Ron Paul, Meet Saint Paul

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Rudderless. Absolutely rudderless. That is what those outside of the true Church, including Protestants, are when trying to deal with the problems of life. Oh, many people have the proverbial "elements" of truth, seen in shadows and without even the hint of an understanding of the fact that the only way to see the world clearly is through the eyes of the true Faith. This leads very well-meaning people to "grapple" with what they allege to be are "difficult, complex" issues but are really quite simple.

Lacking a magisterium to guide them, Protestants, for example, invent magisterial "experts" to guide them on matters of Scriptural interpretations and how to apply such interpretations in the midst of the "real" world. The likes of Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell and dozens upon dozens of lesser known Protestant "ministers" and "exegetes," many of whom have their daily radio programs, are depended upon by millions of "believers" who hang on their every word, conforming their lives accordingly. Dr. James Dobson is one of the many legions of Protestant "experts" on matters of family life and politics upon whom many of those same millions of "believers," including a lot of Catholics across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide, rely on an almost daily basis for "advice" on family matters and "analysis" of political issues. Untold numbers of websites, some of them Protestant, some of them an "ecumenical" blend of Protestant, Catholic and Jewish commentators, offer readers interesting views about a variety of subjects, including the war in Iraq and the George W. Bush administration's support of various other evils in the United States of America and around the world.

When all is said and done, however, these well-meaning efforts to understand and analyze the problems, some of which contain well-documented factual information, of the world wind up confusing people, convincing them that there is some naturalistic or inter-denominational or non-denominational or "constitutional" way to improve social conditions. Nearly five centuries of a world where the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen has been rejected have produced billions of people worldwide who do not realize that the one and only solution to the problems of the world is Catholicism. There is no short-cut, no "end-run" around this fact. None. No amount of radio or television broadcasts or books or articles, whether printed on the internet or in the medium of printed journals, can make this fact go away. Catholicism--and Catholicism alone--is the only path to order within the soul and hence order within and among nations.

Protestantism is no foundation of sanctity or a means of salvation. It cannot produce social order. The extent to which social order existed, at least in varying degrees, in the centuries between Martin Luther and John Calvin and Henry Tudor and all of the other revolutionaries who defied the Divine Plan that God Himself instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church until the last half century or so is the result of the residual effects of Catholicism, not of Protestantism or of the many and sundry naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, self-redemptive (and thus enslaving) false "philosophies" of the "Enlightenment" and of the various movements, including Judeo-Masonry, that have arisen to "guide" men in the "path" to the "better" world. All of the "excitement" and energy generated every four years in the United States of America about this or that naturalistic candidate for office, some of whom see "trees" well enough now and again, winds up diverting people from any effort whatsoever to take a step back and to recognize that the following two statements are absolutely, universally and eternally true:

1) It is not possible for one to know the purpose of human existence and why problems exist in the world without submitting oneself entirely to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church, which is the sole and infallible explicator of the truths contained therein.

2) It is necessary for each person on the face of this earth to have belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace in order to be virtuous and thus to scale the heights of sanctity, thereby enabling their intellects to be enlightened to accept the Deposit of Faith and their wills strengthened to live it out on a daily basis.

 

One of the foundational beliefs of Modernism, which was condemned so vigorously by the sainted pontiff whose life and work we commemorate today, September 3, 2007, Pope Saint Pius X, is that it is not necessary to seek the conversion of the world to Catholicism, that an "interdenominational" or non-denominational approach, one that respects the condemned heresy of "religious liberty" and embraces another condemned proposition, the "separation of Church and State," is sufficient to deal with social problems. Writing in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, Pope Saint Pius X condemned this belief, which is of the absolute essence of Joseph Ratzinger's particular approach to social problems:

At the same time, Leo XIII laid down for Catholics a program of action, the only program capable of putting society back onto its centuries old Christian basis. But what have the leaders of the Sillon done? Not only have they adopted a program and teaching different from that of Leo XIII (which would be of itself a singularly audacious decision on the part of laymen thus taking up, concurrent with the Sovereign Pontiff, the role of director of social action in the Church); but they have openly rejected the program laid out by Leo XIII, and have adopted another which is diametrically opposed to it. Further, they reject the doctrine recalled by Leo XIII on the essential principles of society; they place authority in the people, or gradually suppress it and strive, as their ideal, to effect the leveling down of the classes. In opposition to Catholic doctrine, therefore, they are proceeding towards a condemned ideal.

We know well that they flatter themselves with the idea of raising human dignity and the discredited condition of the working class. We know that they wish to render just and perfect the labor laws and the relations between employers and employees, thus causing a more complete justice and a greater measure of charity to prevail upon earth, and causing also a profound and fruitful transformation in society by which mankind would make an undreamed-of progress. Certainly, We do not blame these efforts; they would be excellent in every respect if the Sillonist did not forget that a person’s progress consists in developing his natural abilities by fresh motivations; that it consists also in permitting these motivations to operate within the frame of, and in conformity with, the laws of human nature. But, on the contrary, by ignoring the laws governing human nature and by breaking the bounds within which they operate, the human person is lead, not toward progress, but towards death. This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.

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.

 

Yes, we must be about the business of restoring the Catholic City, something that is rejected by the counterfeit church of conciliarism and by its precursors and current fellow travelers in Protestantism and naturalism. This is not done electorally, as I am ashamed to admit that I believed at one time was possible. This is done by the patient process of the conversion of men and nations to the true Faith.

Remember, the work of the Catholicization of Europe was as of yet ongoing at the time that the saint we commemorated yesterday, Saint Stephen of Hungary, was born, in the Tenth Century, continuing into the Eleventh Century, which was the beginning of the Second Millennium. There was no short-cut to social order on Pentecost Sunday. There was none when Saint Henry sent missionaries to convert the various tribes of Hungary, thus bringing about the conversion of Saint Stephen's own parents and making possible the marriage of his own sister to Saint Stephen. Hungary became a thoroughly Catholic nation because one king and emperor, Saint Henry, understood that it was the spread of Catholicism, not the demigod of "civil liberty" (freedom of press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion), that is the foundation, although never an infallible guarantor, of order in the soul and hence order within and peace among nations.

The path to the conversion of nations to the true Faith excludes any enabling of error or strategic "compromise" therewith. We cannot by sins of omission fail to point out the errors of those steeped in Protestantism and/or a variety of naturalistic philosophies and ideologies, whether they be of the naturalist "left" or of the naturalist "right." Two of the Spiritual Works of Mercy to instruct the ignorant and to admonish the sinner, which is why many of us have remonstrated for over three decades now with pro-abortion Catholics of both major political parties in the United States of America. One of the things that I hope and pray helps to make up, if only just a little bit, for my many sins and failings is the fact that I have tried to point out the fallacies of Republican and Democrat pro-abortion Catholic politicians, even "placing it on the line," so to speak, by running for office on the New York State Right to Life Party line on three different occasions, trying to plant a few seeds in behalf of the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King. A point that I tried to make consistently in those campaigns was that the "I am personally opposed to abortion but can't 'impose' my views on others" line was condemned by Pope Leo XIII on November 1, 1885, in Immortale Dei:

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

 

Thus, I want to stipulate once again, especially for those who are not regular readers of this site or who are not aware of the hundreds of articles that I have written denouncing the likes of the Kennedys and the Ferraros and the Cuomos and the Patakis and the Bidens and Giulianis and Schwarzeneggers and Ridges and Lazios and other Catholic turncoats in public life, that to criticize George W. Bush, as I did at this time eight years ago (and have done consistently since that time) or Ron Paul is not to overlook the evils supported by other candidates. As truth matters, however, we must examine everything in life exclusively--and I mean exclusively--through the eyes of the Catholic Faith. Once again, Pope Saint Pius X pointed this out in no uncertain terms in Singulari Quadam, September 24, 1912:

These are fundamental principles: No matter what the Christian does, even in the realm of temporal goods, he cannot ignore the supernatural good. Rather, according to the dictates of Christian philosophy, he must order all things to the ultimate end, namely, the Highest Good. All his actions, insofar as they are morally either good or bad (that is to say, whether they agree or disagree with the natural and divine law), are subject to the judgment and judicial office of the Church.

 

God Himself has ordained the Catholic Church as the sole, exclusive and infallible explicator of the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law. No one can understand the Mind of God as It really is unless he accepts the fact that God has discharged His Mind solely in the Catholic Church and that he, along with every other man on the face of this earth, must submit to her magisterial authority on matters of Faith and Morals. It is not enough to say, as United States Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas), who is seeking the 2008 presidential nomination of the Republican Party, did recently, that he believes that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, which, of course, it is. The Bible is only part of the Divine Revelation, the other consists of Apostolic or Sacred Tradition, the oral teaching of Our Lord that He has entrusted to the Catholic Church that He Himself founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope:

This is that disciple who giveth testimony of these things, and hath written these things; and we know that his testimony is true. But there are also many other things which Jesus did; which, if they were written every one, the world itself, I think, would not be able to contain the books that should be written. (Jn. 21: 24-25.)

 

This authority was exercised in the very first council of the Church, the Council of Jerusalem, which had to decide whether Gentile converts to Catholicism had to undergo the Jewish ritual of circumcision prior to Baptism, a subject about which Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did not discourse during His Public Ministry. The assembled bishops prayed, calling upon God the Holy Ghost to guide them, rendering a decision on a subject not contained in Sacred Scripture, not that there was much of the New Testament that had been written by that time:

For it hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary things That you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which things keeping yourselves, you shall do well. Fare ye well. They therefore being dismissed, went down to Antioch; and gathering together the multitude, delivered the epistle.(Acts 15: 28-30)

 

Every human being on the face of this earth must submit himself to the teaching (magisterial) authority and sanctifying offices of the Catholic Church. No politician, no matter how nice he may seem or how correct he may be on some very important issues, is an exception. With some very few exceptions of those who converted to Protestantism in Africa or Asia, almost every Protestant has Catholic ancestors in his family tree, men and women who did exactly what they refuse to do in their own lives: submit themselves entirely to the magisterial authority and sanctifying offices of the Catholic Church. Pope Pius IX discussed this exact fact in Iam Vos Omnes, September 13, 1868:

It is for this reason that so many who do not share “the communion and the truth of the Catholic Church” must make use of the occasion of the Council, by the means of the Catholic Church, which received in Her bosom their ancestors, proposes [further] demonstration of profound unity and of firm vital force; hear the requirements [demands] of her heart, they must engage themselves to leave this state that does not guarantee for them the security of salvation. She does not hesitate to raise to the Lord of mercy most fervent prayers to tear down of the walls of division, to dissipate the haze of errors, and lead them back within holy Mother Church, where their Ancestors found salutary pastures of life; where, in an exclusive way, is conserved and transmitted whole the doctrine of Jesus Christ and wherein is dispensed the mysteries of heavenly grace.

 

Pope Pius XI wrote the same thing a little over thirty-nine years later, January 6, 1928, in Mortalium Animos:

So, Venerable Brethren, it is clear why this Apostolic See has never allowed its subjects to take part in the assemblies of non-Catholics: for the union of Christians can only be promoted by promoting the return to the one true Church of Christ of those who are separated from it, for in the past they have unhappily left it. To the one true Church of Christ, we say, which is visible to all, and which is to remain, according to the will of its Author, exactly the same as He instituted it. During the lapse of centuries, the mystical Spouse of Christ has never been contaminated, nor can she ever in the future be contaminated, as Cyprian bears witness: "The Bride of Christ cannot be made false to her Spouse: she is incorrupt and modest. She knows but one dwelling, she guards the sanctity of the nuptial chamber chastely and modestly." The same holy Martyr with good reason marveled exceedingly that anyone could believe that "this unity in the Church which arises from a divine foundation, and which is knit together by heavenly sacraments, could be rent and torn asunder by the force of contrary wills." For since the mystical body of Christ, in the same manner as His physical body, is one, compacted and fitly joined together, it were foolish and out of place to say that the mystical body is made up of members which are disunited and scattered abroad: whosoever therefore is not united with the body is no member of it, neither is he in communion with Christ its head.

Furthermore, in this one Church of Christ no man can be or remain who does not accept, recognize and obey the authority and supremacy of Peter and his legitimate successors. Did not the ancestors of those who are now entangled in the errors of Photius and the reformers, obey the Bishop of Rome, the chief shepherd of souls? Alas their children left the home of their fathers, but it did not fall to the ground and perish for ever, for it was supported by God. Let them therefore return to their common Father, who, forgetting the insults previously heaped on the Apostolic See, will receive them in the most loving fashion. For if, as they continually state, they long to be united with Us and ours, why do they not hasten to enter the Church, "the Mother and mistress of all Christ's faithful"? Let them hear Lactantius crying out: "The Catholic Church is alone in keeping the true worship. This is the fount of truth, this the house of Faith, this the temple of God: if any man enter not here, or if any man go forth from it, he is a stranger to the hope of life and salvation. Let none delude himself with obstinate wrangling. For life and salvation are here concerned, which will be lost and entirely destroyed, unless their interests are carefully and assiduously kept in mind."

Let, therefore, the separated children draw nigh to the Apostolic See, set up in the City which Peter and Paul, the Princes of the Apostles, consecrated by their blood; to that See, We repeat, which is "the root and womb whence the Church of God springs," not with the intention and the hope that "the Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth" will cast aside the integrity of the faith and tolerate their errors, but, on the contrary, that they themselves submit to its teaching and government. Would that it were Our happy lot to do that which so many of Our predecessors could not, to embrace with fatherly affection those children, whose unhappy separation from Us We now bewail. Would that God our Savior, "Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," would hear us when We humbly beg that He would deign to recall all who stray to the unity of the Church! In this most important undertaking We ask and wish that others should ask the prayers of Blessed Mary the Virgin, Mother of divine grace, victorious over all heresies and Help of Christians, that She may implore for Us the speedy coming of the much hoped-for day, when all men shall hear the voice of Her divine Son, and shall be "careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."

 

God has given us but one authority, the Catholic Church, to understand the entirety of His Divine Revelation, the Deposit of Faith. It is by the very authority of the Catholic Church that the twenty-seven books constituting the New Testament were declared to be canonical and thus inspired by the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Himself. There would be no New Testament, nor any reliable collection of the books of the Old Testament, absent the authority of the Catholic Church, something that most Protestants conveniently neglect.

No, my friends, it is meaningless to say that one believes in the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. One must believe in the entirety of the Deposit of Faith, which consists of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, without one iota of dissent from how that Deposit of Faith is taught by the one and only true Church, the Catholic Church. Saint Peter explained this in his Second Epistle:

Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation. For prophecy came not by the will of man at any time: but the holy men of God spoke, inspired by the Holy Ghost. (2 Peter 1: 20-21)

 

The Douay-Rheims Bible contains the following explanation of Verse 20 in Chapter 1 of the Second Epistle of Saint Peter:

"No prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation"... This shows plainly that the scriptures are not to be expounded by any one's private judgment or private spirit, because every part of the holy scriptures were written by men inspired by the Holy Ghost, and declared as such by the Church; therefore they are not to be interpreted but by the Spirit of God, which he hath left, and promised to remain with his Church to guide her in all truth to the end of the world. Some may tell us, that many of our divines interpret the scriptures: they may do so, but they do it always with a submission to the judgment of the Church, and not otherwise.

 

We never look to Protestants for any "direction" on matters of Divine Revelation or its application in the midst of the world. We must look only to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, which includes her infallible Social Teaching from which not a single, solitary person on the face of this planet may dissent legitimately:

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

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

 

As Representative Ron Paul does not accept the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, he is incapable of understanding that there is no "complexity" on the moral issues of the day. There is moral right and there is moral wrong. It is that simple. It is not up to Ron Paul to interpret the Bible. It is up to Ron Paul--and to everyone else in the world--to accept as humble sheep the teaching that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church without even a momentary peep. It is that simple.

One of the simple truths that Dr. Paul does not understand is that contraceptives of all types, even those that are not abortifacients, are evil in se and have no right to be designed, manufactured, distributed, prescribed or dispensed (whether by prescription or by means of over-the-counter sales). Dr. Paul has prescribed contraceptives in his medical practice. He has defied the law of God in doing so. He reveals himself to be, leaving aside all subjective judgments on his immortal soul, judgments that belong to God, Who alone searches the hearts and souls of men, objectively steeped in the purveyance of moral evils that violate the absolute, immutable Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marital relations.

No one who believes in, no less prescribes contraceptives, is a friend of God, objectively speaking, even though he may not realize this to be the case. Indeed, he is, objectively speaking, an enemy of God's laws and an enemy of the sanctity and the stability of family life. Such a person cannot contribute to the common temporal good as he tears down that good by his participation in objective moral evils, thereby also harming, once again, objectively speaking, the eternal good of the souls of the patients he believe that he is helping by his deformed medical judgments and convictions. Why support him? Why? What rational end is served by enabling a man, certainly a well-meaning man, whose mind is poisoned by the lie of Protestantism and further poisoned by the lie of libertarianism into believing that the civil state does not need the authority of the Catholic Church to guide it on matters that pertain to the good of souls--and thus have a direct bearing on the common temporal good of a nation?

Dr. Paul expressed himself on abortion and contraception as follows in a recent interview with a writer by the name of John Lofton:

Yes, Paul thinks abortion is murder but there is a difference between taking a so-called “morning after pill” and a person committing “the horrible murder when you see someone lying in the floor and someone takes a gun and puts it to their head. I don’t equate those and don’t expect the law or juries to treat them exactly alike.” He says, however, he lacks the wisdom to say what the penalty ought to be for abortionists or those getting abortions.

 

The confusion in this passage is the result of the illogic and the absurdity of Protestantism and naturalism.

Dr. Paul believes that abortion is murder. That's nice, except for the fact that he believes that state legislatures have the right to permit it as well as to prohibit it, depending upon the "views" of the citizens of a particular state. As I have noted consistently in my teaching and speaking and writing careers, as well as in my own campaigns for public office and speeches delivered in behalf of other candidates for public office, no institution of human governance has any authority to permit the slicing and dicing of innocent preborn babies under any conditions whatsoever. Innocent human life is inviolable from the first moment of fertilization through all subsequent stages until the natural death willed by God and can never be made the object of any direct, intentional, willful action that has as its only possible end its death (there are, as I have noted many times on this site, differences between the removal of extraordinary means to sustain breathing, for example, an involuntary activity of the human body, that merely lets the body do what it is or is not able to do on its own and direct efforts to kill an innocent human being). While institutions of human governance are free to determine the specific penalties to be administered for those taking (and participating in the taking) of innocent preborn life, they are not free to permit it. The "views" of the citizens" are irrelevant. The "people" are not sovereign. Christ the King as He has revealed Himself through His true Church is sovereign. End of discussion, thank you.

Furthermore, it is to cloud several important distinctions to assert that the "morning after pill" (or other forms of chemical abortifacients) is different from surgical abortion. Surgical abortion is indeed the direct, intentional attack on innocent preborn life. Such innocent preborn life may die as a result of the "morning after pill." The child is no less dead than if he had been dismembered in a suction abortion or burned in a saline solution abortion or dissection in a dilation and evacuation or a hysterotomy (the last two procedures are means of late-term baby-killing that remain perfectly legal in all circumstances) and dilation and extraction (partial-birth abortion, which remains perfectly legal in cases where it is alleged that a mother's life is endangered--and which is no more morally heinous than any other form of baby-killing). The civil law must prohibit the "morning after pill" just as it must prohibit all other forms of contraceptives, taking into account for purposes of applying an appropriate penalty the fact that the death of a child is more than usually the result of taking the "morning after pill" (see: Emergency Contraception: The Morning-After Pill - American Life League). The intention of taking the "morning after pill" is prevent contraception ex post facto, meaning that the intention of a woman who takes it is to kill a child if one has been conceived. That's premeditation, admitting at the same that proving a child has been killed would be, in the practical order of things, very difficult to determine.

There can be no question, however, that "morning after pill," which is now available "over the counter" for women over the age of eighteen years of age (thank you, "pro-life" George W. Bush administration), must never be permitted to be produced or distributed at any time. This is so, so very simple. The Catholic Church has spelled this all out for us. Protestants, however, have to "reinvent" the wheel all of the time, frequently arguing amongst themselves about the the proper, "Scriptural" way to respond to this or that moral problem. What a gigantic waste of time and effort. Why enable this? Why?

Pope Pius XI stated the matter very clearly in Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930:

When we consider the great excellence of chaste wedlock, Venerable Brethren, it appears all the more regrettable that particularly in our day we should witness this divine institution often scorned and on every side degraded.

For now, alas, not secretly nor under cover, but openly, with all sense of shame put aside, now by word again by writings, by theatrical productions of every kind, by romantic fiction, by amorous and frivolous novels, by cinematographs portraying in vivid scene, in addresses broadcast by radio telephony, in short by all the inventions of modern science, the sanctity of marriage is trampled upon and derided; divorce, adultery, all the basest vices either are extolled or at least are depicted in such colors as to appear to be free of all reproach and infamy. Books are not lacking which dare to pronounce themselves as scientific but which in truth are merely coated with a veneer of science in order that they may the more easily insinuate their ideas. The doctrines defended in these are offered for sale as the productions of modern genius, of that genius namely, which, anxious only for truth, is considered to have emancipated itself from all those old-fashioned and immature opinions of the ancients; and to the number of these antiquated opinions they relegate the traditional doctrine of Christian marriage.

These thoughts are instilled into men of every class, rich and poor, masters and workers, lettered and unlettered, married and single, the godly and godless, old and young, but for these last, as easiest prey, the worst snares are laid.

Not all the sponsors of these new doctrines are carried to the extremes of unbridled lust; there are those who, striving as it were to ride a middle course, believe nevertheless that something should be conceded in our times as regards certain precepts of the divine and natural law. But these likewise, more or less wittingly, are emissaries of the great enemy who is ever seeking to sow cockle among the wheat.[42] We, therefore, whom the Father has appointed over His field, We who are bound by Our most holy office to take care lest the good seed be choked by the weeds, believe it fitting to apply to Ourselves the most grave words of the Holy Ghost with which the Apostle Paul exhorted his beloved Timothy: "Be thou vigilant . . . Fulfill thy ministry . . . Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine."

And since, in order that the deceits of the enemy may be avoided, it is necessary first of all that they be laid bare; since much is to be gained by denouncing these fallacies for the sake of the unwary, even though We prefer not to name these iniquities "as becometh saints,"[44] yet for the welfare of souls We cannot remain altogether silent.

To begin at the very source of these evils, their basic principle lies in this, that matrimony is repeatedly declared to be not instituted by the Author of nature nor raised by Christ the Lord to the dignity of a true sacrament, but invented by man. Some confidently assert that they have found no evidence of the existence of matrimony in nature or in her laws, but regard it merely as the means of producing life and of gratifying in one way or another a vehement impulse; on the other hand, others recognize that certain beginnings or, as it were, seeds of true wedlock are found in the nature of man since, unless men were bound together by some form of permanent tie, the dignity of husband and wife or the natural end of propagating and rearing the offspring would not receive satisfactory provision. At the same time they maintain that in all beyond this germinal idea matrimony, through various concurrent causes, is invented solely by the mind of man, established solely by his will.

How grievously all these err and how shamelessly they leave the ways of honesty is already evident from what we have set forth here regarding the origin and nature of wedlock, its purposes and the good inherent in it. The evil of this teaching is plainly seen from the consequences which its advocates deduce from it, namely, that the laws, institutions and customs by which wedlock is governed, since they take their origin solely from the will of man, are subject entirely to him, hence can and must be founded, changed and abrogated according to human caprice and the shifting circumstances of human affairs; that the generative power which is grounded in nature itself is more sacred and has wider range than matrimony -- hence it may be exercised both outside as well as within the confines of wedlock, and though the purpose of matrimony be set aside, as though to suggest that the license of a base fornicating woman should enjoy the same rights as the chaste motherhood of a lawfully wedded wife.

Armed with these principles, some men go so far as to concoct new species of unions, suited, as they say, to the present temper of men and the times, which various new forms of matrimony they presume to label "temporary," "experimental," and "companionate." These offer all the indulgence of matrimony and its rights without, however, the indissoluble bond, and without offspring, unless later the parties alter their cohabitation into a matrimony in the full sense of the law.

Indeed there are some who desire and insist that these practices be legitimatized by the law or, at least, excused by their general acceptance among the people. They do not seem even to suspect that these proposals partake of nothing of the modern "culture" in which they glory so much, but are simply hateful abominations which beyond all question reduce our truly cultured nations to the barbarous standards of savage peoples.

And now, Venerable Brethren, we shall explain in detail the evils opposed to each of the benefits of matrimony. First consideration is due to the offspring, which many have the boldness to call the disagreeable burden of matrimony and which they say is to be carefully avoided by married people not through virtuous continence (which Christian law permits in matrimony when both parties consent) but by frustrating the marriage act. Some justify this criminal abuse on the ground that they are weary of children and wish to gratify their desires without their consequent burden. Others say that they cannot on the one hand remain continent nor on the other can they have children because of the difficulties whether on the part of the mother or on the part of family circumstances .

But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious.

Small wonder, therefore, if Holy Writ bears witness that the Divine Majesty regards with greatest detestation this horrible crime and at times has punished it with death. As St. Augustine notes, "Intercourse even with one's legitimate wife is unlawful and wicked where the conception of the offspring is prevented. Onan, the son of Juda, did this and the Lord killed him for it."

Since, therefore, openly departing from the uninterrupted Christian tradition some recently have judged it possible solemnly to declare another doctrine regarding this question, the Catholic Church, to whom God has entrusted the defense of the integrity and purity of morals, standing erect in the midst of the moral ruin which surrounds her, in order that she may preserve the chastity of the nuptial union from being defiled by this foul stain, raises her voice in token of her divine ambassadorship and through Our mouth proclaims anew: any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.

 

Demonstrating the residual influences of Catholicism as late as 1931,the following editorial appeared in The Washington Post on March 22, 1931, shortly after the Lambeth Committee of the Anglican “church” endorsed the use of a certain type of contraceptive device by married couples who found themselves in “extraordinary” circumstances:

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

 

Dr. Paul is most wrong about contraception. No one has the moral "liberty" to manufacture, prescribe, sell or use contraceptives of any type, regardless as to whether they are abortifacients. Indeed, given the rights of God and the good of the family and married life, the civil state has an obligation to prohibit these poisons and pills and devices from being manufactured or distributed.

Dr. Paul also discussed the matter of perverse inclinations in his interview with John Lofton, stating that he is uncertain as to whether homosexuality is a sin, calling the matter "complex." Well, perverse inclinations are not necessarily sinful. True enough. However, they are gravely disordered and represent in many instances severe emotional, if not psychiatric, problems. This is what Dr. Paul said, confining himself to the matter of whether those inclined to perverse acts are fit to serve in the armed forces of the United States of America:

Is homosexuality a sin? Paul says he’s “not as judgmental about that probably because of my medical background. I don’t see it in [such] simplistic terms. I think it’s a complex issue to think it’s a sin or other problems with the way people are born. It’s too complex to give an answer as simple as that [that homosexuality is a sin.]”

Does he believe God says homosexuality is a sin? “Well, I believe a lot of people understand it that way but I think everybody is God’s child, too, so, you know, I have trouble with that.” I point out that, Biblically-speaking, all human beings are made in God’s image but not all are God’s children; some people are children of the devil. For example, in John 8:44ff, Jesus tells some folks they believe He is not God because their father is the devil.

Re: Paul having said that President Clinton’s “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” policy concerning homosexuals in our military is “a decent policy” and that he, as President, would retain it, I ask him, why, instead, wouldn’t he have said something like this:

Unrepentant homosexuals and adulterers, and others in these kinds of categories, are not decent people, they are people with flawed characters. Therefore, to the extent humanly possible, as President, I would attempt to seek to bar such persons of poor and bad character from our military.

Paul says well, for every homosexual problem we have in our military we also have a heterosexual problem. I agree saying fine, so both types should be banned. I ask: why not try — as far as is humanly possible — to ban from our military all homosexuals, adulterers, fornicators? He says: “Well,…we’re all imperfect, we all sin. If the heterosexual or the homosexual sins, that to me is a category dealing with their own soul. Since we can’t have only perfect people go in the military, I want to separate the two because I don’t want to know the heterosexual flaws or the homosexual flaws….For the practicality of running a military, I’d just as soon not know every serious thing that any heterosexual did or any homosexual did. And those flaws have to do with all our flaws because each and every one of us have those imperfections and we all are sinners.”

I reply: “Well, we’re all sinners but some people do work harder at their sin than others. Some are repentant sinners fighting their sin; and others like unrepentant homosexuals are marching down Main Street saying that they are proud that they are homosexuals — these are not people who are merely sinners.”

I ask: If we both want people in our military of good moral character, how do we find out before they go in if they in fact are of good moral character? Isn’t it better to find this out before people are in our military?

Paul: “Well, I think it’s virtually impossible if you are looking for perfection in good moral character —”

Me: “I’m not” [looking for perfection.]

Paul: “Maybe you’re looking for perfection — you have to define good moral character —”

Me: “Sure.”

Paul: “And that means people don’t lie, cheat, steal, murder, they don’t beat their wives, and they’ve taken care of their kids.”

Me: “OK.”

Paul: “And so if you can find people like that then you know they may not be perfect but they would be of moral character that could be in our military.”

I tell him I believe God will not bless any military that’s full of unrepentant homosexuals, adulterers and fornicators. He does not reply to this observation.

 

Dr. Paul is wrong on many counts, starting with his assertion that people are born with perverse inclinations. This is something that is asserted in the Catechism of the Conciliar Church, to be sure. However, this assertion is without scientific foundation. The Catholic Medical Association has done an excellent study to refute this assertion, maintaining that such inclinations are acquired, not innate, that can be changed with God's grace and intensive therapy. (See: HOMOSEXUALITY AND HOPE: Statement Of The Catholic Medical Association. There is much good work being done by ordinary Catholics who remain in the conciliar structures, believing that those structures can be "reformed." They are wrong about this. One must be able, however, to recognize, accept and applaud valid, if not groundbreaking, research being done by our fellow Catholics in these important areas, including the bioethical issues raised by the rise of medical technologies that could not have been imagined as late as a half century ago.)

Dr. Paul has reached his conclusion anecdotally, not scientifically. He is wrong about why people are inclined to acts of perversity: they have chosen to be this way. The Homosexual Collective has spread all manner of propaganda to convince people that their behavior is innate, not acquired, seeking to brainwash children in public and in parochial schools about the fact that it is just as normal to be "perversely" inclined as it is to for a man to be attracted to a woman and vice versa. (See Randy Engel's The Rite of Sodomy.)  Those who succumb to this propaganda are part of the problem, not part of the solution, which is to be found in seeking the conversion of all men and nations to the Catholic Church.

Moreover, Dr. Paul is wrong in endorsing the wretched William Jefferson Blyth Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy with respect to perverts, both those who are merely perversely inclined and those who engage in perverse acts, in the armed forces of the United States of America. A nation must be served by men of upright moral character. Perverse inclinations demonstrate a grave disorder that disqualifies one from service in the military, to say noting of what Dr. Paul is oblivious to, that is, placing such men in what are near occasions of sin for them. No, anyone perversely inclined and/or engaged in perverse acts in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments does not belong in the military forces of any nation.

What about those who engage in natural vices against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments? Well, the codes of conduct for the various branches of the armed forces of the United States of America have long established that such vices can be grounds for discipline and possibly court-martial proceedings. The fact that such vices have been on the rise in recent years is because of the integration of women in the armed forces with men. Women do not belong in the armed forces with men. They do not belong in combat. God did not make women to serve in combat.

Yes, God made an exception with Saint Joan of Arc, who dressed as man so as to protect her chastity. In normal circumstances, however, women are not meant to serve in the active duty or reserve military next to men, no less to serve in combat positions. An article I wrote in 1993 for The Wanderer, "Dressed to Kill" (which was lost about ninety-eight computer crashes ago--and I don't thank my former colleagues at 201 Ohio Street in Saint Paul, Minnesota, are going to be sending me any of past work anytime soon!), discussed this in great detail. While it is sadly the case that many men in the military act immorally without the near occasions of sin represented by women in their work environment, the problem of an increase in natural vice in the armed forces of the United States of America is directly traceable to the feminism and egalitarianism of the anti-Incarnational ethos of Modernity and the rise of the religiously indifferentist, civilly pluralistic state.

Dr. Paul's lack of clarity on this issue is also reflected in his belief that states that permit "marriages" between perverts, to which he is "personally opposed," should be permitted to do so without Federal interference. As I have noted before, God's rights come before states' rights. No human institution of civil governance has any right to permit such an outrage. Sure, Dr. Paul believes that the Federal judiciary should be prohibited from striking down state legislation that forbids "marriages" between those engaged in perverted behavior. However, he leaves this matter up to the states, which he believes have the right under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America to legislate in this field, which they do not. This is one of the instances in a Catholic world where the authority of the Catholic Church, recognized as the God-given arbiter in matters that pertain to the good of souls, would interpose herself with civil authorities to stop such efforts to endorse a sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance, doing so only after exhausting her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation.

Pope Pius XI specifically and categorically condemned all efforts on the part of civil authorities to legitimize immoral unions:

Armed with these principles, some men go so far as to concoct new species of unions, suited, as they say, to the present temper of men and the times, which various new forms of matrimony they presume to label "temporary," "experimental," and "companionate." These offer all the indulgence of matrimony and its rights without, however, the indissoluble bond, and without offspring, unless later the parties alter their cohabitation into a matrimony in the full sense of the law.

Indeed there are some who desire and insist that these practices be legitimatized by the law or, at least, excused by their general acceptance among the people. They do not seem even to suspect that these proposals partake of nothing of the modern "culture" in which they glory so much, but are simply hateful abominations which beyond all question reduce our truly cultured nations to the barbarous standards of savage peoples.(Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

 

Hateful abominations can never be sanctioned by the civil law. Anyone who believes otherwise is in league, whether wittingly or unwittingly, with the devil, not with Christ the King as He has revealed Himself through the Catholic Church.

Ron Paul should meet Saint Paul, who indicated that one of the clearest paths to ruin for a people is to endorse or to be indifferent about perversity:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and injustice of those men that detain the truth of God in injustice: Because that which is known of God is manifest in them. For God hath manifested it unto them. For the invisible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; his eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable.

Because that, when they knew God, they have not glorified him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened. For professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of fourfooted beasts, and of creeping things. Wherefore God gave them up to the desires of their heart, unto uncleanness, to dishonour their own bodies among themselves. Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error. And as they liked not to have God in their knowledge, God delivered them up to a reprobate sense, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all iniquity, malice, fornication, avarice, wickedness, full of envy, murder, contention, deceit, malignity, whisperers, Detractors, hateful to God, contumelious, proud, haughty, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, foolish, dissolute, without affection, without fidelity, without mercy. Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them. (Romans 1: 18-32.)

 

The purpose of this is not to beat up on Ron Paul. No. The purpose of this is point out that we do not look to Ron Paul, who is a victim of the world created by Protestantism and naturalism, for "guidance" on matters that are reserved solely to the authority of the Catholic Church. We do not look to others steeped in similar errors. We are not, I repeat: we are not solving our problems politically or legally or constitutionally. I tried to hammer that theme home eight years ago when writing about then Governor George W. Bush. I am trying do so at present. We simply do not and must not subordinate Catholicism to the interests of any candidate, no matter his identity. Have we learned nothing from how so many millions of Catholics have indemnified and enabled the likes of the Kennedys and others, including the Clintons, over the years? Why repeat these mistakes all over again, time and time again, endlessly and without any reflection at all on the fact that the principle goal of any level of civil government is to help to foster those conditions wherein it is more possible for its citizens to sanctify and thus save their souls as Catholics, as Pope Saint Pius X taught so clearly 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. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error."

 

This is what each man and woman on the face of the earth must accept about the ultimate purpose of the civil state in light of the economy of salvation that began with the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb and has been entrusted by that God-Man to the Catholic Church until the end of time. There is no need for "original" "thinkers" to reinvent the wheel or to come up with their own special "twists" on this or that problem. All we need to do is to submit ourselves to the authority of the Catholic Church.

Representative Ron Paul, M.D., does not understand this. We must pray for his conversion. In the meantime, however, it does the common good of this country no service for Catholics to suspend their sensus Catholicus by endorse whole-heartedly--and sending their hard-earned dollars--to support a man who actually defies the law of God in his own medical practice and who believes, despite his own personal opposition to most abortions, that state legislatures may choose to reflect the "views of the people" and permit the daily slaughter of the innocent preborn. People are going to continue to believe what they want, oblivious to Dr. Paul's positions in contravention of the Catholic Faith and oblivious to the simple political reality that he, although courageous and absolutely correct in his continued opposition to George W. Bush's Iraq madness, is not going to be the Republican nominee for President next year nor is going to be elected on a third party. People are so desperate for anything that sounds like "leadership" that they are willing to suspend rationality in order to hold hold naturalistic "hope" for the future.

As noted above, the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which endorses the religious liberty and separation of Church and State that are two of the essences of Americanism, helps to reaffirm Catholics in all manner of false nations about how "progress" can be achieved in the midst of the "modern" world, making them run after apparent political prophets with special abandon. Joseph Ratzinger rejects the binding nature of the infallible, immutable Social Teaching enunciated by the true Popes of the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries, men who were merely reiterating the constant teaching of the Catholic Church. Once again, therefore, it is necessary to revisit the contrast between Ratzinger's rejection of Catholic Social Teaching and Pope Saint Pius X's clear condemnation of the very thing Ratzinger believes:

The text [of the Second Vatican Council] also presents the various forms of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms -- perhaps for the first time with this clarity -- that there are decisions of the Magisterium that cannot be a last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. Its nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times have influenced, may need further ramifications.

“In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from immersion in the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they become obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at the proper moment.” (L'Osservatore Romano, July 2, 1990)

Has the Catholic Church ever taught that the "details of the determinations" of past encyclical letters "become obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at the proper moment"? Ever? Indeed, Pope Saint Pius X, writing in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907, condemned the very proposition advanced by Joseph Ratzinger in the quotation above:

So, too, the philosopher regards it as certain that the representations of the object of faith are merely symbolical; the believer has likewise affirmed that the object of faith is God in himself; and the theologian proceeds to affirm that: The representations of the divine reality are symbolical. And thus we have theological symbolism. These errors are truly of the gravest kind and the pernicious character of both will be seen clearly from an examination of their consequences. For, to begin with symbolism, since symbols are but symbols in regard to their objects and only instruments in regard to the believer, it is necessary first of all, according to the teachings of the Modernists, that the believer does not lay too much stress on the formula, as formula, but avail himself of it only for the purpose of uniting himself to the absolute truth which the formula at once reveals and conceals, that is to say, endeavors to express but without ever succeeding in doing so. They would also have the believer make use of the formulas only in as far as they are helpful to him, for they are given to be a help and not a hindrance; with proper regard, however, for the social respect due to formulas which the public magisterium has deemed suitable for expressing the common consciousness until such time as the same magisterium shall provide otherwise.

No one who believes in this Modernist proposition is a Catholic. He is a Modernist. Each and every Catholic is bound to accept the entire patrimony of the Church, including her Social Teaching. It is only those filled with the pride of Americanism and pluralism and other species of Modernism who consider themselves to be too sophisticated and urbane to submit with humility and docility to the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the necessity of the confessionally Catholic State that was reiterated by one pope after another prior to the dawn of conciliarism and the false church that emerged in its wake.

Father Fahey, the ardent foe of Judeo-Masonic naturalism, explained this in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World:

Papal documents, treating of the Mystical Body in relation to Politics and Economics, as well as those which deal with the influence of the saints, the truly great men of the world, on their times, are of paramount importance for the study of the theology of history. The Syllabus and the various condemnations of Liberalism by the Sovereign Pontiffs aimed at fixing certain truths firmly in the minds of Catholics. The return to sane thinking about social organization demanded as a prerequisite the purification of thought and the elimination of error.

We can thus easily see that the entrance of Christianity into the world has meant two things. Primarily and principally, it has meant the constitution of a supernatural society, the Mystical Body of Christ, absolutely transcending every natural development of culture and civilization. Secondly, it has had for result that this supernatural society, the Catholic Church, began to exercise a profound influence on culture and civilization and modified in far-reaching fashion the existing temporal or natural social order.

The proper organization of society is thus dependent upon the due submission of rulers and the ruled to the authority of the Catholic Church, something that occurred, albeit imperfectly and inconsistently, in the Middle Ages:

In proportion as the Mystical Body of Christ was accepted by mankind, political and economic thought and action began to respect the jurisdiction and guidance of the Catholic Church, endowed, as she is, with the right of intervention in temporal affairs whenever necessary, because of her participation in the spiritual Kingship of Christ. Thus the natural or temporal common good of States came to be sought in a manner calculated to favour the development of true personality, in and through the Mystical Body of Christ, and social life came more and more fully under the influence of the supreme end of man, the vision of God in Three Divine Persons.

Accordingly, Catholic Social Order, viewed as a whole, is not primarily the political and social organization of society. It is primarily the supernatural social organism of the Church, and then, secondarily, the temporal or natural social order resulting from the influence of Catholic doctrine on politics and economics and from the embodiment of that influence in social institutions. If instead of Catholic Social Order we use the wider but more convenient expression of Kingdom of God, we may say that the Kingdom of God on earth is in its essence the Church, but, in its integrity, comprises the Church and the temporal social order which the influence of the Church upon the world is every striving to bring into existence. Needless to say, while the general principles of social order remain always the same, social structures will present great differences at different epochs. No particular temporal social order will ever realize all that the Church is capable of giving to the world. The theology of history must include, then, primarily, the study of the foundation and development of the Church, and secondarily, the examination of the ebb and flow of the world’s acceptance of the Church’s supernatural mission.

There is no Protestant or Judeo-Masonic or naturalistic, ideology way to organize civil society, which must keep in man's Last End, something that can be understood only as it taught by the Magisterium of Catholic Church and whose pursuit is enabled by her Sanctifying Office. Father Fahey explained this in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World:

Politics is the science which as for object the organization of the State in view of the complete common good of the citizens in the natural order, and the means that conduce to it. As the final end of man is, however, not merely natural, the State, charged with the temporal social order, must ever act so as not only not to hinder but also to favour the attaining of man’s supreme end, the Vision of God in Three Divine Persons. Political thought and political action, therefore, in an ordered State, will respect the jurisdiction and guidance of the Catholic Church, the divinely-instituted guardian of the moral order, remember that what is morally wrong cannot be politically good. Thus the natural or temporal common good of the State will be always aimed at, in the way best calculated to favour the development of true personality, in and through the Mystical Body of Christ. The civil power will then have a purer and higher notion of its proper end, acquired in the full light of Catholic truth, and political action, both in rulers and ruled, will come fully under the influence of supernatural life.”

Despite the fact that fallen men gave bad examples during the Middle Ages, there were, as mentioned above, the saintly rulers of that era who understood that they would be judged by Christ the King harshly if they failed to rule according His Divine Mind, Which He had discharged exclusively to the Catholic Church:

The organization of the Europe of the thirteenth century furnishes us with one concrete realization of the Divine Plan. It is hardly necessary to add that there were then to be seen defects in the working of the Divine Plan, due to the character of fallen man, as well as an imperfect mastery of physical nature. Yet, withal, the formal principle of ordered social organisation in the world, the supremacy of the Mystical Body, was grasped and, in the main, accepted. The Lutheran revolt, prepared by the cult of pagan antiquity at the Renaissance, and by the favour enjoyed by the Nominalist philosophical theories, led to the rupture of that order." (Father Denis Fahey, The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, p. 10.)

 

A world that rejects the Divine Plan that God Himself had instituted to effect man's return to Him through His Catholic Church will be filled with wanton violence and a descent into the abyss of barbarism that so characterizes life in the so-called "civilized" United States of America, where over four thousand innocent preborn babies are butchered under cover of law every day, where physicians prescribe and pharmacists dispense contraceptive pills and devices, thereby denying the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity of martial relations and killing, in most cases, the innocent preborn, a land where usury, which is specifically condemned by the Catholic Church as one of the four crimes that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, is the basis of corporate wealth, a land where every sort of immorality and indecency is displayed publicly and promoted in every aspect of popular culture, exported abroad for the sake of corporate wealth and cultural imperialism. This is, of course, but the logical, inexorable consequence of the rejection of the authority of the Catholic Church as the one and only teacher and sanctifier of men--and thus the one and only force on the face of this earth to remonstrate with civil rulers to do nothing contrary to the good of souls.

A nation not founded on right principles was bound to demonstrate the perfection of the inherent degeneracy of its falsehoods over time. It was American Masons who helped to undermine Catholicism in Latin America, permitting the demonic lodges to gain their footholds in various countries, including Mexico, which belongs in a special way to Our Lady, and the subsequent persecution of Catholics that had the imprimatur of the likes of President Thomas Woodrow Wilson. Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt made war upon Catholics in the Philippines who did not want their Protestant and Masonic "liberators" to rule their country and thus to introduce false worship (either of the Protestant or Masonic variety) into their proudly Catholic land. This is the legacy of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King: unbridled licentiousness and the violence and greed that is unleashed thereby.

The United States of America has been in the business of promoting the falsehoods of Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry and capitalism and civil and religious liberty and pluralism across the world. Any nation that promotes these evils has a great debt to pay to God, Who may indeed be preparing to visit quite a chastisement on it for its persistence in so many abominable evils while it dares to call itself "civilized," if not "the last best hope of mankind," an appellation that belongs to the Catholic Church alone, universally and eternally

Ron Paul does not understand these truths in large measure because the counterfeit church of conciliarism has made its "peace" with the "principles" of 1787 and the "principles" of 1789. Is there no one to sit him down and to explain to him that the people are not sovereign, that Christ the King is sovereign and that His true Church is one and only arbiter in all that pertains to the good of souls, that the civil state has the positive obligation to foster the good of souls as what is conducive to the good of souls is the only foundation for the orderly and just society? Is there no one to tell him that there is no "civil right" to broadcast blasphemy and indecency, that there is no "civil right" to pollute one's body--and to endanger the lives of others--by means of hallucinogenic substances? Is there no one to tell him that these words condemning "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press" bind his conscience?

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

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again? (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)

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, 1900.)

 

Is there no one to tell Dr. Paul that the religious indifferentism fostered by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America is opposed to God's law, that its protection of  the error of "religious liberty" is but the inevitable path to the triumph of atheism, as 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.

 

Protestantism and the naturalism of Judeo-Masonry (and all of the false "philosophies" and ideologies that have arisen in the past three to five hundred years) have created a world where the anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity dwell in the minds of most non-Catholics and the errors of Modernism dwell in the minds of most Catholics. May the saint we commemorate today, Saint Pius X, help us to recognize the errors of the day and to give absolutely no quarter to them in the midst of the civil realm as we reject with equal determination the errors of Modernism that are enshrined in the ethos of conciliarism and promoted to this very day without any apology or abjuration whatsoever by the aging revolutionaries who pose, albeit falsely, as Catholic "shepherds" in the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Let us make sure to use the weapon that was lifted high by Saint Pius X throughout his priesthood, Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, as we seek to eradicate sin from all our own lives, making use of the Sacred Tribunal of Penance on a weekly basis and spending time before Our Lady's Divine Son in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament as we offer up our daily acts of penance to His Most Sacred Heart through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart as her consecrated slaves. We must never doubt the fact that Our Lady's Immaculate Heart will triumph.

Let us use the spiritual weapons that Our Lord has given us through His Most Blessed Mother, understanding these words that Saint Paul wrote in his Epistle to the Ephesians apply to us right now in our current ecclesiastical and civil circumstances:

Not serving to the eye, as it were pleasing men, but, as the servants of Christ doing the will of God from the heart, With a good will serving, as to the Lord, and not to men. Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man shall do, the same shall he receive from the Lord, whether he be bond, or free. And you, masters, do the same things to them, forbearing threatenings, knowing that the Lord both of them and you is in heaven; and there is no respect of persons with him. Finally, brethren, be strengthened in the Lord, and in the might of his power.

Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace:

In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God). By all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance and supplication for all the saints: (Ephesians 6: 6-18.)

 

Omnia instaurare in Christo.

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!

 

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our deaths. Amen.

 

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

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

 

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Giles, pray for us.

Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.

Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.

Pope Saint Zephyrinus, pray for us.

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

Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us.

Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.

Saint Philip Benizi, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

Saint John Eudes, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us, pray for us.

Saint Agapitus, pray for us.

Saint Helena, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.

Saints Monica, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint  Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.

Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Turibius, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Basil, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.

Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Juan Diego, pray for us.

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

 

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.