by Thomas A. Droleskey
One of the standard excuses used by phony "pro-life" presidents to explain their unwillingness to seek the reversal of the January 22, 1973, decisions of the Supreme Court in the companion cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton is that the "country is not ready" to accept such a reversal. Thus it is that decriminalized surgical baby-killing under cover of law continues unabated in the United States of America, becoming such an institutionalized part of the everyday fabric of ordinary life that even some traditional Catholics who make absolutely no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds go about their own lives relatively unconcerned about the daily genocide that takes place right in our own communities. The situation is so bad that there is an attitude in one rather major religious community in the "resist and recognize" camp discourages its adherents from participating in pro-life rallies and events, although many of its priests do so anyway. Such Catholic diffidence to the daily slaughter of the preborn will be addressed later in this commentary.
Diffidence to the daily slaughter of the preborn is justified by careerist politicians by claiming to want to "change hearts and minds" despite the fact that they do or say absolutely nothing to anyone's heart or mind. Speeches about the inviolability of all innocent human life without any exception whatsoever from the moment of fertilization to the moment of natural death willed by God? No focus group (a representative sample of individuals from a given "universe" of the electorate chosen by means of statistical analysis) is going to approve of such a thing. Proposals to use the legitimately implied powers given to the office of the presidency in Article II of the Constitution of the United States to protect innocent preborn life by authorizing the United States attorneys for the eighty-eight districts of the country to arrest baby-killers and to shut down their offices? Why, why, why, that would be unconstitutional, illegal, without any basis in the Federal code to undertake, a most debatable argument, one that is, of course, essentially mooted by the fact that a written document that admits of no higher authority than its own written words will be as defenseless against efforts to deconstruct the plain meaning of those words by positivists and ideologues as the words of Sacred Scripture are defenseless against efforts by Protestants and secularists to deconstruct them in a completely theological relativistic manner. Use executive power to circumvent an unjust decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in order to protect the innocent preborn and to arrest and prosecute those involved in surgical baby-killing? Why, why, why, that's just un-American, right?
As I have demonstrated repeatedly in the past twenty-five years or so, most career politicians who label themselves a "pro-life" are simply less pro-abortion than those career politicians who support all surgical abortions in all circumstances without any restrictions at all. Anyone who supports even a single exception to the inviolability of innocent preborn life is simply less pro-abortion than those who support unrestricted baby-killing under cover of law. No one should ever refer to anyone who supports a single "exception" to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law concerning the absolute inviolability of innocent human life as being "pro-life." This is a misuse of language. It is wrong. It is deceptive.
The misuse of the "pro-life" label encourages and enables phony pro-life politicians to continue giving their gullible constituencies a few crumbs now and again while they support--as a matter of principle and not as a matter of legislative expediency (which I would argue is both morally wrong and tactically stupid)--the slicing and dicing of little babies in some circumstances and as they support other members of their own political party who are fully supportive of surgical baby-killing and as they help to fund the chemical assassination of preborn children by means of domestic and international "family planning" programs. No one who is "pro-life" appoints those who unrestricted baby-killing under cover of law to the highest positions in their own administrations. The very same people who would never--and rightly so--even consider appointing someone who is a professed racist or anti-Semite to any position of public trust have absolutely no problem appointing people who support baby-killing. When are "pro-life" Catholics going to wake up and learn once and for all that their "pro-life" political heroes are fakes, phonies and frauds who care only about one thing: getting votes as cheaply as they can every two or four years. Period.
Yes, there are some measures at the state level possibly that have saved a few lives (such as twenty-four waiting periods and laws mandating women to be informed as to the nature of the preborn child and the psychological after-effects women suffer after killing their preborn children). These legislative measures, however, are passed with much in the way of public "catechesis," if you will, on the part of elected officials, most of whom have to beat their breasts and explain that they are not seeking to criminalize baby-killing, just attempting to provide solid medical information to expectant mothers before making a "choice" that they might regret at a later date. State laws mandating a waiting period or mandating the giving of information to expectant mothers must make concessions to the "legal" right of women to kill their babies, that the particular measure is in accord with the decision of the Supreme Court of the Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1993), which, while upholding the essential holding of baby-killing under the nonexistent "right to privacy" said to be implied by the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America, upheld the legality of states imposing various restrictions on surgical baby-killing after the point of viability, including banning abortion entirely after that point.
Other measures at the state level have been and continue to be complete shams that do nothing to save any lives. Parental "consent" laws are immoral on their very face: a parent can never "consent" to the execution of his preborn grandchild. The utility of parental "notification" laws is vitiated by the fact that the Supreme Court of the United States of America has mandated a "judicial bypass" provision to be inserted in the case of such laws, making it possible for a minor child to claim that she fears the reaction of her parents, thereby getting "approval" from a sympathetic judge to murder her preborn child. Rare is the professional career politician in the United States of America who will stand up and state that human beings must observe the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as these have been entrusted to and explicated by the infallible teaching authority of the Catholic Church that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man by the power of the Holy Ghost in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate womb whether they are acting individually or together with others in the institutions of civil governance. Such a clear defense of God's immutable truths is a "non-starter" in a religiously indifferentist and culturally pluralistic nature. Almost no one (note: I said almost) no one in public life is willing to defend the basic truth that no human institution of civil governance has any authority to permit the direct, intentional taking of any innocent human life at any time for any reason.
Few people accept this. Fewer still understand it. People get so wrapped up in the drama of the theater of the absurd that is the spectator sport of electoral politics that they get focused on preventing one false opposite from gaining power by supporting another false opposite who is said to be the "lesser of the two evils," assuring that the devil's candidate for elected office is going to win to further his agenda in a constitutional system that is of its very nature opposed to the Social Reign of Christ the King and thus must come under his, the devil's sway, as men labor under the delusion that they do not need to subordinate themselves at all times in all places and in all things to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church and that they do not need belief in, access to, and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace in order to persevere in virtue, no less attempt to climb the heights of personal sanctity on a daily basis.
Outright offenses against God's Divine Laws, including the funding of the chemical assassination of preborn children by allegedly "pro-life" presidential and gubernatorial administrations, wind up being justified as "necessary" measure in order to "meet the people where they are." Please, oh, pretty please, tell me how Saint Peter met "the people where they were" when he preached the Gospel of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ on Pentecost Sunday. He challenged them to convert! So did every Catholic missionary from that time to the time that conciliarism forbade proselytism. Meeting "the people where they are"? Indeed. What a lame excuse for leadership in the face of the slaughter of over fifty million innocent preborn children in the United States of America alone since the 1960s, when various states (Hawaii, California, Colorado, New Jersey, New York) began to decriminalize baby-killing. The pro-abortion Mayor of the City of New York, Michael Bloomberg, for whom President George Walker Bush has campaigned and attended fund-raisers (before Bloomberg left the Republican Party, which he joined for the sole purpose of seeking its 2001 mayoral nomination after being a lifelong member of the Democrat Party, to become an "independent" earlier this year), has been far more "evangelical," if you will, in his relentless, fascistic efforts to "reform" the habits of smokers and those who eat foods fried in saturated fats than "pro-life" politicians have been in speaking of the primacy of God's Divine Laws, no less dare to speak of the Social Reign of Christ the King.
Contentions that the "country is not ready" to ban all abortions and that it is "unconstitutional" to use executive power to stop baby-killing are nothing other than self-serving rationalizations for perpetuating baby-killing, both surgical and chemical, under cover of law ad infinitum. Although it has always been relatively easy for phony "pro-life" politicians to get away with this cheap rhetoric while they have been lionized by most "mainstream" "pro-life" organizations, it is really, really easy now for these phony "pro-life" politicians to do so with absolute electoral impunity after having engineered a phony "global war on terror," which emphasizes the alleged "threats" to American national security that demand the total attention of citizens, some of whom are more than willing to put baby-killing on the "back burner" so that "we" can hunt down and kill the "terrorists" in the far corners of the globe. It is interesting that the very exercise of extensive executive powers that are deemed to be "unconstitutional" and "illegal" to fight baby-killing is justified as a "necessity" to fight the mythical "global war on terror.
Arresting people arbitrarily on suspicion of terrorism and holding them indefinitely without being charged? Oh, come on, we're at "war." Monitoring the domestic communications and bank accounts of millions upon millions of ordinary citizens who pose absolutely no threat to the security of the United States of America? Got to get with the "real world," you understand. Today's staid citizen might turn out to be tomorrow's terrorist. You never know, right? Just keep us "safe," Mister President, that's all we want. Just keep us "safe" so that we can enjoy our bread and circuses as babies are being sliced and diced and burned and butchered every day of the year, year after year. Nothing we can do about that. Too bad. Pass the turkey, will you, the game is about to begin. Torture? Well, one man's torture is simply another man's "enhanced method of interrogation." Ignoring laws passed by the Congress of the United States of America and signed into law by a President of the United States of America? Laws are meant to broken, you got to remember, right? Desperate measures are needed to protect the nation in desperate times.
Yes, the very phony "pro-life" politicians who would be aghast at any suggestion, no matter how oblique, that there are legitimate inherent powers in the presidency of the United States of America to defend innocent preborn life by having the baby-killers arrested and their mills shut down permanently jump and down for joy when extolling the most mind-bending, expansive misuse and abuse of executive power when it suits their own purposes to pursue neoconservatism's (read: Zionism's) "global war on terror." This is, of course, nothing really new.
Abraham Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus and suppressed dissent, having civilians accused of aiding the Confederacy by military tribunals although civilian courts were functioning. Opponents of the War between the States were rounded up, including three judges, five newspaper editors, and numerous physicians and attorneys and and civil officials. Between ten and fifty thousand people were rounded up during the War between the States, held without trial for many weeks at a time, almost of them never brought to trial thereafter, merely because they were deemed to be a "threat" to the security of the "Union." Judges prone to render unfavorable rulings on Lincoln's gross misuse of executive power found themselves surrounded on some occasions by military personnel, for their own protection, you understand. Lincoln justified all of this by claiming that he had to "preserve the Union," thereby solidifying the proposition that the United States of America, whose current form of government was formed as a result of the consent of state ratifying conventions in 1787 and 1788 in accordance with Article VII of a Constitution that had not even gone into effect, was "indissoluble," making the Federal government, which was but a creature of the state governments under the nation's first constitution, the Articles of Confederation (in effect, at least technically, between 1781 and 1789), superior to the state governments and to the people who lived within those states.
Woodrow Wilson, who suppressed dissent against his prosecution of World War I by his invocation of slogans (most notably "Americanism") and imprisonment of critics who were to vocal in their opposition to him, simply built on Lincoln's legacy of tyranny, exercised in the name of "national security" in a time of "war." Franklin Delano Roosevelt rounded up Americans of Japanese descent and placed them in American concentration camps, delighting in the fact that the media was willing to serve as his propaganda agency in the prosecution of American involvement in World War II. Electronic eavesdropping was common during the administrations of Presidents John Fitzgerald Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Milhous Nixon before resuming with an abandon after September 11, 2001, and the full-scale assertion of nonexistent powers of a president to do almost anything he wants to do because he wants to do it during a time of "national emergency." It is truly amazing to see the same public officials who contend that a president is "powerless" to stop the domestic terrorism that is abortion, both surgical and chemical, do all sorts of hand-stands and other intellectual gymnastic feats to argue that a president is a virtue "supreme leader" independent of any legal authority to check his exercise of power in a time an alleged "national emergency."
The same phony "pro-life" public officials who claim that they cannot "move" public opinion on baby-killing move Heaven and earth to change public opinion on issues that matter to them, such as the George Herbert Walker Bush administration did prior to the start of the Persian Gulf War on January 17, 1991, and as the George Walker Bush administration did prior to the current Iraq War, which began on March 19, 2003. Americans were fed steady streams of administration propaganda in both cases. The current administration has outdone the former, which claimed, falsely, that Kuwaiti babies were being ripped from their incubators by the Iraqi invaders (using as a witness to "prove" the point a women who said she worked as a nurse in a hospital but turned out to be the daughter of a Kuwaiti diplomat who had witnessed no such thing), battering into the heads of Americans and people around the world that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" ready to deploy in a terrorist attack against either Israel or the United States of America or both.
Saddam Hussein, who was certainly a thug responsible for probably somewhere around 1.5 million deaths during his thirty-four years in power, about what we kill in this nation annually by means of surgical abortion, was denounced as a "another Hitler" rather than being the xenophobic crime land cartoon figure that he was, no worse or no better than many other dictators, including Hussein himself, who had received the support of the government of the United States of America at one point or another. The same sort of propaganda that has been used by the current Bush administration in the pursuit of its "global war on terror" were used by Lincoln and William McKinley, during the Spanish-American War, and Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and many of the Cold Warrior prior to the "new era" of the "global war on terror." Oh, yes, the Bushes have demonstrated that they can quite effectively attempt to change public opinion when they have a mind to so in order to accomplish something they believe in and want to prosecute no matter what. Saving babies is simply not one of those things that they want to prosecute no matter what.
The Iraq War has devastated Iraq, needlessly put the lives and limbs of American military personnel in harms' way to pursue the neoconservatives desire for perpetual war while enriching American contracting companies as billions of dollars of American debt have been amassed to rebuild the infrastructure that has been destroyed by American bombing, and subjected Iraqi Catholics to persecution from Mohammedans of all sorts, forcing many of them to flee from the country where their ancestors had converted to the Faith in Apostolic times. Bush built support for the war in 2002 by using the tragic events of September 11, 2001, as his justification to "prevent another terrorist attack," and by making the following fantastic claim in a televised speech given on October 7, 2002:
We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States. And, of course, sophisticated delivery systems aren't required for a chemical or biological attack; all that might be required are a small container and one terrorist or Iraqi intelligence operative to deliver it. Click here to Read the President's Speech
Growing fleet? How about two of these unmanned aerial vehicles? That's right, two. Their range? About 650 miles, which means that these unmanned aerial vehicles would have to be transported by the nonexistent Iraqi navy undetected by satellite reconnaissance in order to get close enough to the United States to drop the nonexistent "weapons of mass destruction" that Saddam Hussein was alleged to have possessed or was in the "process" of developing. Absolute absurdity designed to frighten the American public and win international support for his scheme of "regime change" to aid the not-so-"democratic" State of Israel and American corporate interests.
The point of this is quite simple: the Bushes will do anything they need to do to accomplish the goals that they deem important. Changing hearts and minds about surgical baby-killing. Not worth the political risk. Not on their agenda at all.
But what about partial-birth abortion? Please see
An Illusion of a Victory. Read it once. Read it twice. Read it over a third time. There has been no "victory" on this matter whatsoever. George Walker Bush has done all he thinks he needs to do about baby-killing as his administration continues to keep the human pesticide, RU-486, thoroughly "legal" and as it has authorized over-the-counter sales of the Plan B "emergency contraceptive" to women over eighteen years of age and as it continues to fund the chemical assassination of children here and around the world by means of international and domestic "family planning" programs and as he supports abortion quite firmly as a matter of principle in the "hard cases." While we pray for his conversion to the Catholic Church (and not to the counterfeit church of conciliarism), George W. Bush supports domestic terrorism against the babies and their mothers. The weapons of mass destruction, ladies and gentlemen, are the hands of the baby-killers, for whose conversion we must pray and make sacrifice for as the consecrated slaves of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, and the tools they use to ply their bloody trade.
The Roman playwright Juvenal, a pagan, who saw some things clearly by the light of natural reason alone, wrote the following of abortion around 125 A.D.
So great is the skill, so powerful the drugs, of the abortionist, paid to murder mankind within the womb.
Juvenal on abortion
Yes, chemical and surgical baby-killing under cover of law is one of the many logical consequences of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King by the forces of the Protestant Revolt and Judeo-Masonry and all of the other, related anti-Incarnational forces of Modernity in the world and of Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism. This does not mean, as one of the lay representatives of a religious community in the "resist and recognize" camp contended a few years ago, that we do not address this issue until "right doctrine" is restored. There will never be a period when the Church Militant will not face some problem or another if it is God's Holy Will for her to be restored prior to His Second Coming in glory on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead. We do not wait for the restoration of "right doctrine" to do what we can, especially by means of our daily prayers before the Blessed Sacrament and to the Mother of God in her Most Holy Rosary, to denounce this crime against God and man, reminding one and all most assuredly of its proximate causes, the overthrow of Christendom, while at the same time we use the tools available to us to educate those whom God's Providence has put in our lives that no nation that permits the killing of its own innocent preborn citizens will ever be "secure." No nation that makes war upon the Divine Positive Law or the Natural Law will ever receive His "blessing" no matter how many times people say "God bless America."
It is imperative for true bishops and true priests to organize the Catholics who have flocked to them for the sanctification and salvation of their immortal souls in this time of crisis and apostasy to pray Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary in front of abortuaries. This is done in many places around the nation and the world (Saint Gertrude the Great Church and Immaculate Conception Church organize their own Rosary prayer vigils in front of abortuaries in the Cincinnati, Ohio, area, as does Saint Pius X Church there.) Many more must join them. Many more.
Not only the physical lives of the babies are at stake. Much more importantly, of course, the immortal souls of all involved in procuring, performing, supporting and having an abortion are at stake, to say nothing of the fact that the souls of those babies killed will never see the glory of the Beatific Vision (sorry, Joseph Ratzinger and the members of the International Theological Commission, there is a Limbo.). It must be remembered that Catholic women are killing their children at about the same rate as other women, sometimes being reaffirmed in their "choice" to do so by conciliar "priests" and "nuns" (I have given examples of the past to demonstrate this point), other times doing so because they have never heard anyone, "priest" or "religious," tell them that it was morally wrong to kill their preborn child. Someone must give these women access to the true Catholic Faith. What better way to attempt to do this than by being a physical presence in front of the killing mills and praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary.
Those who are unable to be a physical presence in front of the killing mills can be there spiritually by offering their prayers in reparation for decriminalized child-killing in the United States of America and around the world by spending time in earnest mental prayer before Our Lord in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament and by praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary during one's time in Eucharistic adoration. Although it is undoubtedly the case that conciliarism has been, for all of the protestations of its "popes" and some of its "bishops" against abortion, a major agent in confusing souls by the introduction of theological and moral relativism in its "catechetics" programs (and in its programs that have undermined the innocence and purity of children by means of explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and the Ninth Commandments), we cannot wait until conciliarism goes away to do what we can, perhaps only by prayer and sacrifice offered to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, to oppose the devil's triumph in masterminding the daily carnage of the innocent preborn by means of chemical and surgical abortions.
Doing all of this does not exclude, indeed, it must be based upon, a firm catechesis in behalf of the Social Reign of Christ the King, recognizing that these prophetic words of Pope Leo XIII in Exeunte Iam Annos, December 25, 1888, apply in our day just as much as they did in his own:
There is, nevertheless, some consolation for Us even in looking on these evils, and We may lift up Our heart in hope. For God "created all things that they might be: and He made the nations of the earth for health." But as all this world cannot be upheld but by His providence and divinity, so also men can only be healed by His power, of Whose goodness they were called from death to life. For Jesus Christ redeemed the human race once by the shedding of His blood, but the power of so great a work and gift is for all ages; "neither is there salvation in any other." Hence they who strive by the enforcement of law to extinguish the growing flame of lawless desire, strive indeed for justice; but let them know that they will labor with no result, or next to none, as long as they obstinately reject the power of the gospel and refuse the assistance of the Church. Thus will the evil alone be cured, by changing their ways, and returning back in their public and private life to Jesus Christ and Christianity.
Now the whole essence of a Christian life is to reject the corruption of the world and to oppose constantly any indulgence in it; this is taught in the words and deeds, the laws and institutions, the life and death of Jesus Christ, "the author and finisher of faith." Hence, however strongly We are deterred by the evil disposition of nature and character, it is our duty to run to the "fight proposed to Us," fortified and armed with the same desire and the same arms as He who, "having joy set before him, endured the cross." Wherefore let men understand this specially, that it is most contrary to Christian duty to follow, in worldly fashion, pleasures of every kind, to be afraid of the hardships attending a virtuous life, and to deny nothing to self that soothes and delights the senses. "They that are Christ's, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences" -- so that it follows that they who are not accustomed to suffering, and who hold not ease and pleasure in contempt belong not to Christ. By the infinite goodness of God man lived again to the hope of an immortal life, from which he had been cut off, but he cannot attain to it if he strives not to walk in the very footsteps of Christ and conform his mind to Christ's by the meditation of Christ's example. Therefore this is not a counsel but a duty, and it is the duty, not of those only who desire a more perfect life, but clearly of every man "always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus." How otherwise could the natural law, commanding man to live virtuously, be kept? For by holy baptism the sin which we contracted at birth is destroyed, but the evil and tortuous roots of sin, which sin has engrafted, and by no means removed. This part of man which is without reason -- although it cannot beat those who fight manfully by Christ's grace -- nevertheless struggles with reason for supremacy, clouds the whole soul and tyrannically bends the will from virtue with such power that we cannot escape vice or do our duty except by a daily struggle. "This holy synod teaches that in the baptized there remains concupiscence or an inclination to evil, which, being left to be fought against, cannot hurt those who do not consent to it, and manfully fight against it by the grace of Jesus Christ; for he is not crowned who does not strive lawfully." There is in this struggle a degree of strength to which only a very perfect virtue, belonging to those who, by putting to flight evil passions, has gained so high a place as to seem almost to live a heavenly life on earth. Granted; grant that few attain such excellence; even the philosophy of the ancients taught that every man should restrain his evil desires, and still more and with greater care those who from daily contact with the world have the greater temptations -- unless it be foolishly thought that where the danger is greater watchfulness is less needed, or that they who are more grievously ill need fewer medicines.
But the toil which is borne in this conflict is compensated by great blessings, beyond and above heavenly and eternal rewards, particularly in this way, that by calming the passions nature is largely restored to its pristine dignity. For man has been born under this law, that the mind should rule the body, that the appetites should be restrained by sound sense and reason; and hence it follows that putting a curb upon our masterful passions is the noblest and greatest freedom. Moreover, in the present state of society it is difficult to see what man could be expected to do without such a disposition. Will he be inclined to do well who has been accustomed to guide his actions by self-love alone? No man can be high-souled, kind, merciful, or restrained, who has not learnt selfconquest and a contempt for this world when opposed to virtue. And yet it must be said that it seems to have been pre-determined by the counsel of God that there should be no salvation to men without strife and pain. Truly, though God has given to man pardon for sin, He gave it under the condition that His only begotten Son should pay the due penalty; and although Jesus Christ might have satisfied divine justice in other ways, nevertheless He preferred to satisfy by the utmost suffering and the sacrifice of His life. Thus he has imposed upon His followers this law, signed in His blood, that their life should be an endless strife with the vices of the age. What made the apostles invincible in their mission of teaching truth to the world; what strengthened the martyrs innumerable in their bloody testimony to the Christian faith, but the readiness of their soul to obey fearlessly His laws? And all who have taken heed to live a Christian life and seek virtue have trodden the same path; therefore We must walk in this way if We desire either Our own salvation or that of others. Thus it becomes necessary for every one to guard manfully against the allurements of luxury, and since on every side there is so much ostentation in the enjoyment of wealth, the soul must be fortified against the dangerous snares of riches lest straining after what are called the good things of life, which cannot satisfy and soon fade away, the soul should lose "the treasure in heaven which faileth not." Finally, this is matter of deep grief, that free-thought and evil example have so evil an influence in enervating the soul, that many are now almost ashamed of the name of Christian -- a shame which is the sign either of abandoned wickedness or the extreme of cowardice; each detestable and each of the highest injury to man. For what salvation remains for such men, or on what hope can they rely, if they cease to glory in the name of Jesus Christ, if they openly and constantly refuse to mold their lives on the precepts of the gospel? It is the common complaint that the age is barren of brave men. Bring back a Christian code of life, and thereby the minds of men will regain their firmness and constancy. But man's power by itself is not equal to the responsibility of so many duties. As We must ask God for daily bread for the sustenance of the body, so must We pray to Him for strength of soul for its nourishment in virtue. Hence that universal condition and law of life, which We have said is a perpetual battle, brings with it the necessity of prayer to God. For, as is well and wisely said by St. Augustine, pious prayer flies over the world's barriers and calls down the mercy of God from heaven. In order to conquer the emotions of lust, and the snares of the devil, lest we should be led into evil, we are commanded to seek the divine help in the words, "pray that ye enter not into temptation." How much more is this necessary, if we wish to labor for the salvation of others? Christ our Lord, the only begotten Son of God, the source of all grace and virtue, first showed by example what he taught in word: "He passed the whole night in the prayer of God," and when nigh to the sacrifice of his life, "He prayed the longer."
The frailty of nature would be much less fearful, and the moral character would grow weak and enervated with much less ease if that divine precept were not so much disregarded and treated almost with disdain. For God is easily appeased, and desires to aid men, having promised openly to give His grace in abundance to those who ask for it. Nay, He even invites men to ask, and almost insists with most loving words: "I say unto you, ask and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you." And that we should have no fear in doing this with confidence and familiarity, he softens His words, comparing Himself to a most loving father who desires nothing so much as the love of his children. "If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him?" And this will not seem excessive to one who considers it, if the efficaciousness of prayer seemed so great to St. John Chrysostom that he thought it might be compared with the power of God; for as God created all things by His word, so man by prayer obtains what he wills. For nothing has so great a power as prayer, because in it there are certain qualities with which it pleases God to be moved. For in prayer we separate ourselves from things of earth, and filled with the thought of God alone, we become aware of our human weakness; for the same reason we rest in the embrace of our Father, we seek a refuge in the power of our Creator. We approach the Author of all good, as though we wish Him to gaze upon our weak souls, our failing strength, our poverty; and, full of hope, we implore His aid and guardianship, Who alone can give help to the weak and consolation to the infirm and miserable. With such a condition of mind, thinking but little of ourselves, as is fitting, God is greatly inclined to mercy, for God resisteth the proud, but to the humble he giveth grace. Let, then, the habit of prayer be sacred to all; let soul and voice join together in prayer, and let our whole daily life agree together, so that, by keeping the laws of God, the course of our days may seem a continual ascent to Him.
The virtue of which we speak, like the others, is produced and nourished by divine faith; for God is the Author of all true blessings that are to be desired for themselves, as we owe to Him our knowledge of His infinite goodness, and our knowledge of the merits of our Redeemer. But, again, nothing is more fitted for the nourishment of divine faith than the pious habit of prayer, and the need of it at this time is seen by its weakness in most, and its absence in many men. For that virtue is especially the source whereby not only private lives may be amended, but also from which a final judgment may be looked for in those matters which in the daily conflict of men do not permit states to live in peace and security. If the multitude is frenzied with a thirst for excessive liberty, if the inhuman lust of the rich never is satisfied, and if to these be added those evils of the same kind to which We have referred fully above, it will be found that nothing can heal them more completely or fully than Christian faith.
Here it is fitting We should exhort you whom God has made His helpers by giving the divine power to dispense His Sacraments, to turn to meditation and prayer. If the reformation of private and public morals is needed, it scarcely requires to be said that in both respects the clergy ought to set the highest example. Let them therefore remember that they have been called by Jesus Christ, "the light of the world, that the soul of the priest should shine like a light illuminating the whole world. The light of learning, and that in no small degree is needed in the priest, because it is his duty, to fill others with wisdom, to destroy errors, to be a guide to the many in the steep and slippery paths of life. Learning ought to be accompanied by innocence of life, because in the reformation of man example is far better than precept. "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works." The meaning of the divine word is that the perfection of virtue in priests should be such that they should be like a mirror to the rest of men. "There is nothing which induces others more effectively to piety and the worship of God, than the life and example of those who have dedicated themselves to the divine ministry: for, since they are separated from the world and placed in a higher sphere, others look on them as though on a mirror, to take examples from them." Therefore if all men must watchfully heed against the allurements of sin, and against seeking too eagerly fleeting pleasures, it is clear how much more faithful and steadfast ought priests to be. The sacredness of their dignity, moreover -- as well as the fact that it is not sufficient to restrain their passions -- demands in them the habit of stringent selfrestraint, and also a guard over the powers of the soul, particularly the intellect and will, which hold the supreme place in man. "Thou who hast the mind to leave all (says St. Bernard), remember to reckon thyself among what thou wouldst abandon-nay, deny thyself first and before everything." Not before the soul is unshackled and free from every desire, will men have a generous zeal for the salvation of others, without which they cannot properly secure their own everlasting welfare. "There will be one thing only sought (says St. Bernard) by His subjects, one glory, one pleasure -- to make ready for the Lord a perfect people. For this they will give everything with much exertion of mind and body, with toil and suffering, with hunger and thirst, with cold and nakedness." The frequent meditation upon the things of heaven wonderfully nourishes and strengthens virtue of this kind, and makes it always fearless of the greatest difficulties for the good of others. The more pains they take to meditate well, the more clearly will they understand the greatness and holiness of the priestly office. They will understand how sad it is that so many men, redeemed by Jesus Christ, are running headlong to eternal ruin; and by meditation upon God they will be themselves encouraged, and will more effectually excite others to the love of God. Such, then, is the surest method for the salvation of all; and in this men must take heed not to be terrified by difficulties, and not to despair of cure by reason of the long continuance of the evil. The impartial and unchangeable justice of God metes out reward for good deeds and punishment for sin. But since the life of peoples and nations, as such, does not outlast their world, they necessarily receive the rewards due to their deeds on this earth. In- deed it is no new thing that prosperity should come to a wrong-doing state; and this by the just counsel of God, Who from time to time rewards good actions with prosperity, for no people is altogether without merit, and this Augustine considered was the case with the Roman people. The law, nevertheless, is clear that for public prosperity it is to the interest of all that virtue-and justice especially, which is the mother of all virtues -- should be practiced, "Justice exalteth a nation; but sin maketh nations miserable." It is not Our purpose here to consider how far evil deeds may prosper, not whether empires, when flourishing and managing matters to their own liking, do nevertheless carry about with them, as it were shut up in their bowels, the seed of ruin and wretchedness. We wish this one thing to be understood, of which history has innumerable examples, that injustice is always punished, and with greater severity the longer it has been continued. We are greatly consoled by the words of the Apostle Paul, "For all things are yours; and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's." By the hidden dispensation of divine providence the course of earthly things is so guided that all things that happen to man turn out to the glory of God for the salvation of those who are true disciples of Jesus Christ. Of these the mother and guide, the leader and guardian is the Church; which being united to Christ her spouse in intimate and unchangeable charity is also joined to Him by a common cause of battle and of victory. Hence We are not, and cannot be anxious on account of the Church, but We greatly fear for the salvation of very many, who proudly despise the Church, and by every kind of error rush to ruin; We are concerned for those States which We cannot but see are turned from God and sleeping in the midst of danger in dull security and insensibility. "Nothing is equal to the Church;" (says St. John Chrysostom,) "how many have opposed the Church and have themselves perished? The Church reaches to the heavens; such is the Church's greatness. She conquers when attacked; when beset by snares she triumphs; she struggles and is not overthrown, she fights and is not conquered." Not only is she not conquered, but she preserves that corrective power over nature, and that effective strength of life that springs from God Himself, and is unchanged by time. And, if by this power she has freed the world grown old in vice and lost in superstition, why should she not again recover it when gone astray? Let strife and suspicion at length cease, let all obstacles be removed, give the possession of all her rights to the Church, whose duty it is to guard and spread abroad the benefits gained by Jesus Christ, then We shall know by experience, where the light of the Gospel is, and what the power of Christ can do.
This year, which is now coming to an end, has given, as We have said, many signs of a reviving faith. Would that like the spark it might grow to an ever-increasing flame, which, by burning up the roots of sin, may open a way for the restoration of morals and for salutary counsels. We, indeed, who steer the mystical barque of the Church in such a storm, fix Our mind and heart upon the Divine Pilot Who holds the helm and sits unseen. Thou seest, Lord, how the winds have borne down on every side, how the sea rages and the waves are lashed to fury. Command, we beseech Thee, Who alone canst, the winds and the sea. Give back to man that tranquillity and order-that true peace which the world cannot give. By Thy grace let man be restored to proper order with faith in God, as in duty bound, with justice and love towards our neighbor, with temperance as to ourselves, and with passions controlled by reason. Let Thy kingdom come, let the duty of submitting to Thee and serving Thee be learnt by those who, far from Thee, seek truth and salvation to no purpose. In Thy laws there is justice and fatherly kindness; Thou grantest of Thy own good will the power to keep them. The life of a man on earth is a warfare, but Thou lookest down upon the struggle and helpest man to conquer, Thou raisest him that falls, and crownest him that triumphs
Although there were Catholic monarchs throughout the centuries who misused their executive powers and engaged in needless wars, sometimes against the Vicar of Christ himself and his temporal power, there were many others, such as Saints Henry of Bavaria, Louis of France, Edward the Confessor, Wenceslaus of Bohemia and Stephen of Hungary and Hedwig of Silesia and Elizabeth of Hungary and Canute of Denmark, to name just a few who have raised to the altars of Holy Mother Church (King Alfred of Wessex and King Jan Sobieski of Poland and Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain and Gabriel Garcia Moreno of Ecuador are just five of the non-canonized rulers who exemplified the Social Reign of Christ the King), who understood that they would be judged by the King of Kings on the basis of how well they helped to promote within their respective realms those conditions wherein their citizens could better sanctify and thus save their souls as members of the Catholic Church. The just rulers of Christendom exercised their powers with a view to how they would be judged at the moment of their own Particular Judgments. They were concerned at all times about the rights of Christ the King and of helping their own people get home to Heaven, knowing that the precondition, although never a guarantor as a result of man's fallen human nature and his tendency to sin and cause disorder in his own life and the lives of others, for social order in a realm and peace among kingdoms is for individual souls to strive to be in states of Sanctifying Grace.
We must, therefore, never be sidetracked by the sideshow that is the illusion of contemporary partisan politics and the "issues" raised by men who care about votes so as to gain and/or retain political power as an ultimate end of and of itself so as to augment the power of the state. Conciliarism cannot combat this phenomenon as it seeks to use interdenominational tools to do so while it rejects the Social Reign of Christ the King as "outdated" and perhaps even harmful in an era of religious and cultural pluralism. It is "good enough," the conciliarists contend, to use the Natural Law alone without making any advertence to the Catholic Faith or to the Social Reign of Christ the King. It is "good enough" to rely upon the "good will" of like-minded Protestants and Talmudic Jews and Mohammedans and Buddhists and Hindus and animists and adherents of other false religions to fight the evils of the present moment. It is "good enough" to accept the religiously indifferentist civil state as an irreversible fact of history. Conciliarism thus feeds into the lie that there is some interdenominational, constitutional, legal or political way to retard the evils of the day. There is no such thing.
This is not "good enough" for God, Who wants the Catholic City restored as the fruit of the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Natural Law can never be understood properly absent a complete subordination of the mind and the will to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. The Catholic Church teaches that the civil state must recognize her as the true religion, teaching that while she always recognizes the realities of the given moment she never stops exhorting her children to work for the restoration of the confessionally Catholic state. A betrayal and/or a denial of these truths is not "good enough" for God. It is, indeed, offensive to Him and thus harmful to the good of individual souls and to the world-at-large.
The forces of statism, both domestic and global, in the world will never be stopped by conciliarism, which aims at its own form of globalism, the One World Ecumenical Church. The forces of statism that use and and abuse the powers of civil governance can only be retarded and eclipsed by Catholicism, which is why we need to spend time in front of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament and pray as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit, clinging to our true bishops and our true priests in the Catholic catacombs in these times of apostasy and betrayal.
May it be our privilege to plant a few seeds for the restoration of Christendom as we give our prayers and sufferings and penances and mortifications and humiliations and good works to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Whether God chooses to effect this restoration is up to Him. We must work without regard for success. We must strive to be faithful, valiant soldiers in the Army of Christ the King as we lift high the standard of the Holy Cross, at which stood Our Lady, where she stands, of course, every time the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered by a true bishop or a true priest. We must kneel with her at that foot of the Cross in Holy Mass, proceeding forth from there with our battle cry:
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us now and the hour of our deaths. Amen.
All to thee, Blessed Mother. All to thy Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint Luke the Evangelist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Charles Borromeo, pray for us.
Saints Vitalis and Agricola, pray for us.
Saint Hilarion, pray for us.
Saint John Cantius, pray for us.
Saint Peter of Alcantara, pray for us.
Saint Hedwig, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.
Saint Francis Borgia, pray for us.
Saint Edward the Confessor, pray for us.
Saint John Leonard, pray for us.
Saint Dionysisus (Denis), Rusticus and Eleutherius, pray for us.
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Placidus and Companions, pray for us.
Saint Bruno, pray for us.
Saint Wenceslaus, pray for us.
Saint Jerome, pray for us.
Saint Remigius, pray for us.
Saint Clotilde, pray for us.
Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.
Pope Saint Linus, pray for us.
Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.
Saint Raymond Pennafort, pray for us.
Saint Raymond Nonnatus, pray for us.
Saint Thecla, pray for us.
Saint Matthew, pray for us.
Saint Eustachius and Family, pray for us.
Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, pray for us.
Saint Joseph Cupertino, pray for us.
Saint Januarius, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.
Saint Giles, pray for us.
Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.
Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.
Saint Nicomedes, pray for us.
Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.
Pope Saint Zephyrinus, pray for us.
Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.
Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us.
Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.
Saint Philip Benizi, pray for us.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.
Saint John Eudes, pray for us.
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us, pray for us.
Saint Agapitus, pray for us.
Saint Helena, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.
Saints Monica, pray for us.
Saint Jude, pray for us.
Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.
Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.
Saint John Bosco, pray for us.
Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.
Saint Scholastica, pray for us.
Saint Benedict, pray for us.
Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.
Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.
Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.
Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.
Saint Turibius, pray for us.
Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Monica, pray for us.
Saint Agatha, pray for us.
Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.
Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Saint Cecilia, pray for us.
Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.
Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.
Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.
Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.
Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.
Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.
Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.
Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Dominic, pray for us.
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.
Saint Basil, pray for us.
Saint Benedict, pray for us.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Sebastian, pray for us.
Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.
Saint Genevieve, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.
Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.
Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.
Blessed Humbeline, pray for us.
Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.
Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.
Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.
Francisco Marto, pray for us.
Jacinta Marto, pray for us.
Juan Diego, pray for us.
Father Maximilian Kolbe,M.I., pray for us.
Father Frederick Faber, pray for us.
The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888
O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil. Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil. Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven. That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory. That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity. These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered. Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen.
Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.
Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.
Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.
Response: As we have hoped in Thee.
Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.
Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.
Verse: Let us pray. O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls.
Response: Amen.
