Parallel Paths of Degeneration

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The ravages of sin take their toll upon us in many, many ways. One striving to live a life of virtue in cooperation with the graces won for us by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, could fall into Mortal Sin in a flash. Those struggling to escape lives of sin might surrender to the sin of Presumption or Despair, thereby keeping themselves away from the healing balm of Our Lord's Absolution in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. Others sincerely trying to overcome some fault or vice in cooperation with God's grace might find themselves "stuck in a rut" for a long time. None of us knows whether we will persevere to the point of our dying breaths in states of Sanctifying Grace. It is very possible for a person striving for sanctity to lose his immortal soul for all eternity, which is why we must pray our Hail Marys with great fervor, recognizing that we will need Our Lady's prayers for us at the hour of our deaths.

A proper perspective on how the ravages of sin affect us all is important to maintain when considering the path of degeneration which so many "bishops" and "priests" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism have chosen to traverse. It is certainly true that there have been instances of widespread corruption of the clergy at various points in the history of Holy Mother Church. Some of this corruption was notorious, that is, known publicly to many others, causing scandal and even weakening the Faith of those who were seeking excuses to leave their one and only means of salvation, the Catholic Church. Much of the corruption over the course of time, especially that relating to perverse sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, was occult, that is, not widely known to others. Saint Peter Damian had to convince Pope Leo IX of the problem of perversity in the clergy that so many so found so hard to believe. The existence of moral corruption in the clergy, therefore, is not a new one in the history or the life of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church is Divinely founded and maintained. The jaws of Hell will never prevail against her, which is why a true pope can never give us a defective liturgy or dare to assert that dogmatic truth can change in its meaning. The Catholic Church will last until the end of of time, although she may not be everywhere on the face of this earth until the end of time. Indeed, one of the "negative proofs" of the Divinity of the Catholic Church is the fact that no merely human organization could survive for nearly two millennia despite the bad example given by so many of its members, including, of course, each and every single one of us at some point or another in our lives, even if only with our own family members if not publicly. There is a difference, however, between the bad example given and the scandals caused by Catholics in the clergy and laity alike in the past nearly two thousand years and the public celebration of scandal that has taken place in the counterfeit church of conciliarism in the recent past. Such public celebration of sin in the context of what purports to be an offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which is the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Son to the Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross to atone for our sins, is without precedent in the history of the Catholic Church.

Public justification and celebration of sin in what purports to be a "liturgy" is not, however, without precedent in the ranks of the various denominations of Protestantism. Indeed, it is of the essence of Protestantism. Martin Luther's revolt against the Divine Plan that God Himself had instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church was founded in an acceptance of divorce and remarriage in a total defiance of the words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself:

And the Pharisees coming to him asked him, tempting him: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife? But he answering, saith to them: What  did Moses command you? Who said: Moses permitted to write a bill of divorce and to put her away. To whom Jesus answering, said: Because of the hardness of your heart, he wrote you that precept.

But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female. For this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife. And they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. And in the house again his disciples asked him concerning the same thing. And he saith to them: Whosoever shall put away his wife and marry another committeth adultery against her. And if the wife shall put away her husband and be married to another, she committeth adultery. (Mark 10: 2-12.)

 

Martin Luther's own lecherous life, which he refused to reform in cooperation with the Sanctifying Graces sent to him, prompted him to devise an entire theology based on the erroneous proposition that the human being has been totally corrupted by Original Sin. The human being, according to Luther, is nothing more than a "dung heap covered by a few snowflakes of grace." This means that we will sin no matter our best efforts to resist temptations. The best that we can do is to make a "profession of faith" in our hearts and our our lips in the "Name of the Lord Jesus" are we are, more or less, assured of our salvation. There is almost no sin that one can commit that "revokes" this "profession of faith," which makes one "justified" in the sight of God and is the path to salvation.

Luther himself put the matter this way:

Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.... as long as we are here [in this world] we have to sin.... No sin will separate us from the Lamb, even though we commit fornication and murder a thousand times a day."( Let Your Sins Be Strong: A Letter from Martin Luther to Philip Melancthon. number 99, August 1, 1521)

 

Such a heretical view of sin and its effects on the soul--and on the entire Church Militant here on the face of this earth--is nothing other than an open invitation to sin, heedless of the ways in which each Actual Sin, whether Mortal or Venial, darkens the intellect, weakens the will and disorders our already disorderly passions more and more. Such a heretical view of sin and its effects on the soul--and on the entire Church Militant here on the face of this earth--denies the simple truth that Mortal Sin does indeed deprive one of the state of Justification, that is, of Sanctifying Grace, making one a mortal enemy of God until he has been reconciled to Him in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, which was instituted by Our Lord Himself when He spoke these words to the Apostles on Easter Sunday after His Resurrection from the dead:

He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained. (John 20: 21-23.)

 

Human beings who persist in lives of unrepentant Mortal Sin are more and more prone to justify their sins, if not celebrate them publicly, lashing out in anger at anyone who attempts to admonish them in the exercise of the Spiritual Works of Mercy. This is the path to personal ruin, possibly for all eternity, and for social ruin. Pope Leo XIII, writing in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, pointed this out very clearly:

A similar state of things would certainly have continued had the agreement of the two powers been lasting. More important results even might have been justly looked for, had obedience waited upon the authority, teaching, and counsels of the Church, and had this submission been specially marked by greater and more unswerving loyalty. For that should be regarded in the light of an ever-changeless law which Ivo of Chartres wrote to Pope Paschal II: "When kingdom and priesthood are at one, in complete accord, the world is well ruled, and the Church flourishes, and brings forth abundant fruit. But when they are at variance, not only smaller interests prosper not, but even things of greatest moment fall into deplorable decay."

But that harmful and deplorable passion for innovation which was aroused in the sixteenth century threw first of all into confusion the Christian religion, and next, by natural sequence, invaded the precincts of philosophy, whence it spread amongst all classes of society. From this source, as from a fountain-head, burst forth all those later tenets of unbridled license which, in the midst of the terrible upheavals of the last century, were wildly conceived and boldly proclaimed as the principles and foundation of that new conception of law which was not merely previously unknown, but was at variance on many points with not only the Christian, but even the natural law.

 

Pope Leo XIII made a similar point in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900:

As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from "The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. "And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him" (Daniel vii., 14). "I am appointed King by Him . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psalm ii., 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at.

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.

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

 

Admitting that the remote cause of all problems in the world is Original Sin, it is nevertheless true that there are proximate causes for the worsening of the problems caused by fallen human nature. Martin Luther's systematic and planned overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King by means of His violent revolution against the true Church that Our Lord Himself directly founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, has resulted in a world of sin and decadence, a world wherein the anti-Incarnational modern state heralds the very thing that caused the God-Man to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and caused His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to be thrust through and through with Seven Swords of Sorrow, sin. Sin is celebrated publicly directly as a result of Martin Luther's overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and all of the demonic forces unleashed thereby.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, whose feast we celebrate today, was told by Our Lord Himself, in His second revelation to her, which took place in 1674, how much the sins and ingratitude of men offend Him, as recounted by the Right Reverend Emile Bougaud, The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque (published by Benziger Brothers in 1890 and republished by TAN Books and Publishers in 1990):

"In recounting the first apparition, Margaret Mary had not described the adorable person of the Lord, because, probably, it had not the same glorious character as this one. It was a less royal, perhaps more intimate, communication. "He made me,." she says in speaking of the first, "rest a long time on His breast," which it might seem would agree not well with the splendors, the flames that enveloped Jesus in the second apparition. However, this difference in form corresponds to the difference of spirit in which they were made. Till that hour Jesus was the Friend, the Father, making a tender effort to save His children. Now He is the outraged Spouse, the unacknowledged King about to demand reparation. Whilst Margaret, trembling with emotion, was contemplating Him, "He unfolded to me,." she says, "the inexplicable wonders of His pure love, and to what an excess He had carried it for the love of men, and from whom He had received only ingratitude. 'This is,' He said, 'much more painful to Me than all I suffered in My Passion. If men rendered Me some return of love, I should esteem little all I have done for them, and should wish, if such could be, to suffer it again; but they meet My eager love with coldness and rebuffs. Do you, at least,' said He in conclusion, 'console and rejoice Me by supplying as much as you can for their ingratitude.'"

After having shown in the first revelation the true principle of the new devotion, namely, a love whose flames He could no longer confine in His Heart, Jesus now revealed its character. This devotion would be an amende honorable and an expiation for all the crimes of the world, a consolation for His forsaken Heart. He appealed to some chosen souls to come and supply at the foot of the altars for those that do not love Him; and, by their love and adoration, to render the homage He no longer receives from the multitude grown cold and indifferent. "Do thou, at least," and in speaking thus the Lord addressed Himself to all pious souls, "give Me the consolation of beholding thee supplying for their ingratitude, as far as thou canst." (pp. 168-169.)

 

The Lutheran strain of Protestantism denigrates the horror of Actual Sin by propagating a false, heretical concept of Justification and thus eliminating the need for a visible, hierarchical Church entrusted with the keys to loose and bind souls from Mortal Sin in the Sacrament of Penance and to wipe away Venial Sins at the Confiteor at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. The rejection of the visible, hierarchical Church created by Our Lord Himself and the rejection of the sacerdotal, propitiatory nature of Holy Mass and of the Sacrament of Penance started the world on a path of moral degeneration that continues to unfold itself before our very eyes. The Calvinist strain of Protestantism contributes to this decay as it, of course, rejects the true Church, stressing, as does Lutheranism, the Bible as the only source of Divine Revelation and the primacy of the individual believer as the interpreter of the Bible, helping thereby to combine with Lutheranism to spread theological relativism and positivism as the norms from which have sprung over 33,000 different Protestant denominations, a veritable theological and liturgical Tower of Babel. Souls who find themselves in these sects cannot have their souls regenerated in Sanctifying Grace (if they had been baptized validly to begin with, that is) in the "sacramental systems" or "liturgies" of these false, heretical sects.

Although the Anglican sect, created as result of King Henry VIII's desire to rid himself of his legitimate wife, Catherine of Aragon, so that he could" marry" his mistress, Anne Boleyn, retained many trappings of Catholicism (bishops, priests, what purports to be the Mass, sacramental system, some degree of veneration of the Blessed Mother and some of the saints), its rejection of the authority of the Catholic Church and the changes made in the form of episcopal consecration and of the very form of the offering of what Anglicans purport to be Holy Mass. Pope Leo XIII wrote in Apostolicae Curae, September 18, 1896, that Anglican orders are totally null and void, also noting that his reaffirmation of the constant teaching of the popes on this matter can never be contradicted (which, of course, the false pontiffs of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have done in a de facto way by treating members of the Anglican "clergy" as virtual co-equals when the truth is that, for example, the Anglican "Archbishop" of Canterbury is nothing other than a layman who lives a life of a perpetual Masquerade Party):

Then, considering that this matter, although already decided, had been by certain persons for whatever reason recalled into discussion, and that thence it might follow that a pernicious error would be fostered in the minds of many who might suppose that they possessed the Sacrament and effects of Orders, where these are nowise to be found, it seemed good to Us in the Lord to pronounce our judgment.

Wherefore, strictly adhering, in this matter, to the decrees of the pontiffs, our predecessors, and confirming them most fully, and, as it were, renewing them by our authority, of our own initiative and certain knowledge, we pronounce and declare that ordinations carried out according to the Anglican rite have been, and are, absolutely null and utterly void. . . .

We decree that these letters and all things contained therein shall not be liable at any time to be impugned or objected to by reason of fault or any other defect whatsoever of subreption or obreption of our intention, but are and shall be always valid and in force and shall be inviolably observed both juridically and otherwise, by all of whatsoever degree and preeminence, declaring null and void anything which, in these matters, may happen to be contrariwise attempted, whether wittingly or unwittingly, by any person whatsoever, by whatsoever authority or pretext, all things to the contrary notwithstanding.

 

Over and above the descent into degeneration caused by the heresy of sola Scriptura and private interpretation of Holy Writ, the lack of true sacraments clouds men's minds and weakens their wills, predisposing them to accept all manner of evils. As noted above, divorce and remarriage was among the principal evils, apart from the overthrow of the authority of the true Church, that is, promoted by all strains of Protestantism. Over 72,000 Catholics were put to death by the orders of the lustful King Henry VIII between the years 1534 and 1547, fully 3.1% of the population of England at the time. (An equivalent figure today in this country would be a little over nine million people.) Protestantism was born in a blood revolt against Our Lord and His Mystical Bride, the Catholic Church, and has robbed people of access to the fullness of the Deposit of Faith as it has been entrusted exclusively by Him to that true Church and has robbed people of the eternally life-giving and life-saving helps provided by her sacraments. There is only destination to which such madness leads: degeneration.

The modern civil state is founded on this madness, endorsing under cover of civil law and permitting the promotion in all aspects of popular culture one evil after another. Writing in Immortale Dei, Pope Leo XIII  condemned such licentiousness, which is but the fruit of the antinomianism, the belief that everyone goes to Heaven no manner what he believes or how he acts, that arose as a result of Luther's revolution against the Catholic Church. Luther opposed antinomianism but did not see that it was but the logical and inexorably consequence of his own his false, heretical doctrine of "justification by faith alone.

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 the business of life, from the making of 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.

 

A civil state based on the licentiousness wrought by the Protestant Revolt and cemented by Judeo-Masonry winds up removing all restraints in the realm of science and technology, among other areas. Developments said to represent "progress" in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries forced the leaders of some Protestant sects to try to adapt their idiosyncratic "teachings" to reflect such "progress" (evolutionism, social engineering, psychology, sociology, anthropology), presaging the rise of Modernism in the Catholic Church as an effort to "adapt" Catholic doctrine to the "needs" of "modern" man. Thus it is that the Anglican sect sought in 1930 to find some way to endorse the use of a certain type of contraceptive device for married couples who had a "serious" reason to prevent the births of more children. This "search" resulted in the Lambeth Committee's decision to endorse such an approach for married couples, prompting this editorial from The Washington Post on March 22, 1931:

It is impossible to reconcile the doctrine of the divine institution of marriage with any modernistic plan for the mechanical regulation of human birth. The church must either reject the plain teachings of the Bible or reject schemes for the “scientific” production of human souls. Carried to its logical conclusion, the committee’s report if carried into effect would lead to the death-knell of marriage as a holy institution, by establishing degrading practices which would encourage indiscriminate immorality. The suggestion that the use of legalized contraceptives would be “careful and restrained” is preposterous.

It is the misfortune of the churches that they are too often misused by visionaries for the promotion of "reforms" in fields foreign to religion. The departures from Christian teaching are astounding in many cases, leaving the beholder aghast at the willingness of some churches to discard the ancient injunction to teach "Christ and Him crucified." If the churches are to become organizations for political and "scientific" propaganda they should be honest and reject the Bible, scoff at Christ as an obsolete and unscientific teacher, and strike out boldly as champions as politics and science as modern substitutes for the old-time religion.

 

There was enough residual Catholicism in the world extant in 1931 for such a remarkable editorial to have been published in a secular newspaper, one that has lost its institutional memory over the decades and has come to support the very evils its former editorial page writers once condemned. The same process, however, that saw the Anglican sect's endorsement of contraception would lead to subsequent acceptance of surgical baby-killing, at least in some instances, and perversion and a whole host of other evils in one Protestant sect after another. The consequences of rejecting the true Faith and creating man-made "churches" with synthetic, invalid liturgical ceremonies are devastating.

Well, a parallel path of degeneration has been followed by the counterfeit church of conciliarism. A new theology for a new religion, despite all protestations to the contrary by the conciliarists and their apologists, has resulted in a veritable theological and liturgical "free-for-all" in one formerly Catholic institution after another that is now in the control of the conciliar revolutionaries. Almost any kind of heterodoxy is tolerated on allegedly "Catholic" college campuses and universities. Roger Mahony, the conciliar "archbishop" of Los Angeles, California, gave an award recently to a "Father" Robert Lawton, S.J., the President of Loyola-Marymount University, who has given his permission for pro-abortion speakers to appear on the campus and who also approved of the production and presentation of a theatrical "play" that has a title so offensive that it will not be used on this site. This is standard operating procedure in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, so much so that Mahony knows "Rome" will do nothing to do him for this offense against Our Lord and His Deposit of Faith. After all, Mahony is still in power some three months after agreeing to pay out $660 million to victims of his perverted priests.

Similarly, nothing will happen to George Niederauer, the conciliar "archbishop" in San Francisco, California, for his giving what purports to be Holy Communion in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service at Most Holy Redeemer Church ten days ago day, on October 7, 2007, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, to two drag queens (transvestites) who are members of the nefarious "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence." In the true spirit of conciliarism, Niederauer's first apology has been followed by a second one, which is supposed to make his scandalous behavior excusable. Here is the text of the second Niederauer "apology," which is contained in a column dated October 19, 2007, in the archdiocesan newspaper, Catholic San Francisco:

A recent event that greatly concerns me needs some additional explanation - and with it an apology.

On Sunday, October 7, 2007, I celebrated Mass at Most Holy Redeemer Parish here in San Francisco, during my first visit there. The congregation was devout and the liturgy was celebrated with reverence. I noticed no demonstration, no protest, no disruption of the Eucharist.

At Communion time, toward the end of the line, two strangely dressed persons came to receive Communion. As I recall one of them wore a large flowered hat or garland. I did not recognize either of them as wearing mock religious garb.

Afterward it was made clear to me that these two people were members of the organization "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence," who have long made a practice of mocking the Catholic Church in general and religious women in particular. My predecessors, Cardinal William Levada and Archbishop John Quinn, have both denounced this group's abuse of sacred things many times in the past. Only last year, I instructed the Administrator of Most Holy Redeemer Parish to cancel the group's use of the hall on the parish grounds, once I became aware of it.

In the year and a half since I arrived in San Francisco, there have been several instances of offensive attacks on Catholic faith and devotional life. Only two weeks ago Catholic San Francisco carried my remarks condemning the derisive use of the image of the Last Supper on a poster printed by another local group.

Although I had often seen photographs of members of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, I had never encountered them in person until October 7th. I did not recognize who these people were when they approached me.

After the event, I realized that they were members of this particular organization and that giving them Holy Communion had been a mistake.

I apologize to the Catholics of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and to Catholics at large for doing so.

The manner of dress and public comportment of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence is deeply offensive to women religious and to the witness of holiness and Christian service that women religious have offered to the Church and to the world for centuries. The citizens of San Francisco have ample reason to be grateful to women religious for their unfailing support of those most in need, and to be deeply offended when that service is belittled so outrageously and offensively.

Someone who dresses in a mock religious habit to attend Mass does so to make a point. If people dress in a manner clearly intended to mock what we hold sacred, they place themselves in an objective situation in which it is not appropriate for them to receive Holy Communion, much less for a minister of the Church to give the Sacrament to them. Therefore I conclude that the presence of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at the Mass on October 7th was intended as a provocative gesture. In that moment I failed to recognize it as such, and for that, as I have said, I must apologize.

 

If one apology doesn't work, well, then, try another. Please note that this particular"apology" contains no condemnation of the perverted behavior represented by these drag queens who approached Niederauer on October 7, 2007. Has Niederauer ever apologized for praising Brokeback Mountain last year? This "apology" was prompted by public outrage over what he had done. He will continue to serve as the conciliar "archbishop" of San Francisco. Father Steven Meriwether will continue to serve as pastor of Most Holy Redeemer Church as it congratulates on the birth of twins and as his parish sponsors a booth at the annual "fair" that is held in a public celebration of sin. William Levada's hand-picked successor, his classmate and a co-owner of a beach house in Southern California with him, approved by Joseph Ratzinger himself, will stay in power to harm souls and to countenance grave sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. Never mind, Joseph Ratzinger is still the friend of Tradition, right?

We are witnessing the degeneration of the counterfeit church of conciliarism for precisely the same reasons as Protestantism degenerated into the abyss of naturalism over the centuries: a rejection of the unchanging nature of dogmatic truth, a changing of liturgical rites to incorporate many of the elements of Protestantism and the spirit of Judeo-Masonry, the adoption of a rite of episcopal consecration and a rite of priestly ordination that renders Holy Orders as null and void as those in the Anglican sect. A lack of Sanctifying Grace within the conciliar structures leads to the ready acceptance of condemned propositions as being perfectly compatible with the Faith, leading as well to the acceptance of the public promotion and glorification of sins, including those of perversity, as a matter of "human rights." Even the empirical statistics prove the devastation wrought by the spirit of the new, synthetic religion of conciliarism (loss of attendance at the "weekend liturgy," loss of belief in the Real Presence and the sacrificial nature of the Mass, loss of belief in the sacerdotal nature of the priesthood, loss of belief in the indissolubility of a ratified and consummated marriage, a rejection of the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the Natural Law on such matters as abortion, contraception, in vitro fertilization, usury--and any number of areas, a lack of belief in the inerrancy of Sacred Scripture, a lack of belief in some instances in the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and of the Immaculate Conception and Perpetual Virginity of His Most Blessed Mother, among so many other things).

Much like the Anglican sect, the factions within the counterfeit church of conciliarism make war upon one another fairly regularly, trying to keep the coalition of disunited minds together. The fact that there such a number of disunited minds in the counterfeit church of conciliarism as exists in the Anglican and other Protestant sects should speak volumes about the fact that conciliarism is not Catholicism, which demands there to be a unity of minds, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896:

Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful - "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages certainly need no interpreter; they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides, all who profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It is of the greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to which many are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity should be recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ.

 

One of the assurances Catholics are given by some of the defenders of the legitimacy of the conciliar robber barons is that such things as the International Theological Commission's "findings"on the fate of infants who die before baptism is that they do not represent the "official" teaching of the Catholic Church, that "do not touch the Church's magisterium." Apart from the fact that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is not the Catholic Church and that none of its pronouncements, official or unofficial, bind anyone's consciences, the conciliar officials themselves know full well that they can use various ruses to poison the minds of ordinary Catholics with novelties and "opinions" that contradict the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church while appearing to preserve their own "purity" insofar as ecclesiastical legitimacy is concerned. They know this. What matters, however, is that the the conciliar revolutionaries personally believe what they propagated by means of "unofficial" pronouncements. And it is personal belief in that which is contrary to the Catholic Faith that causes one to fall from the Faith by means of the Divine positive law and thus disqualifies one from holding ecclesiastical office as he has expelled himself from the unity and the bosom of the Catholic Church:

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).

The need of this divinely instituted means for the preservation of unity, about which we speak is urged by St. Paul in his epistle to the Ephesians. In this he first admonishes them to preserve with every care concord of minds: "Solicitous to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. iv., 3, et seq.). And as souls cannot be perfectly united in charity unless minds agree in faith, he wishes all to hold the same faith: "One Lord, one faith," and this so perfectly one as to prevent all danger of error: "that henceforth we be no more children, 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" (Eph. iv., 14): and this he teaches is to be observed, not for a time only - "but until we all meet in the unity of faith...unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ" (13). But, in what has Christ placed the primary principle, and the means of preserving this unity? In that - "He gave some Apostles - and other some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (11-12).

 

A drop of poison. These words have meaning. A tragic meaning in the context of conciliarism's devastation of so many souls. Indeed, as was reported on the Traditio site recently, two women in the United States of America were listening to some conciliar"bishop" discourse on the "findings" of the International Theological Commission on the fate of infants who die before Baptism, hearing him say that all unbaptized babies go straight to Heaven. I know. Not even the ill-named "commission" wrote that, qualifying their conclusions by saying that "good hope" could be held out for such babies. Poison works its way as it will. A "qualified conclusion," which masks a not so thinly a belief in the heresy of universal salvation, leads to precisely what the conciliarists assured us would not happen as a result of the International Theological Commission's "findings:" that women would choose to kill their babies in order to send them to Heaven! Luther did not intend to produce antinomianism by propagating his false doctrine of justification by faith alone. The Anglicans did not intend to open the floodgates to infidelity and promiscuity and perversity with the Lambeth Committee's report in 1930. Conciliarism may not have intended for babies to be killed. The net result of false doctrine, however, is always more false doctrine. Conciliarism and Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry are each on parallel paths of degeneration.

This simply cannot go on much longer. The madman in Washington, D.C., who belongs to Skull and Bones, George W. Bush, is threatening nuclear war over Iran's nuclear development program, which might indeed include the development of nuclear weapons. Russian Federated Republic President Vladimir Putin made it clear yesterday while in Iran that no nation should consider attacking Iran, not exactly a nonaggression pact but a definite indication that Russian forces might defend Iran and retaliate against a country whose military forces attack Iran. Bush, who is advised by a variety of Protestant dispensationalists, people who are, in effect, Christian Zionists who believe that the State of Israel can do no wrong and who want to "expedite" Our Lord's Second Coming in glory at the end of time, and Putin, who wants to demonstrate Russian military might in the post-Soviet era have staked out positions that could well lead to the sort of chastisement that the celebration of sin, both by those in the civil realm and those in the realm of false religious sects, has made necessary. We should strive with especial assiduousness to stay in a state of Sanctifying Grace at all times.

A few people wrote to me after yesterday's article to ask if it is "too late" for there to be the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. No, the Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph, although I admit that it might be at the end of time which is why I qualified my comments yesterday to state that there is no harm in praying for the proper fulfillment of Our Lady's Fatima Message in the event that the hour is indeed too late. She knows if it is too late or not. We don't. Thus, we keep praying, giving all of our prayers and sacrifices and penances to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit. Anyone who is totally consecrated, either by means of the formula of Saint Louis de Montfort or Father Maximilian Kolbe, to Jesus through Mary knows that no prayer is ever wasted. None. Our Lady will use everything we give her as her consecrated slaves. Everything. We must simply try to live more penitentially and to do more Rosaries of reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world as we cling to the true bishops and true priests in the catacombs who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the "legitimacy" of its false shepherds, who are nothing other than wolves in shepherds' clothing.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, who faced fierce opposition from the horrible Jansenist heretics and their sympathizers for her efforts to spread the "new" devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus (opposition that would last years after Saint Margaret Mary's death), tried to explain to King Louis XIV that he had to obey Our Lord's own wish for the consecration of the entirety of France to His Most Sacred Heart. The king's refusal was as catastrophic for France as conciliarism's warfare against the Fatima Message in general and its Third Secret in particular has been for the good of men and their countries as it travels on parallel paths of degeneration with Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry. The Right Reverend Emile Bougaud wrote the following in The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque:

There is to the devotion of the Sacred Heart a private side and a social side. Margaret Mary begins with the first.

"In fine, my dear Mother," she writes, " are we not all consumed in the burning heart of His pure love? It will reign, this amiable Heart, in spite of Satan, his imps and his agents. This world transports me with joy. But to be able to express to you the great graces and benedictions it will attract upon all that shall have procured it the most honor and glory is what I cannot do in the way that He has given me to understand it.

"He has made me see the devotion to His Sacred Heart as a beautiful tree, from all eternity to spring up and take root in the midst of our Institute, and to extend its branches into the houses that compose it, so that each may gather from it fruits most pleasing to her liking and taste. But He desires that the daughters of the Visitation should distribute abundantly to all that will eat of it the fruits of this sacred tree. By this means He desires to restore life to many; and, by withdrawing them from the way of perdition, and destroying the empire of Satan in their heart, to establish in them that of His love."

Behold the first design, the supernatural, the social side of devotion to the Sacred Heart, that which regards souls at all times and in all places. Margaret Mary continues: "But He does not wish to stop here. He has still greater designs, which can be executed only by His almighty power."

Which are those designs that the Saint calls the greatest, and for which she invokes the All-powerful?

"He desires, then, it seems to me, to enter with pomp and magnificence into the palaces of kings and princes, therein to be honored as much as He has been despised, humiliated, and outraged in His Passion. May He receive as much pleasure therein at seeing the great ones of the world abasing and humbling themselves before Him as He once felt bitterness at beholding Himself annihilated at their feet!"

The tone of these words convinces one that Margaret Mary, when uttering them,. was in a sort of ecstasy. What follows leaves no room for doubt on the subject.

"Here are," she continues, "the words that I heart on this point: 'MAKE KNOWN TO THE ELDEST SON OF MY HEART,' SPEAKING OF OUR KING, 'THAT AS HIS TEMPORAL BIRTH WAS OBTAINED THROUGH DEVOTION TO THE MERITS OF MY HOLY CHILDHOOD, IN THE SAME MANNER HE WILL OBTAIN HIS BIRTH OF GRACE AND ETERNAL GLORY BY THE CONSECRATION THAT HE WILL MAKE OF HIMSELF TO MY ADORABLE HEART, which wishes to triumph over those of the great ones of the world. IT WISHES TO REIGN IN HIS PALACE, TO BE PAINTED ON HIS STANDARDS AND ENGRAVEN ON HIS ARMS, IN ORDER TO RENDER HIM VICTORIOUS OVER ALL HIS ENEMIES.'"

Margaret Mary spoke only of the king, because, in the spirit of those times, the king and France were one. The king personified all the souls of France living and breathing in one single soul.

To comprehend Almighty God's request with regard to the standard, we must recall that, from the earliest ages, France had always had a sacred standard, one that was not borne to vulgar combats; one that rested in the sanctuary of St. Denis under the shadow of the country's holy protectors. It was removed from its sacred shrine only when the monarch headed the army, when it was solemnly sought in the hour of the greatest danger, or when it was to be carried afar to the holy wars. It symbolized the religious soul of France, and floated like a sacred prayer amid the nation's banners. It was a standard of this kind that God had given to Joan of Arc. He had prescribed its form and emblems, and communicated to it the secret virtue that roused exhausted France to unhoped-for triumphs. Today, through the lips of the virgin of Paray, God asked of the king of France something of the same kind, a sacred standard which was to symbolize an act of faith. It was to be borne side by side with the nation's flag, and, in a voice that could be distinctly heard above the proverbial bravado of her enemies, proclaim that France places her trust in the blessing of God.

Mother de Saumaise was probably rather surprised by so serious a communication and one that tallied so little with what she knew of Margaret Mary's humility. She made no reply, and our sweet and humble Marguerite became anxious at her silence. Were her letters lost? Would Mother de Saumaise, until then so courageous for the interests of the Heart of Jesus, hesitate before this new perspective? Again she wrote to her, August 12, 1689: "I declare to you, my dear Mother, that your silence regarding the two long letters that I have had the honor to write you has given me a little pain. I know not to what to attribute it, except that perhaps I have set down my thoughts too freely and simply. I should perhaps have kept them concealed under a humble silence. You have only to tell me this, and I assure you that it will greatly gratify my inclination never to speak of these things, but to bury them in the secret of the Sacred Heart of my Divine Master. He is witness of the violence that I must do myself to speak of them. I should never have resolved to do so, had He not made known to me that it is for the interest of His glory; and for that I should cheerfully sacrifice millions of lives, if I had them, through my great desire to make Him known, loved, and adored. But perhaps you have not received my letters, and that would be still more afflicting to me." It was perhaps in the fear that these letters were lost, and that in the event of her death her secret might not descend with her into the tomb, that Margaret Mary reduced to writing the following. It was in the month of August, some days after the 12th, perhaps the 25th, the feast of St. Louis. It is less a letter than a sort of declaration, throughout which reign unaccountable solemnity and majesty:

"Live + Jesus!

"August, 1689,

"The Eternal Father, wishing to repair the bitterness and agony that the Adorable Heart of His Divine Son endured in the palaces of earthly princes, amidst the humiliations and outrages of His Passion, wishes to establish His empire in the heart of our great monarch, of whom He desires to make use in the execution of His designs, which is to have an edifice erected in which shall be a picture of His divine Heart, to receive the consecration and homage of the king and all the court.

"Moreover, this divine Heart wishes to make itself the defender of the sacred person of the king, his protector against all his enemies. Therefore has it chosen him as its faithful friend, to have the Mass authorized by the Holy Apostolic See, and to obtain all the other privileges that ought to accompany devotion to this divine Heart.

"It is by this divine Heart  that God wishes to dispense the treasures of His graces of sanctification and salvation, by bestowing His benediction on the king's undertakings, according a happy success to his arms, and making him triumph over the malice of his enemies."

A consecration of the nation to the Heart of Jesus, a national temple raised to the Heart of Jesus, an inscription to the Heart of Jesus on the national standard--this is what Our Lord asked of the blessed Sister. Under this condition: He will render the king, that is, France, victorious over all her enemies, and will give her an eternal reign of honor and glory.

Saint Margaret Mary then goes on to recount the best means for realizing this plan; the best means for reaching the ears of Louis XIV. She mentions Pere de la Chaise, the king's confessor, who at this time enjoyed great favor: "If the goodness of God," says she, "inspires this great servant of the Divine Majesty to employ the power He has given him, he may rest assured that he has never done an action more useful to God's glory, more salutary to his own soul, nor for which he will be better recompensed.

"It will be very difficult, on account of the great obstacles Satan purposes putting in the way, as well as of all the other difficulties God will permit in order to His power seen. He can effect all that He pleases, though He does not always do so, not wishing to do violence to man's will. For this we must pray much and get prayers."

We may have remarked that in all these letters there breathes a deep and holy enthusiasm. The Heart of Jesus will reign in spite of its enemies! All that God wishes from France--that national consecration, that national temple, that inscription to the Heart of Jesus on a standard,--all will be accomplished; but it will take time, and nothing less than the omnipotence of God is necessary. Fearful misfortunes will, moreover, take place in the mean time.

We have not Mother de Saumaise's answer to his letter of August, 1689. She who had known how to reach Rome and arouse the thoughts of the Sovereign Pontiffs would neglect nothing to to reach even Louis XIV. We know that she had recourse to the Superioress of the Visitation of Chaillot, the refuge of Mlle. de la Fayette, where dwelt the queen of England, and which held, so to say, its door open to the court of Louis XIV. Might it happen that Pere de la Chaise would not dare to speak of it to the king? Might it happen that Louis XIV's soul would not be sufficiently humble to comprehend the Christian grandeur of such a thought? Be that as it may, those tender and magnanimous advances to the Heart of Jesus were not understood, and Margaret Mary's last admonitions were without avail, were lost in oblivion. They were, indeed, her last words, we are at the close of 1689, and she was nearing her death.

1689! Involuntarily we pause at this date, for it evokes another, 1789! A century has just rolled by between the epoch in which the humble virgin, hidden in the depths of a cloister, pointed out to Louis XIV the ark of salvation prepared for him by the goodness of God, and that other epoch in which arose the storm that was to sweep away the monarchy, and with it all other monarchies. If told in the days of his splendor of the perils in store in France, of the necessity of seeking a remedy, a shelter far above man, yea, even in the Adorable Heart of Jesus, Louis XIV would have smiled incredulously. And yet this was true. From Louis XIV France descended to Louis XV, from Louis XV to Voltaire, from Voltaire to Robespierre and Marat; that is to say, from pride to corruption, from corruption to impiety, and from both the one and the other to a hatred of God and man which was to bring about her universal punishment.

Ah, this was only the beginning of our sorrows! From 1789 let us go to 1889. There we find a new century, one scarcely less sad than its predecessor; one in which minds are darkened and hearts chilled; one in which nothing is lasting; one whose every cycle of fifteen years witnessed a storm that carried away a throne; one in which man lives amidst constantly recurring political convulsions, in distrust of the present, in uncertainty of the future.

It was for such times that had been providentially prepared, and it was in the midst of such catastrophes, that we see making its way, painfully but surely, devotion to that Heart which is meek and humble, which suited so well the age of Louis XIV; which is pure, for it was of purity that Louis XV's reign had so much need; which was consumed by love and devotedness, qualities that would not have proved prejudicial to the age of such as Robespierre; which raises sad hearts and comforts crushed souls; which suits our own time and all times. (Right Reverend Emile Bougaud, The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. Published in 1890 by Benziger Brothers. Reprinted by TAN Books and Publishers, 1990, pp. 267-273.)

 

Joseph Ratzinger and his band of conciliar revolutionaries have made their "reconciliation" with the principles of 1789, rejecting the necessity of restoring the Social Reign of Christ the King as it must be exercised by the Catholic Church and thus rejecting the obligation of the civil state to recognize that same Catholic Church as its official religion and to seek to foster those conditions in the temporal realm that will make it more possible for its citizens to sanctify and thus save their souls as members of the Catholic Church. This places conciliarism on the same path of degeneration as Protestantism, which rejected entirely the Social Reign of Christ the King, and Judeo-Masonry, which makes warfare against that Social Reign of Christ the King and has substituted the religiously indifferentist state in its place, permitting an explosion of evil to take place under cover of law and in every aspect of popular culture in the United States of America and around the world.

Pope Leo XIII noted that any alliance with the forces of evil is evil:

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

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself told Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque that He must reign over all men and their nations. May our prayers and good works and penances and humiliations, given to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, help more and more people to recognize the errors of Modernity in the world and Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism so that they will see themselves and the world in which they live more clearly through the eyes of the true Faith.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

 

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us now and the hour of our deaths. Amen.

All to thee, Blessed Mother. All to thy Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

 

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Luke 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.

Saint Hedwig, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Francis Borgia, pray for us.

Saint Edward the Confessor, pray for us.

Saint John Leonard, pray for us.

Saint Dionysisus (Denis), Rusticus and Eleutherius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Placidus and Companions, pray for us.

Saint Bruno, pray for us.

Saint Wenceslaus, pray for us.

Saint Jerome, pray for us.

Saint Remigius, pray for us.

Saint Clotilde, pray for us.

Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.

Pope Saint Linus, pray for us.

Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.

Saint Raymond Pennafort, pray for us.

Saint Raymond Nonnatus, pray for us.

Saint Thecla, pray for us.

Saint Matthew, pray for us.

Saint Eustachius and Family, pray for us.

Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Cupertino, pray for us.

Saint Januarius, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Giles, pray for us.

Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.

Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.

Saint Nicomedes, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

Pope Saint Zephyrinus, pray for us.

Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us.

Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.

Saint Philip Benizi, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

Saint John Eudes, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us, pray for us.

Saint Agapitus, pray for us.

Saint Helena, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.

Saints Monica, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint  Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Turibius, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Basil, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.

Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.

Blessed Humbeline, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Juan Diego, pray for us.

Father Maximilian Kolbe,M.I., pray for us.

Father Frederick Faber, pray for us.

 

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.