The Devil's Payback for The Passion of the Christ
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Many thousands upon thousands of Catholics have begun bearing a visible witness today to the Holy Faith by praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary in front of the motion picture theaters where the reprehensible The Da Vinci Code has now opened for viewing. Although the initial reviews of the film written by professional film reviewers in the secular world are largely negative, it is nevertheless important for Catholics to maintain a prayerful vigil to make reparation for the offenses against Our Lord and His Holy Church committed by the motion picture's authors, producers, director and actors. This is yet another opportunity for believing Catholics across the spectrum of those things that unnecessarily divide the Church in her human elements to put aside important differences and unite in a common cause to defend the Holy Faith. Today, May 20, 2006, in addition to praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary fervently, we can make our acts of reparation by remembering to invoke Saint Bernardine of Siena, who devoted his entire life to the defense of the honor of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.
The Da Vinci Code was a novel written by a man named Dan Brown. Mr. Brown based his novel, which has sold more than sixty million copies, upon a number of "sources," including one book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, to pastiche together a fabric of blasphemous lies, which Brown asserts as "facts," about Our Lord and the truths He has entrusted solely to the true Church He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope. The blasphemous fabrications are well-known by now. There is no need to revisit them here. Suffice it to say for present purposes that The Da Vinci Code is yet another attempt by the devil to use the rot of contemporary "popular" culture to undermine belief in the Catholic Faith by reaffirming unbelievers in their ignorance and attempting to convince poorly catechized Catholics that their Faith is but a myth. In many ways, you see, The Da Vinci Code is the devil's payback for Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, which moved at least a few people here and there to quit their unbelief and to seek out the true Faith, Catholicism, in order to save their souls.
Hollywood has long been the devil's playground. Most of the major motion picture studios were founded by Jewish immigrants, some of whom had made their money in penny arcades on the East Coast before moving to California in the early Twentieth Century to take advantage of the cheap electricity in the Golden State (see Paul Johnson, A History of the American People). Great liberties were taken in the years of silent films, replete with suggestive behavior and indecent attire. Double entendres were common when the "talkies" debuted in 1927. Believe or not, films featuring Stan Laurel (aka Arthur Stanley Jefferson) and Oliver Norvel Hardy were among the worst offenders in this regard. Producers sought to "push the envelope" in order to make as much money as possible. They were to find in Pope Pius XI a powerful foe, whose Vigilianti Cura, issued on June 29, 1936, sought to warn Catholics not to patronize entertainment fare that promoted sinful behavior and to encourage producers to use the power of the cinema for the good.
Writing in Vigilianti Cura, Pope Pius XI explained:
The power of the cinema is due to the fact that it speaks through the medium of living images, which are assimilated with delight and without difficulty, even by those who are untrained and uneducated, and who would be incapable or unwilling to make the efforts of induction or deduction necessary in reasoning. For to read, or to listen to another reading aloud demands a certain concentration and mental effort; an effort which in the cinema is replaced by the delight of a continuous stream of living images presented to the eyes. This power is accentuated in those films in which the voice accompanies the action, for the action becomes thereby even more easy to understand, and the plot may be developed with the added attraction of music. The dances and the scenes of so-called "variety" introduced in the intervals enhance the mental excitement and provide fresh stimuli.
These theatres, being like the school of life itself, have a greater influence in inciting men to virtue or vice than abstract reasoning. They must therefore be made to serve the purpose of disseminating the right principles of the Christian conscience, and must divest themselves of everything that could corrupt and impair good morals.
All men know how much harm is done by bad films; they sing the praises of lust and desire, and at the same time provide occasions of sin; they seduce the young from the right path; they present life in a false light; they obscure and weaken the wise counsels of attaining perfection; they destroy pure love, the sanctity of matrimony and the intimate needs of family life. They seek moreover to inculcate prejudiced and false opinions among individuals, classes of society and the different nations and peoples.
On the other hand, if these plays conform to the best standards, they can exert a most healthy influence on the spectators. They not only give pleasure, but urge men on and excite them to noble ends; they teach most useful lessons; further, they can display to a man the heroism and the glories of his own and of other nations; they can show virtue and truth in an attractive and beautiful light; among the classes of society, the nations and the different races they can arouse, or at least foster, mutual understanding and good will; they can embrace the cause of justice; they can call all men to virtue; and finally they can lend useful aid to a new and more equitable ordering and government of human society.
These considerations of Ours assume more importance from the fact that the cinema does not address its messages to individuals, but to gatherings of men, and that in conditions of time and place which are as well suited to directing men's enthusiasms towards good as towards evil; such mass enthusiasms as experience tells us may degenerate into something approaching madness.
The films are exhibited to spectators who are sitting in darkened theatres, and whose mental faculties and spiritual forces are for the most part dormant. We do not have to go far to find these theatres; they are near our houses, our churches and our schools, so that the influence they exercise and the power they wield over our daily life is very great.
Moreover stories and actions are presented, through the cinema, by men and women whose natural gifts are increased by training and embellished by every known art, in a manner which may possibly become an additional source of corruption, especially to the young. To this are added musical accompaniments, expensive settings, extravagant presentations, and novelty in its most varied and exciting form.
Wherefore especially the minds of boys and young people are affected and held by the fascination of these plays; so that the cinema exercises its greatest strength and power at the very age at which the sense of honour is implanted and develops, at which the principles of justice and goodness emerge from the mind, at which the notions of duty and all the best principles of perfection make their appearance.
But alas! this power, in the present state of affairs, is too often used for harm. Wherefore when we consider the ruin caused among youths and children, whose innocence and chastity is endangered in these theatres, We remember that severe word spoken against the corrupters of youth by Jesus Christ: "But who so shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea" (Matth. xviii. 6-7).
It is therefore most necessary, in these times of ours, that these entertainments should not become schools of corruption, but that they should rather assist in the right education of man and in raising the dignity of morality.
Vigilianti Cura provided The Legion of Decency with the fodder its leaders and foot-soldiers needed to keep Hollywood more or less in check for about twenty years before it began its descent into its present state of debauchery with From Here to Eternity in 1953 and The Seven Year Itch in 1955. The devil was forced to tone down his assaults upon the Faith and morality during this era, being unleashed in the early-1950s to take full advantage of a citizenry interested in salacious fare, a phenomenon that increased with the advent of the rebellious and licentious 1960s. That Mel Gibson was able to produce The Passion of the Christ, an artistic and commercial success, and get it into movie theaters, which was no mean feat, certainly angered the adversary to seek some means of revenge. Hence The Da Vinci Code, which is turning out be an artistic flop (and it is pretty bad when secularists, who want to believe the worst about the Church, pan a motion picture whose ideological predilections they are predisposed to accept), although it remains to be seen whether the initial unfavorable reviews will keep moviegoers away from its blasphemous assaults on the true Faith.
As important as it is for Catholics to make public acts of reparation for The Da Vinci Code, however, it must be pointed out that it is only a movie, one that is likely to have a limited shelf-life and may not even make back its production costs. Far more dangerous to the Catholic Faith is the assaults that have been made upon it from within the Church's own institutional structures for a long day, yes, even predating the Second Vatican Council in many instances. Professors in colleges and universities sought, in the name of academic "freedom," you understand, to put the truths of the Holy Faith into question as early as the early post-World War II-era. This effort gained substantial force during and after the Second Vatican Council. Indeed, a professor who taught a course on Sacred Scripture I took at Saint John's University in Jamaica, Queens, New York, in the Spring Semester of 1970 derided much of what was contained in the Bible as mythological. This, sadly, was not atypical.
The Faith of Catholics of my own "baby-boom" generation was attacked relentlessly in every single crevice of the institutional Church following the end of the Second Vatican Council. The sensus Catholics of older Catholics was assaulted by the blitzkrieg of liturgical innovations (the 1955 Holy Week changes, "liberalized" use of the infernal "dialogue Mass," rightly termed by Father Patrick Perez as the "blabber Mass," in 1958, changes in the liturgical calendar made even before the issuance of the 1961 Missal by Pope John XXIII, the 1965 Ordo Missae, and, of course, the Novus Ordo Missae itself and all of its ceaseless permutations) and by the replacement of authentic Catholic teaching from the pulpit with a hodgepodge of Catholic-sounding phrases and outright personal opinions that presented actual heresies as truths. Diocesan newspapers and publications produced religious communities featured all manner of theological dissent and actual heresy. Moreover, theological and liturgical felons were appointed to run dioceses by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II, both of whom promoted these felons time and time again. It took a virtual open rebellion on the part of French Catholics in the Diocese of Evreux, France, to effect the removal of Bishop Jacques Gaillot, who supported the human pesticide, RU-486, on January 13, 1995. Other than that, however, the theological and liturgical and pastoral felons have been permitted free rein during the conciliarist era to devastate the souls for whom Our Lord shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.
As bad as The Da Vinci Code is in its book and cinematic forms, ladies and gentlemen, there would not have been much need sixty or seventy years ago for an elaborate series of explanations, no less books and pamphlets, to teach Catholics why such a collection of blasphemous lies must not be patronized in any form by any Catholic for any reason. Bishops would have instructed their priests to command the faithful to boycott such a book and/or motion picture. And that would have been the end of The Da Vinci Code at that time. Hollywood producers respected the clout of the bishops in between the late-1930s and early-1950s, understanding that most, although not all, Catholics would do as they were instructed by their shepherds without a moment's hesitation. The Hollywood moguls, caring about profits more than anything else, were thus discouraged from making motion pictures which offended Catholics, and even went to great lengths to produce films that promoted the Faith (such as Song of Bernadette and The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima, among others). Yes, for all of the faults of the American bishops, many of whom were imbued with the spirit of Americanism, of the early to middle Twentieth Century before the Second Vatican Council, they at least had the sensus fidei and cared very much about saving the souls of the flocks that had been entrusted to their pastoral care. They spoke but the word and their sheep listened, taking to the streets if they had to do so.
Today, sadly, we see more than a handful of bishops and priests praising motion pictures promoting perversity. Archbishop George Niederauer, who co-owns a beach house with his predecessor as the Archbishop of San Francisco, William Cardinal Levada, praised a motion picture, Brokeback Mountain, that glorified perverse sins committed in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandment. And even those bishops who do try on occasion to oppose the evils of popular culture find that few of their sheep, "liberated" by all of the errors of conciliarism and its many mutations, will follow their advice. Why should we be shocked to find that Catholics have bought The Da Vinci Code as a book and find it credible when the truths of the Faith are under attack in almost every Catholic school and college and university here and around the world? Why should we be shocked that Catholics will spend their money to purchase tickets to watch The Da Vinci Code as a motion pictures when conciliarism teaches them to accept the joys of "healthy secularity" and pluralism?
Holy Mother Church will always be under assault by the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil. Granted. Those assaults, however, have become more potent in the past forty years because of the infiltration of the devil and his many minions, including Talmudic Jews and Freemasons and Communists, into the highest reaches of the Church in her human elements. Angelo Roncalli was a supporter of The Sillon, a movement condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique. Giovanni Montini was, at the very least, sympathetic to Marxism, if not actually supportive of it, as demonstrated by many of his actions dating back well before he succeeded Roncalli to the Throne of Saint Peter in 1963. So much for Pope Pius XI's Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, which forbade any and all interaction with--and/or even the appearance of support for--Marxism by Catholic bishops and priests. Joseph Ratzinger, a disciple of the "new thinkers," thinks in ways that were condemned by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, as has been quoted on this site many times in the past few weeks. Conciliarism's "opening up to the world" has produced several generations of prelates who are merry participants in all that is wrong with the world, hardly counter-cultural witnesses to the Sign of Contradiction Who hung on the wood of the Holy Cross to redeem us, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We have been witnessses to an incredible spectacle of clerical corruption in the past thirty to fory years, an era that will be chronicled in Mrs. Randy Engel's upcoming blockbuster, The Rite of Sodomy. Catholics practice contraception in droves. Catholic women seek to kill the natural fruit of their wombs in abortuaries in roughly the same percentages as the rest of the population. Most Catholics today do not dress modestly or speak decently. Most Catholics, including a lot of traditional Catholics, find few problems with "rock music" and television and radio, participating quite actively in this culture of eternal death. Indeed, the lion's share of Catholics vote for thoroughly pro-abortion, pro-perversion candidates (or believe that partly pro-life and partly pro-abortion candidates must be supported as the "lesser of two evils"). We live, as Father Lawrence C. Smith noted last year following the state-sponsored execution of Mrs. Theresa Marie Schindler, Schiavo, in The Devil's Playground. And the devil is having a veritable field day with baptized Catholics because their shepherds have not only failed to teach the Faith has it has been handed down to us from the Apostles but have become, with only a few exceptions, apologists for all of the errors and heresies of Modernism, which is, of course, the synthesis of all heresies.
Thus, Catholic pope and cardinals and bishops and priests and consecrated religious and members of the laity are ignorantly, either willfully or invincibly, of the wisdom contained in a passage from Pope Leo XIII's Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, which, if followed, would consign every published or theatrical work assaulting the Faith to the trash bin posthaste:
The sovereignty of the people, however, and this without any reference to God, is held to reside in the multitude; which is doubtless a doctrine exceedingly well calculated to flatter and to inflame many passions, but which lacks all reasonable proof, and all power of insuring public safety and preserving order. Indeed, from the prevalence of this teaching, things have come to such a pass that may hold as an axiom of civil jurisprudence that seditions may be rightfully fostered. For the opinion prevails that princes are nothing more than delegates chosen to carry out the will of the people; whence it necessarily follows that all things are as changeable as the will of the people, so that risk of public disturbance is ever hanging over our heads.
To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God.
So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from life, from laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action.
Such assaults as The Da Vinci Code (and contraception and abortion and perversity) have been permitted to arise because the Church in her human elements accepts the basic premises of the pluralist State, which has been praised repeatedly by the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Oh, sure he condemns secularism and relativism as he praises the State without Christ the King, thereby demonstrating that he refuses to accept the simple truth that it is only in a State that confessionally professes the Catholic Faith as the one and only true Faith that men have a reasonable chance to withstand the assaults of the devil in their social lives. Joseph Ratzinger thus dissents--and has done so his entire priesthood, including an address given on May 18, 2006, in which he praised a "healthy laicisim"--from this clear reiteration, contained in Immortale Dei, of the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the State from which no Catholic is free to dissent and to remain a Catholic in good standing:
As a consequence, the State, constituted as it is, is clearly bound to act up to the manifold and weighty duties linking it to God, by the public profession of religion. Nature and reason, which command every individual devoutly to worship God in holiness, because we belong to Him and must return to Him, since from Him we came, bind also the civil community by a like law. For, men living together in society are under the power of God no less than individuals are, and society, no less than individuals, owes gratitude to God who gave it being and maintains it and whose everbounteous goodness enriches it with countless blessings. Since, then, no one is allowed to be remiss in the service due to God, and since the chief duty of all men is to cling to religion in both its teaching and practice-not such religion as they may have a preference for, but the religion which God enjoins, and which certain and most clear marks show to be the only one true religion -- it is a public crime to act as though there were no God. So, too, is it a sin for the State not to have care for religion as a something beyond its scope, or as of no practical benefit; or out of many forms of religion to adopt that one which chimes in with the fancy; for we are bound absolutely to worship God in that way which He has shown to be His will. All who rule, therefore, would hold in honor the holy name of God, and one of their chief duties must be to favor religion, to protect it, to shield it under the credit and sanction of the laws, and neither to organize nor enact any measure that may compromise its safety. This is the bounden duty of rulers to the people over whom they rule. For one and all are we destined by our birth and adoption to enjoy, when this frail and fleeting life is ended, a supreme and final good in heaven, and to the attainment of this every endeavor should be directed. Since, then, upon this depends the full and perfect happiness of mankind, the securing of this end should be of all imaginable interests the most urgent. Hence, civil society, established for the common welfare, should not only safeguard the wellbeing of the community, but have also at heart the interests of its individual members, in such mode as not in any way to hinder, but in every manner to render as easy as may be, the possession of that highest and unchangeable good for which all should seek. Wherefore, for this purpose, care must especially be taken to preserve unharmed and unimpeded the religion whereof the practice is the link connecting man with God.
Now, it cannot be difficult to find out which is the true religion, if only it be sought with an earnest and unbiased mind; for proofs are abundant and striking. We have, for example, the fulfillment of prophecies, miracles in great numbers, the rapid spread of the faith in the midst of enemies and in face of overwhelming obstacles, the witness of the martyrs, and the like. From all these it is evident that the only true religion is the one established by Jesus Christ Himself, and which He committed to His Church to protect and to propagate.
Pope Leo XIII, quoting Saint Augustine, whose writings have been distorted by the "new thinkers" to posit a false conflict between this Father of the Church and Saint Thomas Aquinas, wrote the following in Satis Cognitum, June 28, 1896, on what happens to those who fail to accept even one part of the Catholic Faith, which includes her Social Teaching, meaning that there is no "reducible minimum" to which one can fall and still remain a Catholic in good standing, no less hold validly a claim to ecclesiastical office:
The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).
The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore :, drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88).
Let me repeat a phrase from the passage above: "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition."
To deny that the State must recognize the Catholic Faith as the one and only true Faith is a denial of Catholic doctrine. It is to infect the Faith with a drop of poison. The denial of the necessity of confessionally Catholic State was condemned by Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, as a species of Modernism:
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.
Any questions? Actually, the answers should be pretty clear. Pope Benedict XVI's lifelong embrace, reiterated once again just yesterday, May 19, 2006, when he said that "social justice" can be obtained only in "authentic democracy," of the secular state has been condemned. Over and above any other theological issue, the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger has dropped poison into the well of Catholicism on the issue of the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ throughout his priesthood. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic."
Dare I say it? Dare I ask the question? Do not these words apply to the former Father Joseph Ratzinger? Have they have applied to him throughout his priesthood just on the issue of the separation of Church and State alone? He has indeed sought to realize the following proposition of the Modernists that was condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Domenici Gregis on September 8, 1907:
But it is not only within her own household that the Church must come to terms. Besides her relations with those within, she has others with those who are outside. The Church does not occupy the world all by herself; there are other societies in the world., with which she must necessarily have dealings and contact. The rights and duties of the Church towards civil societies must, therefore, be determined, and determined, of course, by her own nature, that, to wit, which the Modernists have already described to us. The rules to be applied in this matter are clearly those which have been laid down for science and faith, though in the latter case the question turned upon the object, while in the present case we have one of ends. In the same way, then, as faith and science are alien to each other by reason of the diversity of their objects, Church and State are strangers by reason of the diversity of their ends, that of the Church being spiritual while that of the State is temporal. Formerly it was possible to subordinate the temporal to the spiritual and to speak of some questions as mixed, conceding to the Church the position of queen and mistress in all such, because the Church was then regarded as having been instituted immediately by God as the author of the supernatural order. But this doctrine is today repudiated alike by philosophers and historians. The state must, therefore, be separated from the Church, and the Catholic from the citizen. Every Catholic, from the fact that he is also a citizen, has the right and the duty to work for the common good in the way he thinks best, without troubling himself about the authority of the Church, without paying any heed to its wishes, its counsels, its orders -- nay, even in spite of its rebukes. For the Church to trace out and prescribe for the citizen any line of action, on any pretext whatsoever, is to be guilty of an abuse of authority, against which one is bound to protest with all one's might. Venerable Brethren, the principles from which these doctrines spring have been solemnly condemned by Our predecessor, Pius VI, in his Apostolic Constitution Auctorem fidei.
Yes, although it is indeed very important to make reparation for The Da Vinci Code movie and to pray for the conversion of all those involved in its production and distribution, we must also make reparation for the sins of conciliarism and its apologists against the Faith of our fathers, sins that make such blasphemous displays as The Da Vinci Code all the more acceptable to so many Catholics as they poison the minds of those already unfavorably disposed to the true Church. Who is going to start to organize Rosaries of Reparation in front of chancery offices and schools and universities and colleges and seminaries, to say nothing of in Piazza San Pietro itself in the State of Vatican City? The Roncalli Code and the Montini Code and the Wojtyla Code and the Ratzinger Code have proved to be far more injurious to the good of souls than anything conjured up by the forces of popular culture.
As always, however, we recognize that our own sins have contributed mightily to the weakening of the Church Militant on earth. We must make reparation for our own man sins, beseeching Our Lady to help us to be more pure in thought, word and in deed, that we will be men and women of Catholic integrity at every point of our lives. Consecrated to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, may we by our prayers and acts of penance and mortification and almsgiving seek to plant some seeds that will result in the fulfillment of Our Lady's Fatima Message and thus the Restoration of Tradition in the Church and Christendom in the world.
Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Bernardine of Siena, pray for us.
Saint Peter Celestine, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
Saint Pudentiana, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Agnes, pray for us
Saint Agatha, pray for us.
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Catherine of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.
Saint John Bosco, pray for us.
Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.
Blessed Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.
Blessed Francisco, pray for us.
Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.
Sister Lucia, 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.
