Never Give In To Compromise

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The late Father Paul Marx, O.S.B., wrote a note to Mrs. Judie Brown, the founder and president of American Life League, several weeks before he died. He closed his note by commending her for her good work, reminding her that she must "Never give in to compromise." (See A tribute to a giant among men: Father Paul Marx, O.S.B.)

Although Father Marx did not see how conciliarism is in and of itself not only a compromise with the world but a corruption of the Faith and that the conciliar "popes" he praised were not "pro-life" as they specifically undermined the cause of God's Holy Revelation by violating the First and Second Commandments on a regular basis (please see Respect Those Who Break the First Commandment? Respect Those Who Break the Fifth Commandment; it is more difficult to restore full legal protection to innocent human life as long  as grave offenses against the honor and majesty and glory of God are sanctioned and committed by men who have believed themselves to be the Vicars of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on earth), the late Benedictine did understand that there could be no compromise in the defense of the inviolability of innocent human life and was thus a militant foe of those who either made "exceptions" to the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment or who made needless concessions in legislative initiatives without even trying to stake out a firm "no exceptions" position from the outset.

Father Marx's commitment in this regard distinguished his work at Human Life International from that of the compromising National Not-So-Right to Life Committee (which began its life as arm of the conciliar "bishops" under the then Monsignor James T. McHugh, who would later gain fame as one of the foremost proponents of explicit classroom instruction on matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments in the American conciliar "hierarchy; see appendix for a further discussion of the policies of the National Right to Life Committee), which takes no position for or against contraception and which admits as a matter of principle that it is morally licit to directly intend to kill a innocent preborn child in his mother's womb in instances where it is alleged that the mother's life is endangered. Father Marx's absolutist pro-life position earned him the scorn of many "incrementalists" in the "mainstream" pro-life movement, and this divide between the absolutists and incrementalists was at times so acrimonious as to make the current battles among sedevacantists seem very minor by way of comparison. Father Marx withstood the battle, always maintaining his opposition to contraception and to each and every surgical abortion no matter the circumstances facing an expectant mother.

Father Marx's refusal to compromise on the matter of exceptions is important to recall in light of the simple fact that the Stupak-Pitts Amendment to ObamaCare, which was signed into law yesterday by President Barack Hussein Obama as his vice president, the Catholic pro-abort named Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., whispered an expletive into his ear to emphasize the "importance" of the moment, was not "pro-life" whatsoever. Mrs. Judie Brown explained this in a post on her blog over three months ago now:

Congressman Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat and the darling of many American pro-life organizations, recently wrote a commentary for the New York Times that literally took my breath away. Entitled “What My Amendment Won’t Do,” Stupak panders to the abortion culture while attempting to defend his ethically deficient health care reform amendment.  Regardless of public statements to the contrary, his amendment would not ban taxpayer dollars for all abortions. If the preborn child is scheduled for execution for reasons of rape, incest or life of the mother, that’s fine, according to the Stupak language. And that’s not the worst of it.

In his editorial, Stupak provides public assurances to those who argue that health care reform proposals must include preborn child murder because such programs must protect every aspect of women’s so-called reproductive health choices.

Disgusting as Stupak’s remarks are, I must share a portion of them in order to make my point perfectly clear:

Under our amendment, women who receive federal subsidies will be prohibited from using them to pay for insurance policies that cover abortion. The amendment does not prevent private plans from offering abortion services and it does not prohibit women from purchasing abortion coverage with their own money. The amendment specifically states that even those who receive federal subsidies can purchase a supplemental policy with private money to cover abortions.

 

If you were to read this paragraph with a proper understanding of the fact that abortion is an act of killing, rather than a simple surgical procedure similar to a nose piercing, you would have to admit that Stupak’s political posturing is anything but pro-life. Here is how that paragraph should read, if Stupak were honest about it:

Under our amendment, women who receive federal subsidies will be prohibited from using such funds to pay for insurance policies that cover any act that would result in the death of their baby prior to birth. The amendment does not prevent private plans from offering surgical, medical or chemical killing services, and it does not prohibit women from purchasing insurance coverage that would pay for the killing as long as they pay for such coverage with their own money. The amendment specifically states that even those who receive federal subsidies can purchase a supplemental policy with private money to pay those who would perform acts that would result in the death of their child or children prior to birth.

 

Stupak continues,

Some opponents of the amendment have tried to argue that it would effectively end health insurance coverage of abortion in both the private and public sectors. This argument is nothing more than a scare tactic.

The language in our amendment is completely consistent with the Hyde Amendment, which in the 33 years since its passage has done nothing to inhibit private health insurers from offering abortion coverage. There is no reason to believe that a continuation of this policy would suddenly create undue hardship for the insurance industry—or for those who wish to use their private insurance to pay for an abortion.

 

Reading such deluded jabber sickens me beyond belief. But it also reminds me of the biblical story of 1 Kings: 3, in which two women who lived together had a devastating experience because one of them lied. To reprise the story, each of them bore a child within three days of each other. As it turned out, one of them apparently inadvertently rolled over onto her baby, who was consequently suffocated to death. This woman proceeded to sneak into the other mother’s room in the middle of the night, place the dead baby on her bosom and take that mother’s child. She subsequently claimed the living child was her own, and the two women wound up in King Solomon’s court, begging him to resolve the conflict.

King Solomon, being the wise man that he was, made a startling recommendation for resolving the dilemma: Simply cut the baby in half and give each woman half of the body. Oh, the baby would be dead, of course, but then both women would be satisfied! This prompted the real mother to plead for her son’s life, and that is how the king knew who the rightful mother was.

Stupak’s double-talk, obviously designed to reassure his pro-abortion colleagues, reminds me of the mother whose child died at her own hand. She lied in order to get her own way. But at the last moment, it was her own lies that exposed her.

No matter how you look at it, a lie is a lie and telling the truth is the only way one can achieve genuine peace, whether one is a politician, a deceptive woman standing in King Solomon's presence or an abortionist.

Stupak created the slippery ground on which he is now standing; his dilemma is of his own making. Had he been honest from the start, he would have made it clear that as a pro-life politician, he would insist that there is no reason why any insurance policy, government program or charity should be paying for or providing murder as a service to an expectant mother. The problematic nature of positions such as Stupak’s exposes the sordid underbelly of the political compromising that frequently occurs in the highly deceptive political pro-life movement.

The Stupak Amendment has received rave reviews from the National Right to Life Committee, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and many others. It has been touted as totally pro-life, as an absolute ban on tax-funded abortion and so on. It makes good fundraising copy to make such claims, but look where it is taking us! Who will be cutting those babies in half if any sort of "health care reform" actually comes to pass in this nation?

And why is a halfhearted half-measure proclaimed a victory? There is no logical response to this rhetorical question, but there is a comparison I would like to offer for thoughtful reflection.

Today I listened to a Planned Parenthood abortionist tell a young expectant mother (actually a very good actress) that her baby was not really a baby “or anything like that.”  Thanks to the creative genius of Lila Rose and Live Action Films, the world can listen to this abortionist’s lie and the many other lies contained in this just-under-six-minutes-long video.

But I have to ask, what is so different about this abortionist’s lie and the Stupak lie? When is an abortion not really an act of murder? When private money pays for it? When it is alleged to be needed because of rape, incest or the life of the mother?

Come on, people! Wake up and smell the coffee! We are talking about babies, not politically motivated vacuous rhetoric.

Until we pro-life Americans, as a group, come face to face with our own cowardice, our own lack of resolve, our own inability to stand for truth and never back down, regardless of what it might cost us, this sort of atrocious, mind-bending gibberish will continue to be passed off as pro-life!

And all the while, the killing and the profiteering will continue. (STUPAK REDUX: POLITICAL LIES AND MANIPULATION.)

 

It is never any kind of victory for the cause of fundamental justice founded in the splendor of Truth Incarnate to concede as a matter of principle that a particular course of legislative action is justified because it will not interfere with the ability of people to engage in evil acts under cover of the civil law that are illicit of their very nature.

The Stupak-Pitts Amendment was an attempt from its very beginning to make ObamaCare palatable to left-leaning Catholics and the left-leaning conciliar "bishops" as its sponsors sought to justify a limitation on the use of Federal taxpayer dollars for the surgical assassination of babies on an elective basis on the basis that women would still be able to kill their babies with the private monies of insurance companies. The Stupak-Pitts Amendment was simply a means to provide cover for "pro-life" Democrats to vote for ObamaCare, and the fact that Representative Stupak surrendered the votes he controlled, which would have been enough to sink the statist monstrosity from being passed in the United States House of Representatives on Passion Sunday, March 21, 2010, on the promise of a legally worthless Executive Order that does not annul the baby-killing provisions in ObamaCare is proof that the Michigan representative had no intention to stake his career on a principled defense of the absolute inviolability of innocent preborn life.

Even the pro-life absolutists, as correct as they are on the specifics of opposing compromises with the inviolability of innocent human life, fail to realize that they very fact that we have to "debate" these issues is the result of the aftermath of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought the Protestant Revolt and institutionalized by the rise of the naturalistic forces of Judeo-Masonry,. The long term consequences of that revolution against the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ have convinced even believing, fully "pro-life" Catholics that is it not necessary to pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End as its office-holders or that the civil state has an obligation to seek to foster those conditions in civil society wherein citizens can better sanctify and save their souls as members of the Catholic Church. Conciliarism's "reconciliation" with the anti-Incarnational, naturalistic and semi-Pelagian principles of the Modern state has convinced even fully believing "pro-life" Catholics that there is something short of Catholicism that can "bring people together" to end the daily carnage of the preborn. The entire "pro-life" movement, therefore, is itself premised on a form of "political ecumenism" that is bound to fail as it is impossible to retard various social evils unless one is willing to understand, address and articulate the proximate root causes of those evils. And the proximate root cause of the social evils facing us in the world today is the Protestant Revolt and its attack upon the Divine Plan that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ instituted to effect man's return to Him through His Catholic Church.

Pope Leo XIII, writing in A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902, emphasized that we had to pray and to work for the restoration of Catholicism as the only foundation of personal and social order, a plea that would be made by his successor, Pope Saint Pius X, many times between 1903 and 1914:

Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely Wise, Good, and Just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which  it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

 

Please note that Pope Leo XIII stressed that the Catholic Church "makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the command which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity." Anyone who says that this has been done by the counterfeit church of concilairism, which has made its "reconciliation" with the false principles of Modernity that leave no room for the confessionally Catholic civil state and the Social Reign of Christ the King, is not thinking too clearly (and that is as about as charitable as I can put the matter).

The late Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II  was very clear in his rejection of the Social Reign of Christ the King and his embrace of the "separation of Church and State. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has been a most fervent apostle of "religious liberty" and "separation of Church and State" in the nearly five years of his false "pontificate." While Holy Mother Church can and must adapt herself to the concrete circumstances in which her children live as her pastors make full advantage of "legal rights" accorded to them by civil governments that "permit" them to do what God has given them the duty to do without any "permission" from positive human legislative acts (constitutions, laws, edicts, executive orders, ordinances, judicial decisions. etc.), she nevertheless continues to instruct her children as to what is true concerning the necessity of restoring the confessionally Catholic civil state and she never ceases to exhort them to plant the seeds for this restoration.

No one who rejects this simple reiteration of Catholic teaching given to us by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, can lay claim to holding fast to everything taught by the Catholic Church from time immemorial:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

This is either true or false. If something is true, it is eternally, immutably true. That the conciliar "popes" reject this out of hand is just one sign, among so many others, of their apostasy from the true Faith, and all of their efforts to claim that papal statements made in the past lose their binding force because they were "conditioned" by the historical circumstances that gave rise to them are nothing other than blasphemies against God the Holy Ghost, Who inspired those popes to write as they did in simply reiterating the truths of the Holy Faith. If the reiteration of Catholic teaching by our true popes can be disregarded, if not entirely contradicted, by future popes then why should anyone pay any attention at all to what the conciliar "popes" teach as one of their successors could say that their pronouncements were just as historically conditioned as had been previous papal statements, thus making an entire mockery of the papacy and of the infallibility of Holy Mother Church. (For an excellent explanation of this false view, which, of course, was dissected by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, see Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion.)

The permanence of the teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the necessity of the civil state's recognizing her as its official religion and pursing the common temporal good was stressed by Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.

It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements which We have made; it is no less necessary to reawaken that spirit of faith, of supernatural love, and of Christian discipline which alone can bring to these principles correct understanding, and can lead to their observance. This is particularly important in the case of youth, and especially those who aspire to the priesthood, so that in the almost universal confusion in which we live they at least, as the Apostle writes, will not be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians iv, 14)

 

As far as I am aware, my good and very few readers, "ever" does not have an "expiration" date.

 

Yes, we must never give in to compromise. As important as it is not to so in the realm of defending the inviolability of innocent human life from the first moment of conception through all subsequent stages until natural death, it is more important to do so in every matter pertaining to the Holy Faith, starting with the honor and majesty and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity that has been under attack by the conciliar "popes" (as demonstrated in many articles on this site, including A Tale of Two Benedicts yesterday). It is no accident that the push to decriminalize baby-killing in the United States of America occurred at the same time as the "Second" Vatican Council had completed its work and as the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo worship service was being planned with the help of six liberal Protestant "observers." The apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges of the conciliar "popes" and their "bishops helped to condition Catholics in the pews (and those who had been driven out of the pews by the Novus Ordo service) to accept the "world" as it was, relieving them of any real obligation to seek the conversion of their neighbors or of their country to the true Faith.

True, this process did not happen overnight as the ethos of Americanism helped to form conciliarism's view of religious liberty and Church-State relations. It was, however, the crowning "success" of conciliarism to so "relax" Catholic worship and to so embrace the spirit of the world that made it more possible for the average Catholic to become complete naturalists and to look to the civil state and human positive law for "guidance" in their daily lives. One little compromise with the world is poisonous to the Faith. Conciliarism has made many compromises with the world, starting, as mentioned just before, with concessions made to the nonexistent "goodness" of false religions, each of which is hated by God, Who wants the conversion of their adherents to the true Faith sought with urgency. A culture that redounds to the eternal life of each person on the face of this earth can never be built on the basis of the lies and compromises of concilairism, content as its ethos is to leave non-Catholics in their false religions until the very point of their deaths.

As noted two days ago in Front Men For The New World Order, ObamaCare is the logical result of what happens in a world where those in civil government do not submit themselves to everything contained in the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church in all that pertains to the good, both temporal and eternal, of souls. Although I am fully supportive of legal efforts to challenge ObamaCare and am willing to recognize the utility of seeking its legislative repeal, as difficult as that may be given the unlikelihood of securing sixty-seven senators to overturn an Obama veto of such a repeal, we must understand that the chastisement that is upon us is the result of the rejection of the Social Reign of Christ the King that has been enabled in recent decades by the compromises made by the lords of the counterfeit church of conciliarism with the anti-Incarnational spirit of Modernity.

There is little hope, humanly speaking, of large numbers of people recognizing and accepting these basic truths in the midst of the insanity of the moment. So be it. However, what we can do is present those who are open to looking at the truth of the world as it can be viewed through the eyes of the true Faith, trying to plant a few seeds as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to help more and more people to see that the world in which we live is constructed on one artifice after another, some of which are collapsing right before our very eyes. Every Rosary we pray will help to plant a few more seeds that might, please God and by Our Lady's maternal intercession, result in the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, conscious always of making reparation for our own sins which are more responsible than we might like to think for the spread of the errors and evils of the day.

May Saint Gabriel, who announced the will of God to Zachary and to Our Lady at the Annunciation and to assure Saint Joseph in a dream that he should have no fear to take her as his wife, and to console Our Lord in His Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, help us always to do God's Will, starting with knowing, loving, and serving Him exactly and only has He has revealed Himself to be through His Church without any shadow of change, alteration, doubt, contradiction, or compromise.

Dom Prosper Gueranger's prayer to Saint Gabriel the Archangel is worth repeating here:

The whole human race is indebted to thee, O Gabriel! and, on this day, we would fain pay thee the honour and gratitude we owe thee. Thou was moved to holy compassion on seeing the miseries of the world; for all flesh had corrupted its way, and the forgetfulness of God increased with each new generation of men. Then did the Most High commission thee to bring to the world the good tidings of its salvation. How beautiful thy steps, O prince of the heavenly court, as thou camest down to this our humble sphere! How tender and fraternal is thy love of man, whose nature, though so inferior to thine own, was to be raised, by the mystery of the Incarnation, to union with God Himself! With what respectful awe didst thou approach the Virgin, who surpassed all the angels in holiness!

Blessed messenger of our redemption, whom god selects as His minister wen He would show His power, we beseech thee, offer the homage of our gratitude to Him that thus sent thee. Help us to pay the immense debt that we owe to the Father, who so loved the world, as to give it His only-begotten Son; to the Son, who emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant; and to the Holy Ghost, who rested on the Flower that sprang up out of the root of Jesse.

"Tis thou, O Gabriel! that taughtest us the salutation wherewith we should greet Mary full of grace. Thou wast the first to pronounce these sublime words, which though broughtest from heaven. The children of the Church are now, day and night, repeating these words of thine; pray for us that we may say them in such a manner, that our blessed Mother may find them worthy of her acceptance.

Angel of strength, friend of mankind! continue thy ministry of aiding us. We are surrounded by terrible enemies; our weakness makes them bold' come to our assistance, procure us courage. Pray for during these days of conversion and penance. Obtain for us the knowledge of all we owe to God in consequence of that ineffable mystery of the Incarnation, of which thou wast the first witness. We have forgotten our duties to the Man-God, and we have offended Him; enlighten us, that so, henceforth, we may be faithful to His teachings and examples. Raise up our thoughts to the happy abode where thou dwellest; assist us to merit the places left vacant by the fallen angels, for god has reserved them for His elect among men.

Pray, O Gabriel, for the Church militant, and defend her against the attacks of hell. The times are evil; the spirits of malice are let loose, nor can we make stand against them, unless with God's help. It is by His holy angels that He give victory to His bride. Be thou, O strength of God! foremost in the ranks. Drive heresy back, keep schism down, foil the false wisdom of men, frustrate the policy of the world, arouse the well-minded from apathy; that thus Christ whom thou didst announce may reign over the earth He has redeemed, and that we may sing together with thee and the whole angelic choir: 'Glory be to God, peace to men!

 

Drive back heresy! Indeed! Saint Gabriel pray for us.

As Pope Saint Pius X noted in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:

Moreover, since in the clash of interests, and especially in the struggle against dishonest forces, the virtue of man, and even his holiness are not always sufficient to guarantee him his daily bread, and since social structures, through their natural interplay, ought to be devised to thwart the efforts of the unscrupulous and enable all men of good will to attain their legitimate share of temporal happiness, We earnestly desire that you should take an active part in the organization of society with this objective in mind. And, to this end, whilst your priests will zealously devote efforts to the sanctification of souls, to the defense of the Church, and also to works of charity in the strict sense, you shall select a few of them, level-headed and of active disposition, holders of Doctors’ degrees in philosophy and theology, thoroughly acquainted with the history of ancient and modern civilizations, and you shall set them to the not-so-lofty but more practical study of the social science so that you may place them at the opportune time at the helm of your works of Catholic action. However, let not these priests be misled, in the maze of current opinions, by the miracles of a false Democracy. Let them not borrow from the Rhetoric of the worst enemies of the Church and of the people, the high-flown phrases, full of promises; which are as high-sounding as unattainable. Let them be convinced that the social question and social science did not arise only yesterday; that the Church and the State, at all times and in happy concert, have raised up fruitful organizations to this end; that the Church, which has never betrayed the happiness of the people by consenting to dubious alliances, does not have to free herself from the past; that all that is needed is to take up again, with the help of the true workers for a social restoration, the organisms which the Revolution shattered, and to adapt them, in the same Christian spirit that inspired them, to the new environment arising from the material development of today’s society. Indeed, the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists.

 

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

 

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Saint Joseph, 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.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix

Affirming the Merchants of Death, November 11, 2003

(This was re-written a bit in 2005, a year before I came to realize that the conciliar church is but a counterfeit ape of the Catholic Church.

False ideas lead to bad consequences. Inevitably. Inexorably. Always. Nothing good ever comes out of an idea based on false premises.

As I have explained in a number of articles over the years, including "God Is More Powerful Than Liars" (published on the Seattle Catholic site in September of 2003), Modernity itself is based upon the lie that it is possible for human beings to pursue justice and maintain social order absent a subordination of all things to the Social Kingship of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as it is exercised by the Church He founded upon the rock of Peter, the Pope. This is a lie. If Christ is not King of both men and nations as He has revealed Himself through His true Church, then the Devil will reign supreme. Once men become convinced of their ability to improve their lot without having belief in, access to, and cooperation with sanctifying grace, then ideologies of various stripes, including pragmatism, become the perverse replacement for the true Faith as the basis of personal and social order.

Pragmatism is a particularly American phenomenon, although it has spread elsewhere from this country. That is, Americans are as a whole not very reflective or philosophical. Most Americans, both contemporaneously and historically, care about "solving" problems more than taking the time to understand their root causes. A typical American does not take the time to read an owner's manual accompanying a particular product, thus resulting in frustration when the product fails to work properly when the first attempt is made to use it, precisely because of the carelessness and sloth that led the user to ignore the instruction manual as burdensome and incomprehensible. The typical American simply wants his desires gratified instantly, refusing to do the work necessary to study a problem in depth. This is what results in demands being made of career politicians to solve various problems as fast as they can, no matter what precepts of God are violated or how much more of our legitimate freedom and property are surrendered to the government and its agencies.

Pragmatism is what has guided many in the pro-life movement since the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Roe v. Wade, issue on January 22, 1973. Although horrified by the heinous decision of the Court in that case, many people who term themselves "pro-life" conceded important ground almost from the beginning, contending that we would have to live with "a little bit" of abortion in order to get rid of abortion on demand. This concession ignored the simple fact that we got state statutes decriminalizing abortion in the late 1960s precisely because of the exceptions (for rape, incest, alleged threats to the life of a mother) that existed in most state laws at the time that Bill Baird and Bernard Nathanson and Lawrence Laeder were agitating for "abortion reform." Those interested in institutionalizing abortion on demand in this country managed to be successful in several states (Colorado, Hawaii, California, New York, New Jersey) even prior to Roe v. Wade because they appealed to a sense of egalitarianism: why shouldn't every woman have the same access to abortion as the rich and the famous, who were able to get doctors to certify that their pregnancy fell into one of the exceptions included in state law? That lesson was lost on the pragmatists within the pro-life movement from the very beginning.

The first manifestation of the failure of pragmatism came in 1973, shortly after Roe v. Wade had been issued by the Supreme Court. Then Senator James Buckley (R-New York) proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade by prohibiting all abortions except in cases where it was alleged that a mother's life was endangered by a pregnancy. This was a fatal, morally flawed concession that, sadly, has characterized every effort sponsored by the National Right to Life Committee, which itself states that babies may be sliced and diced licitly under cover of law in instances where a mother's life is said to be endangered, ever since.

The morally flawed nature of the Buckley Amendment was criticized by four American cardinals, including John Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Humberto Cardinal Medeiros of Boston, Massachusetts, John Cardinal Cody of Chicago, Illinois, and Timothy Cardinal Manning of Los Angeles, California. They opposed passage of the Buckley Amendment on the grounds that the law could never licitly permit the direct, intentional killing of an innocent human being regardless of the age of the victim (that is, from the first moment of fertilization to the moment of natural death willed by God). Although they praised Senator Buckley for his concern about the issue, the cardinals stood tall in opposition to the pragmatism concerned in his amendment. That would be the last time that any member of the American hierarchy, with the exception of the late Bishop Joseph V. Sullivan of Baton Rouge, Louisiana (who I was privileged to meet one month before he died in 1982), opposed the pragmatism of the National Right to Life Committee.

The first alleged success of the pragmatists in the pro-life movement came in 1977 when Representative Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) was able to attach an amendment to the funding of Medicaid that prohibited the use of Medicaid funds to pay for abortions for poor women except in cases where a mother's life was said to be endangered. The legislation containing the Hyde Amendment, which was "liberalized" in 1993 to include the rape and incest exceptions, was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. Far from being a success, however, the Hyde Amendment conceded the false idea that innocent human beings could be put to death under cover of law and that American taxpayers could licitly pay for their savage murders. The flawed nature of the single exception contained in the original Hyde Amendment was the basis of its eventual, if not inevitable, expansion sixteen years later.

The principal legislative effort during the administration of President Ronald Reagan centered on efforts to pass a constitutional amendment that was introduced by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). The Hatch Amendment would have reversed Roe v. Wade by establishing the principle that the right to permit or restrict abortion was held solely by the state legislatures, not by Federal or state courts. This fatally flawed piece of legislation conceded that a human institution, a state legislature, had the authority to permit something that was proscribed by the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law. If it had been approved by a two-thirds majority in Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the nation's state legislatures, the Hatch Amendment would have enshrined abortion as matter of legal right whose exact parameters were subject to the deliberation of state legislators. This morally repugnant legislative initiative was "hatched" by the then Monsignor James T. McHugh of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and endorsed very strongly by the full body of American bishops, save for Bishop Joseph Sullivan of Baton Rouge, and the National Right to Life Committee, which lobbied very hard for its passage in Congress.

The failure of the Hatch Amendment led to the pragmatists to adopt "incrementalism" as their buzzword. As legislative efforts to reverse Roe v. Wade had proved unsuccessful, the only thing that could be done was to limit abortion around the margins. Thus, such initiatives as "parental consent" legislation at the state level became the focus of the National Right to Life Committee and its state affiliate organizations. Again, this was and remains a morally flawed effort. No one has the right to give his consent to his daughter to murder his grandchild inside of her womb. The legal "experts" at the National Right to Life Committee have contended ad nauseam that parental consent laws have been crafted so as to pass the scrutiny of constitutional challenges in Federal and state courts. Well, not only are these laws morally flawed of their nature, they include a judicial bypass provision whereby a minor woman can get a judge's order to kill her child without the "consent" or her parents. Planned Parenthood and related organizations are more than willing to fill out the boilerplate forms necessary to secure the judicial bypass for one of their "clients."

As I have written over and over again in the last eight years, the recently passed Congressional legislation conditionally banning partial-birth abortions is another morally flawed effort that will wind up saving no innocent lives. Not only is there the needless and immoral life of the mother exception contained in the bill, signed into law by President George W. Bush, but the bill ignores the fact that there are two other ways (hysterotomy, dilation and evacuation) by which children may be killed in their mothers' wombs in the later stages of pregnancy. If the baby-killers cannot use partial-birth abortion to kill a child, they will simply resort to one of the other two methods (which might also include saline solution abortion if the child is young enough to be killed by this method). The passage of this morally flawed legislation is already being used by careerist politicians to say that we've done all we can do to stem abortion in the midst of our current circumstances. "The country is not ready to ban all abortions," as President Bush noted in his press conference of Tuesday, October 28, 2003. Well, the country never will be ready to ban all abortions if those who call themselves pro-life are not completely, totally, one hundred percent pro-life and do not exert all of the influence they can to change hearts and minds and to change unjust laws and court decisions.

The folks from the National Right to Life Committee who brought us all of these failures, based on morally flawed principles, are now bringing us a "model state statute" to deal with cases such as those involving Terri Schiavo, the brain damaged woman in Florida who was in the process of being starved and dehydrated to death as a result of a court order secured by her faithless husband when Governor Jeb Bush intervened and used a previously called special session of the Florida Legislature to reverse the court order, thereby saving, at least for the moment, Mrs. Schiavo's life. Michael Schiavo, the faithless husband who some believe may have attempted to strangle his wife in 1990, has contended that his wife would not have wanted to have been kept alive "artificially" by the use of tubes to administer food and water. A Florida judge, George Greer, accepted Schiavo's testimony, which resulted in the issuance of the court order that started the process of starving and dehydrating Terri to death.

As the Florida statute permitting the dehydration and starvation of incapacitated persons permits a spouse or another relative to speak for a relative who is unable to speak for himself or herself, the National Right to Life Committee's "model state law" prohibits a person from being starved or dehydrated to death absent any written authorization, such as those found in a so-called "Living Will." This "model state law" is simply another morally flawed attempt on the part of the National Right to Life Committee to deal with the symptom of a larger problem by ceding ground to the merchants of death, in this case admitting that the law can permit a person to direct himself to be starved and dehydrated to death.

In order to clarify the governing moral principles in cases such as Terri Schiavo, it is important to remember the following:

1. The Florida statute permitting the starvation and dehydration of incapacitated persons is immoral and unjust. Every pro-life American must seek the permanent repeal of such legislation.
2. No human being has any right found in the Divine positive law or the natural law to starve or dehydrate himself to death.
3. No human being has any right found in the Divine positive law or the natural law to delegate to others the power of starving or dehydrating himself to death.
4. No human institution, such as a legislature or a court, has the authority to pass or to enforce legislation contrary to the Divine positive law and the natural law.
5. Terri Schindler-Schiavo's absolute right to live did not and does not depend upon her ability to react to others or to feed herself. Her right to food and water is absolute and cannot be violated. The fact that Terri Schindler-Schiavo does react to others and might be capable of feeding herself if she had been given the therapy for which over a million dollars was awarded to her faithless husband speaks volumes about the extent to which those seeking Terri's murder went to extinguish her life by claiming things that were not so and were irrelevant to her absolute right to food and water. Food and water are not medical treatment, no matter how they are administered. They are ordinary care given to a human being.

Here is a simple rule of thumb for pro-life Americans: ignore all of the political and policy judgments of the National Right to Committee. They have affirmed the very principles that have given rise to the culture of death in which we find ourselves at this point in salvation history. All of their pragmatism and incrementalism have failed the cause of saving preborn babies and are failing now the cause of those threatened by euthanasia.

Perhaps of even more concern to Catholics, though, is the failure of the American hierarchy to speak out forcefully against the Florida law. Indeed, St. Petersburg Bishop Robert Lynch affirmed the morality of withdrawing food and water in cases similar to Terri Schiavo's. That most of the bishops in the American hierarchy have worked hand in glove with the National Right to Life Committee over the years should therefore come as no surprise. They, too, believe in minimalism and pragmatism, sometimes even enshrining as virtuous those things that are doctrinally and morally repugnant to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law.

Good results can only come from basing all of our actions in the splendor of Truth Incarnate, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, as He has revealed Himself through His true Church. We cannot fight the evils of secularism with secularism. We can only fight secularism with Catholicism.

As Pope Leo XIII noted in Sapientiae Christianae in 1890:

"Under such evil circumstances therefore, each one is bound in conscience to watch over himself, taking all means possible to preserve the faith inviolate in the depths of his soul, avoiding all risks, and arming himself on all occasions, especially against the various specious sophisms rife among non-believers. In order to safeguard this virtue of faith in its integrity, We declare it to be very profitable and consistent with the requirements of the time, that each one, according to the measure of his capacity and intelligence, should make a deep study of Christian doctrine, and imbue his mind with as perfect a knowledge as may be of those matters that are interwoven with religion and lie within the range of reason. And as it is necessary that faith should not only abide untarnished in the soul, but should grow with ever painstaking increase, the suppliant and humble entreaty of the apostles ought constantly to be addressed to God: 'Increase our faith.'

"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. So soon as Catholic truth is apprehended by a simple and unprejudiced soul, reason yields assent. Now, faith, as a virtue, is a great boon of divine grace and goodness; nevertheless, the objects themselves to which faith is to be applied are scarcely known in any other way than through the hearing. 'How shall they believe Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? Faith then cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.' Since, then, faith is necessary for salvation, it follows that the word of Christ must be preached. The office, indeed, of preaching, that is, of teaching, lies by divine right in the province of the pastors, namely, of the bishops whom 'the Holy Spirit has placed to rule the Church of God.' It belongs, above all, to the Roman Pontiff, vicar of Jesus Christ, established as head of the universal Church, teacher of all that pertains to morals and faith.

"No one, however, must entertain the notion that private individuals are prevented from taking some active part in this duty of teaching, especially those on whom God has bestowed gifts of mind with the strong wish of rendering themselves useful. These, so often as circumstances demand, may take upon themselves, not, indeed, the office of the pastor, but the task of communicating to others what they have themselves received, becoming, as it were, living echoes of their masters in the faith. Such co-operation on the part of the laity has seemed to the Fathers of the Vatican Council so opportune and fruitful of good that they thought well to invite it. 'All faithful Christians, but those chiefly who are in a prominent position, or engaged in teaching, we entreat, by the compassion of Jesus Christ, and enjoin by the authority of the same God and Savior, that they bring aid to ward off and eliminate these errors from holy Church, and contribute their zealous help in spreading abroad the light of undefiled faith.' Let each one, therefore, bear in mind that he both can and should, so far as may be, preach the Catholic faith by the authority of his example, and by open and constant profession of the obligations it imposes. In respect, consequently, to the duties that bind us to God and the Church, it should be borne earnestly in mind that in propagating Christian truth and warding off errors the zeal of the laity should, as far as possible, be brought actively into play."

These words of Pope Leo XIII are what should inspire us to Catholicize every aspect of our culture, a task that is no less possible now than it was in the First Millennium. The grace won for us by the Divine Redeemer by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood is as powerful now as it was then. The intercessory power of the Mother of God is as powerful now as it was then. It is only by working for the triumph of the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Queen that we can defeat the merchants of death by establishing a culture that is completely and authentically Catholic in every respect.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!