Pure, Unadulterated Americanism

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The diabolical heresy of Americanism exercises its considerable quasi-religious influence across not only the ecclesiastical divides of Catholicism. Oh, no. Americanism exercises its sway throughout the popular culture of the United States of America. Many abject secularists and out-and-out atheists join with adherents of Talmudic Judaism in their embrace of the Americanist errors of religious liberty, separation of Church and State and freedom of speech and freedom of press, which permits them the opportunity to give full-throat under the cover of law to their errors that originate from the devil and are designed to lead souls into Hell for all eternity and as social order is rent asunder as a result. Protestants, especially those of the Calvinist bent, make Americanism a religious cause celebre, celebrating the founders of the United States of America as plaster saints and their "doctrines" as beyond question, received from the very hand of God Himself. And the Mormons? Well, Mormonism is a quintessential homegrown Americanist religion, founded by a confidence man, the Freemason Joseph Smith, who believed that the United States of America was to be the New Jerusalem and that he was the "prophet" of the "latter-day saints.

Mormonism is an American ethnocentric sect. Joseph Smith, a native of Palmyra, New York, contended that the fictitious "Book of Mormon," delivered to him by the "angel Moroni," "revealed" that the Garden of Eden was located near Jackson, Missouri, but that the great Flood washed Noah over to the Middle East. Mormonism means to "restore" the purity of Christian doctrine was "corrupted" following the death of Saint Peter and the other Apostles, using the United States of America, the "New Jerusalem," as the instrumentality to effect this end. Mormonism embraces what is called "American exceptionalism," teaching that the "American creed" is the foundation of all social order, especially as it relates to the fundamental heresy of "religious liberty" (or "religious freedom"). Adherents are taught that they will be given their own planets, prompting one comedian back in the 1960s, just before "political correctness" arose to censor such quips, to use the following line in a act on some long forgotten variety show on television:

A Jehovah's Witness came to my door today to ask me to join their cult. I said, "You say only 144,000 people are getting into Heaven. The Mormons say I get my own planet. Why should I join you?"

 

As we know, of course, Mormonism is a false religion, raised up by the devil to enshrine Americanism and the "American way" of thinking and acting as a "civil creed" that must form the patterns of daily living. Like Mohammedanism, Mormonism is a false religion that believes itself to have "revealed truth," that they have a mission to convert everyone on the face of the earth to their false, diabolical beliefs. Mormonism is particularly devoted to proselytizing itself in Latin America, where many Catholics, upset with the apostasies of conciliarism, have been convinced by the self-assured preaching of Mormon "missionaries" to leave the counterfeit church of conciliarism in the past three decades to join up with a cult that has been counterfeit from the very beginning. The fact that Mormonism opposes some abortions (permitting the ubiquitous "exceptions in the "hard" cases) and opposes conjugal immorality (apart from its initial embrace of polygamy, that is!) appeals to many poorly-catechized Catholics in Latin America, many of whom are sick and tired of screeds about "liberation theology," representing, once again, another example of how conciliarism has failed the cause of the salvation of souls so miserably.

Although Mormonism has very few adherents, relatively speaking, thirteen million worldwide (half of those in the United States of America), it represents an amazing confluence of the errors of Modernity (leaving aside their numerous dogmatic heresies concerning the nature of the Blessed Trinity and of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Redemptive Act on the wood of the Holy Cross) that unite it with conciliarism in many respects, especially regarding the nature of Church-State relations. This is why former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney's address, given at the George Herbert Walker Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A and M University (which was called the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas when my late father and his very alive brother studied veterinary medicine there in the late-1930s) in College Station, Texas, is so very significant and is deserving of a protracted commentary: significant parts of Romney's address could have been given by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who rejects the Catholic teaching on the necessity of the confessionally Catholic civil state, himself.

Mitt Romney is the son of late Governor of the State of Michigan and the former Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development during the administration of the late President Richard Milhous Nixon, George Romney, who was seen by almost every political analyst as the proverbial "front-runner" for the 1968 Republican Party presidential nomination until he said told interviewer Lou Gordon on WKBD-TV in Detroit, Michigan, on August 31, 1967, that he had been "brainwashed" by generals during a tour of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). As it turns out, George Romney was, in all likelihood, quite correct, although he was mocked pretty roundly at the time for what he said. The once shining "front-runner" had to drop out of the race on February 28, 1968, after fellow liberal Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, then the Governor of the State of New York, told reporters that he would "open" to a draft at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, in August of that year. That dried up George Romney's funding and ended his campaign, which was characterized on occasion by commentaries about his Mormonism (George Romney's parents had been Mormon "missionaries" in Our Lady's country, Mexico, which is where he was born). George Romney never addressed that issue as his eldest son, Mitt, did yesterday at the George Herbert Walker Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

The title of Mitt Romney's speech yesterday, "Faith in America," says it all. It dovetails very nicely with the commentary I posted two days ago, Fascists for Freedom, displaying every Americanist myth imaginable. Here are some key excerpts, following by commentary and juxtaposing Romney's Americanism with the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, which binds every human being on the face of this earth, Catholic and non-Catholic alike (if something is true, you see, it binds all people at all times in all circumstances in all places):

There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adams' words: 'We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people.'

 

The nation's founders "discovered" the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom? Well, the Protestant and Masonic and Deist founders of the United States of America, aided and abetted by some prominent Catholics who presaged conciliarism by about 186 years, did indeed "protect" the heresy of "religious freedom," enshrining this slap in the face to the Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His true Church in an Article VI of the Constitution of the United States of America, which forbids any religious test for one to hold office in the Federal government, and in the Constitution's First Amendment. This has made it possible for adherents of false religions and false philosophies and even atheism itself to publicly propagate their errors, which blaspheme God by daring to assert that He has not revealed His truths definitively and exclusively to the Catholic Church and which thus deceives the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. God does not want human beings steeped in an abyss of confusion as to what He has revealed. He wants all men in all places at all times and in all circumstances to submit themselves unhesitatingly to the Deposit of Faith that He has entrusted to the Church that He Himself founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

Pope Pius VII, writing in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, condemned religious liberty, as a heresy.

For We had hoped, affairs having so happily changed, not only that all impediments organized against the Catholic religion in France would be removed with the utmost speed (as We have unceasingly demanded), but also that, as the opportunity presented itself, provision would also be made for her splendour and ornament. We saw at once that a deep silence was preserved in the constitution concerning this, and that there was not even any mention made of Almighty God, by whom kings reign and princes command. You will find it easy, Venerable Brother, to convince yourself of how grave, how bitter and how painful this matter was to Us, to whom has been committed by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Our Lord, the whole of Christendom. For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me."

But We ought no less to wonder at and grieve over the freedom of printing guaranteed and permitted by Article 23 of the constitution; by which indeed the experience of past times itself teaches, if anyone could doubt it, what great perils and what certain poisoning of faith and morals are encouraged. For it is quite clear that it is principally by this means that, first, the morals of people were depraved, then their faith corrupted and overthrown, and finally seditions, riots and rebellions stirred up among them. Given the present state of great corruption of mankind, these most grave evils would still be an object of fear if - which may God prevent - the free power were permitted to anyone of publishing whatever he pleased. Nor indeed are We without other causes of grief in this new constitution of the kingdom, especially in articles 6, 24 and 25. We shall forbear to expound these to you individually since We do not doubt that your Fraternity will easily perceive in what direction these articles tend. Indeed in such great and so just perturbation of Our soul We are comforted by the hope that the king-designate does not subscribe to the articles of the proposed constitution which We have mentioned; indeed We promise ourselves this most certainly, on account of the ancestral piety and zeal for religion with which We have no doubt that he is enkindled. But since, if We were silent during the peril of faith and of souls, We should most certainly betray Our ministry, We have decided meanwhile to send this letter to you, Venerable Brother, whose faith and priestly strength have been so persuasively demonstrated to Us, not only so that it may be thoroughly known that We most vehemently reject those things which We have hitherto expounded to you, and whatever may perchance be proposed contrary to the Catholic religion, but also so that, having conferred also with the other bishops of the French churches, you would apply yourself to the counsels and studies which We have enjoined upon you in order that the grave evils which, unless they be most swiftly driven away, threaten the Church in France, should be averted, and that those laws and decrees and other sanctions of government concerning which, as you well know, We have never ceased to lament in recent years, and which are still flourishing, should be removed

 

Pope Gregory XVI reiterated this condemnation in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832:

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

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

 

Pope Pius IX cited Pope Gregory XI's own condemnation of religious liberty as "insanity" in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864:

Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that "there is one God, one faith, one baptism" may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that "those who are not with Christ are against Him," and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore "without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate." Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: "He who is for the See of Peter is for me." A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: "The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?"

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

Pope Leo XIII put the matter this way in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from 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.

 

No one is morally free to propagate error under cover of law. While Holy Mother Church does recognize, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Libertas, June 20, 1888, that the civil state might have to tolerate the private holding of erroneous beliefs and the private practice of the rites of false religious sects, it is a grave and fundamental error to hold that those who adhere to false beliefs, whether religious or philosophically, have a "right" from God to propagate them openly in civil society. They do not. Such, however, is of the essence of the American founding that has been praised so lavishly by Joseph Ratzinger in his days before becoming "Benedict XVI," a praise he lavished in his December 22, 2005, curial address as follows:

In the meantime, however, the modern age had also experienced developments. People came to realize that the American Revolution was offering a model of a modern State that differed from the theoretical model with radical tendencies that had emerged during the second phase of the French Revolution.

 

Alas, the American Revolution and the French Revolution are but two aspects of the same anti-Incarnational coin, manifesting its beliefs in the supremacy of the "rights of man" in different ways. The American Revolution paid obeisance to a generic concept of God and to man's fallen nature, relying upon the Roman concept of "civic virtue" to build the pluralist state of which the conciliarists, including Joseph Ratzinger, are so enamored. The French Revolution posited the pantheistic deification of man. They differ only in details and in methodology. Both are united at the hip concerning the rejection of the Social Reign of Christ the King. It is not for nothing that Joseph Ratzinger wrote in Principles of Catholic Theology in 1982 that the "Second" Vatican Council represented the "Church's official reconciliation with the principles of the new era inaugurated in 1789."

John Adams, cited by Mitt Romney in his "Faith in America" address yesterday, was a virulent anti-Catholic, a naturalist who exalted the state constitutions of the original thirteen states for the fact that they had not been written under "consultation with the gods" or that they had anything to do with the "mystery" of holy oil and holy water. He considered the Catholic Faith to be but a superstition that had enslaved man during the Middle Ages.

The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.

Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other of holy water: the people universally were too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice; and their leaders, or more properly followers, were men of too much honour to attempt it. Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind. ( President John Adams: "A Defense of the [State] Constitutions of Government of the United States of America," 1787-1788)

Furthermore, John Adams engaged in an active correspondence with his one-time collaborator and then his adversary, Thomas Jefferson, after they had been reconciled in the years following the end of the latter's term as President of the United States on March 4, 1809. Adams wrote the following to his friend Adams to indicate the contempt that both of them shared for the Catholic Faith:

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion? (Letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821)

I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross. Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! (Letter to Thomas Jefferson, quoted in 200 Years of Disbelief, by James Hauck)

 

Oh, yes, that John Adams, the "defender" of religion. I forgot. No one who writes such things is a friend of God or of the good of his nation, which is premised upon the obedience of its citizens to the binding precepts He has entrusted to the Catholic Church for their eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. To quote John Adams on the "importance" of "religion" is beneath contempt. Does Mitt Romney endorse the anti-Catholicism of the founders of this nation, including John Adams, whom he quoted so favorably?

Here are a few more reminders of the anti-Catholicism of the "founders" for those who want to subordinate their Catholic Faith to the anti-Incarnational views of men who hated the Faith and believed in the lie that personal and social order could be obtained without It.

To James Madison, the "father" of the Constitution and the fourth President of the United States of America:

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."—letter to William Bradford, Jr„ April I, 1774

". . . Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which pervades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest."—spoken at the Virginia convention on ratification of the Constitution, June 1778.

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."—-A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the Virginia General Assembly, 1785

 

To the Deist Thomas Jefferson:

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. (Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December, 1813.)

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. (Letter to Roger Weigthman, June 24, 1826, ten days before Jefferson's death.)

 

Ladies and gentlemen, when are we going to learn that the one and only standard of genuine human liberty is the Cross of the Divine Redeemer and that no man and no nation is truly free unless each chooses to submit to the sweet yoke of that Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, recognizing His right to reign as the King over men and as King over nations as that Social Kingship must be exercised by the Catholic Church? The idolatry of the "founders" by Catholics must cease. These were men who had a fundamental hostility to the Catholic Faith. Hostility to the Catholic Faith is hostility to God Himself. Don't you understand this, folks? One cannot say He loves God and be hostile to His true religion? It is that simple. Why do Catholics continued to exalt men who had ideas that came from Hell and have opened the path wide to the abyss of social disorder in which we find ourselves at present. No matter how sincerely the founders may have held their false beliefs, it is a truth that false beliefs lead to bad consequences. It is false to believe that men do not need to submit themselves, either individually or collectively, to the magisterial (teaching) authority of the Catholic Church and that men do not need to belief in, have access to or cooperate with Sanctifying Grace to be virtuous. Men who believe these falsehoods bring ruin upon themselves and their descendants no matter how deeply they believe in these falsehoods.

John Adams's appeal, therefore, for a "moral" and "religious" people is an exercise in the heresy of semi-Pelagianism, the belief in human self-redemption, based upon the acceptance of religious indifferentism, one of the hallmarks of Judeo-Masonry that served as the "guiding darkness" that has clouded the minds so men from the time of the Seventeenth Century to the present day. Pope Leo XIII, writing in Immortale Dei, explained the logical consequences of religious indifferentism:

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

Mitt Romney went on to dig a deeper Americanist hole for himself, one into which the counterfeit church of conciliarism has resided over forty years now:

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

"Given our grand tradition of religious tolerance and liberty, some wonder whether there are any questions regarding an aspiring candidate's religion that are appropriate. I believe there are. And I will answer them today.

"Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for President, not a Catholic running for President. Like him, I am an American running for President. I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.

"Let me assure you that no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions. Their authority is theirs, within the province of church affairs, and it ends where the affairs of the nation begin.

"As Governor, I tried to do the right as best I knew it, serving the law and answering to the Constitution. I did not confuse the particular teachings of my church with the obligations of the office and of the Constitution – and of course, I would not do so as President. I will put no doctrine of any church above the plain duties of the office and the sovereign authority of the law.

 

Excuse me, the "sovereign authority of the law." Civil law must be conformed to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law in all that pertains to the good of souls. No positive law enacted by the institutions of civil government that is contrary to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law has any binding force whatsoever. Pope Leo XIII pointed this out in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:

Hallowed therefore in the minds of Christians is the very idea of public authority, in which they recognize some likeness and symbol as it were of the divine Majesty, even when it is exercised by one unworthy. A just and due reverence to the law abides in them, not from force and threats, but from a consciousness of duty; for God hath not given us the spirit of fear.

But if the laws of the State are manifestly at variance with the divine law, containing enactments hurtful to the Church, or conveying injunctions adverse to the duties imposed by religion, or if they violate in the person of the supreme Pontiff the authority of Jesus Christ, then truly, to resist becomes a positive duty, to obey a crime; a crime, moreover, combined with misdemeanor against the State itself, inasmuch as every offense levelled against religion is also a sin against the State. Here anew it becomes evident how unjust is the reproach of sedition: for the obedience due to rulers and legislators is not refused; but there is a deviation from their will in those precepts only which they have no power to enjoin. Commands that are issued adversely to the honor of God, and hence are beyond the scope of justice, must be looked upon as anything rather than laws. You are fully aware, Venerable Brothers, that this is the very contention of the Apostle St. Paul, who in writing to Titus, after reminding Christians that they are to be subject to princes and powers, and to obey at a word, at once adds, And to be ready to every good work. Thereby he openly declares that if the laws of men contain injunctions contrary to the eternal law of God, it is right not to obey them. In like manner the prince of the apostles gave this courageous and sublime answer to those who would have deprived him of the liberty of preaching the Gospel: If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak of the things which we have seen and heard.

Wherefore, to love both countries, that of earth below and that of heaven above, yet in such mode that the love of our heavenly surpass the love of our earthly home, and that human laws be never set above the divine law, is the essential duty of Christians, and the fountain-head, so to say, from which all duties spring. The Redeemer of mankind of Himself has said: For this was I born, and for this I came into the world, that I should give testimony to the truth. In like manner, I am come to cast fire upon the earth, and what will I but that it be kindled? In the knowledge of this truth, which constitutes the highest perfection of the mind; in divine charity which, in like manner, completes the will, all Christian life and liberty abide. This noble patrimony of truth and charity entrusted by Jesus Christ to the Church, she defends and maintains ever with untiring endeavor and watchfulness.

Although it is true that there is a distinction between ecclesiastical power and that of the civil state, each with its own competency and autonomy in their own respective spheres, those who hold office, whether elected or appointed, in the civil state, must be be consistent within themselves and to make every decision in their lives on the basis of the pursuit of their own Last End and that of others. The common temporal good is premised upon the pursuit of man's Last End. There can never be any dichotomy between the two. Never. Not under any circumstance, as Pope Saint Pius X explained in Singulari Quadam, September 24, 1912:

All actions of a Christian man so far as they are morally either good or bad -- that is, so far as they agree with or are contrary to the natural and divine law -- fall under the judgment and jurisdiction of the Church.

 

Mitt Romney's citation of then Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy's address to Baptist ministers and broadcasters in Houston, Texas, in 1960 is quite telling. Kennedy, a pure, unadulterated product of Americanism, sought to continue the legacy of the Alfred Emmanuel Smith to make a distinction between his "private" Faith and his public duties as an office-holder, thus giving rise to the "I'm personally opposed but can never impose" line that has been used by one pro-abortion Catholic in public after after another for the past thirty-five years (Richard Cardinal Cushing, Kennedy's Americanist cardinal-enabler, actually said in 1965 that he could not "impose" Catholic morality upon the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts concerning a then-pending piece of legislation, introduced by State Senator Michael S. Dukakis, to permit the sale of contraceptives to married couples) and making it more possible for the "privatization" of religion in public life. Pope Leo XIII, writing in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, put the lie to any such distinction:

Hence, lest concord be broken by rash charges, let this be understood by all, that the integrity of Catholic faith cannot be reconciled with opinions verging on naturalism or rationalism, the essence of which is utterly to do away with Christian institutions and to install in society the supremacy of man to the exclusion of God. Further, it is unlawful to follow one line of conduct in private life and another in public, respecting privately the authority of the Church, but publicly rejecting it; for this would amount to joining together good and evil, and to putting man in conflict with himself; whereas he ought always to be consistent, and never in the least point nor in any condition of life to swerve from Christian virtue.

Mitt Romney went to explain how he believed in the sort of "political religion" as supported the nation's only un-baptized president, the atheist Abraham Lincoln, a man who cynically referred to God when he was a naturalist who had no belief in anything other than government of, by and for "the people:"

As a young man, Lincoln described what he called America's 'political religion' – the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your President, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause, and no one interest. A President must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.

 

This is quite a statement. The American "political religion" and the oath taken to uphold it as it is enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America becomes one's "highest promise to God"? In other words, the Constitution of the United States is above all else. The Deposit of Faith that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb entrusted entirely to the Catholic Church is irrelevant in the conduct of public life. Many, many Catholics across the ecclesiastical divide believe this. Non-Catholics embrace it with enthusiasm, especially Mormons, which is why it is specious for Romney to declare that he not let his Mormon beliefs override "the rule of law" as those beliefs are inextricably intertwined with the American Judeo-Masonic "political religion." They are one and the same.

Romney's statement does raise an interesting issue for Catholics: can one swear on a Bible to uphold a Constitution that is founded upon false premises and that enshrines the heresies of religious liberty and freedom of speech and freedom of press and makes no mention of Christ the King? Even fully orthodox Catholic theologians would give a variety of answers to this question, some relying upon the Suarezian mental reservation to justify taking such an oath. My own judgment, which is simply that in this instance, a judgment that is not received from the hand of God, is that one could not do so, again recognizing the debatable nature of the conclusion.

Indeed, I was asked by a brilliant young Catholic gentleman, who was only fifteen years of age at the time, if I could take the oath of office to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America if I had won my then ongoing primary campaign against Senator Alfonse D'Amato in 1998 and then defeated D'Amato and Schumer in the general election. The young man, whom I will not name, knew that I had no chance of winning.

As a thoughtful student of Catholic Social Teaching and one who knew each of the fallacies of Americanism fully, this young man was simply raising a question about the logical consequences of swearing to uphold the terms of document that permits as a "civil right" the public propagation and defense of heresies while not mentioning the Social Kingship of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I told him, after thinking about the question for a moment after an "indult" Mass in the City of New York that Sunday, "Probably not." It's a question that will be explored at some point in the future, one, I should qualify once again, that is purely speculative in nature and upon which Holy Mother Church has not pronounced, leaving its consideration open to discussion among Catholics of good will.

Mitt Romney's referring to the oath as his "highest promise to God," however, is not an uncommon view, making a discussion of this matter at some point to be quite pertinent as we see the continuing idolatry of the Constitution and of the "founding principles" that is exhibited by so many Americans, including so many Catholics.

Mitt Romney also touched in his "Faith in America" address upon Mormonism's rejection of the nature of the Blessed Trinity and the relationship of the Three Divine Persons when he admitted that his "church" may not share the same beliefs as to others about our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ:

There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church's beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.

"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines. To do so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes President he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths.

"I believe that every faith I have encountered draws its adherents closer to God. And in every faith I have come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I am always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life's blessings.

Heresy must never be tolerated. While we tolerate persons and their private holding of false beliefs, exhibiting kindness and forbearance with them as we attempt to exhort them to convert to the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, we do not tolerate their false ideas and beliefs. We are not silent in the face of these false ideas and beliefs. Those who hold these false ideas and beliefs can never make good, just stewards of the public weal. Mitt Romney believes in multiple heresies about Our Lord, including that He is not Consubstantial with the Father, Who is alleged by Mormons to have a corporeal nature (that is, with bones and flesh), and that He will come to reign physically on earth for a thousand years before the end of time (in addition to the belief of some Mormons that Our Lord actually "married" Saint Mary Magdalene, an unspeakable blasphemy against the Divine Redeemer). An individual who believes such diabolical lies is not fit to hold any office of public trust in any country, including the United States of America, as he shows himself to be in the deep pit of a diabolical delusion, reserving judgment, as we do in all such instances, on such a person's subjective culpability to God alone.

The last paragraph cited in the passages immediately above illustrate that Mitt Romney is indeed a "good" and "tolerant" American ecumenist, giving a little something to each of the major religious denominations in the United States of America. There's only one little problem with this: there is one and only one true religion, and it is only the Catholic Church, not any of the others, each of which is from Hell and has nothing to offer individuals or nations than confusion and disarray wrapped up in a myriad of falsehoods and sophisms.

True to his Americanist form, Mitt Romney genuflected at the altar of separation of Church and State in a series of paragraphs in his "Faith in America" speech that should warm the cockles of every good conciliarist's heart:

 

It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it's usually a sound rule to focus on the latter – on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people.

We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong.

The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation 'Under God' and in God, we do indeed trust.

We should acknowledge the Creator as did the Founders – in ceremony and word. He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places. Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our Constitution rests. I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from 'the God who gave us liberty.'

 

This is pure Judeo-Masonry. A common creed of moral convictions? Once again, truth has been revealed definitively by Truth Himself, Truth Incarnate, Truth Crucified and Resurrected. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted the totality of truth, both supernatural and natural, to the infallible teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Although it is possible for men to apprehend moral truths with certainty by the use of natural reason alone, fallen human nature is such that not all men everywhere will accept these moral truths no matter the fact that they have been inscribed on the very flesh of their hearts by God Himself. To appeal to "common moral convictions" while at the same time minimizing "differences in theology" is of the essence of Judeo-Masonry, as Pope Leo XIII pointed out in Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884:

Now, the fundamental doctrine of the naturalists, which they sufficiently make known by their very name, is that human nature and human reason ought in all things to be mistress and guide. Laying this down, they care little for duties to God, or pervert them by erroneous and vague opinions. For they deny that anything has been taught by God; they allow no dogma of religion or truth which cannot be understood by the human intelligence, nor any teacher who ought to be believed by reason of his authority. And since it is the special and exclusive duty of the Catholic Church fully to set forth in words truths divinely received, to teach, besides other divine helps to salvation, the authority of its office, and to defend the same with perfect purity, it is against the Church that the rage and attack of the enemies are principally directed.

In those matters which regard religion let it be seen how the sect of the Freemasons acts, especially where it is more free to act without restraint, and then let any one judge whether in fact it does not wish to carry out the policy of the naturalists. By a long and persevering labor, they endeavor to bring about this result -- namely, that the teaching office and authority of the Church may become of no account in the civil State; and for this same reason they declare to the people and contend that Church and State ought to be altogether disunited. By this means they reject from the laws and from the commonwealth the wholesome influence of the Catholic religion; and they consequently imagine that States ought to be constituted without any regard for the laws and precepts of the Church.

 

Men need to submit themselves to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church to know what has been revealed and then to cooperate with the graces won for them 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 their hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, in order to live in accord with what He has revealed. Our Lord is eminently merciful. He does not want us dumb sheep arguing constantly about what is true. He wants to accept what He has revealed and then to make the effort, despite our sins and failings, to cooperate with His graces to do what is true and good, that which redounds to our own salvation and to those of others whom His loving Providence places in our paths on a daily basis.

Not much time needs to be spent on Mitt Romney's embrace of the pernicious error of the separation of Church and State and his belief that it is "good enough" for a generic sense of "religion" to be able to make its influence felt in the course of the "public market place of ideas."

Certainly the latter concept, of the "public market place of ideas, is a plausible understanding of how the American founders viewed the separation of Church and State, although as demonstrated before, some of the founders had a profound hostility to religion in general and to the true religion in particular. Be that as it may, the market place of ideas approach to "religion in society" is of the devil, who wants to convince people that everything is "up for grabs." Pope Leo XIII noted this in Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884:

But the naturalists go much further; for, having, in the highest things, entered upon a wholly erroneous course, they are carried headlong to extremes, either by reason of the weakness of human nature, or because God inflicts upon them the just punishment of their pride. Hence it happens that they no longer consider as certain and permanent those things which are fully understood by the natural light of reason, such as certainly are -- the existence of God, the immaterial nature of the human soul, and its immortality. The sect of the Freemasons, by a similar course of error, is exposed to these same dangers; for, although in a general way they may profess the existence of God, they themselves are witnesses that they do not all maintain this truth with the full assent of the mind or with a firm conviction. Neither do they conceal that this question about God is the greatest source and cause of discords among them; in fact, it is certain that a considerable contention about this same subject has existed among them very lately. But, indeed, the sect allows great liberty to its votaries, so that to each side is given the right to defend its own opinion, either that there is a God, or that there is none; and those who obstinately contend that there is no God are as easily initiated as those who contend that God exists, though, like the pantheists, they have false notions concerning Him: all which is nothing else than taking away the reality, while retaining some absurd representation of the divine nature.

When this greatest fundamental truth has been overturned or weakened, it follows that those truths, also, which are known by the teaching of nature must begin to fall -- namely, that all things were made by the free will of God the Creator; that the world is governed by Providence; that souls do not die; that to this life of men upon the earth there will succeed another and an everlasting life.

When these truths are done away with, which are as the principles of nature and important for knowledge and for practical use, it is easy to see what will become of both public and private morality. We say nothing of those more heavenly virtues, which no one can exercise or even acquire without a special gift and grace of God; of which necessarily no trace can be found in those who reject as unknown the redemption of mankind, the grace of God, the sacraments, and the happiness to be obtained in heaven. We speak now of the duties which have their origin in natural probity. That God is the Creator of the world and its provident Ruler; that the eternal law commands the natural order to be maintained, and forbids that it be disturbed; that the last end of men is a destiny far above human things and beyond this sojourning upon the earth: these are the sources and these the principles of all justice and morality.

If these be taken away, as the naturalists and Freemasons desire, there will immediately be no knowledge as to what constitutes justice and injustice, or upon what principle morality is founded. And, in truth, the teaching of morality which alone finds favor with the sect of Freemasons, and in which they contend that youth should be instructed, is that which they call "civil," and "independent," and "free," namely, that which does not contain any religious belief. But, how insufficient such teaching is, how wanting in soundness, and how easily moved by every impulse of passion, is sufficiently proved by its sad fruits, which have already begun to appear. For, wherever, by removing Christian education, this teaching has begun more completely to rule, there goodness and integrity of morals have begun quickly to perish, monstrous and shameful opinions have grown up, and the audacity of evil deeds has risen to a high degree. All this is commonly complained of and deplored; and not a few of those who by no means wish to do so are compelled by abundant evidence to give not infrequently the same testimony.

Moreover, human nature was stained by original sin, and is therefore more disposed to vice than to virtue. For a virtuous life it is absolutely necessary to restrain the disorderly movements of the soul, and to make the passions obedient to reason. In this conflict human things must very often be despised, and the greatest labors and hardships must be undergone, in order that reason may always hold its sway. But the naturalists and Freemasons, having no faith in those things which we have learned by the revelation of God, deny that our first parents sinned, and consequently think that free will is not at all weakened and inclined to evil. On the contrary, exaggerating rather the power and the excellence of nature, and placing therein alone the principle and rule of justice, they cannot even imagine that there is any need at all of a constant struggle and a perfect steadfastness to overcome the violence and rule of our passions.

Wherefore we see that men are publicly tempted by the many allurements of pleasure; that there are journals and pamphlets with neither moderation nor shame; that stage-plays are remarkable for license; that designs for works of art are shamelessly sought in the laws of a so-called verism; that the contrivances of a soft and delicate life are most carefully devised; and that all the blandishments of pleasure are diligently sought out by which virtue may be lulled to sleep. Wickedly, also, but at the same time quite consistently, do those act who do away with the expectation of the joys of heaven, and bring down all happiness to the level of mortality, and, as it were, sink it in the earth. Of what We have said the following fact, astonishing not so much in itself as in its open expression, may serve as a confirmation. For, since generally no one is accustomed to obey crafty and clever men so submissively as those whose soul is weakened and broken down by the domination of the passions, there have been in the sect of the Freemasons some who have plainly determined and proposed that, artfully and of set purpose, the multitude should be satiated with a boundless license of vice, as, when this had been done, it would easily come under their power and authority for any acts of daring.

 

Pope Leo XIII used Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, to reiterate the insufficiency of the Natural Law by itself to order the lives of men and their nations:

From this it may clearly be seen what consequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour's Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet, this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love: a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor selfdevotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ: but only on condition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God's law. By the law of Christ we mean not only the natural precepts of morality and the Ancient Law, all of which Jesus Christ has perfected and crowned by His declaration, explanation and sanction; but also the rest of His doctrine and His own peculiar institutions. Of these the chief is His Church. Indeed whatsoever things Christ has instituted are most fully contained in His Church. Moreover, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father by means of the ministry of the Church so gloriously founded by Himself. On the one hand He confided to her all the means of men's salvation, on the other He most solemnly commanded men to be subject to her and to obey her diligently, and to follow her even as Himself: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke x, 16). Wherefore the law of Christ must be sought in the Church. Christ is man's "Way"; the Church also is his "Way"-Christ of Himself and by His very nature, the Church by His commission and the communication of His power. Hence all who would find salvation apart from the Church, are led astray and strive in vain.

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.

 

An important distinction needs to be made at this juncture. Holy Mother Church will avail herself of a "public market place of ideas" to propagate the truths of her Holy Faith in countries where she is not confessionally recognized as the true religion and exists as one among many others. This is not a concession to any alleged rights of the spread of error but a recognition that her Divinely-instituted mission is be carried out in any and all circumstances, that God the Holy Ghost can use the least propitious circumstances to effect conversions of men and their nations to the true Faith. All well and good and most eminently true.

That having been noted, however, God does not want truth competing with error in the public square on a permanent basis as though this is the norm or the ideal for civil society. Holy Mother Church will adapt her preaching of the Gospel as befits the circumstances in which her children find themselves. She can never change what is preached and its binding force upon all men in all circumstances.

Mitt Romney's approach, to the contrary, involves a veritable "free for all" to "discover" what is true in the hopes that one set of ideas might acquire the support of a majority of citizens on a particular issue at a particular point in time. What is true has been revealed and/or exits in the nature of things. What is true needs only to be proclaimed.

Romney's "public square" approach to pluralism is very similar to what the late Catholic writer Jacques Maritain more or less contended. It is at the heart of an Americanist Catholic's understanding of the role of the Faith in a pluralistic society. It is at the heart of conciliarism, embraced and propagated with exceptional enthusiasm by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and by the editors of such journals as First Things. The error in all of this quite simple: pluralism is a lie from the devil wrought by the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and by the subsequent loss of the sense of supra nationality provided to men around the world by virtue of being members of the Church Militant. This lie of pluralism must be eradicated by seeking with urgency the unconditional conversion of men and their nations to the true Church.

Once again, a previously quoted passage from Pope Gregory XVI's Mirari Vos is important to to bring to bear on this particular point:

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

 

The "market place of ideas" concept as a foundation of social order is patently false. The Catholic Church does not seek a "peaceful coexistence" (thank you, Nikita Khrushchev!), with false religions in perpetuity. The Catholic Church seeks the unconditional conversion of all men and all nations to the true Faith. If this is not so, then the work begun by Saint Peter and the other Apostles on Pentecost Sunday was for naught, as was the missionary work of the likes of Saint Patrick, Saint Augustine of Canterbury, Saint Boniface, Saint Martin of Tours, Saint Dominic, Saint Hyacinth, Saint Vincent Ferrer, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Francis Solano, Saint Josaphat, Saint Peter Chrysologus, Saint Francis de Sales, the North American Martyrs and countless thousands upon thousands of others. Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. God does not want the First Commandment violated by the contention that the social order can be indifferent to the true Faith. Anyone who contends that this is so is a heretic and a blasphemer who is an enemy of God and of His true Faith. Such people need our prayers for their conversion, not our electoral and/or financial support.

Also false is the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic concept of the separation of Church and State The statement contained in Pope Saint Pius X's oft-quoted Paragraph Three from Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, which will be quoted again momentarily, is either true or false. If it is true, my friends, then it is clear that each civil state has an obligation to pursue the common temporal good in light of the pursuit of man's Last End. Indeed, the civil state must not only place no hindrance in man's pursuit of his Last End but must aid man in achieving it. The civil state has the obligation to help to foster those conditions in civil society by which its citizens can better sanctify and to save their souls as members of the Catholic Church. Good citizenship is premised ultimately upon being a faithful Catholic who is sorry for his sins, seeking out the Mercy of the Divine Redeemer in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, and who is endeavoring to cooperate more fully with Sanctifying Grace each day to scale the heights of personal sanctity, the prerequisite for personal order within the souls of individual men and hence of the entirety of social order itself.

Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, who lived in the Sixteenth Century, was quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929, as having explicated this particular point most fully:

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

 

To Vehementer Nos (do you have this memorized yet?):

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. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error."

 

There are some Catholics, especially those of the libertarian and conciliarist bent, who would say, along with Joseph Ratzinger himself, that such a teaching has become "obsolete." This is quite false on a number of accounts, starting with the simple truth that what was absolutely false in 1906 cannot become absolutely true a century late. If something is absolute false, you see, it is absolutely false. Was Pope Saint Pius X in error? Did he get it wrong? Were each of the popes who simply reiterated the falsehood of the separation of the Church and State mistaken?

The late Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, writing a somewhat veiled rejoinder to the Americanist Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., explained in Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion, 1954, that the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church never becomes obsolete:

These principles are firm and unchanging. They were valid in the days of Innocent III and Boniface VIII. They are valid in the days of Leo XIII and Pius XII, who has reaffirmed them in more than one of his documents. That is why, with unyielding firmness, he has also recalled Rulers to their duties, by appealing to the warning of the Holy Ghost, a warning which applies to all times. In the Encyclical Letter, , , Mystici Corporis, the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius XII, speaks as follows: "We must implore God that all those who rule over people may love wisdom, so that upon them may never fall that fearful judgment of the Holy Spirit: ‘The Most High will examine your works and search out your thoughts; because being ministers of his kingdom, you have not judged rightly nor kept the law of justice, nor walked according to the will of God. Horribly and speedily will he appear to you; for a most severe judgment shall be for them that bear rule. For to him that is little mercy is granted; but the mighty shall be mightily tormented. For God will not except any man's person, neither will he stand in awe of any man's greatness: for he made the little and the great, and he hath equally care of all.' "

Referring back, then, to what I have said above concerning the agreement of the Encyclicals that have been called in question, I am certain that no one can prove that there has been any change what­ever, in regard to these principles, between the En­cyclical Letter, Summi Pontificatus, of Pius XII, and the Encyclicals of Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris against Communism, Mil brennender Sorge against Nazism, and Non abbiamo bisogno against the State-monopoly of Fascism, on the one hand; and the earlier Encyclicals of Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, Libertas and Sapientiae Christianae, on the other.

"The ultimate and supreme norms of society, those which are its foundation stone," declares the August Pontiff in his Radio-message of Christmas, 1942, "cannot be impaired or weakened by the intervention of human minds. They may be denied, ignored, despised, transgressed, but they can never be abrogated in a manner juridically efficacious.

 

Cardinal Ottaviani also discussed the Modernist approach of Ratzinger himself, that what was true once loses it binding force as circumstances change:

Here the problem presents itself of how the Church and the lay state are to live together. Some Catholics are propagating ideas with regard to this point which are not quite correct. Many of these Catholics undoubtedly love the Church and rightly intend to find a mode of possible adaptation to the circumstances of the times. But it is none the less true that their position reminds one of that of the faint-hearted soldier who wants to conquer without fighting, or of that of the simple, unsuspecting person who accepts a hand, treacherously held out to him, without taking account of the fact that this hand will subsequently pull him across the Rubicon towards error and injustice.

The first mistake of these people is precisely that of not accepting fully the "arms of truth" and the teaching which the Roman Pontiffs, in the course of this last century, and in particular the reigning Pontiff, Pius XII, by means of encyclicals, allocutions and instructions of all kinds, have given to Catholics on this subject.

To justify themselves, these people affirm that, in the body of teaching given in the Church, a distinction must be made between what is permanent and what is transitory, this latter being due to the influence of particular passing conditions. Unfortunately, how­ever, they include in this second zone the principles laid down in the Pontifical documents, principles on which the teaching of the Church has remained constant, as they form part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine.

In this matter, the pendulum theory, elaborated by certain writers in an attempt to sift the teaching set forth in Encyclical Letters at different times, cannot be applied. "The Church," it has been written, "takes account of the rhythm of the world's history after the fashion of a swinging pendulum which, desirous of keeping the proper measure, maintains its movement by reversing it when it judges that it has gone as far as it should.... From this point of view a whole history of the Encyclicals could be written. Thus in the field of Biblical studies, the Encyclical, Divino Afflante Spiritu, comes after the Encyclicals Spiritus Paraclitus and Providentissimus.  In the field of Theology or Politics, the Encyclicals, Summi Pontificatus, Non abbiamo bisogno and Ubi Arcano Deo, come after the Encyclical, Immortale Dei."

Now if this were to be understood in the sense that the general and fundamental principles of public Ecclesiastical Law, solemnly affirmed in the Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, are merely the reflection of historic moments of the past, while the swing of the pendulum of the doctrinal Encyclicals of Pope Pius XI and Pope Pius XII has passed in the opposite direction to different positions, the statement would have to be qualified as completely erroneous, not only because it misrepresents the teaching of the Encyclicals themselves, but also because it is theoretically inadmissible. In the Encyclical Letter, Humani Generis, the reigning Pontiff teaches us that we must recognize in the Encyclicals the ordinary magisterium of the Church: "Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand assent, in that, when writing such Letters, the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their teaching authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say "He who heareth you heareth Me" (St. Luke 10:16); and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already belongs for other reasons to Catholic doctrine."

Because they are afraid of being accused of wanting to return to the Middle Ages, some of our writers no longer dare to maintain the doctrinal positions that are constantly affirmed in the Encyclicals as belonging to the life and legislation of the Church in all ages.  For them is meant the warning of Pope Leo XIII who, recommending concord and unity in the combat against error, adds that "care must be taken never to connive, in anyway, at false opinions, never to withstand them less strenuously than truth allows."

 

Indeed, some Catholics of the libertarian and conciliarist bents do not seem overly impressed when they are confronted with Pope Pius XII's simple reminder of the binding nature of what is contained in encyclical letters when the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church is reiterated within their texts. Nor do they seem overly concerned with this firm condemnation issued by Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, of those who reject the perennially binding nature of Catholic Church:

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 no wonder that an adherent of a false religion such as Mitt Romney receives such a warm welcome from so many Americanist Catholic across the ecclesiastical divide. He is merely giving voice to the essence of the Americanist heresy and is perfectly in line with the "official teaching" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity and Modernism are very much intertwined, you see.

Mitt Romney's belief that such phrases as "In God We Trust" and "one nation under God" are sufficient for expressing a general sense of religiosity and reliance upon a deity is also right smack from the heart of the Judeo-Masonic playbook, a rhetorical device that has been used by nationalists of all stripes, as I indicated in "Fascists for Freedom" three days ago now. Pope Pius XI, writing in Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937, exploded this particular sophistry brilliantly:

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

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

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

The Bishops of the Church of Christ, "ordained in the things that appertain to God (Heb. v, 1) must watch that pernicious errors of this sort, and consequent practices more pernicious still, shall not gain a footing among their flock. It is part of their sacred obligations to do whatever is in their power to enforce respect for, and obedience to, the commandments of God, as these are the necessary foundation of all private life and public morality; to see that the rights of His Divine Majesty, His name and His word be not profaned; to put a stop to the blasphemies, which, in words and pictures, are multiplying like the sands of the desert; to encounter the obstinacy and provocations of those who deny, despise and hate God, by the never-failing reparatory prayers of the Faithful, hourly rising like incense to the All-Highest and staying His vengeance.

 

Mitt Romney said the following near the close of his "Faith in America" address:

The diversity of our cultural expression, and the vibrancy of our religious dialogue, has kept America in the forefront of civilized nations even as others regard religious freedom as something to be destroyed.

 

A civilized nation? The butchery of the preborn? The promotion of pornography and usury and contraception and wretched motion pictures and television programming and "music" in the name of freedom of speech and of the press? The unjust, immoral invasion of Catholic countries and the introduction of Protestant "churches" and Masonic lodges therein as a result? The support the government of the United States of America gave to the Masonic revolutionaries in Mexico as they were killing nearly a quarter of a million Catholics in the first decades of the Twentieth Century? The use of methods of torture upon suspected terrorists as a regular tool of American jurisprudence? A civilized nation? Not really. There can be no true civilization without the true Faith, as Pope Saint Pius X noted in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:

Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact.

 

Care to argue with Pope Saint Pius X? Americanists of all denominations, including that of the counterfeit church of conciliarsm, do. I do not, thank you very much.

The most urgent problem facing the world today is not "radical Islam," as Mitt Romney put it in his "Faith in America" speech. Mohammedanism of its very nature is founded in the violence of blasphemy as enshrined in their demonic document that was kissed by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, the Koran, which leads its adherents to seek to will the harm of "infidels." No, the most urgent problem facing the world today, even more urgent than the daily slaughter of the preborn by means of surgical and chemical abortions, is the denial of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity as Man in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb as defining every moment of human existence, both personal and social, without any exception whatsoever, and the denial of the supreme and absolute authority of the Catholic Church to be recognized as the one and only repository and expositor of His Sacred Truths. When are Catholics going to learn that we can never fight secularism with secularism or other naturalist tools? We can only fight the evils of the day by means of Catholicism. Nothing else.

Moreover, how are all heresies and blasphemies and false religions, including Mohammedanism and Talmudic Judaism and Protestantism and conciliarism to be dealt with? By means of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, that's how. Nation must give public honor to Mary our Immaculate Queen just as they obliged under the Divine Positive Law to acknowledge the Social Kingship of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Those who believe that they can pursue social order without Christ the King and without Mary our Immaculate Queen are fools of the first order. Those who are ashamed of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen in the "public square," fearing to lose votes or worldly influence of prestige or income, are betrayers of the Holy Faith and show themselves to be most manifestly unpatriotic, for a true patriot wills the good of his nation, which is that it be Catholicized under the yoke of Christ the King and under the maternal care and protect of our Queen, Mary Immaculate. The Rosary is the chief means, after Holy Mass itself, to order one's soul rightly to First and Last Things. Civil states have an obligation to organize Rosary processions in our of our Queen who was conceived without any stain of Original or Actual Sin, she who is our Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix, and Advocate.

I've got news for the Americanists out there, no matter whether they are Catholic or non-Catholic: the true God will never bless any country that permits in the name of a false concept of civil liberty His Holy Name to be blasphemed and His Most Blessed Mother to be profaned as matters of "civl rights" protected under cover of the civil law. It is not for nothing that that Saint Louis IX wrote to his son, the future King Philip III, to "work to remove all sin from the land, particularly blasphemies and heresies." Please ask yourself if the likes of Saint Louis IX walks in our midst at present.

Our Lady appeared to the Venerable Juan Diego for the first time on December 9, 1531, leaving a miraculous impression of herself as she appeared to him on his tilma three days later, December 12, 1531. Nearly nine million natives throughout Latin America were converted to the true Faith, almost person for person the number of souls lost to the Faith as a result of the diabolically-inspired Protestant Revolt. The Mother of God is no ecumenist. She wants all of the Americas to be under the sweet yoke of her Divine Son and the sacred authority of His Holy Church as she exercises His Social Reign, discharging her Indirect Power of teaching, preaching and exhortation before intervening as an absolute last resort with civil rulers who propose to do or have in fact done things contrary to the good of souls. Our Lady is no ecumenist. She is no religious indifferentist. She wants false doctrines eradicated from the face of the earth. She wants all men on the face of this earth to be members of the Catholic Church who dissent from not one iota of anything contained in the Deposit Faith, including her Divine Son's Social Teaching.

We must, as always, therefore, have recourse to Mary Immaculate, who was preserved from all stain of Original and Actual Sin at the moment of her Immaculate Conception in the womb of her mother, Good Saint Anne. Our Lady is the patroness of the United States of America under the title of her Immaculate Conception. May we, never ceasing to use whatever time we can given the duties of our states-in-life to pray as many Rosaries as we can each day, ask her to help us to be so detached from sin and to be ever more ready to make reparation for our sins and those of the whole world so that the seeds we attempt to plant for the restoration of the Social Reign of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, whom she conceived in her Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost, will bear much fruit. That fruit might be manifest only in the hearts and the homes of those who are consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Nevertheless, you see, the conversion of nations starts with the conversion of just one soul.

Concentrating first and foremost on our own souls and getting ourselves to Sacrament of Penance on a weekly basis, if possible, may we call upon Our Lady, Mary Immaculate, to recover by penance what we have lost by sin, seeking freely to lift high the Cross, which is the one and only standard of true human liberty, inviting all men to keep her company at the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of that same Cross in the Immemorial Mass of Tradition offered by true bishops and true priests in the Catholic catacombs where no concessions are made to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds who have made their "reconciliation" with the false principles of 1787 and 1789.

May we make this prayer of Saint Germanus, a Sixth Century Bishop of Auxerre, France, our own on this glorious feast day and on every day of our lives as we serve Christ the King through Mary our Immaculate Queen:

Hail Mary, full of grace, more holy than the Saints,
more elevated than the heavens,
more glorious than the Angels,
and more venerable than every creature.

Hail heavenly paradise,
all fragrant and a lily
that gives off the sweetest scent,
a perfumed rose that opens up for the health of mortals.

Hail immaculate temple of the Lord,
constructed in a holy fashion,
ornament of Divine magnificence,
open to everyone,
and oasis of mystical delicacies.

Hail Mary, full of grace,
more holy than the Saints,
more elevated than the heavens,
more glorious than the Angels,
and more venerable than every creature.  

Hail mountain of shade,
grazing ground for the holy Lamb
who takes upon himself
the miseries and sins of all.

Hail sacred throne of God,
blessed dwelling,
sublime ornaments,
precious jewel,
and splendidferous heavens.

Hail urn of purest gold,
who contained the manna Christ,
the gentle sweetness of our souls.

Hail most pure Virgin Mother,
worthy of praise and veneration,
fount of gushing waters,
treasure of innocence,
and splendor of sanctity.

O Mary, lead us to the port of peace and salvation,
to the glory of Christ
who lives in eternity
with the Father and with the Holy Spirit.

Viva Cristo Rey!

A blessed Feast of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception to you all.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

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.

Saint Elizabeth, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Andrew the Apostle, pray for us.

Saint Ambrose, pray for us.

Saint Barbara, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Chrysologus, pray for us.

Saint Bibiana, pray for us.

Saint Sabbas, pray for us.

Saint Nicholas, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Sylvester the Abbot, pray for us.

Saint Gertrude the Great, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Dominic de Guzman, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.

Saint John Matha, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint John of God, pray for us.

Saint Philip Neri, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Brendan the Navigator, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Peregrine, pray for us.

Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, pray for us.

Saint John Fisher, pray for us.

Saint Thomas More, pray for us.

Saint Peter Canisius, pray for us.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us.

Saint Francis Borgia, pray for us.

Saint John Francis Regis, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Casimir, pray for us.

Saint Hedwig, pray for us.

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

Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Brigid of Kildare, pray for us.

Saint Patrick, pray for us.

Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us.

Pope Saint Leo the Great, pray for us.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us.

Pope Saint Gregory VII, pray for us.

Saint Boniface, pray for us.

Saint Meinrad, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Siena, pray for us.

Saint Bernardine of Siena, pray for us.

Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Cupertino, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

Saint John Damascene, pray for us.

Saint Benedict Joseph Labre, pray for us.

Saints Isidore the Farmer and Maria de Cappella, pray for us.

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, pray for us.

Pope Saint Damasus I, pray for us.

Saint Jerome, pray for us.

Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Louise de Marillac, pray for us.

Saint Catherine of Alexandria, pray for us.

Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Turibius, 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 Irenaeus, pray for us.

Saint Polycarp, pray for us.

Blessed Rose Philippine Duchesne, pray for us.

Saint Rita, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Philip Neri, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Peter of Alcantara, pray for us.

Saint Stanislaus, pray for us.

Saint Stanislaus Kostka, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, pray for us.

Saint Adalbert, pray for us.

Saint Norbert, pray for us.

Saint John Chrysostom, pray for us.

Saint Cyril of Alexandria, pray for us.

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, pray for us.

Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.

Saints Gervase and Protase, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Pope Saint Clement I, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saints Fabian Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence the Deacon, pray for us.

Saint Lawrence of Brindisi, pray for us.

Saint Eustachius and Companions, pray for us.

Saints Pontian and Hippolytus, pray for us.

Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saints Perpetua and Felicity, pray for us.

Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.

Saint Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Margaret of Scotland, pray for us.

Saint Peter Lombard, pray for us.

Saint Albert the Great, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Augustine of Canterbury, pray for us.

Saint Anselm, pray for us.

Saint Canute, pray for us.

Saint Clotilde, pray for us.

Saint Brendan the Navigator, pray for us.

Saint Coleman, pray for us.

Saint Maria Goretti, pray for us.

Saint Mary Magdalene, pray for us.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Saint Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us.

Blessed Father Vincent Pallotti, pray for us.

Saint Josaphat, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Mary Claret, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Blessed Edmund Campion, pray for us.

Saint Saturninus, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus Liguori, pray for us.

Venerable Juan Diego, pray for us.

Venerable Junipero Serra, pray for us.

Venerable Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

The Christmas Novena, begun today, the Feast of Saint Andrew (said fifteen times daily until Christmas Day)

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold.  In that hour vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.  

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.