Repeating Distinctions Made A Thousand Times Before

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The "bishops" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism are, as noted numerous times in recent articles, worthy successors of the Americanist bishops of yore, sharing with them the belief that the American concept of "religious liberty" is good in principle, not as a matter of a necessary concession to the practical realities in which the children of Holy Mother Church find themselves in a particular country that does not recognize the true religion. Although I have made the proper distinctions between principle and reality a thousand times before, I will do so again to try to deal with sophomoric arguments made by latter day Americanists who refuse to realize that the principles of the American founding have led directly to the rise of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

The worldwide heresy that is "religious liberty" has most, although not all, of its origins right in the Constitution of the United States of America, specifically in the First Amendment, which was one of twelve amendments proposed by the First Congress, ten of which were ratified and became part of the Constitution on December 15, 1791. (An eleventh of those twelve amendments, forbidding any pay raise for members of the United States Congress from going into effect until an intervening election for members of the House of Representative, which was declared ratified on May 7, 1992, becoming the Twenty-seventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.) The First Amendment reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

Gaggles of Americanist Catholics have tried--and continue to try--to contend over the years that the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America affords Catholics with the opportunity to practice their Faith openly without any overt persecution from the Federal government, making this country a haven of "religious freedom" in contradistinction to England, which suppressed the Faith and imposed repressive measures upon Catholics on the islands of Great Britain and Ireland.

Thus we see, as I have noted endlessly on this site, the cleverness of the devil in raising up "bad" Protestants, those who attacked the Faith and Catholics loyal to It with violent ferocity, in order to make "good" Protestants, those who were willing to "tolerate" Catholics, look better by comparison. Lost in this truly diabolical trap is the simple fact  placing the true religion on a level of equality with false religions makes it impossible for any religion to oppose the efforts of atheists or anti-Theists from asserting themselves in the "public marketplace of ideas." Irreligion becomes as good as religion. There is no rational, coherent basis by which one can oppose the spread of actual demonic "worship" or its variants, including witchcraft and the New Age "spiritualities," into every aspect of society. The First Amendment thus makes it far easier for the devil to snatch souls from the true Faith by making "religious liberty" or "religious freedom" into a protected "civil right" that no one can oppose lest he put into jeopardy the ability of his own religious denomination to practice its tenets freely.

Defenders of all things American, including self-styled Constitutionalists from the ranks of the multitude of heretical and/or schismatic Protestant sects, claim that the framers of the Constitution were not indifferent to religion, that they simply recognized that it would be impossible in a religiously pluralistic country to choose a "national" religion, preferring to leave the matter of established religions up to the state governments, which remained free to erect established churches prior to the application of various provisions of the Bill of Rights, which, as written, are only limitations upon the actions of the Federal government and not the state governments, to state governments by virtue of a twisted reading of the Fourteenth Amendment's "due process of law" clause from the time of Gitlow v. New York (1925) to our present day. The framers, these defenders of all things American argue, did not mean to exclude the expression of religious convictions from public life. The framers meant merely, we are told, to prevent the sort of "religious warfare" that had been common in Europe in the centuries before the American founding, which is why they, the framers, believed it inopportune to have a nationally established church of any kind.

There are, of course, many serious problems with these theses, starting with the fact that the "religious wars" in the two and one-half centuries leading up to the "founding" of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic United States of America were engendered by Protestantism. Many of them were fought between competing sects of Protestants, as was the case during the English Civil War between 1641 and 1649 as Anglicans and Puritans, the English followers of John Calvin who wanted to "purify" the Anglican Church founded by the lustful King Henry VIII of its remaining "Catholic" trappings (a "hierarchy," a "sacramental" system, veneration of Our Lady and a select number of other saints), fought each other (with a wide variety of motivations and goals), resulting in the overthrow and beheading of King Charles I. The framers of the Constitution of the United States of America had a warped, myopic view of history, being unwilling to look at the truth of the glory of the Middle Ages, summarized so succinctly by Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

There was once a time when States were governed by the philosophy of the Gospel. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people, permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, established firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favor of princes and the legitimate protection of magistrates; and Church and State were happily united in concord and friendly interchange of good offices. The State, constituted in this wise, bore fruits important beyond all expectation, whose remembrance is still, and always will be, in renown, witnessed to as they are by countless proofs which can never be blotted out or ever obscured by any craft of any enemies. Christian Europe has subdued barbarous nations, and changed them from a savage to a civilized condition, from superstition to true worship. It victoriously rolled back the tide of Mohammedan conquest; retained the headship of civilization; stood forth in the front rank as the leader and teacher of all, in every branch of national culture; bestowed on the world the gift of true and many-sided liberty; and most wisely founded very numerous institutions for the solace of human suffering. And if we inquire how it was able to bring about so altered a condition of things, the answer is -- beyond all question, in large measure, through religion, under whose auspices so many great undertakings were set on foot, through whose aid they were brought to completion.  (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

 

Secondly, the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America, being the products of Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry and various combinations of errors emanating from the so-called "Age of Reason" or "Enlightenment," failed to understand the simple truth that God has rights above His contingent beings, that His Incarnation in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother changed everything about human history, that He established only one true Church upon the Rock of Saint Peter, the Pope, to be the means by which men can know order in their own lives individually and in the larger lives of their societies collectively. Anyone who rejects these simple truths, no matter his "good intentions," charts a course of utter destruction for himself and his fellow citizens. False ideas lead to bad consequences, inevitably and inexorably. Neither the wide variety of permutations coming under the aegis of Protestantism or the naturalist, anti-Incarnational philosophies of Judeo-Masonry can ever be the basis of personal or social order. Personal and social ruin are the only things that can result from false ideas, which Pope Leo XIII pointed out in Immortale Dei:

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

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. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

 

As men are made by God to know, love and to serve Him as He has revealed Himself exclusively through His Catholic Church, which alone provides men with the means of their interior sanctification and is thus the sole means of human salvation, it opposed to the very Will of God to permit those who believe in false religions and false philosophies the "civil" right to propagate them openly. God does not want the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood deceived about First and Last Things. He wants all men and all nations to honor Him as their King, which is one of the lessons He was teaching us as Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar worshiped Him at the Epiphany. The Protestant and Judeo-Masonic and conciliarist notion of "religious liberty," having such tremendous roots in the Constitution of the United States of America, and of separation of Church and State thus are at odds with Divine Revelation itself, as Pope Saint Pius X noted in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906:

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. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

 

The farmers of civil constitutions, including that of the United States of America, refuse to recognize that such documents which admit of no higher authority than the text of their own words are powerless to prevent future generations from deconstructing them into vessels into which they can pour whatever passing "philosophical" or ideological fad that happens to hold sway at any given moment. Nations possessed of a spirit of the egalitarianism of the Protestant Revolution that has mutated into so many different and varied forms in the last nearly five hundred years are singularly unable to apply a brake to the process of social decay that must occur when men and their nations do not submit themselves to the authority of Christ the King as it must be exercised by the Catholic Church. (Appendix C provides remarks of the late William Brennan, an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America from October 15, 1956, to July 20, 1990, concerning a "living constitution" that is eerily family to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's view of a "living tradition" as both mean that each succeeding generation may make of the plain meaning of words as they want.)

The Modern, religiously indifferentist, anti-Incarnational civil state thus becomes a breeding ground for the propagation and multiplication of errors and heresies and blasphemies, none of which have any "civil" right to exist as they offend Our Lord and wound the souls for whom He offered up His life to the Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross. Pope Gregory XVI elaborated on these points in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832:

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?"

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?

 

A civil state that is open to all religions and to irreligion is a manifestly dangerous places for souls. How can Mohammedans or Communists or Talmudic Jews or Freemasons or Socialists or Wiccans or Satanists be excluded from public office in such a system. They cannot, especially when one considers the words of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States of America:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

 

Defenders of all things American contend that the "no religious test" clause permits Catholics, who had been disenfranchised in England and Ireland, to hold public office. Isn't that nice? What the "no religious test" clause of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States permits also is for atheists and deists and Freemasons and Mohammedans and Wiccans or anyone else to hold public office and thus to seek to use the civil laws as the means to enshrine their false beliefs. Once again, there is no rational, coherent basis to oppose the advances made by baby-killers and perverts when a civil government admits that there is no Divinely-instituted authority to which it must submit itself when the good of souls demands such submission. Everything contained in the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law becomes negotiable. Everything. And given the fact that the devil never rests, those who seek to defend society in a non-denominational or even secular manner against various objective evils begin to look upon "compromise" as a sign of progress, thereby institutionalizing evil more and more by means of civil law and in the nooks and crannies of popular culture, a point made very tellingly by Pope Leo XIII in Libertas, June 20, 1888:

But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting. And although in the extraordinary condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however, remains always true -- that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.

And as to tolerance, it is surprising how far removed from the equity and prudence of the Church are those who profess what is called liberalism. For, in allowing that boundless license of which We have spoken, they exceed all limits, and end at last by making no apparent distinction between truth and error, honesty and dishonesty. And because the Church, the pillar and ground of truth, and the unerring teacher of morals, is forced utterly to reprobate and condemn tolerance of such an abandoned and criminal character, they calumniate her as being wanting in patience and gentleness, and thus fail to see that, in so doing, they impute to her as a fault what is in reality a matter for commendation. But, in spite of all this show of tolerance, it very often happens that, while they profess themselves ready to lavish liberty on all in the greatest profusion, they are utterly intolerant toward the Catholic Church, by refusing to allow her the liberty of being herself free. (Pope Leo XIII, Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888.)

 

This is not a matter of ethereal speculation having nothing to with the real lives of human beings. Not at all. The heresy of religious liberty, which is at the heart of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, devastates souls. The belief that those who belong to false religions have a "civil right" to propagate themselves and that their false beliefs can contribute to the betterment of society make it impossible to exclude those false religions from making their presence felt everywhere in society, especially in "educational" institutions, where the tender souls of the young become ready prey to false ideas that are propagandized by charismatic professors. This is true in the United States of America and elsewhere in the allegedly "free" world of "democratic republics.

Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani, the Pro-Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition during last five years of the pontificate of Pope Pius XII (he continued in the Holy Office and in its successor in the conciliar church, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith until his retirement on January 8, 1958), was an unflagging foe of the concept of "religious liberty" being promoted by an unapologetic Americanist, Father John Courtney Murray, S.J. He wrote a a masterful treatise against this lie of Modernity that was popularized first and foremost in the supposedly "free" United States of America:

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." (Duties of the Catholic State in Regard to Religion. Appendix B will contain material, extracted from an article on this site from thirty-eight months ago now, explaining how Bishop Bernard Fellay had been attempting to "finesse" or "nuance" the issue of religious liberty since his infamous meeting with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI as Castel Gandolfo on August 29, 2005, the Feast of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist.)

 

Let me reiterate one paragraph from the excerpt taken from Cardinal Ottaviani's essay:

 

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.

The proliferation of error is not a foundation for social order at any time under any circumstances.

Indeed, I received a most poignant e-mail from a reader a few years ago, whose name and country will not be revealed, explaining how his own daughter was snatched out of the Faith by Wiccans, who were permitted free rein to promote their demonic beliefs a publicly-run university. Here is an edited version of the e-mail so as to protect its author from being identified:

Our eldest daughter became involved with a group of young girls who embraced the "gaia" movement and call themselves witches. She ran away from home two and a half years ago and we cannot contact her at all now. Our last contact was over a year ago when she proclaimed to her mother that Jesus was not God during a telephone call. She has given up her studies in her final year of studies at a local university, which we found out from university officials.

 

A Catholic state would forbid the public propagation of all false religions. While the Church will tolerate the existence of false religions in some instances so as not to do violence to human free will, she does recognize that certain false religions are more dangerous than others and insists that those worshiping demons be wiped out in their entirety. Even the private "practice" of such false religions is dangerous to society as it directly serves the purposes of the adversary, admitting that all false religions, including the multitudinous variety of Protestant sects, are from the devil and do his bidding by keeping men from knowing God as He has revealed Himself exclusively through the Catholic Church and keeping their immortal souls from being sanctifying means of the supernatural helps available only through the administration of the Sacraments that Our Lord has entrusted only to the Catholic Church.

There is, however, no means by which a secular, religiously indifferentist civil state can prevent even openly demonic religions from forming and operating publicly. The government of the United States of America, for example, has permitted "Wiccans" to have their own chaplains in its armed forces, which frequently forbid the public expression of the Holy Name of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in "mixed" company by Catholic and Protestant chaplains. Anyone who says that God looks favorably upon all of this in the name of "religious freedom" is mad, as in insane, including the conciliarists who speak endlessly about the "necessity" of all nations embracing this heresy.

What can Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his "bishops" say to the individual whose daughter has been in the hands of Wiccans several years now and no longer believes in the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Can this enemy of souls, who does not believe that the Catholic Church has a mission to seek with urgency the unconditional conversion of everyone outside of the ranks of the Catholic Church to her maternal bosom, say that devil worshipers have a "civil right" to propagate their demonic worship? Would he say certain religions are really not religions and could be prohibited by the civil state? Upon what grounds would a civil state that is officially indifferent to the Catholic Church base such a prohibition? One's man's "devil" is another man's "god," the secularists would argue, no?

You see, ladies and gentlemen, there is no stopping the logical and inexorable devolution of men and their societies into the abyss of state-sponsored godlessness once the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King is accepted as an "irreversible" fact of history that requires us to make our "reconciliation" with the "principles of 1789. The Freemasons ought to honoring Joseph Ratzinger, not Hans King. For even though the former reaffirmed in 1983 the fact that Catholics excommunicate themselves by joining Masonic lodges, Ratzinger's mind of Hegelian contradiction cannot see or admit that he is a chief proponent of Masonic opposition to the Social Reign of Christ the King as a necessity for each nation at all times until Our Lord's Second Coming in glory on the Last Day.

The social consequences of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King are vast, starting with the destruction of the family, which has been rent asunder by divorce and contraception and feminism and materialism and positivism and utilitarianism and the organized forces of naturalism. The atomistic individualism of Calvinist capitalism and Lockean liberalism thus produce the same sort of societies as that produced by all forms Socialism, including that wrought by Bolshevism, as critiqued by Pope Pius XI in Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937:

Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man's relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement .

Refusing to human life any sacred or spiritual character, such a doctrine logically makes of marriage and the family a purely artificial and civil institution, the outcome of a specific economic system. There exists no matrimonial bond of a juridico-moral nature that is not subject to the whim of the individual or of the collectivity. Naturally, therefore, the notion of an indissoluble marriage-tie is scouted. Communism is particularly characterized by the rejection of any link that binds woman to the family and the home, and her emancipation is proclaimed as a basic principle. She is withdrawn from the family and the care of her children, to be thrust instead into public life and collective production under the same conditions as man. The care of home and children then devolves upon the collectivity. Finally, the right of education is denied to parents, for it is conceived as the exclusive prerogative of the community, in whose name and by whose mandate alone parents may exercise this right.

What would be the condition of a human society based on such materialistic tenets? It would be a collectivity with no other hierarchy than that of the economic system. It would have only one mission: the production of material things by means of collective labor, so that the goods of this world might be enjoyed in a paradise where each would "give according to his powers" and would "receive according to his needs." Communism recognizes in the collectivity the right, or rather, unlimited discretion, to draft individuals for the labor of the collectivity with no regard for their personal welfare; so that even violence could be legitimately exercised to dragoon the recalcitrant against their wills. In the Communistic commonwealth morality and law would be nothing but a derivation of the existing economic order, purely earthly in origin and unstable in character. In a word. the Communists claim to inaugurate a new era and a new civilization which is the result of blind evolutionary forces culminating in a humanity without God. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)

 

The world devoid of God and of submission to His true Church is the only possible consequence of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ King. Naturalist liberals disagree with naturalist socialists, including communists, only about a few details. All forms of naturalism produce the godless world, which makes possible barbarism in "liberal" states and totalitarianism in "socialist" states. Indeed, the degree to which men fall into the naturalist trap will be the degree to which all states, liberal and socialist, get to increase their power over the lives of ordinary citizens in the name of "law and order" and "national security," you understand. The heresy of religious liberty makes it impossible for anyone to find any one overarching means by which social evils can be retarded, resulting in a new caste of dictators whose "infallible" pronouncements must be accepted without criticism or dissent. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, for example, eviscerates the First Commandment by stating unequivocally that no religion, including the Catholic Faith, must be recognized by the civil state as indispensable for personal and social order, thus resulting in the triumph of the false religion of statism. A neat little trick of the devil, wouldn't you say?

Pope Pius XI alluded to some of these points in Divini Redemptoris:

But the enemies of the Church, though forced to acknowledge the wisdom of her doctrine, accuse her of having failed to act in conformity with her principles, and from this conclude to the necessity of seeking other solutions. The utter falseness and injustice of this accusation is shown by the whole history of Christianity. To refer only to a single typical trait, it was Christianity that first affirmed the real and universal brotherhood of all men of whatever race and condition. This doctrine she proclaimed by a method, and with an amplitude and conviction, unknown to preceding centuries; and with it she potently contributed to the abolition of slavery. Not bloody revolution, but the inner force of her teaching made the proud Roman matron see in her slave a sister in Christ. It is Christianity that adores the Son of God, made Man for love of man, and become not only the "Son of a Carpenter" but Himself a "Carpenter."[19] It was Christianity that raised manual labor to its true dignity, whereas it had hitherto been so despised that even the moderate Cicero did not hesitate to sum up the general opinion of his time in words of which any modern sociologist would be ashamed: "All artisans are engaged in sordid trades, for there can be nothing ennobling about a workshop."

Faithful to these principles, the Church has given new life to human society. Under her influence arose prodigious charitable organizations, great guilds of artisans and workingmen of every type. These guilds, ridiculed as "medieval" by the liberalism of the last century, are today claiming the admiration of our contemporaries in many countries who are endeavoring to revive them in some modern form. And when other systems hindered her work and raised obstacles to the salutary influence of the Church, she was never done warning them of their error. We need but recall with what constant firmness and energy Our Predecessor, Leo XIII, vindicated for the workingman the right to organize, which the dominant liberalism of the more powerful States relentlessly denied him. Even today the authority of this Church doctrine is greater than it seems; for the influence of ideas in the realm of facts, though invisible and not easily measured, is surely of predominant importance.

It may be said in all truth that the Church, like Christ, goes through the centuries doing good to all. There would be today neither Socialism nor Communism if the rulers of the nations had not scorned the teachings and maternal warnings of the Church. On the bases of liberalism and laicism they wished to build other social edifices which, powerful and imposing as they seemed at first, all too soon revealed the weakness of their foundations, and today are crumbling one after another before our eyes, as everything must crumble that is not grounded on the one corner stone which is Christ Jesus.

This, Venerable Brethren, is the doctrine of the Church, which alone in the social as in all other fields can offer real light and assure salvation in the face of Communistic ideology. But this doctrine must be consistently reduced to practice in every-day life, according to the admonition of St. .James the Apostle: "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." The most urgent need of the present day is therefore the energetic and timely application of remedies which will effectively ward off the catastrophe that daily grows more threatening. We cherish the firm hope that the fanaticism with which the sons of darkness work day and night at their materialistic and atheistic propaganda will at least serve the holy purpose of stimulating the sons of light to a like and even greater zeal for the honor of the Divine Majesty. ((Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)

 

Although he was quite a foe of Catholicism, the Russian Orthodox writer Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn made much the same point in his June 8, 1978, commencement address, "A World Split Apart, at Harvard University, explaining that the false currents of liberalism had to bring about Marxism-Leninism:

As humanism in its development was becoming more and more materialistic, it also increasingly allowed concepts to be used first by socialism and then by communism, so that Karl Marx was able to say, in 1844, that "communism is naturalized humanism."

This statement has proved to be not entirely unreasonable. One does not see the same stones in the foundations of an eroded humanism and of any type of socialism: boundless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility (which under Communist regimes attains the stage of antireligious dictatorship); concentration on social structures with an allegedly scientific approach. (This last is typical of both the Age of Enlightenment and of Marxism.) It is no accident that all of communism's rhetorical vows revolve around Man (with a capital M) and his earthly happiness. At first glance it seems an ugly parallel: common traits in the thinking and way of life of today's West and today's East? But such is the logic of materialistic development.

The interrelationship is such, moreover, that the current of materialism which is farthest to the left, and is hence the most consistent, always proves to be stronger, more attractive, and victorious. Humanism which has lost its Christian heritage cannot prevail in this competition. Thus during the past centuries and especially in recent decades, as the process became more acute, the alignment of forces was as follows: Liberalism was inevitably pushed aside by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender to socialism, and socialism could not stand up to communism. (Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart, June 8, 1978.)

 

What Dr. Solzhenitsyn would accept, being a committed Russian nationalist wedded to the errors Photius that constituted all forms of Orthodoxy, is that the one and only way to retard all forms of naturalism, including those of the liberal and socialist strains, is with Catholicism. Pope Leo XIII noted in this in A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902:

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

 

We must understand, ladies and gentlemen, that there the pernicious heresy of religious liberty, extolled by Americanists and conciliarists alike, blasphemes Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and wounds the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. She who has crushed the head the serpent, Our Lady, will show forth the Triumph of her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart one day, crushing the anti-Incarnational heresies of Modernity and Modernism in a flash.

Although I have written on this subject repeatedly and have laid the groundwork in volume one of Conversion in Reverse: How the Ethos of Americanism Converted Catholics and Contributed to Conciliarism and will continue to do so in volume two, I will close this particular piece of utter repetition by noting once again that the men quoted by latter day Americanists to defend the American concept of "religious liberty" hated and mocked Our Blessed and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Holy Church. Those who quote these insidious agents of the devil to justify the very thing that led to conciliarism are simply no friends of Catholic truth whatsoever. The pertinent quotations can be found in the appendix below. Read them well before praising the likes of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison on "religious liberty," which they believed would neutralize Catholics as they became accustomed to the "joys" of  a "civil liberty" not founded in the one and only source of true liberty, the Cross of the Divine Redeemer. These "founding fathers" were not wrong. In case you have forgotten, have looked at who the Vice President of the United States of America and the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives are these days? Pro-abort Catholics who are the logical result of "religious liberty."

May we, by adhering to the perennial teachings that Our Lord deposited exclusively in the Catholic Church and by seeking out the fullness of the Faith in catacombs where no concessions are made to conciliarism or to the "legitimacy" of the false officials of the counterfeit church, plant a few seeds for that glorious Triumph, starting with a five-decade Rosary right now. Nothing less than a new Christendom depends on our daily fulfillment of Our Lady's Fatima Message, which is the foe of all forms of naturalism in the world in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. The leaders of all nations will then understand that they have First Commandment obliges them to pay homage to Christ the King and to Mary our Immaculate Queen, giving the strange gods of false religions no public quarter whatsoever.

"Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!"

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

 

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Matthias, pray for us..

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix A

Deja Vu All Over Again: A Founding Hatred of Christ the King

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 Constitutions of Government of the United States of America," 1787-1788)

"And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away {with} all this artificial scaffolding…" (11 April, 1823, John Adams letter to Thomas Jefferson, Adams-Jefferson Letters, ed. Lester J. Cappon, II, 594).

Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion? (John Adams, 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! (John Adams, Letter to Thomas Jefferson, quoted in 200 Years of Disbelief, by James Hauck)

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."—James Madison, 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."—James Madison, 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."—-James Madison, "A Memorial and Remonstrance," addressed to the Virginia General Assembly, 1785

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. (Thomas Jefferson, 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. (Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Roger Weigthman, June 24, 1826, ten days before Jefferson's death.)

Appendix B

How the Society of Saint Pius X Has Attempted to "Finesse" or Nuance" Its Position on Religious Liberty

(extracted from an earlier article)

 

Indeed, Bishop Fellay's recent remarks about the doctrinal exactitude of the "Second" Vatican Council indicates that he has already entered the murky world of trying to defend the indefensible, of trying to read Catholicism into documents and beliefs that run contrary to the Faith. This is not "progress." This is a step into Mister Peabody's Wayback Machine as a prelate who used to be firm in his denunciations of the "Second" Vatican Council speaks at present about various elements of the "Second" Vatican Council as many of us did in our "conservative" years as we tried to project Catholicism into the minds and hearts of men who were then and who remain now as apostates and blasphemers, men who believe in a false religion, conciliarism.

To wit, Bishop Fellay told a reporter for the Swiss newspaper, Le Temps, the following about the conciliar doctrines of religious liberty and of the separation of Church and State:

Regarding religious liberty, it is necessary to distinguish two situations: the religious liberty of the person, and the relations between Church and State. Religious liberty implies liberty of conscience. We agree with the fact that there is not a right to force anyone to accept a religion. As for our reflection on the relations between Church and State, it is based on the principle of tolerance. It seems clear to us that there where there are multiple religions, the State should be watchful of their good coexistence and peace. Nevertheless, there is but one religion that is true, and the others are not. But we tolerate this situation for the good of all.

 

Bishop Fellay knows full well that the "religious liberty" promoted the "Second" Vatican Council and the conciliar "pontiffs" goes far beyond the mere toleration of false beliefs so as to do no violence to the liberty of personal conscience. He knows full well that the Dignitatis Humanae, which Archbishop Lefebvre refused to sign, and the conciliar "pontiffs" have said that adherents of false religions have a positive right from God to propagate their false beliefs in public and that those false beliefs can contribute to the "betterment" of society and contribute to "world peace." Such contentions are utterly false and blaspheme God, making a mockery of this sterling condemnation of religious liberty as a heresy by Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814:

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."

 

Do false religions have a "right" from God to propagate their false beliefs in public? Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that they do. To even imply that Ratzinger/Benedict's view of false religions in the public domain is one of mere toleration rather than of acceptance and esteem is rank intellectual dishonesty that makes a mockery of not only of the pronouncements of Popes Pius VII, Gregory XVI and Pius IX and Leo XIII but which casts aside the following words spoken of by Archbishop Lefebvre to Giovanni Montini/Paul VI on September 11, 1976:

Montini: "Why do yo not accept the Council? You signed the decrees."

Lefebvre: "There were two that I did not sign."

Montini: "Yes, two, religious liberty and Gaudium et Spes."

(Archbishop Lefebvre's mental note: "I thought at the time: 'I signed he others out of respect for the Holy Father. He [Montini] went on.")

Montini: "And why not religious liberty?"

Lefebvre: "It contains passages that are word for word contrary to what was taught by Gregory XVI and Pius IX."

Montini: "Let's leave that aside! We are not here to discuss theology."

(Archbishop Lefebvre's mental note: "I thought to myself: 'This is unbelievable.'") (Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, The Biography of Marcel Lefebvre, Kansas City, Missouri, Angelus Press, pp. 491-492.)

 

Was Archbishop Lefebvre wrong about this, Bishop Fellay? Was your founder, the archbishop who ordained you a priest and consecrated you a bishop, wrong and the conciliarists correct?

It is also intellectually dishonest to imply that the conciliar view of the separation of Church and State is "based on the principle of tolerance." This is not so. The Catholic Church condemns the separation of Church and State, making allowances, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Libertas, June 20, 1888, for the fact she must make concessions in the practical order of things as they exist in the world in order to continue her work amongst her children in those countries where she is not recognized as the true religion. These concessions in the practical order of things are but recognitions of the realities in which the children of Holy Mother Church find themselves and in no way concedes the licitness of the separation of Church and State as a matter of principle. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that the separation of Church and State, deemed a "thesis absolutely false" by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, represents "progress" for "humanity." Is your "pope" correct, Bishop Fellay? Or was Archbishop Lefebvre correct in 1987 when remonstrating with the man you consider to be the "pope" about the Sacred Rights of the Social Reign of Christ the King?

Under pressure, Rome gave in. On July 14, Cardinal Ratzinger received Archbishop Lefebvre at the Holy Office. At first the Cardinal persisted in arguing that "the State is competent in religious matters."

"But the State must have an ultimate and eternal end," replied the Archbishop.

"Your Grace, that is the case for the Church, not the State. By itself the State does not know."

Archbishop Lefebvre was distraught: a Cardinal and Prefect of the Holy Office wanted to show him that the State can have no religion and cannot prevent the spread of error. However, before talking about concessions, the Cardinal made a threat: the consequence of an illicit episcopal consecration would be "schism and excommunication."

"Schism?" retorted the Archbishop. "If there is a schism, it is because of what the Vatican did at Assisi and how you replied to our Dubiae: the Church is breaking with the traditional Magisterium. But the Church against her past and her Tradition is not the Catholic Church; this is why being excommunicated by a liberal, ecumenical, and revolutionary Church is a matter of indifference to us."

As this tirade ended, Joseph Ratzinger gave in: "Let us find a practical solution. Make a moderate declaration on the Council and the new missal a bit like the one that Jean Guitton has suggested to you. Then, we would give you a bishop for ordinations, we could work out an arrangement with the diocesan bishops, and you could continue as you are doing. As for a Cardinal Protector, and make your suggestions."

How did Marcel Lefebvre not jump for joy? Rome was giving in! But his penetrating faith went to the very heart of the Cardinal's rejection of doctrine. He said to himself: "So, must Jesus no longer reign? Is Jesus no longer God? Rome has lost the Faith. Rome is in apostasy. We can no longer trust this lot!" To the Cardinal, he said:

"Eminence, even if you give us everything--a bishop, some autonomy from the bishops, the 1962 liturgy, allow us to continue our seminaries--we cannot work together because we are going in different directions. You are working to dechristianize society and the Church, and we are working to Christianize them.

"For us, our Lord Jesus Christ is everything. He is our life. The Church is our Lord Jesus Christ; the priest is another Christ; the Mass is the triumph of Jesus Christ on the cross; in our seminaries everything tends towards the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. But you! You are doing the opposite: you have just wanted to prove to me that our Lord Jesus Christ cannot, and must not, reign over society.

Recounting this incident, the Archbishop described the Cardinal's attitude" "Motionless, he looked at me, his eyes expressionless, as if I had just suggested something incomprehensible or unheard of." Then Ratzinger tried to argue that "the Church can still say whatever she wants to the State," while Lefebvre, the intuitive master of Catholic metaphysics, did not lose sight of the true end of human societies: the Reign of Christ." Fr. de Tinguy hit the nail on the head when he said of Marcel Lefebvre: "His faith defies those who love theological quibbles." (His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, The Biography of Marcel Lefebvre, Kansas City, Missouri: Angelus Press, 2004, pp. 547-548.)

 

The Catholic teaching on the Social Reign of Christ the King is so foreign to the mind of Joseph Ratzinger that he sat "motionless" with "expressionless" eyes as the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre defended the rights of Our King to reign over men and their nations. There would be a similar reaction if any one of us tried to explain to him that he has offended God greatly by many of his words and actions.

You see, he, Ratzinger/Benedict, does not believe that God hates false religions. He believes that God the Holy Ghost works in and through these false religions. And although he has been quite careful not to embrace openly the theology of universal salvation that was advanced by one of his chief mentors, the late Father Hans Urs von Balthasar, his actions and his words have certainly given the impression that those who adhere to false religions are not in any jeopardy whatsoever of losing their immortal souls for all eternity. And Bishop Bernard Fellay, much like those who have "paid the price for recognition" by the counterfeit church of conciliarism before him, has learned to "finesse" truths that his founder and ordaining archbishop saw in stark terms, understanding that Ratzinger was at war with the Social Reign of Christ the King and the confessionally Catholic civil state.

A Protestant "observer" at the "Second" Vatican Council, Douglas Horton made entries in diary of notes that he took during the council to express approval of what he saw as the Catholic Church's embrace of "enlightened" few of religious liberty, taking a pot shot at an archbishop who dared to speak out against the schema on religious liberty that would be approved by the council fathers:

 

Yesterday after church Al Outler told us that he had heard that the schema on religious liberty was in trouble and that the presidents of the council, in response to a petition by over a hundred bishops, had decided to postpone the voting upon it--and this morning the newspapers seemed to support this doleful prognostication. This would mean that the delaying tactics of the last two years would again be applied, and possibly again succeed. So today we waited with bated breath for an undesired announcement.

But no such announcement came.

The debate went on, and is likely to be carried on for a day or two more; and in view of the tenseness of emotions it is surely the part of a wise moderatorship to allow the minority to have its say to the last man. As the day has advanced, indeed, I have grown more and more skeptical about the truth of the rumor. Direct word from one peritus who occupies a high seat indicates that the presidents have not acceded to the request of the conservatives, and indirect word from another discloses that the form of the vote on religious liberty is already being considered--I think the ship is still on course in spite of inclement seas--or perhaps I should say sees.

Before the business meeting began this morning [September 20, 1965], the Secretary General read a letter prepared in behalf of the council to be sent to the Holy Father. It expressed warm thanks to His Holiness for establishing the synod of bishops. "It now becomes our concern to obey and cooperate." It also thanked the Pope for his encyclical on the Eucharist, promised prayers for the success of his prospective trip to New York, and asked his blessing. The clapping hands of the fathers signified their approval. An account of the felicities of Felici should not omit his appeal to the fathers who had forgotten to bring with them the text of the schema on divine revelation. Said the Secretary General, "Unfortunately, there are no more available, so borrow a copy if you can--or at least get hold of one in the most honest manner possible."

The array of speakers for the affirmative this morning made it clear that the forces of progress are not lacking either in men or materiel. Of the nine cardinals who made their witness, only one was shadowed by negativism--Cardinal Browne of the Roman curia. Out of the caves of the past he drew the troglodyte theology that in a Catholic state the spreading of another religion is a violation of public morality.

In what contrast were the others! I cite, for instance the Archbishop of Baltimore [Lawrence Sheehan], who made his maiden speech as a cardinal. In a historical address which showed in a most satisfying way the steady evolution of the definition of religious freedom in the church from the time of Leo XIII to the present day, he cannot but have been convincing to the more thoughtful of the fathers.

Cardinal Beran, Archbishop of Prague, who had just stepped out of prison, to which his championing of religious freedom had condemned him, needed hardly to say a word to be convincing. The marks and memories of his incarceration were his eloquence. The council cannot have been impervious to his plea to approve the document as its stands, without dilution.

Equally telling was the testimony of Cardinal Cardijn--who had recently been elevated to his high office from the ranks of the priesthood, without ever having been a bishop, this because of his surpassing saintliness and his founding and developing of the worldwide organization of Young Christian Workers. His sixty years of experience with youth spoke for him when he said, "If this schema is not approved, the hope of tomorrow will be destroyed."

Of the four bishops who spoke this morning, only one condemned the declaration. Two Lefebvres were participants in the debate. The one, the cardinal, the Archbishop of Bourges, had spoken with complete clarity in meeting the several major objections of the conservatives, but now Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre proved himself a cousin so distant as hardly to belong to the same family. He argued that the schema really came from the pens of such eighteenth-century philosophers as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau and that it paid more attention to the human conscience than it did to the church. He wanted none of it. He is the Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit; one of my neighbor observers, in a not exactly neutral frame of mind, expressed the wish that the Holy Spirit might be admitted to the order

Rome must surely see that Rome will be the chief sufferer if the declaration on religious liberty is finally defeated. The cock has crowed twice--in the second and third sessions. I remember Papini's description of Peter after the cock crew for the last time: "Then in the dim light of dawn the last stars saw a man staggering along like a drunkard, his head hidden in his cloak, his shoulders shaken by the sobs of a depressing lament." I do not think that Peter will take that course again today. (Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary 1965: A Protestant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Philadelphia and Boston, United Church Press, pp. 33-35.)

 

Horton also analyzed the "shift" from the confessionally Catholic civil state to an embrace of the religiously neutral or indifferent civil state in the contemporaneous diary he kept of the notes that he took while attending a talk given on September 17, 1965, by the Americanist Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., to the Protestant "observers" in attendance at the "Second" Vatican Council while the council was deliberating the document that he, Murray, helped to shepherd to passage, Dignitatis Humanae:

Fr. John Courtney Murray introduced the schema on religious liberty in a way that revealed his knowledge not only of the document itself but also of the whole area of Christian ethics in which the subject of religious liberty lies. In answer to certain critics he pointed out that the document is based not on the passing social situation of today but upon the eternal truth of the dignity of the human person. He hopes the schema would open the way to full dialogue with the World Council of Churches and men of goodwill everywhere. As late as the nineteenth century the church regarded the state as being, as it were, within it, part of itself. Then came the great revolutions, which the church did not understand. Only today the church is coming to see the state as secular, but in a good sense--not hostile or indifferent to religion, but concerned only for the good of the human person, justice, charity, freedom.

In the course of the discussion it became evident that most of the suggestions made by the observers had already been considered by the Secretariat during the now long period of gestation of the schema. (Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary 1965: A Protestant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Philadelphia and Boston, United Church Press, pp. 27-28.)

 

In other words, God the Holy Ghost failed Popes Pius VII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX and Leo XIII, among others, when they condemned religious and civil liberty in the sense those concepts were being used by the anti-Incarnational and naturalist scions of Modernity, that is, of course, Judeo-Masonry. Archbishop Lefebvre himself was wrong to have placed in stark terms what should have been expressed in a more "nuanced, "balanced" way. This is, of course, preposterous on its very face. Such is the inevitable path of those who seek to be "recognized" by apostates and blasphemers who have cast themselves out of the Catholic Church and who are forerunners in their own way of Antichrist.

Bishop Fellay is replicating now the old policy of the Society of Saint Pius X, practiced most sadly by the late Archbishop Lefebvre himself, of throwing out the "hardliners" when "deals" appear to be imminent with the conciliar Vatican. It was the attack on "hardliners" in 1983, when a "thaw" between the Society and the conciliar Vatican appeared to be taking place, that led to the expulsion of "The Nine," who were right then and remain correct (see Letter of 'the Nine' to Abp. Marcel Lefebvre).

Appendix C

The Late William Brennan's Understanding of a "Living Constitution"

 

[Thomas A. Droleskey preface: As has been noted in numerous articles on this site, the principal means by which Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI seeks to "reconcile" the conciliarism with Catholicism is by claiming that that the dogmatic statements of Holy Mother Church's true dogmatic councils, each of which met under the infallible guidance of God the Holy Ghost, and the past procurements of our true popes, each of whom was merely teaching what was contained in the Deposit of Faith without any deviation or alteration whatsoever, can be interpreted anew because those statements and pronouncements were "conditioned" by the historical circumstances in which they were made. He has been thoroughly consistent in this condemned view throughout the course of his priestly life, which began on June 29, 1951.

[Is the text Constitution of the United States of America, written by men who did not recognize the authority of the Catholic Church to govern men in all that pertains to the good of their immortal souls and thus who believed that they could provide the foundation for a just republic without any regard for what she teaches in the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, more "immutable" in its meaning than, say, the decrees of the Council of Florence on the fact that all non-Catholics, including Jews, need to convert to the Catholic Faith or those of the Council of Trent on the Doctrine of Justification? Are the words of the framers, each of whom was a product of Modernity--and to the extent that some of them might have been influenced by the writing of Saint Robert Bellarmine they did so through the filter provided by Protestantism and the "Enlightenment," more binding on the consciences of succeeding generations than the condemnations of religious liberty made by Popes Pius VI, Pope Pius VII, Gregory XVI, and Pius IX? Why should the words of the Constitution be any more "hallowed" than those given us to by the Fathers of true councils and by our true popes?

[Please read, therefore, the Catholic pro-abort William Brennan's words below as they are words of a son of Modernity. And these words are identical in their spirit to the words of a son of Modernism by way of the New Theology, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI.]

 

To remain faithful to the content of the Constitution, therefore, an approach to interpreting the text must account for the existence of these substantive value choices, and must accept the ambiguity inherent in the effort to apply them to modern circumstances. The Framers discerned fundamental principles through struggles against particular malefactions of the Crown; the struggle shapes the particular contours of the articulated principles. But our acceptance of the fundamental principles has not and should not bind us to those precise, at times anachronistic, contours. Successive generations of Americans have continued to respect these fundamental choices and adopt them as their own guide to evaluating quite different historical practices. Each generation has the choice to overrule or add to the fundamental principles enunciated by the Framers; the Constitution can be amended or it can be ignored. Yet with respect to its fundamental principles, the text has suffered neither fate. Thus, if I may borrow the words of an esteemed predecessor, Justice Robert Jackson, the burden of judicial interpretation is to translate "the majestic generalities of the Bill of Rights, conceived as part of the pattern of liberal government in the eighteenth century, into concrete restraints on officials dealing with the problems of the twentieth century." Board of Education v. Barnette, [319 U.S. 624, 639 (1943),] We current Justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as Twentieth Century Americans. We look to the history of the time of framing and to the intervening history of interpretation. But the ultimate question must be, what do the words of the text mean in our time. For the genius of the Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and current needs. What the constitutional fundamentals meant to the wisdom of other times cannot be their measure to the vision of our time. Similarly, what those fundamentals mean for us, our descendants will learn, cannot be the measure to the vision of their time. This realization is not, I assure you, a novel one of my own creation. Permit me to quote from one of the opinions of our Court, Weems v. United States, [217 U.S. 349,] written nearly a century ago:

"Time works changes, brings into existence new conditions and purposes. Therefore, a principle to be vital must be capable of wider application than the mischief which gave it birth. This is peculiarly true of constitutions. They are not ephemeral enactments, designed to meet passing occasions. They are, to use the words of Chief Justice John Marshall, 'designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it.' The future is their care and provision or events of good and bad tendencies of which no prophesy can be made. In the application of a constitution, therefore, our contemplation cannot be only of what has been, but of what may be."

Interpretation must account for the transformative purpose of the text. Our Constitution was not intended to preserve a preexisting society but to make a new one, to put in place new principles that the prior political community had not sufficiently recognized. Thus, for example, when we interpret the Civil War Amendments to the charter—abolishing slavery, guaranteeing blacks equality under law, and guaranteeing blacks the right to vote—we must remember that those who put them in place had no desire to enshrine the status quo. Their goal was to make over their world, to eliminate all vestige of slave caste. ("Constitutional Interpretation by Justice William J. Brennan, Jr")

[Thomas A. Droleskey afterword: William Brennan could have been a "bishop" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Pray the Rosary!]