whenever we gather in prayer as Christians, Jesus’ concern for us, and his prayer to the Father for us, ought to touch our hearts. The more we allow ourselves to be drawn into this event, the more we grow in unity. (Ecumenical Celebration in the church of the Augustinian Convent, Erfurt, Germany, September 23, 2011.)

 

Pope Pius XII provided us with the antidote to this apostasy:

 

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

Appendix C

Ratzinger Contra the Catholic Church on Religious Liberty

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

Religious freedom expresses what is unique about the human person, for it allows us to direct our personal and social life to God, in whose light the identity, meaning and purpose of the person are fully understood. To deny or arbitrarily restrict this freedom is to foster a reductive vision of the human person; to eclipse the public role of religion is to create a society which is unjust, inasmuch as it fails to take account of the true nature of the human person; it is to stifle the growth of the authentic and lasting peace of the whole human family.

For this reason, I implore all men and women of good will to renew their commitment to building a world where all are free to profess their religion or faith, and to express their love of God with all their heart, with all their soul and with all their mind (cf. Mt 22:37). This is the sentiment which inspires and directs this Message for the XLIV World Day of Peace, devoted to the theme: Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace. (World Day of Peace 2011, Religious Freedom, the Path to Peace.)

 

The Catholic Church:

 

"The necessary effect of the constitution decreed by the Assembly is to annihilate the Catholic Religion and, with her, the obedience owed to Kings. With this purpose it establishes as a right of man in society this absolute liberty that not only insures the right to be indifferent to religious opinions, but also grants full license to freely think, speak, write and even print whatever one wishes on religious matters – even the most disordered imaginings. It is a monstrous right, which the Assembly claims, however, results from equality and the natural liberties of all men.

"But what could be more unwise than to establish among men this equality and this uncontrolled liberty, which stifles all reason, the most precious gift nature gave to man, the one that distinguishes him from animals?

"After creating man in a place filled with delectable things, didn’t God threaten him with death should he eat the fruit of the tree of good and evil? And with this first prohibition didn’t He establish limits to his liberty? When, after man disobeyed the command and thereby incurred guilt, didn’t God impose new obligations on him through Moses? And even though he left to man’s free will the choice between good and evil, didn’t God provide him with precepts and commandments that could save him “if he would observe them”? …

"Where then, is this liberty of thinking and acting that the Assembly grants to man in society as an indisputable natural right? Is this invented right not contrary to the right of the Supreme Creator to whom we owe our existence and all that we have? Can we ignore the fact that man was not created for himself alone, but to be helpful to his neighbor? …

"Man should use his reason first of all to recognize his Sovereign Maker, honoring Him and admiring Him, and submitting his entire person to Him. For, from his childhood, he should be submissive to those who are superior to him in age; he should be governed and instructed by their lessons, order his life according to their laws of reason, society and religion. This inflated equality and liberty, therefore, are for him, from the moment he is born, no more than imaginary dreams and senseless words." (Pope Pius VI, Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791; Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right")

The Catholic Church: For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, POST TAM DIUTURNAS)

For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."

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

Appendix D

Ratzinger Contra The Catholic Church on Separation of Church and State

 

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI: From a wise vision of life and of the world, the just ordering of society follows. Situated within history, the Church is open to cooperating with anyone who does not marginalize or reduce to the private sphere the essential consideration of the human meaning of life. The point at issue is not an ethical confrontation between a secular and a religious system, so much as a question about the meaning that we give to our freedom. What matters is the value attributed to the problem of meaning and its implication in public life. By separating Church and State, the Republican revolution which took place 100 years ago in Portugal, opened up a new area of freedom for the Church, to which the two concordats of 1940 and 2004 would give shape, in cultural settings and ecclesial perspectives profoundly marked by rapid change. For the most part, the sufferings caused by these transformations have been faced with courage. Living amid a plurality of value systems and ethical outlooks requires a journey to the core of one’s being and to the nucleus of Christianity so as to reinforce the quality of one’s witness to the point of sanctity, and to find mission paths that lead even to the radical choice of martyrdom. (Official Reception at Lisbon Portela International Airport, Tuesday, May 11, 2010.)

 

The Catholic Church:

Pope Saint Pius X:  2. Whilst the new rulers of Portugal were affording such numerous and awful examples of the abuse of power, you know with what patience and moderation this Apostolic See has acted towards them. We thought that We ought most carefully to avoid any action that could even have the appearance of hostility to the Republic. For We clung to the hope that its rulers would one day take saner counsels and would at length repair, by some new agreement, the injuries inflicted on the Church. In this, however, We have been altogether disappointed, for they have now crowned their evil work by the promulgation of a vicious and pernicious Decree for the Separation of Church and State. But now the duty imposed upon Us by our Apostolic charge will not allow Us to remain passive and silent when so serious a wound has been inflicted upon the rights and dignity of the Catholic religion. Therefore do We now address you, Venerable Brethren, in this letter and denounce to all Christendom the heinousness of this deed.

3. At the outset, the absurd and monstrous character of the decree of which We speak is plain from the fact that it proclaims and enacts that the Republic shall have no religion, as if men individually and any association or nation did not depend upon Him who is the Maker and Preserver of all things; and then from the fact that it liberates Portugal from the observance of the Catholic religion, that religion, We say, which has ever been that nation's greatest safeguard and glory, and has been professed almost unanimously by its people. So let us take it that it has been their pleasure to sever that close alliance between Church and State, confirmed though it was by the solemn faith of treaties. Once this divorce was effected, it would at least have been logical to pay no further attention to the Church, and to leave her the enjoyment of the common liberty and rights which belong to every citizen and every respectable community of peoples. Quite otherwise, however, have things fallen out. This decree bears indeed the name of Separation, but it enacts in reality the reduction of the Church to utter want by the spoliation of her property, and to servitude to the State by oppression in all that touches her sacred power and spirit. . . .

Accordingly, under the admonition of the duty of Our Apostolic office that, in the face of such audacity on the part of the enemies of God, We should most vigilantly protect the dignity and honor of religion and preserve the sacred rights of the Catholic Church, We by our Apostolic authority denounce, condemn, and reject the Law for the Separation of Church and State in the Portuguese Republic. This law despises God and repudiates the Catholic faith; it annuls the treaties solemnly made between Portugal and the Apostolic See, and violates the law of nature and of her property; it oppresses the liberty of the Church, and assails her divine Constitution; it injures and insults the majesty of the Roman Pontificate, the order of Bishops, the Portuguese clergy and people, and so the Catholics of the world. And whilst We strenuously complain that such a law should have been made, sanctioned, and published, We utter a solemn protest against those who have had a part in it as authors or helpers, and, at the same time, We proclaim and denounce as null and void, and to be so regarded, all that the law has enacted against the inviolable rights of the Church. (Pope Saint Pius X, Iamdudum, May 24, 1911.)

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. . . .Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

 

Appendix E

Giovanni Montini/Paul VI Contra The Catholic Church on World Peace

Giovanni Montini/Paul VI:

In saying this, We feel We are speaking with the voice of the dead as well as of the living: of the dead who have fallen in the terrible wars of the past, dreaming of concord and world peace; of the living who have survived those wars, bearing in their hearts a condemnation of those who seek to renew them; and of those rightful expectation of a better humanity. And We also make Our own, the voice of the poor, the disinherited, the suffering; of those who long for justice for the dignity of life, for freedom, for well being and for progress. The peoples of the earth turn to the United Nations as the last hope of concord and peace. We presume to present here, together with Our own, their tribute to honour and of hope. That is why this moment is a great one for you also. We know that you are fully aware of this. Now for the continuation of Our message. It looks entirely towards the future. The edifice which you have constructed must never collapse; it must be continually perfected and adapted to the needs which the history of the world will present. You mark a stage in the development of mankind; from now on retreat is impossible; you must go forward. (Giovanni Montini/Paul VI's Address to the United Nations, October 4, 1965.)

 

The Catholic Church:

 

Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

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. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)