The Folly of Playing by the Adversary's Rules

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The continued slide of the United States of America into the grips of Hades is but the logical result of the false belief that men can, absent a subordination of all things in personal and social life to the Deposit of Faith entrusted by Our Lord exclusively to the Catholic Church, know social order and that men can, absent a reliance upon Sanctifying Grace, persevere in virtue as the precondition for "good citizenship." That is, the die for our current situation was cast by the men of the Eighteenth Century, the "Founding Fathers," who believed, sincerely but nevertheless mistakenly, that the civil state can be indifferent to the Social Reign of Christ as it must be exercised by the Catholic Church and

still provide the foundation for the pursuit of a just social order. A nation founded on a specific rejection of the true Church as having the authority given it from God Himself to guide the civil state on matters pertaining to the good of souls will descend into atheism and barbarism over the course of time, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

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 the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action.

Additionally, the counterfeit religion of conciliarism's own accommodation to the "separation of Church and State" as something virtuous and demanded by the very teaching of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself has reaffirmed Catholics in the false belief that we can resolve social problems in a political way, seeking not to impose "denominationalism" upon a country as we work with others of "good will" to find "common ground" on the major issues of the day, something that is straight of the Judeo-Masonic "playbook" and the essence of the gnostic thought of the late apologist of the "new science of politics" represented by the American Constitution, Leo Strauss. Thus it is that Catholics across the ecclesiastical divide continue to rend their garments and gnash their teeth about the results of elections, which feature contests as described by Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:

To these evils we must add the contests between political parties, many of which struggles do not originate in a real difference of opinion concerning the public good or in a laudable and disinterested search for what would best promote the common welfare, but in the desire for power and for the protection of some private interest which inevitably result in injury to the citizens as a whole. From this course there often arise robberies of what belongs rightly to the people, and even conspiracies against and attacks on the supreme authority of the state, as well as on its representatives. These political struggles also beget threats of popular action and, at times, eventuate in open rebellion and other disorders which are all the more deplorable and harmful since they come from a public to whom it has been given, in our modern democratic states, to participate in very large measure in public life and in the affairs of government. Now, these different forms of government are not of themselves contrary to the principles of the Catholic Faith, which can easily be reconciled with any reasonable and just system of government. Such governments, however, are the most exposed to the danger of being overthrown by one faction or another.

As the popes have taught from time immemorial, the Catholic Church can adapt herself to any particular form of government. She insists only that the civil government, no matter the form (monarchical, parliamentary-ministerial, presidential-congressional, unitary, federal, confederal, mixed regime), recognize her as the true religion and give deference to her on matters pertaining to the good of souls as it pursues the common temporal good in light of man's Last End. There is wide latitude given to men to create and sustain this or that form of civil government. What is inarguable is that each civil government must subordinate itself to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law as they have been entrusted to the Catholic Church and to recognize that the Mystical Bride of Our Lord Jesus Christ has the authority, exercised after the exhausting of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation, to interpose herself when the good of souls demands her intervention, an authority that is used judiciously in matters of grave importance touching upon the aforementioned good of souls.

As Pope Leo XIII noted in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, public life will be stained with crime when the Social Kingship of the Divine Redeemer is rejected and men believe that they can provide for the administration of civil governance solely by the light of natural reason unaided by the Divine Revelation entrusted to the true Church:

From this it may clearly be seen what con sequences 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.

Just as it is the height of misfortune to go astray from the "Way," so is it to abandon the "Truth." Christ Himself is the first, absolute and essential "Truth," inasmuch as He is the Word of God, consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, He and the Father being One. "I am the Way and the Truth." Wherefore if the Truth be sought by the human intellect, it must first of all submit it to Jesus Christ, and securely rest upon His teaching, since therein Truth itself speaketh. There are innumerable and extensive fields of thought, properly belonging to the human mind, in which it may have free scope for its investigations and speculations, and that not only agreeably to its nature, but even by a necessity of its nature. But what is unlawful and unnatural is that the human mind should refuse to be restricted within its proper limits, and, throwing aside its becoming modesty, should refuse to acknowledge Christ's teaching. This teaching, upon which our salvation depends, is almost entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God hath received and drunk it in entirely from His Father: "The words which thou gavest me, I have given to them" john xvii., 8). Hence this teaching necessarily embraces many subjects which are not indeed contrary to reasonfor that would be an impossibility-but so exalted that we can no more attain them by our own reasoning than we can comprehend God as He is in Himself. If there be so many things hidden and veiled by nature, which no human ingenuity can explain, and yet which no man in his senses can doubt, it would be an abuse of liberty to refuse to accept those which are entirely above nature, because their essence cannot be discovered. To reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity. Our intellect must bow humbly and reverently "unto the obedience of Christ," so that it be held captive by His divinity and authority: "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians x., 5). Such obedience Christ requires, and justly so. For He is God, and as such holds supreme dominion over man's intellect as well as over his will. By obeying Christ with his intellect man by no means acts in a servile manner, but in complete accordance with his reason and his natural dignity. For by his will he yields, not to the authority of any man, but to that of God, the author of his being, and the first principle to Whom he is subject by the very law of his nature. He does not suffer himself to be forced by the theories of any human teacher, but by the eternal and unchangeable truth. Hence he attains at one and the same time the natural good of the intellect and his own liberty. For the truth which proceeds from the teaching of Christ clearly demonstrates the real nature and value of every being; and man, being endowed with this knowledge, if he but obey the truth as perceived, will make all things subject to himself, not himself to them; his appetites to his reason, not his reason to his appetites. Thus the slavery of sin and falsehood will be shaken off, and the most perfect liberty attained: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" john viii., 32). It is, then, evident that those whose intellect rejects the yoke of Christ are obstinately striving against God. Having shaken off God's authority, they are by no means freer, for they will fall beneath some human sway. They are sure to choose someone whom they will listen to, obey, and follow as their guide. Moreover, they withdraw their intellect from the communication of divine truths, and thus limit it within a narrower circle of knowledge, so that they are less fitted to succeed in the pursuit even of natural science. For there are in nature very many things whose apprehension or explanation is greatly aided by the light of divine truth. Not unfrequently, too, God, in order to chastise their pride, does not permit men to see the truth, and thus they are punished in the things wherein they sin. This is why we often see men of great intellectual power and erudition making the grossest blunders even in natural science.

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.

So great is this struggle of the passions and so serious the dangers involved, that we must either anticipate ultimate ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is of course both right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible way: but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation of the nations must be looked for higher. A power greater than human must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken in them the sense of duty, and make them better. This is the power which once before saved the world from destruction when groaning under much more terrible evils. Once remove all impediments and allow the Christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away; mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realise that they must observe justice and charity, the latter self-restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved. Domestic life will be firmly established ( by the salutary fear of God as the Lawgiver. In the same way the precepts of the natural law, which dictates respect for lawful authority and obedience to the laws, will exercise their influence over the people. Seditions and conspiracies will cease. Wherever Christianity rules over all without let or hindrance there the order established by Divine Providence is preserved, and both security and prosperity are the happy result. The common welfare, then, urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,-and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to this His own rightful possession. All elements of the national life must be made to drink in the Life which proceedeth from Him- legislation, political institutions, education, marriage and family life, capital and labour. Everyone must see that the very growth of civilisation which is so ardently desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows not so much by material wealth and prosperity, as by the spiritual qualities of morality and virtue.

Each of the problems we face in our country and the world is the consequence of Original Sin and of our own Actual Sins. The systematic attack upon the Sovereignty of Christ the King that began during the Protestant Revolt and spread like wildfire with the rise of Judeo-Masonry and its promotion of the thoroughly secular state in the Eighteenth Century has attacked the domestic cell of the Chuch, the family, and thus resulted in the rise of the monster state as the substitute for the family and for the Church herself.  This attack of Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry was fed by the rise of an assorted of political ideologies that are but a variations of the theme of human self-redemption, itself a recrudescence of the heresy of semi-Pelagianism, and by the American and French Revolutions, both of which, although differing in some respects, to be sure, were characterized by a rejection, passive in the case of the American Revolution and very violent in the case of the French Revolution, of the Sovereignty of Christ the King that has been entrusted to the Catholic Church.

Pope Pius XI discussed the attack upon the family in Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Attacks upon the integrity of the family lead quite logically to the arrogation to the civil state of the family's God-given prerogatives, starting with the education of children. In the United States of America, for example, the infamous Horace Mann was responsible for the proposal that resulted in the creation of the first statewide department of education, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1837, in order to inculcate the children of Catholic immigrants from Ireland in the "American" ways of religious indifferentism, cultural pluralism, egalitarianism and "democracy," weaning them away from any attachment to a "foreign potentate," namely, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the Sovereign Pontiff. This arrogation unto the civil state of the natural law right of parents to educate their children according to their own beliefs--and the Divine positive law's obligation upon Catholic parents to raise their children in strict accordance with the true Faith--has resulted in a situation where naturalism, not the Faith, governs the entire educational process in the Judeo-Masonic entity known as "public schooling." People who believe in naturalism will look to civil politics, not to the reformation of souls in cooperation with Sanctifying Grace, for the "resolution" of social problems.

Pope Pius XI spoke to this very point in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929:

Hence every form of pedagogic naturalism which in any way excludes or weakens supernatural Christian formation in the teaching of youth, is false. Every method of education founded, wholly or in part, on the denial or forgetfulness of original sin and of grace, and relying on the sole powers of human nature, is unsound. Such, generally speaking, are those modern systems bearing various names which appeal to a pretended self-government and unrestrained freedom on the part of the child, and which diminish or even suppress the teacher's authority and action, attributing to the child an exclusive primacy of initiative, and an activity independent of any higher law, natural or divine, in the work of his education.

If any of these terms are used, less properly, to denote the necessity of a gradually more active cooperation on the part of the pupil in his own education; if the intention is to banish from education despotism and violence, which, by the way, just punishment is not, this would be correct, but in no way new. It would mean only what has been taught and reduced to practice by the Church in traditional Christian education, in imitation of the method employed by God Himself towards His creatures, of whom He demands active cooperation according to the nature of each; for His Wisdom "reacheth from end to end mightily and ordereth all things sweetly."

But alas! it is clear from the obvious meaning of the words and from experience, that what is intended by not a few, is the withdrawal of education from every sort of dependence on the divine law. So today we see, strange sight indeed, educators and philosophers who spend their lives in searching for a universal moral code of education, as if there existed no decalogue, no gospel law, no law even of nature stamped by God on the heart of man, promulgated by right reason, and codified in positive revelation by God Himself in the ten commandments. These innovators are wont to refer contemptuously to Christian education as "heteronomous," "passive","obsolete," because founded upon the authority of God and His holy law.

Such men are miserably deluded in their claim to emancipate, as they say, the child, while in reality they are making him the slave of his own blind pride and of his disorderly affections, which, as a logical consequence of this false system, come to be justified as legitimate demands of a so-called autonomous nature.

It is naturalism's triumph in the life of Catholics, in large measure the result of Americanism in the life of Catholics here in the United States of America, that has convinced Catholics across the ecclesiastical divide that partisan politics is the path to social order. This is why so many of the immigrants to this country in the Nineteenth Century flocked to support the Democrat Party, which was viewed as "open" to their social advancement at a time when the Republican Party, composed to a very large extent by Freemasons and anti-Catholic nativist's at its inception in 1856, was seen as openly hostile to their social and economic welfare. The Democrat Party is still viewed as the "true secular church," outside of which there is no salvation, by a large segment of Catholics today, continuing the "family tradition" of voting for Democrats because it was the party that "welcomed" and helped to "mainstream" Catholic immigrants. No embrace of various social evils (contraception, abortion, statism, confiscatory tax policies, the violation of the principle of subsidiarity, sodomy, usury, etc.) by the Democrat Party deters the lion's share of Catholics from voting for candidates, many of whom are Catholics in perfectly good "canonical standing." who are at war with the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and natural law.

Having fallen into the devil's trap of naturalism that politics is the path to social order, Catholics who do not dissent from the Deposit of Faith believe that the antidote to the Democrat Party must be the Republican Party, even if it means accepting the "lesser of two evils," oblivious to the fact that an acceptance of a seemingly lesser dose of evil accustoms one to accepting higher doses of the so-called "lesser evil" as the "greater evils" become more overt and bold over the course of time. This is all a trick of the devil to trap us into thinking naturally, not supernaturally according to the light of the true Faith. It is all the more a trick of the devil as he has used Modernism, repackaged as conciliarism, to reaffirm the Americanist belief that it is indeed in the realm of politics that a Catholic can "influence" the policy-making process side-by-side with those who profess adherence to the beliefs of false religions without regard for the sacred, immutable, inviolable rights of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen. The devil thus raises up people in one political party who are so bad that anyone else looks better by comparison.

In reality, however, those who accept the false suppositions of naturalism will be incapable of retarding any social evils, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus. Social evils will increase the more that people believe in their own ability to "improve" society without regard to the Deposit of Faith entrusted to the Catholic Church by the Divine Redeemer and without relying upon Sanctifying Grace to build up Christendom in their own hearts and souls. We get "bad" Democrats one election cycle, followed by "good" Republicans, who squander their power by lining their pockets with lobbyists' gold and remaining silent as a madman invades a foreign country and authorizes the killing of thousands of innocent civilians in the name of "liberation," thereby making possible the triumph once again of the "bad" Democrats.

Anyone who thinks that the cause of fundamental justice founded in Truth Incarnate, Truth Crucified and Resurrected, is going to flourish in such a diabolical system is not looking at things clearly through the eyes of the true Faith. Our situation keeps getting progressively worse precisely because Catholics continue to spin their wheels politically rather than attempting to reject the anti-Incarnational foundation of the Modern State and to reject, completely and utterly, everything to do with the rot of conciliarism that has reinforced the errors of the Modern State and has resulted in worsening the very evils that the conciliar popes have tried to oppose almost exclusively on naturalistic grounds.

A surrender to playing by the naturalistic rules of the devil also winds up in convincing us that the "direct democracy" initiatives (initiative, referendum, recall) of the Reform Movement (or Progressive Movement or Good Government Movement) of the late-Nineteenth and early-Twentieth Centuries is a way to "give to the people" the right to make laws. However, no one, whether acting as an individual or acting collectively with others in an institution of civil governance, can pass human positive law that violates in any way the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and/or the natural law. Civil law is free only to legislate the specific penalties to be imposed upon malefactors who violate the precepts of the Divine positive law or the natural law (both of which have been entrusted by God Himself exclusively to the Catholic Church for their safekeeping and infallible explication). Civil law is not free to make legal that which is morally illicit and thus contrary to the rights of God and the good of souls.

Thus it is that people become ensnared into the trap of "talking up" "exceptions" to the inviolability of innocent preborn life in order to secure passage of a referendum, such as the one in South Dakota that was rejected by the voters there on Tuesday, November 7, 2006, that sought to ban most abortions while including a "life of the mother" exception. Exit polling indicates that most voters rejected the conditional ban on child-killing precisely because it did not include more exceptions! Admit one exception, ladies and gentlemen, and you have given the devil his due. No one who opposed abortion in South Dakota had the courage to say the following: "No human being or human institution or human referendum has the authority to permit the direct, intentional killing of one innocent human being under cover of law. The direct, intentional killing of innocent human beings is always and in all instances opposed to the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law, from which none of us are exempt at any time or under any circumstances whatsoever." No one said this because the conciliar bishops do not think as Catholics and they do not exhort their sheep to think as Catholics, having probably never even read these words of Pope Leo XIII in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:

Under such evil circumstances therefore, each one is bound in conscience to watch over himself, taking all means possible to preserve the faith inviolate in the depths of his soul, avoiding all risks, and arming himself on all occasions, especially against the various specious sophisms rife among non-believers. In order to safeguard this virtue of faith in its integrity, We declare it to be very profitable and consistent with the requirements of the time, that each one, according to the measure of his capacity and intelligence, should make a deep study of Christian doctrine, and imbue his mind with as perfect a knowledge as may be of those matters that are interwoven with religion and lie within the range of reason. And as it is necessary that faith should not only abide untarnished in the soul, but should grow with ever painstaking increase, the suppliant and humble entreaty of the apostles ought constantly to be addressed to God: "Increase our faith.''

But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. So soon as Catholic truth is apprehended by a simple and unprejudiced soul, reason yields assent. Now, faith, as a virtue, is a great boon of divine grace and goodness; nevertheless, the objects themselves to which faith is to be applied are scarcely known in any other way than through the hearing. "How shall they believe Him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? Faith then cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." Since, then, faith is necessary for salvation, it follows that the word of Christ must be preached. The office, indeed, of preaching, that is, of teaching, lies by divine right in the province of the pastors, namely, of the bishops whom "the Holy Spirit has placed to rule the Church of God.'' It belongs, above all, to the Roman Pontiff, vicar of Jesus Christ, established as head of the universal Church, teacher of all that pertains to morals and faith.

Anyone who thinks that it is possible to role back even a little bit of evil by refusing to think and to speak as a Catholic at all times and in all circumstances has forgotten these plain words of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Himself:

For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer the loss of his soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For he that shall be ashamed of me, and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation: the Son of man also will be ashamed of him, when he shall come in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8: 36-38)

What applies to electoral politics and to referenda that cede unto the people the things of God applies as well to the legally positivist arguments made to support morally flawed legislation when it is challenged in American courts. The very illogic of exceptions was exploded by the late Associate Justice Harry Blackmun himself in the case of Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973:

When Texas urges that a fetus is entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection as a person, it faces a dilemma. Neither in Texas nor in any other State are all abortions prohibited. Despite broad proscription, an exception always exists. The exception contained in Art. 1196, for an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, is typical. But if the fetus is a person who is not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and if the mother's condition is the sole determinant, does not the Texas exception appear to be out of line with the Amendment's command?

The illogic of playing by the devil's rules was also on display in the case argued before the Supreme Court of the United States yesterday, November 8, 2006, concerning the constitutionality of the conditional, partial ban on partial birth abortions that was passed by the United States Congress in 2003. The Solicitor General of the United States, Paul Clement, actually argued that the conditional ban on partial birth abortions, which permits babies to be killed by this particular method of child-killing in the later stages of pregnancy if a "mother's life is endangered," is not meant to impede another method of baby-killing in the later stages of pregnancy (dilation and evacuation, a procedure in which a child is carved up in the birth canal and then extracted piece by piece). In other words, certain forms of baby-killing are acceptable to the "pro-life" administration, including partial-birth abortion in some cases, and one is not, well, at least in most cases. Does anyone see any problem with something called logic here?

Here is an excerpt from the story about the case in The New York Times:

Among the justices most interested in the medical details was the one whom both sides consider most likely to be in a position to control the outcome, Anthony M. Kennedy.

Justice Kennedy’s questioning suggested that he had not made up his mind, despite his strongly worded dissenting opinion when the court struck down Nebraska’s version of the federal law six years ago, and despite his obvious distaste for the procedure at issue. Instead, his questions suggested that he remained open to persuasion that the law placed doctors in legal jeopardy and imposed an unconstitutional burden on their patients’ right to terminate their pregnancies.

One example was his response to the assertion by Solicitor General Paul D. Clement that it was never necessary for doctors to use the banned procedure because a more common procedure, one not covered by the statute, “has been well tested and works every single time as a way to terminate the pregnancy.”

Justice Kennedy responded: “Well, but there is a risk if the uterine wall is compromised by cancer or some forms of pre-eclampsia and it’s very thin. There’s a risk of being punctured.”

His comment reflected arguments that the doctors challenging the law have made. They say that “partial-birth abortion” — known medically as both “intact dilation and evacuation” and “D and X,” for dilation and extraction — is often safer because the removal of an intact fetus avoids injury to the uterus. The more common method of second-trimester abortion, in which the fetus is dismembered, can leave behind bone fragments.

Like Harry Blackman before her thirty-three years ago, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, no friend of innocent preborn life whatsoever, asked why intact dilation and extraction, partial-birth abortion, is more gruesome to the bill's sponsors than dilation and evacuation. Her point is well taken. She believes in all abortion, obviously. However, Justice Ginsburg was pointing out the absolute absurdity of opposing one form of child killing without opposing them all. It is very sad that one who supports evil under cover of law can see the logical fallacies of those who claim to be "pro-life." What Catholics have forgotten on this issue is the simple fact that all forms of child killing are gruesome and each is equally morally heinous in the eyes of God, being one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. And even if the law is sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States, you see, baby-killers will simply resort to the other forms of killing defended by Solicitor General Paul Clement.

As noted above, conciliarism has played a very significant role in helping to reinforce the underlying suppositions of Americanism concerning the alleged "necessity" of opposing various moral evils in a generic, non-denominational way, opening up the path to scores of logical inconsistencies. Can you imagine the confusion that will reign supreme amongst Catholics if Benedict XVI endorses the view that a certain type of contraceptive device can be used in instances where at least one party in a marriage is infected with HIV/AID? (See: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-boulay6nov06,0,7928798.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail).

We must not deceive ourselves into thinking that we are one or two elections away from this or that goal, that the closely divided results of various elections and referenda augers well for us. They do not. They are a sign of the fact that the forces of evil are inculcating more and more young minds in an acceptance of moral depravity as their "right" and that the sentimentalities of naturalism are the foundation of individual moral judgments and thus of public policy itself. And just consider how most of the conciliar shepherds are deaf, dumb, and blind as their flocks vote for the likes of Edward Moore Kennedy and Hillary Rodham Clinton and and Debbie Stebenow and Maria Cantwell and Arnold Schwarzenegger by the droves. No, it is not the route of electoral politics that is going to change the country or the world.

Consider this passage from The Devotion to the Sacred heart of Jesus: How to Practice the Sacred Heart Devotion, written by Father John Croiset, S.J., about this betrayal of Catholics to the cause of Christ the King:

Consider that it was no less afflicting and sad for Jesus Christ to see the ingratitude of the majority of the faithful, who would have only coldness and indifference for Him in the Sacrament of His love. He aw the little esteem, nay, even the contempt with which they would treat this greatest proof of His love. He saw that no matter what He might do to be loved by the faithful, even dwelling always amongst them in the Blessed Eucharist, neither this excess of His love, nor His benefits, nor His very presence would be capable of making the greater part of them love Him or would prevent them from forgetting Him. he saw that those churches in which He was to be sacramentally present would be left for most of the time without adorers. He saw what little reverence, nay, what disrespect would be shown in His presence. He saw clearly how the greater part of His followers, who spend long hours in vain amusement and useless visits and complete idleness, would rarely find a quarter of an hour to spend before Him in the Blessed Sacrament. He knew how many others would visit Him only under compulsion and without either devotion or reverence. And finally, He saw the very small number who would eagerly visit Him and devoutly adore Him. He saw clearly that the greater number take no more notice of Him than if He were not really present in the Blessed Sacrament or than if He were a person of no consequence.

The harsh treatment which He received from the Jews, Gentiles and heretics was indeed very painful to Him, but they were His open enemies. But could we ever thought it possible that those who recognize His benefits, that those who make profession of being faithful to Him, that His own children should not only be insensible to His benefits and in no way touched with compassion at the sight of the grief caused by such contempt, but that they should treat Him with contempt by their irreverences and sacrileges? Our Saviour might well say: "If pagans and Turks and infidels had treated Me so, I might have endured it." "for if my enemy had reviled me, I would verily have borne it". (Ps. 54:13), but that Christians, Catholics whom I have not only redeemed, but have fed and nourished with my Body and Blood, should have nothing but contempt for Me, that they should treat Me with ingratitude, is too much. "But thou a man of one mind, my guide and my familiar: who didst take sweetmeats together with me! (Ps. 54: 14-15)

What must be the sentiments of this most generous and tender Heart of Jesus which has so loved men, and which finds in the hearts of those men only coldness and contempt? "I am become a reproach among my enemies." (Ps. 30: 12). If after exposing Myself to the contempt and hatred of My enemies in the midst of the outrages which I suffer, I could at least find a large number of faithful friends who would console Me! But it is quite the contrary: "They that saw me without fled from me." (Ps. 30:12) The greater number, seeing that I have disguised Myself under the feeble appearance of bread in order to have the pleasure of dwelling among men, abandon Me and forget Me as a person who has no place in their hearts, "I am forgotten as one dead from the heart." (Ps. 30:13)

To think and to act as a Catholic means that we must not look for results as we seek to plant the seeds for the restoration of Tradition in the Church and of Christendom in the world as the fruit of the Triumph of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. The Apostles did not see the glory of the first Christendom with their own eyes. They did not engage in inter-religious dialogue as they proclaimed the truths of the true Faith without compromise, being willing to suffer everything for the sake of the Holy Name of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The path to the first Christendom, therefore, was laid by the patient bearing of sufferings in the midst of persecution by the Jews and by the Romans, the statists of their own day, as the Gospel of the Divine Redeemer was proclaimed with great for the souls for whom Our Lord had shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood. This is exactly what we must do today as the consecrated slaves of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart as we plant the seeds for her glorious triumph as she had promised at Fatima.

We must stop playing by the adversary's rules in his playground and start seeing the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith as we reject Modernity in the world and the Modernism that is at the foundation of the conciliar church. Let us pray with earnest supplication before Our Lord's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament and pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit so that soon will be heard the cry from all hearts, consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and to the Sacred Heart of Jesus:

Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady, Queen of All Saints. 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 John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, 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 Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Saint Charles Borromeo, pray for us.

Saint Robert Bellarmine, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, 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.