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               June 27, 2013

 

Irreversible By Means Merely Human

by Thomas A. Droleskey

It was almost exactly a year ago that I wrote to tell you that the June 28, 2012,  decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the combined cases of National Federation of Independent Business, et al. v. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al. and Department of Health and Human Services, et al. v. Florida, et al. meant that the hideous statist monstrosity known as ObamaCare, which most conciliar "bishops" in the United States of America supported in principle even though it is a a violation of the Natural Law principle of subsidiarity and against whose mandating of health insurance coverage for contraception and abortion the so-called United States Conference of "Catholic Bishops" has now flown the white flag of surrender, was here to stay.

It is. That is a fact despite its moral evils and its practical effects of continuing the process of the fiscal bankruptcy of the United States of America that is part the result of the fact that America's "Debt Clock" Began Ticking On July 4, 1776. ObamaCare and all of its horrible ramifications is here to stay.

Well, I am going to tell you know something that most readers of this site should have come to accept as a reality in light of the decisions rendered yesterday, June 26, 2013, the Feast of Saints John and Paul within the Octave of the Feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, by the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor are irreversible by means merely human. While a number of states will hold out against the tidal wave of sentiment that has swept up nearly three in five Americans who now favor the outrage that is "gay marriage," it is now time to Stick A Fork In"U.S.," We Are Done, Cooked.

It is essential to remember that there is no merely natural, religiously indifferentist, socially ecumenical or "non-denominational" way to retard the spread of evil as it is those very falsehoods that has made the triumph of such moral evils as ready divorce, contraception, abortion, vital body member harvesting, euthanasia  and sodomy possible, and will one day result in the social acceptance of perverse relationships with minor children and polygamy inevitable. Without the Catholic Faith, ladies and gentlemen, and the Social Reign of Christ the King, men are destined to fall into the abyss. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a fool (yes, a fool) for refusing to look clearly at the level of tolerance and acceptance of evil has been reached within most countries of the supposedly "civilized" Western world, including the United States of America.

We do not need to tarry too long to reiterate the simple fact that it is not the "rights of man" or "states' rights" that matter. What matters are the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as they have been entrusted to and taught infallibly by the Catholic Church.

Father Denis Fahey, writing in his The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, explained that we cannot be neutral in the battle between the reign of man and the Social Reign of Christ the King:

We can thus easily see that the entrance of Christianity into the world has meant two things. Primarily and principally, it has meant the constitution of a supernatural society, the Mystical Body of Christ, absolutely transcending every natural development of culture and civilisation. Secondly, it has had as result that this supernatural society, the Catholic Church, began to exercise a profound influence upon culture and civilisation and modified in a far-reaching way the existing temporal or natural social order. The indirect power of the Church over temporal affairs, whenever the interests of the divine life of souls are involved, presupposes, of course, a clear distinction of nature between the ecclesiastical authority, charged with the care of divine things, and the civil authority, whose mission is concerned with purely temporal matters. In proportion as the Mystical Body of Christ was accepted by mankind, political and economic thought and action began to respect the jurisdiction and guidance of the Catholic Church, endowed, as she is, with the right of intervention in temporal affairs whenever necessary, because of her participation in the spiritual kingship of Christ. Thus the natural or temporal common good of states came to be sought in a manner calculated to favour the development of true personality, in and through the Mystical Body of Christ, and social life came more and more under the influence of the supreme end of man, the vision of God in the three divine Persons.

Accordingly, the divine plan for order in our fallen and redeemed world comprises, primarily, the supernatural social organism of the Catholic Church, and then, secondarily, the temporal or natural social order resulting from the influence of Catholic doctrine on politics and economics and from the embodiment of that influence in social institutions. From the birth of the Catholic Church on Calvary and the solemn promulgation of her mission at the first Pentecost, the Kingdom of God in its essence has been present in the world. As a result of the gradual acceptance of the role of the Church by the temporal representatives of Christ the King, the social institutions of states and nations became deeply permeated with the influence of the supernatural life of Christ. Then, and only then, could the Kingdom of God in its integrity or the rule of Christ the King in its integrity, be said to exist. The Kingdom of God or the rule of Christ the King is present in its integrity only in so far as the whole social life of states, political and economic, is permeated with the influence of the Church. To put it in other terms, Christ fully reigns only when the programme for which He died is accepted as the one true way to peace and order in the world, and social structures in harmony with it are evolved.

The Kingdom of God in its essence is always with us, but the influence of the Church on politics and economics, in other words, the extension of the Kingdom of God in its integrity, has varied with the centuries. Broadly speaking, the thirteenth century has been, so far, the high water mark of that influence. Since then, until recently, there has been steady decay. No particular temporal social order, of course, will ever realise all that the Church is capable of giving to the world. Each of them will be defective for several reasons.

First of all, the action of the Church, welcomed by some Catholics, will be opposed by the ignorance, incapacity and perversity of others.

Secondly, even if all Catholics did accept fully, they could only reflect some of the beauty of the Gospel as the saints reflected some of the infinitely imitable holiness of Christ.

Thirdly, there would still remain the vast number of non-Catholics to be won for Christ and have their social life organised under His rule. It is towards this latter goal that every generation of Catholics is called upon to work. The aim is not, needless to say, to bring back the Middle Ages, for the river of time does not turn back in its course, but the aim is to impregnate a new epoch with the divine principles of order so firmly grasped in the thirteenth century. The result of the so-called Reformation and the French Revolution has been to obscure the rights of God proclaimed by our Lord Jesus Christ and to diffuse naturalism.

Naturalism consists in the negation of the possibility of the elevation of our nature to the supernatural life and order, or more radically still, in the negation of the very existence of that life and order. In our day owing to the progress of the anti-Christian revolt, the more radical meaning has become common. Naturalism may be defined therefore as the attitude of mind which denies the reality of the divine life of grace and of our Fall therefrom by original sin. It rejects our consequent liability to revolt against the order of the divine life, when this life has been restored to us by our membership of Christ, and maintains that all social life should be organized on the basis of that denial. We must combat that mentality and proclaim the rights of God.

In his Encyclical letter on Freemasonry, Pope Leo XIII teaches authoritatively: “From what we have already set forth, it is indisputably evident that their [the Freemasons’] ultimate aim is to uproot completely the whole religious and political order of the world, which has been brought into existence by Christianity, and to replace it by another in harmony with their way of thinking. This will mean that the foundation and the laws of the new structure of society will be drawn from pure naturalism.” Now, it is historically certain that the Declaration of the Rights of Man had been conceived and elaborated in the Masonic lodges before it was presented to the States-General of France. Accordingly, the infamous Declaration, a naturalistic or anti-supernatural document, is in reality a declaration of war on membership of Christ and on the whole structure of society based on that supernatural dignity. The same naturalistic hostility to membership of Christ and the supernatural life of grace runs through all the documents concerning human rights drawn up under the influence of the organised forces that were responsible for the Declaration of 1789. That is the real struggle going on in the world, and in it every member of Christ is called upon to play his or her part. There can be no neutrality. “He that is not with me is against me ” (St. Matthew XII, 30.)  (Father Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World.)

 

In other words, it is not possible to retard social evils by naturalistic means. Evils are the only thing that result from naturalism. It is thus impossible to retard the spread of one grave social evil after another by sterile arguments based in the tortured reasoning of legal positivists in a country whose "bottom line" is the text of a written constitution, as subject to misinterpretation and/or deconstruction as Holy Writ is the hands of Protestants, Modernist Catholics and rationalists, that admits of no higher authority beyond itself. As I have been writing and lecturing for decades now, all must fall apart absent the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be exercised by Holy Mother Church in all that pertains to the good of souls.

Behold the following passage in majority opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of United States v. Windsor, which declared the United States Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, something that I predicted, both in The Wanderer and the printed pages of the nascent Christ or Chaos, upon the act's passage in 1996 would be the outcome of any challenge to it that made its way up to the Supreme Court, as rendered by Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy:

 

Against this background DOMA rejects the long- established precept that the incidents, benefits, and obligations of marriage are uniform for all married couples within each State, though they may vary, subject to constitutional guarantees, from one State to the next. Despite these considerations, it is unnecessary to decide whether this federal intrusion on state power is a violation of the Constitution because it disrupts the federal balance. The State’s power in defining the marital relation is of central relevance in this case quite apart from principles of federalism. Here the State’s decision to give this class of persons the right to marry conferred upon them a dignity and status of immense import. When the State used its historic and essential authority to define the marital relation in this way, its role and its power in making the decision enhanced the recognition, dignity, and protection of the class in their own community. DOMA, because of its reach and extent, departs from this history and tradition of reliance on state law to define marriage. “


‘[D]iscriminations of an unusual character especially suggest careful consideration to determine whether they are obnoxious to the constitutional provision.’” Romer v. Evans, 517 U. S. 620, 633 (1996) (quoting Louisville Gas&Elec. Co. v. Coleman, 277 U. S. 32, 37–38 (1928)). The Federal Government uses this state-defined class for the opposite purpose—to impose restrictions and disabilities. That result requires this Court now to address whether the resulting injury and indignity is a deprivation of an essential part of the liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment. What the State of New York treats as alike the federal law deems unlike by a law designed to injure the same class the State seeks to protect.

In acting first to recognize and then to allow same-sex marriages, New York was responding “to the initiative of those who [sought] a voice in shaping the destiny of their own times.” Bond v. United States, 564 U. S. ___, ___ (2011) (slip op., at 9). These actions were without doubt a proper exercise of its sovereign authority within our federal system, all in the way that the Framers of the Constitution intended. The dynamics of state government in the federal system are to allow the formation of consensus respecting the way the members of a discrete community treat each other in their daily contact and constant interaction with each other.

The States’ interest in defining and regulating the marital relation, subject to constitutional guarantees, stems from the understanding that marriage is more than a routine classification for purposes of certain statutory benefits. Private, consensual sexual intimacy between two adult persons of the same sex may not be punished by the State, and it can form “but one element in a personal bond that is more enduring.” Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U. S. 558, 567 (2003). By its recognition of the validity of same-same marriages performed in other jurisdictions and then by authorizing same-sex unions and same-sex marriages, New York sought to give further protection and dignity to that bond. For same-sex couples who wished to be married, the State acted to give their lawful conduct a lawful status. This status is a far-reaching legal acknowledgment of the intimate relationship between two people, a relationship deemed by the State worthy of dignity in the community equal with all other marriages. It reflects both the community’s considered perspective on the historical roots of the institution of marriage and its evolving understanding of the meaning of equality.  (Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, U.S. v. Windsor.)

Yes, strictly speaking, good readers, Anthony McLeod Kennedy, who remains in perfectly "good standing" in the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, despite his pro-abortion and pro-sodomy record on the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the past twenty-five years now, is correct. The Federal government has no power to intervene in the sovereignty of the states over the "definition" of what constitutes marriage. Strictly speaking, though, no human being, whether acting individually or collectively with others in the institutions of civil governance, has any right to "define" that which has been decreed by God Himself when He created Adam and Eve. States have no right to "define" marriage, and thus it is the entirety of the passage from Justice Anthony Kennedy's majority opinion in the case of the United States v. Windsor is premised upon the acceptance of the Judeo-Masonic falsehood that the civil state has authority over marriage, which it does not.

Anthony Kennedy, here is something you must have missed in your catechism classes when you were growing up in your local parish in Sacramento, California, in the 1940s:

Nevertheless, the naturalists, as well as all who profess that they worship above all things the divinity of the State, and strive to disturb whole communities with such wicked doctrines, cannot escape the charge of delusion. Marriage has God for its Author, and was from the very beginning a kind of foreshadowing of the Incarnation of His Son; and therefore there abides in it a something holy and religious; not extraneous, but innate; not derived from men, but implanted by nature. Innocent III. therefore. and Honorius III, our predecessors, affirmed not falsely nor rashly that a sacrament of marriage existed ever amongst the faithful and unbelievers. We call to witness the monuments of antiquity, as also the manners and customs of those people who, being the most civilized, had the greatest knowledge of law and equity. In the minds of all of them it was a fixed and foregone conclusion that, when marriage was thought of, it was thought of as conjoined with religion and holiness. Hence, among those, marriages were commonly celebrated with religious ceremonies, under the authority of pontiffs, and with the ministry of priests. So mighty, even in the souls ignorant of heavenly doctrine, was the force of nature, of the remembrance of their origin, and of the conscience of the human race. As, then, marriage is holy by its own power, in its own nature, and of itself, it ought not to be regulated and administered by the will of civil rulers, but by the divine authority of the Church, which alone in sacred matters professes the office of teaching.

Next, the dignity of the sacrament must be considered, for through addition of the sacrament the marriages of Christians have become far the noblest of all matrimonial unions. But to decree and ordain concerning the sacrament is, by the will of Christ Himself, so much a part of the power and duty of the Church that it is plainly absurd to maintain that even the very smallest fraction of such power has been transferred to the civil ruler.

Lastly should be borne in mind the great weight and crucial test of history, by which it is plainly proved that the legislative and judicial authority of which We are speaking has been freely and constantly used by the Church, even in times when some foolishly suppose the head of the State either to have consented to it or connived at it. It would, for instance, be incredible and altogether absurd to assume that Christ our Lord condemned the long-standing practice of polygamy and divorce by authority delegated to Him by the procurator of the province, or the principal ruler of the Jews. And it would be equally extravagant to think that, when the Apostle Paul taught that divorces and incestuous marriages were not lawful, it was because Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero agreed with him or secretly commanded him so to teach. No man in his senses could ever be persuaded that the Church made so many laws about the holiness and indissolubility of marriage, and the marriages of slaves with the free-born, by power received from Roman emperors, most hostile to the Christian name, whose strongest desire was to destroy by violence and murder the rising Church of Christ. Still less could anyone believe this to be the case, when the law of the Church was sometimes so divergent from the civil law that Ignatius the Martyr, Justin, Athenagoras, and Tertullian publicly denounced as unjust and adulterous certain marriages which had been sanctioned by imperial law.

Furthermore, after all power had devolved upon the Christian emperors, the supreme pontiffs and bishops assembled in council persisted with the same independence and consciousness of their right in commanding or forbidding in regard to marriage whatever they judged to be profitable or expedient for the time being, however much it might seem to be at variance with the laws of the State. It is well known that, with respect to the impediments arising from the marriage bond, through vow, disparity of worship, blood relationship, certain forms of crime, and from previously plighted troth, many decrees were issued by the rulers of the Church at the Councils of Granada, Arles, Chalcedon, the second of Milevum, and others, which were often widely different from the decrees sanctioned by the laws of the empire. Furthermore, so far were Christian princes from arrogating any power in the matter of Christian marriage that they on the contrary acknowledged and declared that it belonged exclusively in all its fullness to the Church. In fact, Honorius, the younger Theodosius, and Justinian, also, hesitated not to confess that the only power belonging to them in relation to marriage was that of acting as guardians and defenders of the holy canons. If at any time they enacted anything by their edicts concerning impediments of marriage, they voluntarily explained the reason, affirming that they took it upon themselves so to act, by leave and authority of the Church, whose judgment they were wont to appeal to and reverently to accept in all questions that concerned legitimacy and divorce; as also in all those points which in any way have a necessary connection with the marriage bond. The Council of Trent, therefore, had the clearest right to define that it is in the Church's power "to establish diriment impediments of matrimony," and that "matrimonial causes pertain to ecclesiastical judges."

Let no one, then, be deceived by the distinction which some civil jurists have so strongly insisted upon -- the distinction, namely, by virtue of which they sever the matrimonial contract from the sacrament, with intent to hand over the contract to the power and will of the rulers of the State, while reserving questions concerning the sacrament of the Church. A distinction, or rather severance, of this kind cannot be approved; for certain it is that in Christian marriage the contract is inseparable from the sacrament, and that, for this reason, the contract cannot be true and legitimate without being a sacrament as well. For Christ our Lord added to marriage the dignity of a sacrament; but marriage is the contract itself, whenever that contract is lawfully concluded. . . .

Truly, it is hardly possible to describe how great are the evils that flow from divorce. Matrimonial contracts are by it made variable; mutual kindness is weakened; deplorable inducements to unfaithfulness are supplied; harm is done to the education and training of children; occasion is afforded for the breaking up of homes; the seeds of dissension are sown among families; the dignity of womanhood is lessened and brought low, and women run the risk of being deserted after having ministered to the pleasures of men. Since, then, nothing has such power to lay waste families and destroy the mainstay of kingdoms as the corruption of morals, it is easily seen that divorces are in the highest degree hostile to the prosperity of families and States, springing as they do from the depraved morals of the people, and, as experience shows us, opening out a way to every kind of evil-doing in public and in private life.

Further still, if the matter be duly pondered, we shall clearly see these evils to be the more especially dangerous, because, divorce once being tolerated, there will be no restraint powerful enough to keep it within the bounds marked out or presurmised. Great indeed is the force of example, and even greater still the might of passion. With such incitements it must needs follow that the eagerness for divorce, daily spreading by devious ways, will seize upon the minds of many like a virulent contagious disease, or like a flood of water bursting through every barrier. These are truths that doubtlessly are all clear in themselves, but they will become clearer yet if we call to mind the teachings of experience. So soon as the road to divorce began to be made smooth by law, at once quarrels, jealousies, and judicial separations largely increased: and such shamelessness of life followed that men who had been in favor of these divorces repented of what they had done, and feared that, if they did not carefully seek a remedy by repealing the law, the State itself might come to ruin. The Romans of old are said to have shrunk with horror from the first example of divorce, but ere long all sense of decency was blunted in their soul; the meager restraint of passion died out, and the marriage vow was so often broken that what some writers have affirmed would seem to be true -- namely, women used to reckon years not by the change of consuls, but of their husbands. In like manner, at the beginning, Protestants allowed legalized divorces in certain although but few cases, and yet from the affinity of circumstances of like kind, the number of divorces increased to such extent in Germany, America, and elsewhere that all wise thinkers deplored the boundless corruption of morals, and judged the recklessness of the laws to be simply intolerable.

Even in Catholic States the evil existed. For whenever at any time divorce was introduced, the abundance of misery that followed far exceeded all that the framers of the law could have foreseen. In fact, many lent their minds to contrive all kinds of fraud and device, and by accusations of cruelty, violence, and adultery to feign grounds for the dissolution of the matrimonial bond of which they had grown weary; and all this with so great havoc to morals that an amendment of the laws was deemed to be urgently needed.

Can anyone, therefore, doubt that laws in favor of divorce would have a result equally baneful and calamitous were they to be passed in these our days? There exists not, indeed, in the projects and enactments of men any power to change the character and tendency with things have received from nature. Those men, therefore, show but little wisdom in the idea they have formed of the well-being of the commonwealth who think that the inherent character of marriage can be perverted with impunity; and who, disregarding the sanctity of religion and of the sacrament, seem to wish to degrade and dishonor marriage more basely than was done even by heathen laws. Indeed, if they do not change their views, not only private families, but all public society, will have unceasing cause to fear lest they should be miserably driven into that general confusion and overthrow of order which is even now the wicked aim of socialists and communists. Thus we see most clearly how foolish and senseless it is to expect any public good from divorce, when, on the contrary, it tends to the certain destruction of society. (Pope Leo XIII, Arcanum, February 10, 1890.)

 

So much for the "essence" of state power, Tony Kennedy. Yet it is that Anthony Kennedy remains a "Catholic" in "good standing" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism despite twenty-five years of decisions in favor of contraception, abortion and sodomy, including his infamous opinion, signed by Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Ronald Wilson Reagan's first appointee to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, in the case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Robert Casey, June 29, 1992:

Although Roe has engendered opposition, it has in no sense proven unworkable, representing as it does a simple limitation beyond which a state law is unenforceable. P. 835.

(e) The Roe rule's limitation on state power could not be repudiated without serious inequity to people who, for two decades of economic and social developments, have organized intimate relationships and made choices that define their views of themselves and their places in society, in reliance on the availability of abortion in the event that contraception should fail. The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives. The Constitution serves human values, and while the effect of reliance on Roe cannot be exactly measured, neither can the certain costs of overruling Roe for people who have ordered their thinking and living around that case be dismissed. Pp. 855-856. (Text of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey.)

It is Alice in Wonderland in the United States of America as the logical, inevitable rotten fruit of its false, naturalistic, religiously indifferentist, anti-Incarnational and semi-Pelagian founded premises come crashing down all at once as emotionalism and sentimentality replace all rational thought. This is only natural as a system based in naturalism is bound to collapse.

Accepting  "gay marraige" as an expression of "equality" in accord with the "consensual decisions" of individuals and society?

God Himself had something to say about this:

[26] And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. [27] And God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. [28] And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth. [29] And God said: Behold I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all trees that have in themselves seed of their own kind, to be your meat: [30] And to all beasts of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to all that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. (Genesis 1: 26-32.)

Is there any need for a further elaboration?

Alas, everything must "be up for grabs" when the souls of men are not taught, sanctified and governed by Holy Mother Church. Unrepentant sins of the most vile manner imaginable must abound, resulting ultimate in entire races of walking "blank slates," human beings who must decide "for themselves" that which has been ordained by God Himself in the Order of Nature (Creation) and the Order of Redemption (Grace.) Men come to think that they are demigods, beings who have the ability "to decide" what to think in matters to pertaining to Faith and Morals without assenting their intellects completely and without any reservation at all to what Holy Mother Church teaches infallibly.

Individual men do not "define" marriage.

Men do not "define" marriage when acting collectively in an institution of human governance (executive, legislative, judicial).

Men do not "define" marriage when acting collectively in a voter referendum, which was what was wrong with Proposition 8 in California from the very beginning, something that I have pointed out consistently on this site, which means that all of the "conservative" gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over the State of California's refusal to defend Proposition 8 in the state and Federal court systems is vainglorious as "the people" acting in a referendum have no more authority to "define" marriage (and Proposition 8 ceded the legitimacy of "civil unions" for those engaged in perverse acts against nature) than no judges or legislators or others in society.

The "people" do not "decide" anything about Faith and Morals.

They "people" must obey all that exists in the nature of things and that that plays its part in their own sanctification and salvation.

Pope Leo XIII, writing in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, specifically and categorically rejected the diabolical falsehood of the "sovereignty of the people:"

The sovereignty of the people, however, and this without any reference to God, is held to reside in the multitude; which is doubtless a doctrine exceedingly well calculated to flatter and to inflame many passions, but which lacks all reasonable proof, and all power of insuring public safety and preserving order. Indeed, from the prevalence of this teaching, things have come to such a pass that may hold as an axiom of civil jurisprudence that seditions may be rightfully fostered. For the opinion prevails that princes are nothing more than delegates chosen to carry out the will of the people; whence it necessarily follows that all things are as changeable as the will of the people, so that risk of public disturbance is ever hanging over our heads.

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

 

Yes, the madness of the universal franchise, as Pope Pius IX termed it in an allocution in 1874, arrogates unto the people what belongs to Christ the King. The "people" come to believe in a governmental system based on false, naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian principles that "they" get decide the inherent morality of human actions by means of their legislative bodies and/or by means of direct plebiscites (votes of the "people" on ballot propositions--initiatives and referenda--that become the civil law once approved in a general or special election). This is one of the major consequences of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the triumph, albeit temporary, of the reign of the devil by means of the "reign of man" wrought by the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry.

Time and time again we have heard from various libertarians, such as United States Representative Ron Paul, R-Texas, and careerists, such as former Governor Massachusetts Willard Mitt Romney, to name just one, that the matter of surgical abortion is one to be decided by state legislatures according to "the will of the people" in each of the fifty states. This is an egregious offense to the rights of God and to the immutability of the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law that He has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for their infallible explication and eternal safekeeping. God has decreed these laws. They exist in the very nature of things. Their existence has been ratified and their application explained by Holy Mother Church.

Ballot propositions, therefore, that are designed to retard certain evils in society are founded upon the fatal premise that the "people" do indeed have legitimate authority to "determine" which of laws God's eternal laws will be binding under cover of civil law. While these ballot propositions are certainly well-intentioned and are made by people of genuine good will in an effort to circumvent state legislatures and/or to overturn judicial edicts, the concession that such matters can be put to a vote of "the people" makes God's law subject to the whims of the prevailing majoritarian sentiments at any particular time. Nothing is stable. Everything is subject to being reversed at some later point as "sentiments" change. Live by the "will of the people" and you may very well die by "the will of the people." And the "will of the people" at this time is in the direction of a very "liberal" acceptance of "gay marriage" as part of "human rights" and "equality."

Pope Pius IX recognized this in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864:

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.)

 

What I am attempting to point out in this particular commentary is the fact that there are inherent dangers that exist in a system that does not recognize and accept the Catholic Church as the ultimate arbiter on all that pertains to the good of souls. Nothing is stable. Nothing is ever settled "permanently"--unless, that is, it is settled to the liking of those steeped in and/or profiting financially from the particular moral evil in question.

The devil knows this, which is why he wants to keep us perpetually agitated by this or that issue to such an extent that any consideration of root and proximate causes of our difficulties is considered to be an inconvenience and/or a waste of time. Alas, there is no truly lasting means to guarantee the subordination of civil law to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law absent a docile and humble submission of men and their nations to the Social Reign of Christ the King as It must be exercised by the true Church that He Himself created upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

To concede anything to false premises is to find oneself in a gigantic trap of the devil from which there is no natural means of escape. None whatsoever. Although I have tried, most unsuccessfully, it appears, to document the grave evils that have been promoted by the outgoing "conservative," "pro-life" administration (a documentation that was noted in 2005 by the Constitution Party candidate for President of the United States of America this year, Chuck Baldwin, Is The Religious Right Gullible, Naïve, or Willingly Ignorant?), let me illustrate this point once again to prove that the devil is mocking us as we fall for his naturalistic traps here in the United States of America.

This is all a realization of what Pope Gregory XVI described in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, would be the world's lot if the civil "freedoms" of Modernity were permitted to expand unchecked:

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again? (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

 

We are in the bottomless pit caused by "immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty."

One of the striking things about opposing the promotion of various moral evils by means of ballot propositions is that such efforts must be based in secular, naturalistic, interdenominational or non-denominational terms rather than in a frank and open acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of Christ the King over every aspect of our lives. This renders these efforts, which are undoubtedly well-intentioned, open to attack from those who believe in the naturalist lie of egalitarianism and thus reject even all notion of a hierarchy of truths that exist in the nature of things."Who are you to tell me that marriage is only between a man and a woman?" some of these naturalists will ask.

Yes, even arguments based in the logic of the Natural Law must lose their force over the course of time in a pluralistic society as the ultimate authority given us by God Himself to teach us and to sanctify us is rejected in favor of the sovereignty of "the people" and in favor of generic, Judeo-Masonic references to God that were specifically condemned by Pope Pius XI in Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937

 

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

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

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

Pope Leo XIII explained in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, that the reduction of public policy to the natural level alone results in public life being stained with crime. While we can and must take measures to protect the common temporal welfare and to punish malefactors, it is simply insufficient to take these measures absent a subordination to the Deposit of Faith as It has been entrusted by Our Lord Himself exclusively to the Catholic Church and absent any consideration of how public policy assists or hinders man in the pursuit of his Last End:

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

So great is this struggle of the passions and so serious the dangers involved, that we must either anticipate ultimate ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is of course both right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible way: but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation of the nations must be looked for higher. A power greater than human must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken in them the sense of duty, and make them better. This is the power which once before saved the world from destruction when groaning under much more terrible evils. Once remove all impediments and allow the Christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away; mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realise that they must observe justice and charity, the latter self-restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved. Domestic life will be firmly established ( by the salutary fear of God as the Lawgiver. In the same way the precepts of the natural law, which dictates respect for lawful authority and obedience to the laws, will exercise their influence over the people. Seditions and conspiracies will cease. Wherever Christianity rules over all without let or hindrance there the order established by Divine Providence is preserved, and both security and prosperity are the happy result. The common welfare, then, urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,-and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to this His own rightful possession. All elements of the national life must be made to drink in the Life which proceedeth from Him- legislation, political institutions, education, marriage and family life, capital and labour. Everyone must see that the very growth of civilisation which is so ardently desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows not so much by material wealth and prosperity, as by the spiritual qualities of morality and virtue. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

 

Anyone who says that public life is not stained with crime is as delusional as those who think that Jorge Mario Bergoglio/Francis is the "pope." And the electoral process is closed. Closed. Chiusa. Naturalists of the false opposite of the "right" have made their "peace" with "gay marriage." They have heard "the people" sing. So have the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

"Stopgap" measures based on the "lowest common" naturalistic denominator will always collapse as they are built on the quicksand of naturalism. The Church Militant on earth can be battered. She will never suffer a final defeat. "Stopgap" measures based on the "lowest common" naturalistic denominator must, because they are based on naturalism, consist of internal contradictions and inconsistencies that render its objectives merely symbolic and rhetorical in nature.

Silvio Cardinal Antoniano explained over four hundred fifty years ago that things repugnant to the peace and happiness of eternity can never be the foundation of temporal order:

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, as quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

 

It is indeed impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquility by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. Attempting to base opposition to the "marriage" of individuals steeped in unnatural vice in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments on the existence of a legal "recognition" of that vice that is short of "marriage" but contains many of the same legal "benefits" as marriage is indeed repugnant to the peace and happiness of eternity. Live by the "will of the people," my friends, and you will die by the "will of the people." We must live and die by the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church.

In a Catholic world, good readers, there would be no need for all manner of laws and ballot propositions to "inform" the citizenry as to what was considered permissible as they, the citizenry, would know what was permissible according to the Mind of the Divine Redeemer as He has discharged It exclusively in the Catholic Church. That such disjointed laws and ballot propositions are considered necessary to combat the very social evils that have grown precisely because of the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry is proof yet again of the utter madness and insanity of a world where Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ does not reign as King over men and their nations as they recognize the authority He has entrusted to His Catholic Church.

The false premises of the Modern civil state have led to angry men singing various songs to secure the approve of a majority of their fellow men. Each of those songs are, however, simply a variation of the naturalist theme that it is not absolutely necessary for each human being and for each nation on this earth to profess the true Faith and to be governed thereby at every moment of human existence. These songs of the angry men of naturalism produce cacophony in a society, not the symphony that produced by the harmonizing of everyday life with the truths of the Holy Faith.

Catholicism is the one and only way out of this mess. Arguments and propositions based on naturalism will fail sooner or later as the demographics of the various states change and as the influence wrought by the evils taught in the public and conciliar schools continues to make itself manifest over the years.

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has played its own role in helping to worsen the situation caused by the false premises of Modernity. It has made its "reconciliation" with the principles of 1787 as millions upon millions of young Catholics detained in conciliar schools have had their souls spiritually aborted (see Cardinal Newman Society Survey and my own Apostasy Has Consequences.)

Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789. Only from this perspective can we understand, on the one hand, the ghetto-mentality, of which we have spoken above; only from this perspective can we understand, on the other hand, the meaning of the remarkable meeting of the Church and the world. Basically, the word "world" means the spirit of the modern era, in contrast to which the Church's group-consciousness saw itself as a separate subject that now, after a war that had been in turn both hot and cold, was intent on dialogue and cooperation. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 382.)

 

Pope Leo XIII warned solemnly in  Custodi Di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892, that there can be no "reconciliation" with the principles of the Revolution:

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.)

 

Future voters, my friends, including those produced by Catholic schools in conciliar captivity, will indeed be singing the songs of angry "modern men," and the "will of the people" tomorrow may well be something quite different than the "will of the people" now.

Alas, it is not the "will of the people" that matters. It is the law of God as He has revealed It to us through His Catholic Church, which is why all of our efforts, including those to try to conform the civil law to His eternal Law, must be must on right principles without any compromises and without any concessions to error whatsoever.

We must have confidence in Our Lady of Perpetual Help, whose feast we celebrate today, June 27, 2013, consecrating ourselves to her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life. The only election that really matters is the one that took place in the Baptismal font when we were elected to be citizens of Heaven. There is only one judicial verdict that matters: that of Christ the King upon our immortal souls at the moment of our Particular Judgment.

This is our destiny, please God and by the graces that flow forth from the loving hands of His Most Blessed Mother we persevere to the points of our dying breaths in states of Sanctifying Grace.

No matter the results of a particular election or the results of a particular plebiscite, we can be assured that our efforts to restore the Social Reign of Christ the King by means of our total consecration to Him through Mary our Immaculate Queen will help to plant a few seeds for the conversion of men and their nations to the true Faith as we, recidivist sinners that we are, attempt to make reparation for our sins and those of the whole world, remembering to say each day:

O Jesus, it is for love of Thee, for the conversion of sinners, and in reparation for the sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary."

 

These are the words spoken by the Mother of God in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, ninety-six years ago. They should be on our lips at all times so that there will come a day when the words uttered by the Cristeros in Mexico and the brave Catholics during the Spanish Revolution will be on the lips of all men and heralded on the flags of all nations:

Viva Cristo Rey!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, 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.

See also: A Litany of Saints

 





© Copyright 2013, Thomas A. Droleskey. All rights reserved.