May 10, 2006

MORE HEALTHY SECULARITY, THANK YOU

by Thomas A. Droleskey

England was, despite the flaws of many of its kings and citizens, a thoroughly Catholic nation from the time of Saint Augustine of Canterbury to the time that King Henry VIII decided to separate it from the See of Peter. The country, however, quickly descended into unremitting self-seeking following the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King by the declaration passed by Parliament at the best of Henry Tudor to proclaim him to be the Supreme Head of the Church in England, thus giving "birth" to the heretical and schismatic Anglican Church. King Henry ordered the execution of Catholics who would not take the oath of loyalty to him in his new capacity, presiding over the execution of over 72,000 Catholics, a figuring representing a little over three percent of the English population at the time, who remained faithful to Rome between 1534 and the time of his own death in 1547. (See the appendix below for list of some of these martyrs as found on the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia website.) Monastery and convent lands, which provided parcels of land for the poor to farm in perpetuity for a nominal yearly fee and a return of some of the yield of the fields, were seized and redistributed amongst Henry Tudor's supporters. Henry's daughter by Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth I, resumed the persecution of Catholics during her wretched reign, appointing the sadistic Richard Topcliffe, the "priest-catcher," to hunt down Catholic priests who offered the Mass of Tradition without the approval of the local apostate bishops. Among those captured by Topcliffe was Saint Edmund Campion.

With the order and direction provided by the Catholic Church stripped away by Henry in 1534 and Elizabeth in 1661, all manner of heretics gained social ascendancy. Disciples of John Calvin, who hated the remnants of Catholicism extant in the Anglican Church, smashed altars and statues with demonic abandon during and after the English Civil War, 1641-1649. Even the whiff of a Catholic king, James II, was enough to inspire members of Parliament, many of whose families had profited quite directly from Henry VIII's land grab of 1534 and thereafter, to overthrow him in the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, prompting another one of England's post-Catholic scourges, John Locke, to write The Second Treatise on Civil Government to justify the ability of a parliamentary majority to change rulers if those in the majority believed that the "social contract" had been broken by a king. Locke's liberal thesis, which is the foundation of almost all contemporary political ideologies, holds that man is more or less self-redemptive, that he can, unaided by sanctifying grace and unguided by the Deposit of Faith that Our Lord entrusted solely to the Catholic Church, devise the social structures, sanctioned by the majority, that could ameliorate social problems and thus serve the common good until such time as a subsequent majority formed, hence the basis of the "Cabinet" form of government. All political ideologies (from liberalism on through all forms of communism, Marxist and non-Marxist alike) hold that man can resolve or ameliorate social problems on his own power absent a cooperation with sanctifying grace and a submission to the Social Reign of Christ the King as it must be exercised by the Catholic Church. Locke was merely the progenitor of this recrudescence of the heresy of semi-Pelagianism, that men produce grace in themselves to address their own needs, both personal and social.

England was the birthplace of contemporary Freemasonry in 1717, thus providing the ancient haters of the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer a seemingly respectable means to recruit all manner of people to do their bidding for them as the lodges agitated for a practical secularism even in those countries, such as England, that were nominally confessional states. Judeo-Masonry and the materialism of Calvinism fueled the Industrial Revolution in England, replete with all of its harsh treatment of the descendents of the poor who had been cast off of the monastery and convent lands in the Sixteenth Centuries. Philosophical "muscle" was provided for the pursuit of personal pleasure as the chief purpose of human existence by David Hume (all right, he was Scottish, but a Scotsman who exercised great influence in English intellectual circles), who believed that it was sentiment, not reason, that guided our behavior and that what mattered ultimately was what we "felt" about our behavior, rejecting all objectively-based standards of morality as unreliable and not based upon the needs of individuals.

As secularists have no lasting frame of reference to deal with the evils that multiply as souls wander about their lives without being guided by the Deposit of Faith or strengthened by sanctifying grace, they must invent new "strategies" to cope with social tensions. Thus, the vices engendered by the avaricious nature of the Industrial Revolution in England would produce all manner of utilitarian and pragmatist "philosophies" in the Nineteenth Century to "correct" social evils that had their proximate origin in the overthrow of the confessionally Catholic State by King Henry VIII in 1534. A new wave of secularly salvific authors (John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, et al.), proceeding from Hume but concentrating on social rather than individual problems, sought to reconcile what was seen as the tension between the competing "values" of "progress" and the social good under the aegis of "the greatest good for the greatest number." Utilitarianism was given birth in England.

The Social Darwinists, building on the legacy of another Englishman, Charles Darwin, sought to find a way to "engineer" the better society by leaving "useless" human beings to die off or, later, to devise means by which to make sure that such "leeches" on society could not reproduce themselves and thus further retard social and economic "progress." Deriving his principles from Darwinism itself, Herbert Spencer believed that social policy must be geared to the "survival of the fittest," that is, to taking those measure that make it possible for the "fit" to "succeed" and thus be a benefit to the future prosperity of a nation. Spencer's "Data of Ethics" is precisely designed to liberate "ethics" from any reliance at all upon the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law. Social Darwinism, born in England (but with many powerful allies in the United States of America, especially the wretched Margaret Sanger in the early part of the Twentieth Century), would help to prepare the way for the coming of eugenics and the killing of the elderly and the deformed and the disabled and the unwanted, phenomena that are commonplace in almost every "developed" country of the world at present, including the United States of America.

It is no accident that a religious gloss was placed on contraception by the "church" founded by King Henry VIII to permit him to secure a decree of nullity from his marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon in order to marry his mistress, the scheming Anne Boleyn. A "church" founded in a debauched king's lustful desires would come to endorse frustrating the chief end of marriage, thereby making it "respectable" for "believers" to act as wanton beasts--and serving the agenda of the aforementioned Margaret Sanger very well. Oh, yes, England has been on the cutting edge of social engineering ever since Henry VIII had himself declared Supreme Head of the Church in England. England's woes are but the logical and inevitable result of what happens to a Catholic nation when it abandons the Faith (or what happens to a nation that has never embraced the Faith confessionally, such as the United States of America.

A nation that does not recognize the true Faith slips into tyranny sooner rather than later. Indeed, King Henry VIII's tyrannical tendencies were able to be unleashed with demonic fury after his break with Rome because he did not recognize from that point on the same divinely instituted check on his exercise of civil power that prompted King Henry II in the Twelfth Century to consent to being scourged for his role, however inadvertent, in the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Saint Thomas a Becket. Thus, you see, the extent to which King George III could be seen in the Eighteenth Century as a despot by the colonists in the thirteen English colonies along Atlantic seaboard in what is now the United States of America was the direct result of the overthrow of the Catholic Church's divinely-given authority to check  the abuse of civil power when the good of souls necessitates it (following the exhaustion of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching). A country that does not subordinate itself to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law as they have been entrusted by Our Lord to the Catholic Church alone for their safekeeping and infallible explication becomes the prisoner of whoever happens to exercise civil power, be it a single monarch or a majority in a legislative body acting in concert with an executive. There is no effective brake against the unjust exercise of civil rule that puts the good of souls in jeopardy in a country that does not confessionally recognize Catholicism as the state religion and does not submit itself to the Church's exercise of the Social Reign of Christ the King.

All of this comes to mind as a result of a posting on The Remnant website concerning an Englishman, Edward Atkinson, who is being jailed for having mailed photographs of an aborted baby and a video of an actual abortion to the chief executive of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Trust in King's Lynn, England. "Free speech" is but a myth, ladies and gentleman, in any country that does not recognize that the only genuine freedom is that which comes from being liberated from the power of sin and eternal death by virtue of the God-Man's offering of Himself to the Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross. All other "freedom" is illusory and actually winds up enslaving man to the forces of culture and the state over the course of time. Why? Because any notion of "freedom" that does not reference explicitly the Catholic Faith makes a god out of individual men, who must then turn to the state for protection and support when licentious behavior gets out of control.

Consider the words of Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei, 1885:

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

Pope Leo XIII contained in Immortale Dei to reject completely and totally the notion embraced by the ethos of conciliarism and the conciliar popes, that the state must not recognize one religion over others:

Doctrines such as these, which cannot be approved by human reason, and most seriously affect the whole civil order, Our predecessors the Roman Pontiffs (well aware of what their apostolic office required of them) have never allowed to pass uncondemned. Thus, Gregory XVI in his encyclical letter "Mirari Vos," dated August 15, 1832, inveighed with weighty words against the sophisms which even at his time were being publicly inculcated-namely, that no preference should be shown for any particular form of worship; that it is right for individuals to form their own personal judgments about religion; that each man's conscience is his sole and all sufficing guide; and that it is lawful for every man to publish his own views, whatever they may be, and even to conspire against the State. On the question of the separation of Church and State the same Pontiff writes as follows: "Nor can We hope for happier results either for religion or for the civil government from the wishes of those who desire that the Church be separated from the State, and the concord between the secular and ecclesiastical authority be dissolved. It is clear that these men, who yearn for a shameless liberty, live in dread of an agreement which has always been fraught with good, and advantageous alike to sacred and civil interests." To the like effect, also, as occasion presented itself, did Pius IX brand publicly many false opinions which were gaining ground, and afterwards ordered them to be condensed in summary form in order that in this sea of error Catholics might have a light which they might safely follow.

From these pronouncements of the Popes it is evident that the origin of public power is to be sought for in God Himself, and not in the multitude, and that it is repugnant to reason to allow free scope for sedition. Again, that it is not lawful for the State, any more than for the individual, either to disregard all religious duties or to hold in equal favor different kinds of religion; that the unrestrained freedom of thinking and of openly making known one's thoughts is not inherent in the rights of citizens, and is by no means to be reckoned worthy of favor and support. In like manner it is to be understood that the Church no less than the State itself is a society perfect in its own nature and its own right, and that those who exercise sovereignty ought not so to act as to compel the Church to become subservient or subject to them, or to hamper her liberty in the management of her own affairs, or to despoil her in any way of the other privileges conferred upon her by Jesus Christ. In matters, however, of mixed jurisdiction, it is in the highest degree consonant to nature, as also to the designs of God, that so far from one of the powers separating itself from the other, or still less coming into conflict with it, complete harmony, such as is suited to the end for which each power exists, should be preserved between them.

Yes, Church and state must be in complete harmony with each other, keeping in mind the end for which each was created. That is, the Church has a divine mission from her Divine Bridegroom, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to save souls. The State has a mission in the dispensation of the New and Eternal Covenant to help to order things in the temporal realm so that man may better discharge his duties here on earth so as to attain his Last End as a Catholic. Saint Louis IX, King of France, understood this perfectly, as did so many other exemplars of the Social Reign of Christ the King in the Middle Ages. There must be cooperation between Church and State, not a "separation" in recognition of the heresy of religious liberty and its justifying slogan these days, "a healthy secularity."

Pope Leo XIII elaborated on this same theme three years later, 1888, in his encyclical letter on human liberty, Libertas:

There are others, somewhat more moderate though not more consistent, who affirm that the morality of individuals is to be guided by the divine law, but not the morality of the State, for that in public affairs the commands of God may be passed over, and may be entirely disregarded in the framing of laws. Hence follows the fatal theory of the need of separation between Church and State. But the absurdity of such a position is manifest. Nature herself proclaims the necessity of the State providing means and opportunities whereby the community may be enabled to live properly, that is to say, according to the laws of God. For, since God is the source of all goodness and justice, it is absolutely ridiculous that the State should pay no attention to these laws or render them abortive by contrary enactments. Besides, those who are in authority owe it to the commonwealth not only to provide for its external well-being and the conveniences of life, but still more to consult the welfare of men's souls in the wisdom of their legislation. But, for the increase of such benefits, nothing more suitable can be conceived than the laws which have God for their author; and, therefore, they who in their government of the State take no account of these laws abuse political power by causing it to deviate from its proper end and from what nature itself prescribes. And, what is still more important, and what We have more than once pointed out, although the civil authority has not the same proximate end as the spiritual, nor proceeds on the same lines, nevertheless in the exercise of their separate powers they must occasionally meet. For their subjects are the same, and not infrequently they deal with the same objects, though in different ways. Whenever this occurs, since a state of conflict is absurd and manifestly repugnant to the most wise ordinance of God, there must necessarily exist some order or mode of procedure to remove the occasions of difference and contention, and to secure harmony in all things. This harmony has been not inaptly compared to that which exists between the body and the soul for the well-being of both one and the other, the separation of which brings irremediable harm to the body, since it extinguishes its very life.

Social order cannot be built or sustained on merely natural principles. Such is the essence of Judeo-Masonry, which has sought to infiltrate the Church in the past century not only by placing their lodge brothers in key positions but by making Catholic theologians susceptible to being deduced by the possibility of "reconciling" the Faith with Modernity, which was the entire raison d'etre of the Second Vatican Council, called by a man, Pope John XXIII, who believed in the principles of The Sillon, a movement condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique in 1910. It is not for nothing that the friends of the lodge brothers who sought to destroy the Mass of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church saw fit to erect a mosaic of Pope John XXIII above and to the right of the altar below which lies the body of Pope Saint Pius X in the Basilica of Saint Peter. Oh, not, it is not for nothing. That mosaic was the putrid revenge of the Modernists upon the pope who assayed quite accurately their intentions to separate the Church from the State, as he indicated in Pascendi Domenici Gregis, September 8, 1907:

But it is not only within her own household that the Church must come to terms. Besides her relations with those within, she has others with those who are outside. The Church does not occupy the world all by herself; there are other societies in the world., with which she must necessarily have dealings and contact. The rights and duties of the Church towards civil societies must, therefore, be determined, and determined, of course, by her own nature, that, to wit, which the Modernists have already described to us. The rules to be applied in this matter are clearly those which have been laid down for science and faith, though in the latter case the question turned upon the object, while in the present case we have one of ends. In the same way, then, as faith and science are alien to each other by reason of the diversity of their objects, Church and State are strangers by reason of the diversity of their ends, that of the Church being spiritual while that of the State is temporal. Formerly it was possible to subordinate the temporal to the spiritual and to speak of some questions as mixed, conceding to the Church the position of queen and mistress in all such, because the Church was then regarded as having been instituted immediately by God as the author of the supernatural order. But this doctrine is today repudiated alike by philosophers and historians. The state must, therefore, be separated from the Church, and the Catholic from the citizen. Every Catholic, from the fact that he is also a citizen, has the right and the duty to work for the common good in the way he thinks best, without troubling himself about the authority of the Church, without paying any heed to its wishes, its counsels, its orders -- nay, even in spite of its rebukes. For the Church to trace out and prescribe for the citizen any line of action, on any pretext whatsoever, is to be guilty of an abuse of authority, against which one is bound to protest with all one's might. Venerable Brethren, the principles from which these doctrines spring have been solemnly condemned by Our predecessor, Pius VI, in his Apostolic Constitution Auctorem fidei.

Pope Benedict XVI believes that the state must be separated from the Church, whose role is merely to provide "guiding principles" for her own members and to assist the poor and the marginalized who are in temporal needs by her performance of acts of charity founded in the love of God. However, the state must recognized the Catholic Church. This is not, as Lt. Col. Jamie Bogle demonstrated recently on The Remnant website, an invention of the "Nineteenth Century" popes. This is the consistent, perennial teaching of the Catholic Church from which no one, especially a pope, may dissent legitimately. No legitimate "development of doctrine" can contradict anything that has preceded it, an inconvenient little fact that some self-styled apologists fail to mention now and again. The belief that contradiction can be part of the "development of doctrine" belongs to the "new thinkers" (Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Maurice Blondel, Johann Baptist Metz, Joseph Ratzinger) and not to the patrimony of the Catholic Church.

Mr. Atkinson in England is undergoing an injustice at present. There is no one in the Catholic Church in England to defend him. Gone are the days when England had a true apostle such as John Cardinal Heenan (whose 1968 essay in L'Osservatore Romano is appended after the list of noted Englishmen whose cause for canonization was proceeding when the Catholic Encyclopedia was published in the early Twentieth Century). Oh, no, Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of Westminster, who last year congratulate Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, a divorced woman who was not canonically free to marry anyone, on their then forthcoming "marriage," will not come to Mr. Atkinson's rescue. The Church has made her "reconciliation with the principles of 1789," as then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in The Principles of Catholic Theology in 1789, thus rendering her completely ineffective in resisting assaults upon the Divine positive law and natural law. No amount of rhetoric about "solidarity" and "love." "inter-religious collaboration" and "civic responsibility," each of which could be used quite nicely by a Freemason, can replace this clear injunction from Pope Leo XIII, found in Sapientiae Christianae, 1890:

But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

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

Pope Benedict XVI, writing as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger in 2004, has noted that he favors the American concept of pluralism as the model for a "healthy secularity." In other words, a regime founded on the notion that it is possible for men to order themselves and their civic lives without having belief in, access to, and cooperation with sanctifying grace--and without a submission to the Deposit of Faith as entrusted by Our Lord to the Catholic Church as the exclusive guide to personal and social actions--must be seen as the "model" for the Church in this era of reconciling with principles that were condemned repeatedly by one pope after another in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, popes who were, as noted above, merely reiterating the consistent, perennial teaching of the Catholic Church.

No honest Catholic can state that Pope Benedict XVI agrees with the following statement of Catholic truths found in words, which, yes, I have oft-quoted in the past few years, of Pope Leo XIII in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, 1900:

Just as it is the height of misfortune to go astray from the "Way," so is it to abandon the "Truth." Christ Himself is the first, absolute and essential "Truth," inasmuch as He is the Word of God, consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, He and the Father being One. "I am the Way and the Truth." Wherefore if the Truth be sought by the human intellect, it must first of all submit it to Jesus Christ, and securely rest upon His teaching, since therein Truth itself speaketh. There are innumerable and extensive fields of thought, properly belonging to the human mind, in which it may have free scope for its investigations and speculations, and that not only agreeably to its nature, but even by a necessity of its nature. But what is unlawful and unnatural is that the human mind should refuse to be restricted within its proper limits, and, throwing aside its becoming modesty, should refuse to acknowledge Christ's teaching. This teaching, upon which our salvation depends, is almost entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God hath received and drunk it in entirely from His Father: "The words which thou gavest me, I have given to them" john xvii., 8). Hence this teaching necessarily embraces many subjects which are not indeed contrary to reasonfor that would be an impossibility-but so exalted that we can no more attain them by our own reasoning than we can comprehend God as He is in Himself. If there be so many things hidden and veiled by nature, which no human ingenuity can explain, and yet which no man in his senses can doubt, it would be an abuse of liberty to refuse to accept those which are entirely above nature, because their essence cannot be discovered. To reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity. Our intellect must bow humbly and reverently "unto the obedience of Christ," so that it be held captive by His divinity and authority: "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians x., 5). Such obedience Christ requires, and justly so. For He is God, and as such holds supreme dominion over man's intellect as well as over his will. By obeying Christ with his intellect man by no means acts in a servile manner, but in complete accordance with his reason and his natural dignity. For by his will he yields, not to the authority of any man, but to that of God, the author of his being, and the first principle to Whom he is subject by the very law of his nature. He does not suffer himself to be forced by the theories of any human teacher, but by the eternal and unchangeable truth. Hence he attains at one and the same time the natural good of the intellect and his own liberty. For the truth which proceeds from the teaching of Christ clearly demonstrates the real nature and value of every being; and man, being endowed with this knowledge, if he but obey the truth as perceived, will make all things subject to himself, not himself to them; his appetites to his reason, not his reason to his appetites. Thus the slavery of sin and falsehood will be shaken off, and the most perfect liberty attained: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" john viii., 32). It is, then, evident that those whose intellect rejects the yoke of Christ are obstinately striving against God. Having shaken off God's authority, they are by no means freer, for they will fall beneath some human sway. They are sure to choose someone whom they will listen to, obey, and follow as their guide. Moreover, they withdraw their intellect from the communication of divine truths, and thus limit it within a narrower circle of knowledge, so that they are less fitted to succeed in the pursuit even of natural science. For there are in nature very many things whose apprehension or explanation is greatly aided by the light of divine truth. Not unfrequently, too, God, in order to chastise their pride, does not permit men to see the truth, and thus they are punished in the things wherein they sin. This is why we often see men of great intellectual power and erudition making the grossest blunders even in natural science.

It must therefore be clearly admitted that, in the life of a Christian, the intellect must be entirely subject to God's authority. And if, in this submission of reason to authority, our self-love, which is so strong, is restrained and made to suffer, this only proves the necessity to a Christian of long-suffering not only in will but also in intellect. We would remind those persons of this truth who desire a kind of Christianity such as they themselves have devised, whose precepts should be very mild, much more indulgent towards human nature, and requiring little if any hardships to be borne. They do not properly under stand the meaning of faith and Christian precepts. They do not see that the Cross meets us everywhere, the model of our life, the eternal standard of all who wish to follow Christ in reality and not merely in name.

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.

This statement is either true or it is not. If it is true, ladies and gentlemen, it is true eternally. No one, that's right, no one, Catholic or non-Catholic alike, has any right to dissent from these truths. Truth exists. It is. It exists independently of human acceptance of it. While it is certainly true that there have been cultural forces let loose in the world as a result of certain elements of the Renaissance of the entirety of Protestantism and the subsequent rise of the "god" of political ideology and the rise of Judeo-Masonry that have made war upon the true Faith in the past, say, six hundred years, the Church in her human elements has been weakened immeasurably in resisting these forces because she has sought to accommodate herself to them as far as those who have held ecclesiastical power have believed advisable. This accommodation to the forces of Modernity in the world, which is itself an aspect of Modernism in the Church, results in the absurd spectacle of popes condemning certain evils (abortion, same-gender "marriages," contraception, moral relativism) while embracing the very forces (Protestantism, pluralism, the separation of Church and State) that gave proximate rise to these evils! The Social Reign of Christ the King has been consigned to the Orwellian memory hole, a vestige of the past.

The only antidote to all of this, obviously, is the fulfillment of Our Lady's Fatima Message. What a telling commentary it is that May 13, which is the date on which Our Lady first appeared to Blessed Jacinta and her brother,  Blessed Francisco, and their cousin, Lucia dos Santos, in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, is now becoming an occasion to celebrate the life of the late Pope John Paul II, who was shot on that date in 1981 by an escaped, convicted murderer from Turkey, Mehmet Ali Agca. May 13 is now about the life and legacy of John Paul II, not about the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Does anyone see a problem here?

Alas, as always, we have no recourse but to rely tenderly upon Our Lady's loving, maternal intercession in these almost unprecedented times in the history of the Church. She who is our Life, our Sweetness, and our Hope will console us. Apart from recognizing the truths of the Faith and cleaving to them as we seek out the true worship of God in the catacombs and flee from all of the novelties associates with conciliarism without exception, we don't have to proclaim anything that is beyond our competency to proclaim. We leave a definitive proclamation about the nature and the extent of the apostasy that we are facing to competent Church authority at some point in the future. What we must do, however, is to see clearly that the Catholic Faith is not being taught by those in ecclesiastical power as it has been handed down to us and thus to seek out our salvation in only those places where the Faith of our fathers will be nourished, not undermined, places where it will be fostered unto our eternal salvation without forcing us to believe that things plainly contrary to the truths of the Faith can be considered Catholic in any way, shape or form whatsoever.

Thus trusting in Our Lady and her Fatima Message as we beseech her most chaste spouse, Good Saint Joseph, may we understand that popes have an obligation to proclaim the Social Reign of Christ the King and not to serve as apologists for the slogans, such as a "healthy secularity," that warm the cockles of the hearts of those steeped in the demonic lies of Judeo-Masonry. Far worse fates await Catholics than those being suffered by Mr. Atkinson. And the ethos of "healthy secularity" will leave the Church in her human elements more and more paralyzed as Catholics will be persecuted with a glee not seen since the days of the Roman Emperors and the likes of Richard Topcliffe. We must be strong in our Faith and ever reliant upon Our Lady and Saint Joseph, keeping close to them as we keep close to their Divine Son in His Real Presence by means of Eucharistic piety.

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.

Saint Stanislaus, 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 Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint Helena, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us on this day, your feast day!

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Catherine Laboure, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.

Saint Gertrude the Great, pray for us.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Nicholas of Myra, pray for us.

Saint Nicholas of Flue, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Peter Canisius, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues and Companions, pray for us.

Saint Edmund Campion, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Blessed Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Blessed Francisco, pray for us.

Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.

Sister Lucia, pray for us.

 

Appendix A: List of English Martyrs, 1534-1739, New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia (with an explanation of the status of their causes at the time of the encyclopedia's printing, circa 1912)

(Or: The Glories of Anglicanism)

1) Under King Henry VIII

 

• Cardinal: John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, 22 June, 1535.
• Lord Chancellor: Sir Thomas More, 6 July, 1535.
• Carthusians: John Houghton, Robert Lawrence, Augustine Webster, 4 May, 1535; Humphrey Middlemore, William Exmew, Sebastian Newdigate, 19 June, 1535; John Rochester, James Walworth, 11 May, 1537; Thomas Johnson, William Greenwood, John Davye, Robert Salt, Walter Pierson, Thomas Green, Thomas Scryven, Thomas Redyng, Richard Bere, June-September, 1537; Robert Horne, 4 August, 1540.
• Benedictines: Richard Whiting, Hugh Farringdon, abbots, 15 November, 1539; Thomas Marshall (or John Beche), 1 December, 1539; John Thorne, Richard James, William Eynon, John Rugg, 15 Nov., 1539.
• Doctors of Divinity: Thomas Abel, Edward Powell, Richard Fetherstone, 30 July, 1540.
• Other secular priests: John Haile, 4 May 1535; John Larke, 7 March, 1544.
• Other religious orders: Richard Reynold, Brigittine (4 May, 1535); John Stone, O.S.A., 12 May, 1538; John Forrest, O.S.F., 22 May, 1538.
• Laymen and women: Adrian Fortescue, Knight of St. John, 9 July, 1539; Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, 28 May, 1541; German Gardiner, 7 March, 1544.

(2) Under Queen Elizabeth

 

• Martyrs connected with the Excommunication: John Felton, 8 Aug., 1570; Thomas Plumtree p., 4 Jan., 1571; John Storey, D.C.L., 1 June, 1571; Thomas Percy. Earl of Northumberland, 22 Aug., 1572; Thomas Woodhouse p., 13 June, 1573.
• First martyrs from the seminaries: Cuthbert Mayne, Protomartyr of Douai College, 29 Nov., 1577; John Nelson p., and S.J. before death, 3 Feb., 1578; Thomas Nelson, church student, 7 Feb., 1578; Everard Hanse p., 31 July, 1581.
• Martyrs of the Catholic Revival: Edmund Campion, S.J., Ralph Sherwin, Protomartyr of the English College, Rome, Alexander Briant p., and S.J. before death, 1 Dec., 1581; John Payne p., 2 April, 1582; Thomas Ford p., John Shert p., Robert Johnson p., 28 May, 1582; William Firby p., Luke Kirby p., Lawrence Richardson p., Thomas Cottom p., and S.J. before death, 30 May, 1582.
• York martyrs: William Lacey p., Richard Kirkman p., 22 Aug., 1582; James Thomson p., 28 Nov., 1582; William Hart p., 15 March, 1583; Richard Thirkeld p., 29 May, 1583.

II. VENERABLES

Separate notices will be given of the more notable martyrs and groups of martyrs. But, though they all died heroically, their lives were so retired and obscure that there is generally but little known about them. It may, however, be remarked that, being educated in most cases in the same seminaries, engaged in the same work, and suffering under the same procedures and laws, the details which we know about some of the more notable martyrs (of whom special biographies are given) are generally also true for the more obscure. The authorities, too, will be the same in both cases.

(1) Under King Henry VIII (12)

 

• 1537-38: Anthony Brookby, Thomas Belchiam, Thomas Cort, Franciscans, thrown into prison for preaching against the king's supremacy. Brookby was strangled with his own girdle, the others died of ill treatment.
• 1539: Friar Waire, O.S.F., and John Griffith p. (generally known as Griffith Clarke), Vicar of Wandsworth, for supporting the papal legate, Cardinal Pole, drawn and quartered, (8 July) at St. Thomas Waterings; Sir Thomas Dingley, Knight of St. John, beheaded, 10 July, with Bl. Adrian Fortescue. John Travers, Irish Augustinian, who had written against the supremacy; before execution his hand was cut off and burnt, but the writing fingers were not consumed, 30 July.
• 1540-1544: Edmund Brindholme p., of London, and Clement Philpot l., of Calais, attainted for having "adhered to the Pope of Rome", hanged and quartered at Tyburn, 4 Aug., 1540; Sir David Gonson (also Genson and Gunston), Knight of St. John, son of Vice-Admiral Gonson, attainted for "adhering" to Cardinal Pole, hanged and quartered at St. Thomas Waterings, 1 July, 1541; John Ireland p., once a chaplain to More, condemned and executed with Bl. John Larke, 1544; Thomas Ashby l., q. v., 29 March, 1544.

(2) Under Queen Elizabeth

 

• 1583: John Slade l., q. v., 30 Oct., Winchester, with John Bodley l., 2 Nov., Andover.
• 1584: William Carter l., q. v., 11 Jan., Tyburn; George Haydock p., q. v., with James Fenn p., Thomas Hemerford p., John Nutter p., John Munden p., 12 Feb., Tyburn; James Bell p., q. v., with John Finch l. q. v., 20 April, Lancaster; Richard White l. q. v., 17 Oct., Wrexham.
• 1585: Thomas Alfield p., q. v., with Thomas Webley l., 6 July, Tyburn; Hugh Taylor p., q. v., with Marmaduke Bowes l., 26 Nov., York. From this time onwards almost all the priests suffered under the law of 27 Elizabeth, merely for their priestly character.
• 1586: Edward Stransham p., q. v., with Nicholas Woodfen p., 21 Jan., Tyburn; Margaret Clitherow l., q. v., 25 March, York; Richard Sergeant p., q. v., with William Thompson p., 20 April, Tyburn; Robert Anderton p., q. v., with William Marsden p., 25 April, Isle of Wight; Francis Ingleby p., 3 June, York; John Finglow p., 8 Aug., York; John Sandys p., 11 Aug., Gloucester; John Adams p., q. v., with John Lowe p., 8 Oct., Tyburn, and Richard Dibdale p., 8 Oct; Tyburn; Robert Bickerdike p., 8 Oct., York; Richard Langley l., 1 Dec., York.
• 1587: Thomas Pilchard p., 21 March, Dorchester; Edmund Sykes p., q. v., 23 March, York; Robert Sutton p., q. v., 27 July, Stafford; Stephen Rowsham p., q. v., July or earlier, Gloucester; John Hambley p., q. v., about same time, Chard in Somerset; George Douglas p., 9 Sept., York; Alexander Crowe, 13 Nov., York.
• 1588: Nicholas Garlick p., with Robert Ludlum p. and Richard Sympson p., 24 July, Derby; Robert Morton p., q. v., and Hugh Moor l., in Lincoln's Inn Fields; William Gunter p., Theatre, Southwark; Thomas Holford p., Clerkenwell; William Dean p., and Henry Webley l., Mile End Green; James Claxton p.; Thomas Felton, O.S.F., Hounslow. These eight were condemned together and suffered on the same day, 28 Aug. Richard Leigh p., q. v., Edward Shelly l., Richard Martin l., Richard Flower (Floyd or Lloyd) l., John Roche l., Mrs. Margaret Ward, q. v., all condemned with the last, and all suffered 30 Aug., Tyburn. William Way p., 23 Sept., Kingston-on-Thames; Robert Wilcox p., q. v., with Edward Campion p., Christopher Buxton p., Robert Windmerpool l., 1 Oct., Canterbury; Robert Crocket p., q. v., with Edward James p., 1 Oct., Chichester; John Robertson p., 1 Oct., Ipswich; William Hartley p. q. v., Theatre, Southwark, with John Weldon (vere Hewett) p., Mile End Green, Robert Sutton l., Clerkenwell, andRichard Williams (Queen Mary priest, who was more probably executed in 1592, and his name, erroneously transferred here, seems to have pushed out that of John Symons, or Harrison), 5 Oct., Halloway; Edward Burden p., 29 Nov., York;William Lampley l., Gloucester, day uncertain.
• 1589: John Amias p., q. v., with Robert Dalby p., 16 March, York; George Nichols p., q. v., with Richard Yaxley p., Thomas Belson l., and Humphrey Pritchard l., 5 July, Oxford; William Spenser p., q. v. with Robert Hardesty l., 24 Sept., York.
• 1590: Christopher Bayles p., Fleet Street, with Nicholas Horner l., Smithfield, and Alexander Blake, l., 4 March, Gray's Inn Lane; Miles Gerard p., q. v., with Francis Dicconson p., 30 April, Rochester; Edward Jones p., Conduit, Fleet Street, and Anthony Middleton p., 6 May, Clerkenwell; Edmund Duke p., with Richard Hill p., q. v., John Hogg p., and Richard Holliday p., 27 May, Durham.
• 1591: Robert Thorpe p., q. v., with Thomas Watkinson l., 31 May, York; Monford Scott p., q. v., with George Beesley p., 2 July, Fleet Street, London; Roger Dicconson p., with Ralph Milner l., 7 July, Winchester;William Pikes l., day not known, Dorchester; Edmund Jennings p., q. v., with Swithin Wells l., Gray's Inn Fields; Eustace White p., q. v., with Polydore Plasden p., Brian Lacey l., John Masson l., Sydney Hodgson l., all seven, 10 Dec., Tyburn.
• 1592: William Patenson p., 22 Jan., Tyburn; Thomas Pormort p., q. v., 20 Feb., St. Paul's Churchyard. London; Roger Ashton l., q. v., 23 June, Tyburn.
• 1593: Edward Waterson p., 7 Jan. (but perhaps of the next year), Newcastle-on-Tyne; James Bird l., hanged 25 March, Winchester; Joseph Lampton p., q. v., 27 July, Newcastle-on-Tyne; William Davies p., q. v., 21 July, Beaumaris.
• 1594: John Speed l., condemned for receiving a priest, 4 Feb., Durham; William Harrington p., q. v., 18 Feb., Tyburn; John Cornelius, S.J., q. v., with Thomas Bosgrave l., John Carey l., Patrick Salmon l., 4 July, Dorchester; John Boste p., q. v., Durham, with John Ingram p., q. v., Newcastle-on-Tyne, and George Swallowell, a convert minister, tried together, they suffered 24, 25, and 26 July, Darlington; Edward Osbaldeston p., 16 Nov., York.
• 1595: Robert Southwell p., S.J., q. v., 21 Feb., Tyburn; Alexander Rawlins p., with Henry Walpole p., S.J., q. v., 7 April, York; William Freeman p., q. v., 13 Aug., Warwick; Philip Howard, q. v., Earl of Arundel, 19 Oct., Tower of London.
• 1596: George Errington, gentleman, William Knight l., William Gibson l., Henry Abbott l., 29 Nov., York.
• 1597: William Andleby p., q. v., with Thomas Warcop l., Edward Fulthrop l., 4 July, York.
• 1598: John Britton l., q. v., 1 April, York; Peter Snow p., q. v., with Ralph Gromston l., 15 June, York; John Buckley O.S.F., q. v., 12 July, St. Thomas Waterings; Christopher Robertson p., 19 Aug., Carlisle;Richard Horner p., 4 Sept., York;
• 1599: John Lion, l., 16 July, Oakham; James Dowdal, l., 13 Aug., Exeter.
• 1600: Christopher Wharton p., 28 March, York; John Rigby l., q. v., 21 June, St. Thomas Waterings; Thomas Sprott p., q. v., with Thomas Hunt p., 11 July, Lincoln; Robert Nutter p., q. v., with Edward Thwing p., 26 July, Lancaster; Thomas Palasor p., with John Norton l., and John Talbot l., 9 Aug., Durham.
• 1601: John Pibush p., 18 Feb., St. Thomas Waterings; Mark Barkworth, O.S.B., q. v., with Roger Filcock, S.J., and Anne Linne q. v., 27 Feb., Tyburn; Thurstan Hunt p., q. v., with Robert Middleton p., 31 March Lancaster; Nicholas Tichborne l., with Thomas Hackshot l., 24 Aug., Tyburn;
• 1602: James Harrison p., q. v., with Anthony Battie or Bates l., 22 March, York; James Duckett l., q. v., 19 April, Tyburn; Thomas Tichborne p., q. v., with Robert Watkinson p., and Francis Page, S. J., 20 April, Tyburn.
• 1603: William Richardson p., 17 Feb., Tyburn.

(3) Under James I and Charles

1604: John Sugar p., q. v., with Robert Grissold l., 16 July, Warwick; Lawrence Bailey l., 16 Sept., Lancaster; 1605: Thomas Welborne l., with John Fulthering l., 1 Aug., York; William Brown l., 5 Sept., Ripon; 1606: Martyrs at the time of the Powder Plot: Nicholas Owen, S.J., day unknown, Tower; Edward Oldcorne, S.J., q. v., with Robert Ashley, S.J., q. v., 7 April, Worcester. From this time to the end of the reign the martyrs might have saved their lives had they taken the condemned oath of allegiance. 1607: Robert Drury p., 26 Feb., Tyburn; 1608: Matthew Flathers p., 21 March, York; George Gervase, O.S.B., q. v., 11 April, Tyburn; Thomas Garnet, S.J., q. v., 23 June, Tyburn. 1610: Roger Cadwallador p., q. v., 27 Aug., Leominster; George Napper p., q. v., 9 No., Oxford; Thomas Somers p., 10 Dec., Tyburn; John Roberts, O.S.B., q. v., 10 Dec., Tyburn; 1612: William Scot, O.S.B., q. v., with Richard Newport p., 30 May, Tyburn; John Almond p., 5 Dec., Tyburn; 1616: Thomas Atkinson p., q. v., 11 March, York; John Thouless p., with Roger Wrenno l., 18 March, Lancaster; Thomas Maxfield p., q. v., 1 July, Tyburn; Thomas Tunstall p., 13 July, Norwich; 1618: William Southerne p., 30 April, Newcastle-under-Lyne. 1628: Edmund Arrowsmith, S. J., (see Edmund Arrowsmith) with Richard Herst l., 20 and 21 Aug., Lancaster.

(4) Commonwealth

All these suffered before the death of Oliver Cromwell. - 1641: William Ward p., q. v., 26 July, Tyburn; Edward Barlow, O.S.B., q. v., 10 Sept., Lancaster; 1642: Thomas Reynolds p., with Bartholomew Roe, O.S.B., 21 January, Tyburn; John Lockwood p., q. v., with Edmund Catherick p., q. v., 13 April, York; Edward Morgan p., q. v., 26 April, Tyburn; Hugh Green p., q. v., 19 Aug., Dorchester; Thomas Bullaker, O.S.F., q. v., 12 Oct., Tyburn; Thomas Holland, S.J., q. v., 12 Dec., Tyburn. 1643: Henry Heath, O.S.F., q. v., 17 April, Tyburn; Brian Cansfield, S.J., 3 Aug., York Castle; Arthur Bell, O.S.V., q. v., 11 Dec., Tyburn; 1644: Richard Price, colonel, 7 May, Lincoln; John Duckett p., with Ralph Corbin, S.J., q. v., 7 Sept., Tyburn; 1645: Henry Morse, S.J., q. v., 1 Feb., Tyburn; John Goodman p., q. v., 8 April, Newgate; 1646: Philip Powell, O.S.B., 30 June, Tyburn; John Woodcock, O.S.F., with Edward Bamber p., q. v., and Thomas Whitaker p., 7 Aug., Lancaster. 1651: Peter Wright, S.J., q. v., 19 May, Tyburn. 1654: John Southworth p., q. v., 28 June, Tyburn.

(5) The Oates Plot

1678: Edward Coleman l., q. v., 3 Dec., Tyburn; Edward Mico, S.J., 3 Dec., in Newgate; Thomas Beddingfeld, 21 Dec., in Gatehouse Prison; 1679: William Ireland, S.J., q. v., with John Grove l., 24 Jan, Tyburn; Thomas Pickering O.S.B., 9 May, Tyburn; Thomas Whitbread S.J., with William Harcourt, S.J., John Fenwick, S.J., John Gavin or Green S.J., and Anthony Turner, S.J., 20 June, Tyburn; Francis Nevil, S.J. , Feb., in Stafford Gaol; Richard Langhorne l., q. v., 14 July, Tyburn; William Plessington p., 19 July, Chester; Philip Evans, S.J., 22 July, with John Lloyd p., 22 July, Cardiff; Nicholas Postgate p., 7 Aug., York; Charles Mahoney, O.S.V., 12 Aug., Ruthin; John Wall, O.S.F., q. v., 29 Aug., Worcester; Francis Levinson, O.S.F., 11 Feb., in prison; John Kemble p., q. v., 22 Aug., Hereford; David Lewis, S.J., q. v., 27 Aug., Usk. 1680: Thomas Thwing p., q. v., 23 Oct., York; William Howard, q. v., Viscount Stafford, 29 Dec., Tower Hill. The cause of Irish martyr Oliver Plunkett, q. v., 1 July, Tower hill, was commenced with the above martyrs. The cause of his beatification is now being actively proceeded with by the Cardinal Archbishop of Armagh.

III. THE FORTY-FOUR DILATI

These, as has been explained above, are those "put off" for further proof. Of these, the majority were confessors, who perished after a comparatively short period of imprisonment, though definite proof of their death ex oerumnis is not forthcoming.

(1) Under Queen Elizabeth (18)

Robert Dimock, hereditary champion of England, was arrested at Mass, and perished after a few weeks' imprisonment at Lincoln, 11 Sept., 1580; John Cooper, a young man, brought up by the writer, Dr. Nicholas Harpsfield, and probably a distributor of Catholic books, arrested at Dover and sent to the Tower, died of "hunger, cold, and stench", 1580; Mr. Ailworth (Aylword), probably of Passage Castle, Waterford, who admitted Catholics to Mass at his house, was arrested, and died after eight days, 1580; William Chaplain p., Thomas Cotesmore p., Roger Holmes p., Roger Wakeman p., James Lomax p., perished in 1584. Cotesmore was a bachelor of Oxford in 1586; of Wakeman's suffering several harrowing details are on record. Thomas Crowther p., Edward Pole p., John Jetter p., and Laurence Vaux p., q. v., perished in 1585; John Harrison p., 1586; Martin Sherson p., and Gabriel Thimelby p., 1587; Thomas Metham S.J., 1592; Eleanor Hunt and Mrs. Wells, gentlewomen, on unknown days in 1600 and 1602.

(2) Under the Commonwealth (8)

Edward Wilkes p., died in York Castle before execution in 1642; Boniface Kempe (or Francis Kipton) and Idlephonse Hesketh (or William Hanson) O.S.B., professed of Montserrat, seized by Puritan soldiery in Yorkshire, and worried to death, 26 July (?), 1644; Richard Bradley S.J., b. at Bryning Hall, Lancs, 1605, of a well-known Catholic family, seized, imprisoned, but died before trial at Manchester, 20 Jan, 1640; John Felton, S.J., visiting another Father in Lincoln, was seized and so badly used that, when released (for no one appeared against him) he died within a month, 17 Feb., 1645; Thomas Vaughan of Cortfield p., and Thomas Blount p., imprisoned at Shrewsbury, d. at unknown date; Robert Cox, O.S.B., died at the Clink Prison, 1650.

(3) During the Oates Plot (10)

Thomas Jennison S.J., d. after twelve months' imprisonment, 27 Sept., 1679. he had renounced a handsome inheritance in favour of his brother, who, nevertheless, having apostatized,turned king's evidence against him. William Lloyd, d. under sentence of death, Brecknock, 1679. Placid Aldham or John Adland (O.S.B.), a convert clergyman, chaplain to Queen Catherine of Braganza, d. under sentence in 1679. William Atkins, S.J., condemned at Stafford, was too deaf to hear the sentence. When it was shouted in his ear he turned and thanked the judge; he was reprieved and died in bonds, 7 March, 1681. Richard Birkett p., d. 1680 under sentence in Lancaster Castle; but our martyrologists seem to have made some confusion between him and John Penketh, S.J., a fellow prisoner (see Gillow, Cath. Rec. Soc., IV, pp. 431-440). Richard Lacey (Prince), S.J., Newgate, 11 March, 1680; William Allsion p., York Castle, 1681; Edward Turner, S.J., 19 March, 1681, Gatehouse; Benedict Counstable, O.S.B., professed at Lamspring, 1669, 11 Dec., 1683, Durham Gaol; Willaim Bennet (Bentney), S.J., 30 Oct., 1692, Leicester Gaol under William III.

(4) Others Put Off for Various Causes (8)

John Mawson, 1614, is not yet sufficiently distinguished from John Mason, 1591; there is a similar difficulty between Matthias Harrison, assigned to 1599, and James Harrison, 1602; William Tyrrwhit, named by error for his brother Robert; likewise the identity of Thomas Dyer, O.S.B., has been been fully proved; James Atkinson, killed under torture by Topcliffe, but evidence is wanted of his consistency to the end. Fr. Henry Garnet, S.J., q. v., was he killed ex odio fidei, or was he believed to be guilty of the Powder Plot, by merely human misjudgment, not through religious prejudice? The case of Lawrence Hill and Robert Green at the time of the Oates Plot is similar. Was it due to odium fidei, or an unprejudiced error?

IV. THE PRÆTERMISSI (242)

(1) Martyrs on the Scaffold

1534: Elizabeth Barton, q.v. (The Holy Maid of Kent), with five companions;John Dering, O.S.B., Edward Bocking, O.S.B., Hugh Rich, O.S.F., Richard Masters p., Henry Gold p., 1537. Monks, 28. - After the pilgrimage of grace and the rising of Lincolnshire many, probably several hundred, were executed, of whom no record remains. The following names, which do survive, are grouped under their respective abbeys or priories. - Barling: Matthew Mackerel, abbot and Bishop of Chalcedon, Ord. Præm. Bardney: John Tenent, William Cole, John Francis, William Cowper, Richard Laynton, Hugh Londale, monks. Bridlington: William Wood, Prior. Fountains: William Thyrsk, O. Cist. Guisborough: James Cockerel, Prior.Jervaulx: Adam Sedbar, Abbot; George Asleby, monk. Kirkstead: Richard Harrison, Abbott, Richard Wade, William Swale, Henry Jenkinson, monks. Lenten: Nicholas Heath, Prior; William Gylham, monk. Sawlet: William Trafford, Abbott; Richard Eastgate, monk. Whalley: John Paslew, Abbott; John Eastgate, William Haydock, monks. Woburn: Robert Hobbes, Abbott; Ralph Barnes, sub-prior; Laurence Blonham, monk. York: John Pickering, O.S.D., Prior. Place unknown: George ab Alba Rose, O.S.A. Priests: William Burraby, Thomas Kendale, John Henmarsh, James Mallet, John Pickering, Thomas Redforth. Lords: Darcy and Hussey. Knights: Francis Bigod, Stephen Hammerton, Thomas Percy. Laymen (11): Robert Aske, Robert Constable, Bernard Fletcher, George Hudswell, Robert Lecche, Roger Neeve, George Lomley, Thomas Moyne, Robert Sotheby, Nicholas Tempest, Philip Trotter. 1538 (7): Henry Courtney, the Marquess of Exeter; Henry Pole, Lord Montague; Sir Edward Nevell and Sir Nicholas Carew; George Croft p., and John Collins p.; Hugh Holland l.. Their cause was "adhering to the Pope, and his Legate, Cardinal Pole". 1540 (6): Lawrence Cook O. Carm., Prior of Doncaster; Thomas Empson, O.S.B.; Robert Bird p.; William Peterson p.; William Richardson p.; Giles Heron l. 1544 (3): Martin de Courdres, O.S.A., and Paul of St. William, O.S.A.; Darby Genning l. 1569, 1570 (8): Thomas Bishop, Simon Digby, John Fulthrope, John Hall, Christopher Norton, Thomas Norton, Robert Pennyman, Oswald Wilkinson, Laymen, who suffered, like Blessed Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, q. v., on the occasion of the Northern Rising. Various Years (6): Thomas Gabyt, O. Cist., 1575; William Hambleton p., 1585; Roger Martin p., 1592; Christopher Dixon, O.S.A., 1616; James Laburne, 1583; Edward Arden, 1584.

(2) Martyrs in Chains

Bishops (2): Richard Creagh, Archbishop of Armagh, in Tower of London; Thomas Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, in Wisbeach Castle. Priests in London Prisons (18): Austin Abbott, Richard Adams, Thomas Belser, John Boxall, D.D., James Brushford, Edmund Cannon, William Chedsey, D.D., Henry Cole, D.D., Anthony Draycott, D.D., Andrew Fryer, -- Gretus, Richard Hatton, Nicholas Harpsfield, -- Harrison, Francis Quashet, Thomas Slythurst, William Wood, John Young, D.D. Laymen in London Prisons (35): Alexander Bales, Richard Bolbet, Sandra Cubley, Thomas Cosen, Mrs. Cosen, Hugh Dutton, Edward Ellis, Gabriel Empringham, John Fitzherbert, Sir Thomas Fitzherbert, John Fryer, Anthony Fugatio (Portuguese), -- Glynne, David Gwynne, John Hammond (alias Jackson). Richard Hart, Robert Holland, John Lander, Anne Lander, Peter Lawson, Widow Lingon, Phillipe Lowe, -- May, John Molineaux, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, Richard Reynolds, Edmund Sexton, Robert Shelly, Thomas Sommerset, Francis Spencer, John Thomas, Peter Tichborne, William Travers, Sir Edward Waldegrave, Richard Weston. Priests in York (12): John Ackridge, William Baldwin, William Bannersly, Thomas Bedal, Richard Bowes, Henry Comberford, James Gerard, Nicholas Grene, Thomas Harwood, John Pearson, Thomas Ridall, James Swarbrick. Laymen in York (31): Anthony Ash, Thomas Blinkensop, Stephen Branton, Lucy Budge, John Chalmer, Isabel Chalmer, John Constable, Ralph Cowling, John Eldersha, Isabel Foster, -- Foster, Agnes Fuister, Thomas Horsley, Stephen Hemsworth, Mary Hutton, Agnes Johnson, Thomas Layne, Thomas Luke, Alice Oldcorne, -- Reynold, -- Robinson, John Stable, Mrs. Margaret Stable, Geoffrey Stephenson, Thomas Vavasour, Mrs. Dorothy Vavasour, Margaret Webster, Frances Webster, Christopher Watson, Hercules Welborn, Alice Williamson. In Various Prisons: Benedictines (11): James Brown, Richard Coppinger, Robert Edmonds, John Feckinham, Lawrence Mabbs, William Middleton, Placid Peto, Thomas Preston, Boniface Wilford, Thomas Rede, Sister Isabel Whitehead. Brigittine: Thomas Brownel (lay brother). Cistercians (2): John Almond, Thomas Mudde. Dominican: David Joseph Kemys. Franciscans: Thomas Ackridge, Paul Atkinson, q. v. (the last of the confessors in chains, died in Hurst Castle, after thirty years' imprisonment, 15 Oct., 1729), Laurence Collier, Walter Coleman, Germane Holmes. Jesuits (12): Matthew Brazier (alias Grimes), Humphrey Browne, Thomas Foster, William Harcourt, John Hudd, Cuthbert Prescott, Ignatius Price, Charles Pritchard, Francis Simeon, Nicholas Tempest, John Thompson, Charles Thursley. Priests (4): William Baldwin, James Gerard, John Pearson, James Swarbick. Laymen (22): Thurstam Arrowsmith, Humphrey Beresford, William Bredstock, James Clayton, William Deeg, Ursula Foster, -- Green, William Griffith, William Heath, Richard Hocknell, John Jessop, Richard Kitchin, William Knowles, Thomas Lynch, William Maxfield, -- Morecock, Alice Paulin, Edmund Rookwood, Richard Spencer, -- Tremaine, Edmund Vyse, Jane Vyse.

V. THE ELEVEN BISHOPS

Since the process of the Prætermissi has been held, strong reasons have been shown for including on our list of suffers, whose causes ought to be considered, the eleven bishops whom Queen Elizabeth deprived and left to die in prison, as Bonner, or under some form of confinement. Their names are: Cuthbert Turnstall, b. Durham, died 18 Nov. 1559; Ralph Bayle b. Lichfield, d. 18 Nov., 1559; Owen Ogle Thorpe, b. Carlisle, d. 31 Dec., 1559; John White, b. Winchester, d. 12 Jan., 1560; Richard Pate, b. Worcester, d. 23 Nov., 1565; David Poole, b. Peterborough, d, May, 1568; Edward Bonner, b. London, d. 5 Sept., 1569; Gilbert Bourne, b. Bath and Wells, d. 10 Sept., 1569; Thomas Thurlby, b. Ely, d. 26 Aug., 1570; James Thurberville, b. Exeter, d. 1 Nov., 1570; Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, d. Dec. 1578.

Quite a list, wouldn't you say?

Appendix B: John Cardinal Heenan's May 23, 1968, Article in L'Osservatore Romano

[A publisher's preface to Cardinal Heenan's Essay: Readers should take note of the inability of Pope Paul VI to stop the things cited in Cardinal Heenan's essay. Cardinal Heenan, one will see, had a more sanguine view of the Second Vatican Council than others who have had the benefit of historical research into the background and philosophy of Popes John XXIII and Paul VI. I include his remarks, however, because he saw real problems, some of them quite prophetic of the situation we face today, especially concerning the prohibition on the conversion of Protestants and Jews to the Faith. Cardinal Heenan was a friend of the Mass of Tradition, securing the "English Indult" from Pope Paul VI for the continuation of the Mass of Tradition. Yes, no "indult" is necessary. However, Cardinal Heenan wanted to what he could within the structures.God bless his immortal soul for his efforts to defend the Faith in the midst of a revolution. ]

One of the practical problems facing priests is what to do with out-of-date liturgical books. Publications only five years old have now become virtually useless. They may throw away their old missals, breviaries, pontificalia and rituals only to find that within twenty-five years they will be needed again. Baroque is out of fashion now but the next generation may be bored by the purely functional. After all, most of what is now regarded as liturgically extravagant was the result of the liturgists' revolt against lack of movement and colour. In the liturgical world today's expert is tomorrow's antiquarian. Bishops' houses, monasteries and seminaries should therefore displace but not destroy their liturgical collections. What of the rest of the library? How many theological books are now of anything more than historical interest: Billot? Franzelin? Bellarmine? Alphonsus? Aquinas? Ambrose? Augustine? Nobody can tell. We know only that at the moment most pre-conciliar writing might as well be antediluvian for all its practical usefulness.

The above is most relevant to my present task. I have been asked to write an article on the magisterium. Than this there is no more delicate subject in current theology. What is the magisterium? Look up your old (say 1960) text books of, dogmatic theology and you will read that the ordinary magisterium is what guarantees that the faithful will learn revealed truth from the Pope and bishops (''qui fidelibus oralem veritatem revelatam seu Traditionem dispensant" says a popular text book much used during the last decade). It is rather more difficult today to define the magisterium. True, it is authoritative—but who can exercise an authority which is no longer dutifully acknowledged? The ordinary magisterium of the Pope is found in his encyclicals, allocutions and letters. It is no secret that contemporary theologians are often markedly less respectful towards a papal encyclical than, for example, an article in "Concilium".

Solitary voice of Pope

So the magisterium has become a hazardous subject to write about. Nor is this only because the magisterium is widely ignored by those whose duty it is to pass on its directions. The magisterium itself is being exercised with diminishing confidence by those in authority. No matter how novel or brash the theory, it is most unlikely to be condemned by a local bishop or hierarchy. There have been recent reports from Rome that Pope Paul wept when telling a public audience of the disloyalty and disobedience of many who speak and teach in the name of the Catholic Church. These reports are probably inaccurate, but it is true that the Pope does regularly draw attention to the dangers of theological innovations. Nobody else in authority follows his example. During the Synod of Bishops a cardinal drew attention to the fact that the Pope's is becoming a solitary voice. Perhaps the whole notion of the ordinary magisterium of the Church is changing. Since the Council ended, the episcopate of the world rarely re-echoes the anguished cries of the Bishop of Rome.

Magisterium, like hierarchy, has become a dirty word. That may be why so few bishops are willing to risk unpopularity by exercising it. Too often in the past, it is true the magisterium has been used to condemn rather than guide. Today outside Rome it has become so unsure of itself that it rarely attempts even to guide. Dangerous contemporary writing on ecumenism and the Eucharist incurs no episcopal censure. Ecumenists in good standing appear to see no significant differences between Catholicism and other faiths. In seeking solutions to the heartbreaking problems of mixed marriages, for example, they declare that a Catholic has neither the right nor duty to safeguard the faith of his children. This novel doctrine is preached without protest from the magisterium.

Reckless interpretations

For the sake of ecumenical relations we are told, a Catholic must be prepared to sacrifice the Catholic birthright of his children. So far this argument has been applied only to cases of "Mixtae Religionis". Logically and inevitably, however, it will soon be applied by liberal ecumenists also to cases of "Disparitas Cultus". Why should a Jew or Muslim be expected to allow his Catholic wife to bring up the children as Christians? Fr. Gregory Baum, a convert Jew and consultor of the Secretariat for Christian Unity, considers it wrong to attempt to convert Jews. (The Monthly, November 1967). The Sisters of Sion are now told not to pray in public or in private for the conversion of Jews, although this was the chief object of their foundation. It is argued that Jews (Muslims? Hindus? Buddhists?) have a religious role ordained by Almighty God, and it is impertinent to offer them Christian truth. During debates in the Council members of the Secretariat for Christian Unity made it clear that, while ecumenism itself is in no way an exercise in conversion, the obligation to preach the Gospel to every creature remains. This, of course, is well understood by both Protestants and Jews. They appreciate our obligation to spread the Faith. They are rightly suspicious only if under the guise of ecumenism we attempt to convert them.

The doctrine of the real presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist has also suffered distortion with little complaint from the magisterium -- except again from the Holy Father. It is suggested by some theologians that Christ is present in the Blessed Sacrament only in the same sense as He is present in the sick, the poor or the whole Christian people. The document on the liturgy describes the eucharistic presence as "unique", but this word is now largely ignored. The whole idea of eucharistic worship is questioned under the influence of new "insights" (private revelations?). It is said to be catechetically unsound to teach the faithful to speak directly to Christ. He must be regarded exclusively as a mediator between us and the Father to whom alone prayer should be addressed. The Adorate and Ave Verum are a relic of unenlightened days when it was thought right for Jesus to be adored in the Blessed Sacrament. It was unwarranted for Popes to grant indulgences in order to encourage priests to recite the divine office in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. "Lex Orandi Lex Credendi" remains true. There is therefore some danger that liturgists may provide the new voice of the magisterium. Similar fears were expressed at the Synod. As a body, the bishops were conscious that the magisterium is passing from them into the hands of those who write popular theology.

A false Ecumenism

The Council is used as the excuse for every new flouting of the magisterium. "The word of Christ", said Pope Paul on the 3rd April 1968, "is no longer the truth which never changes, ever living, radiant and fruitful even though at times beyond our understanding. It becomes a partial truth... and is thus deprived of all objective validity and transcendent authority. It will be said that the Council authorised such treatment of traditional teaching. Nothing is more false, if we are to accept the word of Pope John who launched that 'aggiornamento' in whose name some dare to impose on Catholic dogma dangerous and sometimes reckless interpretations."

There speaks the authentic voice of the magisterium. But who is to specify which are the "dangerous and sometimes reckless interpretations"? Presumably local bishops are expected to do so. In the present climate their task is not easy. No theologian will admit that his interpretations are dangerous or reckless. A Bishop who objects will be told that he does not understand. Reading articles by some popular theologians I am reminded of Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll's, Through the looking glass: "When I use a word", Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."

"The question is", said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is", said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be the master -- that's all."

Yes, that's all. That's the whole question. Who is to be the master? That's what we mean by magisterium. The teacher or master must be restored to authority.

 

 

 

 

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.