The Carnage of Modernity and Modernism

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Although the era of Christendom was far from perfect, replete with needless wars between Catholic kingdoms and marked every now and again my treachery against the temporal power of Holy Mother Church by various potentates, it was an era in which people lived in the framework of the Catholic Faith, conscious of Who had made and redeemed them and of Whose working in the sacraments sanctified them. Catholics in the Middle Ages understood that all human problems were caused by sins, seeing war and pestilences, including the Black Death, as God's just punishment for the sins and ingratitude of fallen men, a call from Him to repent and to turn their hearts back to Him through His true Church. And though there were reprobates in civil power throughout the period of Christendom, there were also the saintly rulers whom Holy Mother Church has raised to her altars, one of whom, Saint Louis IX, King of France, we will commemorate in just five days, on Saturday, August 25, 2007.

Most modern historians do not understand authentic history, which is why they do not understand our own contemporary events, seeing the events of the world, both past and present, through the anti-Incarnational lens of naturalism. Father Denis Fahey explained in The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World how it is that we as Catholics must view history:

History is concerned with individual and contingent facts. In order to discern the supreme causes and laws of the events which historians narrate, we must stand out from, and place ourselves above these events. To do this with certainty one should, of course, be enlightened by Him Who holds all things in the hollow of His hand. Unaided human reason cannot even attempt to give an account of the supreme interests at stake in the world, for the world, as it is historically, these interests are supernatural.

Human reason strengthened by faith, that is, by the acceptance of the information God has given us about the world through His Son and through the Society founded by Him, can attempt to give this account, though with a lively consciousness of its limitations. It is only when we shall be in possession of the Beatific Vision that the full beauty of the Divine Plan which is being worked out in the world will be visible to us. Until then, we can only make an imperfect attempt at what be, not the philosophy, but the theology of history. The theologian who has the Catholic Faith is in touch with the full reality of the world, and can therefore undertake to show, however feebly and imperfectly, the interplay of the supreme realities of life.

The philosopher, as such, knows nothing about the reality of the divine life of Grace, which we lost by the Fall of our First Parents, and nothing of the Mystical Body of Christ through which we receive back that life. The philosophy of history, if it is to be true philosophy, that is, knowledge by supreme causes, must therefore be rather the theology of history. Yet how few, even among those who have the Catholic Faith, think of turning to the instructions and warnings issued by the representatives of our Lord Jesus Christ on earth, when they wish to ascertain the root causes of the present chaotic condition of the world!

 

The fact that some Catholic commentators speak in glowing terms of the “insights” offered by secularists without making public advertence to those instructions and warnings, even though they say they had read the encyclical letters, makes Father Fahey’s prophetic wisdom more pertinent now than when it was offered seventy years ago. A fallacious view of the State both in theory and in practice is bound to arise if we ignore and/or reject the prophetic wisdom of Pope Leo XIII, contained in such encyclical letters as Humanum Genus, Immortale Dei, Sapientiae Christianae, Libertas Praestimissimus, Mirae Caritatis, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, and Testem Benevolentiae (an apostolical letter) to discover how the libertarians and anarchists and conservatives base their approach to government and the State on thoroughly false premises. Additionally, a reading of Pope Pius XI’s Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, Quas Primas, Divini Illius Magistri, Casti Connubii, and Divini Redemptoris to understand how the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ as exercised by His true Church constitutes the only protection against the corruption of the State by a one-person tyrant or by the mobocracy of the modern democratic ethos. This is to say nothing of the insights found in Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno about the obligations of the State to base economic life on principles that reflect the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law, starting with the principle of subsidiarity. No naturalist or secularist has one blessed thing to offer us to understand man and society.

Father Fahey went on to write:

The supreme law, illustrated in the actual historical world, is that it is well or ill with it, simply and absolutely (simplicter), in proportion as it accepts or rejects God’s plan for the restoration of our Real Life, the Life of Grace, lost by original sin. The events of our age, as of every age, are in the last analysis, the results of man’s acceptance or rejection of the Divine Plan for ordered human life. They are, therefore, the consequences of the application to action of the ideas of what is order and what is disorder, which have been held by different minds. Accordingly, the appreciation of these events and of their consequences for the future must be based on what we Catholics know by faith about the order of the world, and we must turn, first all, to the documents in which the Vicar of Christ have outlined for us what is in accordance with the Divine Plan and what is opposed to it. The theology of history must therefore never lose sight of Papal pronouncements on the tendencies of an age or its spirit. Now, one such outstanding pronounce with regard to the political order of our day is the Syllabus of Pope Pius IX, and it is my intention to lay particular stress on it. The study is rendered more attractive by the fact that the enemies of the Catholic Church attack this Papal document continually. For example, the French Masonic review, L’Acacia (November 1930), published the Syllabus with an introduction, of which a portion runs as follows:

"We have considered it well to publish again the text of the famous Syllabus, which has become almost impossible to find. As the Church does not wish the Syllabus to be subjected to the judgments and criticisms of the Catholics of the present day, she has systematically bought up and burned the copies in the vernacular which were being offered for sale."

These statements are needless to say, foul calumnies of the Catholic Church in the usual Masonic style. The Church is only too anxious that the Syllabus should be well known to Catholics. Pope Leo XIII, the successor of Pope Pius IX, alludes to it in the following terms: ‘. . . Pius IX branded publicly many false opinions which were gaining ground and afterwards ordered them to be considered in summary form, in order that, in this sea of error, Catholics might have a light that they might safely follow.’ (Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, 1885.)

 

Obviously, the counterfeit church of conciliarism does not want the Syllabus of Errors to be done, meaning that the Holy Ghost can contradict Himself, inspiring Pope Pius IX to issue it in 1864 before its "repeal" by Gaudium et Spes, which was called a "counter-syllabus" by none other than Joseph Ratzinger, in 1965. The conciliarists have adopted the Masonic worldview, believing that inter-denominationalism or non-denominationalism in public policy and statecraft must be followed assiduously, not efforts to restore a Catholic era whose time has passed and is never to be seen again, "progress" having made that both unnecessary and undesirable.

There is no need, you see, to be opposed to conciliarism or to be devoted to any version of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition if one believes in a sort of political ecumenism that considers Catholicism an "impediment" to realization of various electoral goals. Why be opposed to the false ecumenism of conciliarism when one believes in and practices a false political ecumenism that is premised upon the Judeo-Masonic principles of naturalism? We must be avowedly Catholic at all times and in all circumstances.

We must never surrender to the myths of Americanism (or any other form of nationalism), each of which is founded in the belief that men do not need to submit themselves completely at all times to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church and that it is not necessary for men to have belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace in order to be virtuous. We must remember that the chief purpose of the civil state is to help to foster those conditions in civil society wherein its citizens can better sanctify and save their souls as members of the Catholic Church. Anyone and everyone who dissents from this is a political Modernist, condemned by these words of Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:

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.

 

Who has contempt for the very encyclical letters that Pope Pius XI reminded us "remain still in force"? Well, apart from various Americanist Catholics who appear in the mass media and never once--not once, not ever--speak about Christ the King or Mary our Immaculate Queen, never once using the opportunity God gives them to address others to promote conversion to the Catholic Faith or to promote the Holy Rosary and devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary as the chief means to realize the peace of the Divine Redeemer, there is, of course, the contempt that Joseph Ratzinger himself has for the authority of past encyclical letters whose binding force he rejects, believing, falsely, that truth is "anchored" in one place for a time and is anchored in another place thereafter. Once again, it is important for people to be confronted with how dramatically the statement below from Joseph Ratzinger conflicts with the reiteration of Catholic teaching found in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio:

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. Has anyone noticed that the President of the Russian Federated Republic, Vladimir Putin, has ordered nuclear-capable bombers to resume their flights over the oceans of the world after a fifteen year hiatus? Has anyone noticed how Russia is developing close military and political ties once again with Red China?

God will not let the moral and cultural crimes of the United States of America go unpunished, which is why we must never lionize the anti-Incarnational founding of this nation nor permit ourselves in any way or to believe that it has a "mission from God" to spread its falsehoods around the world so as to "liberate" people according to the "American way." Catholicism is the only path to man's true liberation from the force that causes all of the problems of the world, sin, and thus is the only foundation of personal and social order. God gave a commission to the Apostles to spread the Catholic Faith to all nations before He Ascended to the Father's right hand in glory on Ascension Thursday. He did not commission the Apostles to spread the American concepts of civil and religious liberty and cultural pluralism, thank you.

No matter what so many wishful thinkers want to believe, possibly to justify the amount of time that they continue to invest in their ceaselessly fruitless bursts of frenetic activity during each election cycle, the social and cultural degeneration produced by the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the rise of the anti-Incarnational modern State will not be eclipsed by any inter-denominational or non-denominational political efforts of ours. The proximate cause for all social problems is the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the Actual Sins of men whose pursuit has become a matter of "civil rights" under cover of law in the modern State, admitting that the remote cause of all problems, is of course, Original Sin. Pope Leo XIII pointed this out in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900:

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

As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from "The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. "And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him" (Daniel vii., 14). "I am appointed King by Him . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psalm ii., 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at.

 

Anyone who rejects this simple statement of Catholic truth is a fool--from the top of his head to the tip of his toes--in every sense of that word. A fool, believing in the lies of semi-Pelagianism, that man is more or less self-redemptive and does not really, really need to accept the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church in its entirety and does not really, really need to have belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace in order to obey the laws of God and thus to scale the heights of personal sanctity. Pope Leo XIII explained in Tametsi what happens in a secular, naturalistic world:

It must therefore be clearly admitted that, in the life of a Christian, the intellect must be entirely subject to God's authority. And if, in this submission of reason to authority, our self-love, which is so strong, is restrained and made to suffer, this only proves the necessity to a Christian of long-suffering not only in will but also in intellect. We would remind those persons of this truth who desire a kind of Christianity such as they themselves have devised, whose precepts should be very mild, much more indulgent towards human nature, and requiring little if any hardships to be borne. They do not properly under stand the meaning of faith and Christian precepts. They do not see that the Cross meets us everywhere, the model of our life, the eternal standard of all who wish to follow Christ in reality and not merely in name.

God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.

 

How ironic it is, therefore, that those who believe in and practice ecumenism are in league with those who believe in and practice the false religious ecumenism of conciliarism. Both have produced devastating consequences for souls and bodies. The political ecumenism of the naturalist, pluralist State has produced abortion and contraception and perversity and usury and divorce and the usurpation of parental rights to educate their children (to say nothing of the organized robbery of private property represented by confiscatory taxation, the subject of an upcoming article on this site), among many other evils. The false religious ecumenism of conciliarism has resulted in the counterfeit church of conciliarism's rejection of the Social Reign of Christ the King, the embrace of the heresy of religious liberty, and the devising of a synthetic "liturgy" based on Protestant principles of theology and worship so as to enshrine a new theology for a new religion. Its deleterious consequences are as palpable as those wrought by the political ecumenism of the naturalist, pluralist State.

We have been eyewitnesses, for example, to the devastation of the Faith in the lives of so many millions of Catholics, most of whom are plunged headlong into an uncritical immersion in the ways of the world. I have seen this in my own thirty year college teaching career, about which I have written any number of times. An exterior manifestation of this devastation of souls can be seen in the way that so many Catholics dress and talk, heedless of the virtue of Modesty, becoming gross occasions of sin for others. Another exterior manifestation of this devastation of souls can be seen in the way in which many older Catholic churches, now in the clutches of the conciliar revolutionaries, have been gutted so as to make them reflect the "glories" of the conciliar revolution, accomplishing this in most, although not all, instances, by removing every single vestige of true Catholicism from their midst.

High altars have been smashed to smithereens with glee. Statues of Our Lord and Our Lady and Saint Joseph and other saints have been smashed and thrown into dumpsters. Crucifixes have been taken down and thrown out with yesterday's garbage. This is nothing other than the triumph of the spirit of Calvinism and its Catholic counterpart, Jansenism, as unreconstructed Modernists demonstrate exteriorly the interior wreckage of so many millions of souls by virtue of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service and the false religion enshrined therein.

Thus it is that the story of the wrekovation of a Catholic church in Northern Cambria, Pennsylvania, is simply all too familiar:

After five years of deception and lies by leaders of the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese, our worst fears became reality. On May 27 around 4 p.m., destruction of our sanctuary began at St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church, Northern Cambria.

Two contractors from C.E. Wood of Altoona appeared out of nowhere.

We-— Joseph Minarish, Helen Biros, Edward Kerchesky and Carol Benamati — parishioners stood there in disbelief at the sight of two workmen in steel-toed boots standing on our beautiful sacred altar. They were ripping, tearing and smashing at our nearly 100-year-old main altar with crowbars, sledge hammers and electric saws.

Alongside stood our parish priest, Rev. Gerard Comielly, TOR, looking on in approval. Gerard asked us to leave. We returned later with other parishioners equally upset at the destruction. Once again, Gerard demanded that we leave or he would call the police. We left.

Gerard went against his word. After leaving the premises of the church, we were standing on Elizabeth Street and the police arrived. The officer informed us that, upon orders from Gerard, we are not permitted to enter the body of the church.

Is Gerard so ashamed of what he is letting the contractors do to the sanctuary of our church that he did not want anyone else to see? The contractors appeared over and over again, in the early morning hours, late evening and after dark, when they were least expected.

The saddest of all is the way our altar was disposed. For over a week, the remains of our consecrated altar lay in a dumpster along with a bag of garbage and two old tires.

Where is the respect for God? Where is the respect for the people who worked so hard and sacrificed so much so that their future generations may know and understand the history of the church? Is this how we are to dispose of sacred objects?

Our sanctuary has now been destroyed and can never be replaced. Like thieves in the night, they came, they destroyed and they left.

http://Destruction of Saint John the Baptist Church, Northern Cambria, Pennsylvania

 

Although no document of the "Second" Vatican Council calls for the sort of wreckovation (and the construction of veritable Novus Ordo temples of doom) that has taken place in so many Catholic churches under the control of the counterfeit church of conciliarism around the world in the past forty years or so, these wreckovations have proceeded without any correction from the conciliar Vatican. Consecrated altars of Catholic churches have been demolished voluntarily, something that has no precedent in Catholic history, leaving aside the fate of Catholic churches damaged by fire or natural disasters (earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes) or wars. As noted before, this is an eerie echo of the Protestant Revolution's sacking of Catholic churches to make their conformable to their own false worship and their own false theology. The conciliarist devastation of existing Catholic churches (and the building of "churches" designed to reflect a new theology for a new religion) is but an external manifestation of Modernism.

Indeed, these words from Pope Saint Pius X, contained in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, summarize the Modernist modus vivendi:

It remains for Us now to say a few words about the Modernist as reformer. From all that has preceded, it is abundantly clear how great and how eager is the passion of such men for innovation. In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it does not fasten. They wish philosophy to be reformed, especially in the ecclesiastical seminaries. They wish the scholastic philosophy to be relegated to the history of philosophy and to be classed among absolute systems, and the young men to be taught modern philosophy which alone is true and suited to the times in which we live. They desire the reform of theology: rational theology is to have modern philosophy for its foundation, and positive theology is to be founded on the history of dogma. As for history, it must be written and taught only according to their methods and modern principles. Dogmas and their evolution, they affirm, are to be harmonized with science and history. In the Catechism no dogmas are to be inserted except those that have been reformed and are within the capacity of the people. Regarding worship, they say, the number of external devotions is to he reduced, and steps must be taken to prevent their further increase, though, indeed, some of the admirers of symbolism are disposed to be more indulgent on this head.

 

Pope Pius XII wrote in Mediator Dei, November 20, 1947, of how some "reformers" wanted to "restore" a primitive worship, a goal of Calvinists that was shared by many, although not all, of the early Modernists:

Assuredly it is a wise and most laudable thing to return in spirit and affection to the sources of the sacred liturgy. For research in this field of study, by tracing it back to its origins, contributes valuable assistance towards a more thorough and careful investigation of the significance of feast-days, and of the meaning of the texts and sacred ceremonies employed on their occasion. But it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer's body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See.

Clearly no sincere Catholic can refuse to accept the formulation of Christian doctrine more recently elaborated and proclaimed as dogmas by the Church, under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit with abundant fruit for souls, because it pleases him to hark back to the old formulas. No more can any Catholic in his right senses repudiate existing legislation of the Church to revert to prescriptions based on the earliest sources of canon law. Just as obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.

This way of acting bids fair to revive the exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism to which the illegal Council of Pistoia gave rise. It likewise attempts to reinstate a series of errors which were responsible for the calling of that meeting as well as for those resulting from it, with grievous harm to souls, and which the Church, the ever watchful guardian of the "deposit of faith" committed to her charge by her divine Founder, had every right and reason to condemn. For perverse designs and ventures of this sort tend to paralyze and weaken that process of sanctification by which the sacred liturgy directs the sons of adoption to their Heavenly Father of their souls' salvation.

 

Those things that are false, either in the civil or ecclesiastical realms, lead to the carnage of bodies and souls. Indeed, the wreckage of the church in Northern Cambria, Pennsylvania, being merely symbolic of the various steps that were taken to attack the Immemorial Mass of Tradition between 1951 and 1969 as the prelude to the Novus Ordo service itself, demonstrates once again that it is the preference of the most ardent of the conciliar revolutionaries that their innovations not coexist with any architectural memories of Tradition. The very propositions concerning worship condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, the Feast of Saint Augustine, have been brought to life in the Novus Ordo and its wreckage of souls and churches:

The Suitable Order to Be Observed in Worship

31. The proposition of the synod [of Pistoia] enunciating that it is fitting, in accordance with the order of divine services and ancient custom, that there be only one altar in each temple, and therefore, that it is pleased to restore that custom,—rash, injurious to the very ancient pious custom flourishing and approved for these many centuries in the Church, especially in the Latin Church.

32. Likewise, the prescription forbidding cases of sacred relics or flowers being placed on the altar,—rash, injurious to the pious and approved custom of the Church.

33. The proposition of the synod by which it shows itself eager to remove the cause through which, in part, there has been induced a forget-fulness of the principles relating to the order of the liturgy, "by recalling it (the liturgy) to a greater simplicity of rites, by expressing it in the vernacular language, by uttering it in a loud voice"; as if the present order of the liturgy, received and approved by the Church, had emanated in some part from the forgetfulness of the principles by which it should be regulated,—rash, offensive to pious ears, insulting to the Church, favorable to the charges of heretics against it.

 

Favorable to the charges of the heretics against Holy Mother Church. Indeed. Modernism has accommodated itself to the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King, believing in the sort of inter-denominationalism, condemned, it should be pointed out, by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, that suits the purposes of Judeo-Masonry so very well and thus makes all of its pointed protests about abortion completely ineffective as the daily carnage of the preborn, as horrific as that it is, is but one symptom of the consequences of denying the necessity of the civil state's recognizing the Catholic Church and subordinating itself to her in all that pertains to the good of souls.

Favorable to the charges of the heretics against Holy Mother Church. Indeed. Modernism has accommodated what purports to be the "worship" of God to the influences of Protestantism and Talmudic Judaism ("table prayers" from the Talmudic "worship" in place of the Offertory) and the "inculturation" of pagan practices in certain places and/or on special occasions ("papal Masses"). "In all Catholicism there is absolutely nothing on which it [Modernism] does not fasten." Indeed.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who lived between 1090 and 1153, fought the heresies of his own day, particularly those of the Waldensians and the Albigenses, with deep devotion to Our Lady. Indeed, Saint Bernard, a Cistercian monk, helped to spread a deep and a tender devotion to the Mother of God amongst the clergy and the people of his time, remind one and all that:

In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not her name depart from your lips, never suffer it to leave your heart. And that you may more surely obtain the assistance of her prayer, neglect not to walk in her footsteps. With her for guide, you shall never go astray; while invoking her, you shall never lose heart; so long as she is in your mind, you are safe from deception; while she holds your hand, you cannot fall; under her protection you have nothing to fear; if she walks before you, you shall not grow weary; if she shows you favor, you shall reach the goal.

 

Not a bad thought on this day, August 20, 2007, the feast of the heroic monk of the Cistercian Abbey of Clairvaux and the great champion of Christendom itself, Saint Bernard. Although the matter is disputed by some, I was taught as a boy that Saint Bernard is the author of the prayer that we should recite faithfully every day, perhaps at some point following the conclusion of our daily Rosaries, the Memorare of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that any one who fled to thy protection, implored thy help or sought thy intercession, was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Virgin of virgins my Mother; to thee do I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful; O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy clemency hear and answer me.  Amen.

 

It is, therefore, with total confidence in Our Lady that we must offer our daily acts of reparation for our own sins and those of the whole world to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, imploring her especially through her Most Holy Rosary. Saint Bernard was able to soften the hearts of many in his years at Clairvaux by his preaching about Our Lady.

We must have confidence in Our Lady, flying unto her maternal intercession to help us to take refuge in the catacombs as we entrust the salvation of our immortal souls to true champions of Christ the King and of herself, our Immaculate Queen, that is, the true bishops and true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or to the false shepherds of its counterfeit church who are complicit in the carnage of bodies wrought by the anti-Incarnational thrust of Modernity and directly responsible for the carnage of souls wrought by their own apostasies. Our Lady, who crushes all heresies, will indeed manifest the Triumph of her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, and it will be a glorious victory beyond all telling.

Viva Cristo Rey!

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

 

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.

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 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 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 X, 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.

 

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.