Restoring the Catholic City

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Pope Benedict XVI is nothing if not entirely supportive of two of the most harmful novelties of the Second Vatican Council: ecumenism and religious liberty. As was noted in Smoking or Non-Smoking four weeks ago now, the second half of Pope Benedict's Deus Caritas Est is an apologia for the modern secular state, an entity that was condemned repeatedly and forcefully by one pope after another from the time of Pope Gregory XVI through the end of the reign of Pope Pius XI, a span of 107 years. The aforementioned article on this site, which was published on January 27, 2006, contains pertinent excerpts from various papal encyclical letters and pronouncements that condemned the modern secular state as antithetical to the the rights of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to be recognized confessionally as the King of both men and their nations.

Steamrollering his way along the path to a "healthy secularity," however, Pope Benedict XVI claimed recently that one of the principal evils of the present day, "inter-religious dialogue," can aid another of the principal evils of the day, "religious liberty." That is, the Holy Father believes that the false suppositions underlying "ecumenism" can promote the conciliarist notion of "religious liberty" that was condemned by the likes of Popes Gregory XVI, Blessed Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, and Pius XI. In other words, the refusal to seek urgently the conversion of all men on the face of the earth to the true Church can be of assistance in providing a framework of "respect" and "tolerance" in the modern state, an entity that does not recognize Christ the King or Mary our Immaculate Queen. That these goals have been of the essence of Judeo-Masonry from its contemporary inception nearly three centuries ago appears to be lost on the Hegelian mind of the Holy Father, who believes that one epoch of history simply passes away and that the Church has to make her accommodation to the apparently irreversible realities of the modern state.

Here is what Pope Benedict XVI stated about "inter-religious dialogue" and "religious freedom" on February 20, 2006:

The promotion of dialogue between believers of various religions, especially between Christians and Muslims, fosters religious freedom, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope expressed this today when meeting bishops of the episcopal conference of Senegal, Mauritania, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, who were ending their five-yearly visit to Rome.

The Holy Father encouraged the bishops to live their ministry collaborating "with the men and women who do not share the Christian faith, in particular with Muslims," who are especially numerous in the countries that the bishops represent.

"The efforts made for an encounter in the truth of believers of diverse religious traditions contribute to the concrete realization of the authentic good of people and societies," he said.

According to the Bishop of Rome, "It is a duty to further increasingly-fraternal relations between communities to foster a harmonious development of society, recognizing the dignity of every person and allowing all the free exercise of their religion."
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It is once again necessary to contrast this refusal to convert souls and the blithe acceptance of the modern state with the firm words of Pope Leo XIII, offered in his encyclical letter about the influence of Freemasonry in Italy, Custodi Di Quella Fede, issued on December 8, 1892:

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

The contrast could not be more clear. Pope Leo XIII condemned as diabolical any effort to "reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution," which is precisely what Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his Principles of Catholic Theology in 1982 was the aim of the Second Vatican Council and of the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. Indeed, Pope Benedict XVI is seeking precisely in the second half of Deus Caritas Est to "reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God." The very things denounced by Pope Leo XIII as antithetical to the good of souls and thus injurious to the common good of nations (universal tolerance, respect for all religions, the acceptance of the state without God) are considered to be virtues by our current Holy Father, who is oblivious to the fact that all of the social evils of the day are the direct result of the planned, willed overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King by the forces of the Protestant Revolt and the rise of contemporary Freemasonry.

Pope Leo XIII's sainted successor, Pope Saint Pius X, put his finger on one of the chief goals of Modernism: to separate Church from the state. Writing in Pascendi Dominici Gregis on September 8, 1907, Pope Saint Pius X assayed Modernism's view of the relationship between the Church and State:

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

This is yet another ringing condemnation of the views held and promoted by Pope Benedict XVI, who has said that it is the job of "politics," not the Church, to build the just society. Well, this is what Pope Pius XI wrote in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, about the ability of contemporary political parties to build the just society:

To these evils we must add the contests between political parties, many of which struggles do not originate in a real difference of opinion concerning the public good or in a laudable and disinterested search for what would best promote the common welfare, but in the desire for power and for the protection of some private interest which inevitably result in injury to the citizens as a whole.

One of the saddest aspects of the Diabolical Disorientation afflicting the Church in her human elements today is the fact that many traditional Catholics, including some priests, are in total agreement with Pope Benedict XVI's blithe acceptance of the modern state as being able to retard evils that have their remote cause in fallen human nature and their proximate cause in very errors of Modern upon which that state is founded. These people would have us believe that evils are being retarded by the use of "incremental" measures and that those who oppose such measures are interfering with the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King. The absolute and utter absurdity of this claim is very simple to demonstrate.

For example, there are some Catholics who are very excited about the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States has agreed to hear the combined cases involving the incomplete, conditional ban on partial-birth abortions that was passed by the United States Congress in 2003. As I have noted repeatedly in the past eleven years since this issue was first introduced in Congress, the effort to conditionally ban a certain form of child-killing in the later stages of pregnancy was founded from its outset on the false premise that there can ever be a circumstance in which the civil law can licitly permit an exception to the inviolability of all innocent human life. The effort to conditionally ban partial-birth abortions also made it appear as though one particular method of baby-killing was more morally heinous than others. Each form of baby-killing kills a baby dead. Each method of baby-killing is equally morally heinous. The debate about partial-birth abortion eclipsed the reality of the cruelty of every form of abortion, whether surgical or chemical, and reduced the sole measure of what it meant to be "pro-life" to a conditional, partial opposition to only one form of child-killing.

Furthermore, even if the Supreme Court of the United States upholds the immoral bill that would permit babies to be killed by means of partial-birth abortion (dilation and extraction) the simple fact of the matter is that not one single human life will be saved. That's right, not one.

First, the immoral exception to the inviolability of innocent human life will be used by baby-killers to continue using this particular method with abandon. Do we really think that those who kill for a living are going to be scrupulously honest about adhering to the terms of the "life of the mother" exception contained in the Congressional bill?

Second, even a total ban on all partial-birth abortions would not save a single life. Why? Because there are two other forms of baby-killing in the later stages of pregnancy, the hysterotomy and dilation and evacuation, that were used up to the day of birth prior to a baby-killer "inventing" partial-birth abortion in 1992. Baby-killers would simply revert to these other forms of killing a child. Thus, even a complete and total ban on all partial-birth abortions would not save a single baby.

Mind you, this is not even to discuss that possibility that some "conservative" justices may find problems with the partial, conditional ban on partial-birth abortions on the grounds of "states' rights," that is, that the Congress of the United States lacks the jurisdiction to legislate on a matter that these "conservative" justices" could claim is reserved by the Tenth Amendment to state legislatures. The analysis above has been limited to the inherent immorality of the bill and the fact that not even a complete and total ban on partial-birth abortions would save lives. The belief that evils are being limited in our Masonic system of governance is absolutely delusional.

Indeed, how evils are being promoted by this so-called "pro-life" administration. The first thing to be introduced into Iraq following our invasion of that country in 2003 was contraceptive pills and devices, all in the name of American "civil" liberty, you understand. As has been noted endlessly, domestic and international "family planning" programs are being funded by this current administration to the tune of $11 million a year more than the previous, fully pro-abortion administration. In other words, the partly pro-abortion administration in power at present is funding the chemical assassinations of the innocent preborn while it calls itself "pro-life" and while its Catholic cheerleaders, including some in the traditional Catholic community, delude themselves into thinking that "progress" is being made in the retardation of various evils. A full review of the extent to which one evil after another has been promoted by the current administration can be found in Restoring Christ as the King of All Nations (Volume 2 of the collection contains articles that discussed the previous administration's crimes against the precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law).

No, neither Pope Benedict XVI's blithe acceptance of the modern state or the sycophantic support given by traditional Catholics to phony pro-life politicians is in accord with the immutable Social Teaching of the Church about the necessity of opposing any compromise with evil whatsoever in an effort to plant seeds for the restoration of Christendom itself.

Pope Leo XIII stressed our duties to speak as Catholics at all times in Sapientiae Christianae:

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

We must think as Catholics. We must speak as Catholics. We must act as Catholics. At all times. Without exception. Without compromise. Anyone who says otherwise is either seeking to justify the devil's various revolutions against the Social Reign of Christ King and/or serving as the stooge for the careerist dreams of shallow men in the sorry class known as professional politicians.

Pope Saint Pius X's words in Notre Charge Apostolique (Our Apostolic Mandate), must be pointed out to our current Holy Father and to those traditional Catholics who are nationalist cheerleaders for Americanism:

No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. . . .

Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one's personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.

These telling words cannot be reconciled with the the Masonic, Hegelian notions of conciliarism and the recent popes. Pope Benedict XVI opposes these words with all of his might,. This is one of the reasons why we must intensify our prayers and sacrifices and penances in the final days of the Season of Septuagesima so as to make this coming Season of Lent the best one of our lives, a Lent that will be offered freely to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart as her consecrated slaves for the conversion of the Holy Father to the authentic tradition of the Church and thus for his fidelity to her Fatima Message. There can be no reconciling the errors of Modernity with the Catholic Faith. Anyone, including Pope Benedict XVI, who believes this is so is advancing the cause of evil at the cost of the good of the souls of men and the right ordering of nations.

Pope Saint Pius X said as much in Notre Charge Apostolique:

However, let not these priests be misled, in the maze of current opinions, by the miracles of a false Democracy. Let them not borrow from the Rhetoric of the worst enemies of the Church and of the people, the high-flown phrases, full of promises; which are as high-sounding as unattainable. Let them be convinced that the social question and social science did not arise only yesterday; that the Church and the State, at all times and in happy concert, have raised up fruitful organizations to this end; that the Church, which has never betrayed the happiness of the people by consenting to dubious alliances, does not have to free herself from the past; that all that is needed is to take up again, with the help of the true workers for a social restoration, the organisms which the Revolution shattered, and to adapt them, in the same Christian spirit that inspired them, to the new environment arising from the material development of today’s society. Indeed, the true friends of the people are neither revolutionaries, nor innovators: they are traditionalists.

Let us continue to pray that the Holy Father will cease borrowing rhetoric from the "worst enemies of the Church" and seek instead to give voice to the immutable teaching of Our Lord articulated so well by the true friends of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen, the popes of Tradition.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Ambrose, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Edward the Confessor, pray for us.

Saint Henry, pray for us.

Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.

Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Louis IX, pray for us.

Saint Canute, pray for us.

Saint Wenceslaus, pray for us.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Saint Margaret of Scotland, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Blessed Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

The North American Martyrs, pray for us.

Blessed Francisco, pray for us.

Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.

Sister Lucia, pray for us.