The Goddess of "Liberty," Thy Name is Blasphemy

by Thomas A. Droleskey

"Give me liberty, or give me death," Patrick Henry cried out at the end of his speech to the then Colony of Virginia's delegates to the First Continental Congress at an heretical church in Richmond, Virginia on March 23, 1775." " Libertie, egalalite, fraternitie," they cried during the French Revolution fourteen years later. "Civil Liberty," cry so many "libertarians" and "conservatives" today. "Religious liberty," cry the false "pontiffs" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism and their "bishops" as Catholics are murdered regularly by adherents of false religions, such as those "religions of peace" known as Mohammedanism and Hinduism, around the world despite the incantation of this empty, heretical slogan. "Let freedom ring," cry out shallow-minded bobbleheads who have large national audiences for the radio and/or television programs.

We have the "Statue of Liberty" in New York Harbor, a gift of the Freemasons from France. We have the "Liberty Bell" in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We have had "liberty ships" and "liberty bonds" and the U.S.S. Liberty (which was bombed, "accidentally," you understand by the Zionist State of Israel, another land of "liberty," our own "friend in the Mideast, on June 8, 1967, The USS Liberty: America's Most Shameful Secret) and "freedom fries." Americans are mad about their "freedom."

Many "libertarians" believe that the word "liberty" can be invoked to justify the ability of state legislatures to enact legislation to permit surgical baby-killing if the "people" in those states desire such killing to be enshrined under cover of law. Many of these "libertarians" believe that the "individual" has an absolute unfettered "right" to "free speech," including blasphemy, and "freedom of the press," including the dissemination of books and articles that place into question and/or deny the truths that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for their safekeeping and infallible explication and including the dissemination of rank pornography. There are almost no external constraints that can be placed upon the "individual," who did not create himself, it should be noted, and whose body is destined one day for the corruption of the grave until the General Resurrection of the Dead at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead on the Last Day at the Second Coming of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

This perverse concept of "liberty," which ignores the Divinely-instituted right of the Catholic Church to govern men concerning the right use of their human free will and to interpose herself as a last resort upon the civil authorities when they propose to do things (or have in fact done things) contrary to the good of souls, has made it possible for large numbers and of men and women around the world to fall into the abyss prophesied by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832:

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say.[21] When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.

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

The Church has always taken action to destroy the plague of bad books. This was true even in apostolic times for we read that the apostles themselves burned a large number of books. It may be enough to consult the laws of the fifth Council of the Lateran on this matter and the Constitution which Leo X published afterwards lest "that which has been discovered advantageous for the increase of the faith and the spread of useful arts be converted to the contrary use and work harm for the salvation of the faithful." This also was of great concern to the fathers of Trent, who applied a remedy against this great evil by publishing that wholesome decree concerning the Index of books which contain false doctrine."We must fight valiantly," Clement XIII says in an encyclical letter about the banning of bad books, "as much as the matter itself demands and must exterminate the deadly poison of so many books; for never will the material for error be withdrawn, unless the criminal sources of depravity perish in flames." Thus it is evident that this Holy See has always striven, throughout the ages, to condemn and to remove suspect and harmful books. The teaching of those who reject the censure of books as too heavy and onerous a burden causes immense harm to the Catholic people and to this See. They are even so depraved as to affirm that it is contrary to the principles of law, and they deny the Church the right to decree and to maintain it.

Indeed, some of these "libertarians," including some who claim to be Catholic, who scoff at the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church, complain about those who insist that there is a 'food chain" of religions, that it is "patently absurd" that any one religion would consider itself the true religion with the authority from God. No social organization, including a church, is to be considered as having absolute authority over the "individual," no less all "individuals" in all places at all times until the end of time. Such a belief, however, runs contrary even to right reason on the purely natural level as even the pagans of ancient Greece and ancient Rome believed that there had to be a true religion, which the civil state recognized as its own. The very first country in the history of the world to be without its own confessional religion was none other than the United States of America.

Far from being a "protection" to religious minorities, such as Catholics, in a pluralistic society, the "religious freedom" "guaranteed" by the Constitution of the United States of America in Article VI (no religious test for the holding of public office, which guarantees "access" for believers--or nonbelievers--of all sort) and the First Amendment, in a religiously indifferentist civil state is one of an absolute, imminent and mortal peril to the common temporal good and the eternal good of the souls of its citizens. Such a state must degenerate over the course of time to such an extent that atheism is considered to be an acceptable "lowest" common denominator," and it is has been, of course, a goal of Judeo-Masonry and of multinational corporations to wipe out all references to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in civil discourse, especially those that revolve around the commemoration of His Nativity on December 25 each year. All manner of Talmudic and atheistic organizations have attacked the display of Nativity scenes in public parks and the singing of Christmas carols in public venues, including in the concentration camps known as public "schools."

As Pope Leo XIII noted in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, atheism can be the only result that occurs as a result of the religiously indifferent civil state:

Now, natural reason itself proves convincingly that such concepts of the government of a State are wholly at variance with the truth. Nature itself bears witness that all power, of every kind, has its origin from God, who is its chief and most august source.

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.

 

It is impossible for anyone to put forth any rational argument to oppose the promotion of atheism in a civil state that denies the necessity of belief in the true religion founded by the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity made Man in His Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of  the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, as the one and only foundation of personal and social order.

Thus it is that a current advertising campaign, exported from the increasingly pagan and atheistic country known as the United Kingdom, promoting atheism by means of advertising on the city buses of the City of Washington, District of Columbia is but a logical development in a land of religious indifferentism that must be "respected" according to the dictates of "civil" and "religious" "liberty,' a land where false religions are not being "tolerated," according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, but extolled and respected"

Humanist association launches ad campaign for lonely humanists

One of the ads the Humanist Association is placing on D.C. buses

Washington DC, Nov 12, 2008 / 11:12 pm (CNA).- The American Humanist Association has launched a $40,000 ad campaign to generate interest in their non-religious cause. The campaign will run Washington, D.C. bus advertisements which read “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake.”

"We are trying to reach our audience, and sometimes in order to reach an audience, everybody has to hear you," Fred Edwords, spokesman for the humanist group, told the Associated Press. "Our reason for doing it during the holidays is there are an awful lot of agnostics, atheists and other types of non-theists who feel a little alone during the holidays because of its association with traditional religion."

The ads and posters will include a link to a web site established to connect and organize like-minded people in the D.C. area.

Edwords explained the campaign’s purpose is not to argue that God doesn’t exist or to change people’s minds, but claimed his group is “trying to plant a seed of rational thought and critical thinking and questioning in people's minds.”

According to the American Humanist Association, humanism is “a progressive philosophy of life that, without theism, affirms our responsibility to lead ethical lives of value to self and humanity.”

In a press release, the group predicted the campaign “will raise public awareness of humanism as well as controversy over humanist ideas.”

"Humanists have always understood that you don't need a god to be good," Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, remarked in a press release. "So that's the point we're making with this advertising campaign. Morality doesn't come from religion. It's a set of values embraced by individuals and society based on empathy, fairness, and experience." 

Edwords added that they expect the campaign to generate “a lot of public interest,” but insisted its purpose wasn’t to offend.

“We just want to reach those open to this message but unaware how widespread their views are,” he said.

CNA spoke with Edwords in a Wednesday phone interview.

Edwords estimated that in the United States, humanists number “probably in the millions” between five and ten percent.

“Probably closer to five [percent] would be humanists in our sense of the term, but they don’t usually join groups. We’re just letting them know they’re not alone,” Edwords told CNA. He noted that Humanist numbers vary in other countries, with a higher presence in Europe in particular.

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reported in 2008 that 92 percent of Americans believe in God.

Asked why people should be good “for goodness’ sake,” Edwords said the phrase was “just kind of a stand in, a quip, to point out that human moral values come from humanity.”

“Just as we develop our laws with consent of the governed, our moral values do too,” he argued. “They come from who we are as a species, who we have become, through the process of civilization.”

Explaining that “goodness” is “a term of art,” he said it did not exist as “some sort of independent entity or thing.”  “We call these things ‘good’ because we are drawn toward them, and we call things ‘bad’ because we are pushed away from them,” Edwords explained.

“There are these inclinations that are a product of evolution,” he claimed, arguing that similar phenomena are at work among other primates.

American Family Association president Tim Wildmon, was dismissive of the Humanist campaign.

"It's a stupid ad," he told the Associated Press. "How do we define 'good' if we don't believe in God? God in his word, the Bible, tells us what's good and bad and right and wrong. If we are each ourselves defining what's good, it's going to be a crazy world."

Mathew Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, was also critical.

“It's the ultimate grinch to say there is no God at a time when millions of people around the world celebrate the birth of Christ,” he said. “Certainly, they have the right to believe what they want but this is insulting.” (CNSNews.com - Humanists Launch ‘Godless Holiday’ Ads.)

Best-selling books by authors such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have fueled interest in "the new atheism" — a more in-your-face argument against God's existence.

Yet few Americans describe themselves as atheist or agnostic; a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll from earlier this year found 92 percent of Americans believe in God.

There was no debate at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority over whether to take the ad. Spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein said the agency accepts ads that aren't obscene or pornographic. (FOXNews.com - 'Why Believe in a God?' Ad Campaign Launches on D.C.)

 

So much error. So little time to critique it. However, let's get it a try.

First, there is no "right" granted by God to promote disbelief in Him. None whatsoever. The First Commandment is pretty clear:

I am the LORD thy God: thou shalt not have strange Gods before me.

 

Second, the promotion of atheism is also forbidden by the Second Commandment, which forbids blasphemy, for to deny the existence of God is to take His Holy Name in vain:

Thou shalt not take the Name of the LORD thy God in vain.

 

The promotion of atheism is obscene in the sight of God, something that the bright lights who at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority do not accept. Indeed, these same people would likely reject a "Merry Christmas" advertising campaign as "offensive" to adherents of the devils represented by the Talmud, the Koran, Buddhism, Hinduism, and the Great Thumb. Offensive to God as He has revealed Himself through His true Church? Who cares, right?

The Catholic Church has taught from time immemorial that the civil state in a confessionally Catholic country, where the Church is unfettered in her exercise of the Social Reign of Christ the King, has a positive obligation to remove that which is obscene in the sight of God, as Saint Louis IX wrote to his son, the future King Philip III:

Dear son, freely give power to persons of good character, who know how to use it well, and strive to have wickednesses expelled from your land, that is to say, nasty oaths, and everything said or done against God or our Lady or the saints. In a wise and proper manner put a stop, in your land, to bodily sins, dicing, taverns, and other sins. Put down heresy so far as you can, and hold in especial abhorrence Jews, and all sorts of people who are hostile to the Faith, so that your land may be well purged of them, in such manner as, by the sage counsel of good people, may appear to you advisable. (Medieval Sourcebook: Louis IX: Advice to His Son.)

 

The overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King has made the Church powerless to intervene in these cases, although Pope Leo XIII explained in Immortale Dei that nothing that is offensive to God and injures the good of the eternal welfare of souls has any "right" to be sanctioned by the civil state (and he wrote in the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, 1885, long after the modern civil state had begun to take root), whose own common good is injured by that which is offensive 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 passport 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.

 

The Catholic Church alone is the Divinely-instituted representative of Christ the King on earth. She alone, and not the well-meaning Protestants who are opposing the humanist campaign, has the right to teach men and remonstrate with civil officers in the Holy Name of her Invisible Head and Mystical Bridegroom. These well-meaning Protestants do not understand that the very fact that there is such a thing as the "humanist society" is the result of the very Protestant Revolt that they continue to propagate as they reject so pridefully the fact Our Lord did indeed institute the Catholic Church as His one and only true Church and as they continue themselves to blaspheme, albeit unwittingly as they are steeped in their nearly five hundred years of aggregate errors, God by repeating the abject heresy that Divine Revelation consists only of Sacred Scripture and not Apostolic or Sacred Tradition.

Furthermore, the well-meaning Protestants who are opposing the "humanist society" advertising campaign and who are striving to keep the Holy Name of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ" in the "Christmas season," which is actually the season of Advent (!), do no understand that the Protestantatism's revolutions against the Social Reign of Christ the King can result eventually over the course of time only in the very removal of His Holy Name from every aspect of civil law and popular culture, including in the weeks leading up to the celebration of His Nativity in "Christ's Mass." The slippery slope of Modernity began with the Protestant Revolt and we will not stop sliding until the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Indeed, the well-meaning Protestants who are opposing the "humanist society" advertising campaign do not realize that it is impossible to keep the Holy Name of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the public eye in the weeks before Christmas during the Advent season when they reject His own Most Blessed Mother for what she is, the Mother of God Himself, by denying her Divine Maternity and when they do not give her public honor and acknowledge her role as the Mediatrix of All Graces. It is not possible for keep "Christ in Christmas" when one does keep Our Lady in his heart and soul.

It is no accident, you see, that the "humanist society" advertising campaign began in London, England, earlier this year. The once Catholic city of London became the seat of the bloodletting imposed by King Henry VIII upon Catholics who remained faithful to the true Church when he broke from her maternal bosom in 1534 and had himself proclaimed by Parliament to be the "supreme head of the church in England." It is no accident at all that atheism now flowers in this once thriving Catholic city. No accident at all. Most Englishmen are immersed in the abyss of naturalism that must result once the true Faith is cast out of the souls of men and thus from all aspects of civil law and popular culture.

It is also no accident whatsoever that the "humanist society" advertising campaign began in the United States of America in our capital city, Washington, District of Columbia, which was designed to reflect the the symbols of Judeo-Masonry (see Freemasonry and Washington D.C.'s Street Layout). And it is also no accident at all that it was in the City of Washington, District of Columbia, that the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI esteemed with his own priestly hands the symbols of five false religions (Talmudic Judaism, Mohammedanism, Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism) at the "John Paul II Cultural Center" on Thursday, April 17, 2008. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is himself a serial blasphemer (entering into synagogues, telling Jews that their reading of the Old Testament is a "possible" one, entering into a mosque and taking off his shoes as he assumes the Mohammedan "prayer" position and turning in the direction of Mecca, calling the Koran a "dear" and "precious" book, calling Mount Hiei in Japan, upon which the Buddhists worship their devils, "sacred").

Yes, it is very terrible that there is such a thing as a "humanist" society and that it has a civil "right" to advertise its falsehoods. It is far worse that a putative "pope" can esteem the symbols of false religions, thereby blaspheming God, who hates false religions and wants them eradicated from the face of this earth as the Catholic Church seeks the unconditional conversion of their adherents with alacrity, and can extol the nonexistent "ability" of these false religions to "contribute" to the betterment of nations and to the establishment of "world peace." Ratzinger/Benedict's support for the heresy of "religious liberty" makes it possible for false religions and for irreligion itself, which he says he opposes, to have full "rights" in the modern, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian civil state of naturalism.

Then again, good readers, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict has shown himself to be a disbeliever in the God of Revelation as he has championed an concept of dogmatic truth that has been anathematized by the [First] Vatican Council and condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, and The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910, and by Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950. To believe, as Ratzinger has contended consistently throughout his priesthood, that the "particulars" of dogmatic statements become "obsolete" as the circumstances in which men live change over the time is to believe that God's Holy Truth is so obscure and hard to understand that it can never be understood perfectly at any one point in time and must be subject to continuous "adjustments." To disbelieve in the nature of dogmatic truth is to disbelieve in the nature of God Himself, which is the same thing as practical atheism.

Here are just a few examples of how Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has blasphemed God as regards the nature of His dogmatic truth:

In theses 10-12, the difficult problem of the relationship between language and thought is debated, which in post-conciliar discussions was the immediate departure point of the dispute.

The identity of the Christian substance as such, the Christian 'thing' was not directly ... censured, but it was pointed out that no formula, no matter how valid and indispensable it may have been in its time, can fully express the thought mentioned in it and declare it unequivocally forever, since language is constantly in movement and the content of its meaning changes. (Fr. Ratzinger: Dogmatic formulas must always change.)

The text [of the document Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation] also presents the various types of bonds that rise from the different degrees of magisterial teaching. It affirms - perhaps for the first time with this clarity - that there are decisions of the magisterium that cannot be the last word on the matter as such, but are, in a substantial fixation of the problem, above all an expression of pastoral prudence, a kind of provisional disposition. The nucleus remains valid, but the particulars, which the circumstances of the times influenced, may need further correction.

In this regard, one may think of the declarations of Popes in the last century [19th century] about religious liberty, as well as the anti-Modernist decisions at the beginning of this century, above all, the decisions of the Biblical Commission of the time [on evolutionism]. As a cry of alarm in the face of hasty and superficial adaptations, they will remain fully justified. A personage such as Johann Baptist Metz said, for example, that the Church's anti-Modernist decisions render the great service of preserving her from falling into the liberal-bourgeois world. But in the details of the determinations they contain, they became obsolete after having fulfilled their pastoral mission at their proper time. (Joseph Ratzinger, "Instruction on the Theologian's Ecclesial Vocation," published with the title "Rinnovato dialogo fra Magistero e Teologia," in L'Osservatore Romano, June 27, 1990, p. 6; Card. Ratzinger: The teachings of the Popes against Modernism are obsolete.)

Secondly, it was necessary to give a new definition to the relationship between the Church and the modern State that would make room impartially for citizens of various religions and ideologies, merely assuming responsibility for an orderly and tolerant coexistence among them and for the freedom to practise their own religion.

Thirdly, linked more generally to this was the problem of religious tolerance - a question that required a new definition of the relationship between the Christian faith and the world religions. In particular, before the recent crimes of the Nazi regime and, in general, with a retrospective look at a long and difficult history, it was necessary to evaluate and define in a new way the relationship between the Church and the faith of Israel.

These are all subjects of great importance - they were the great themes of the second part of the Council - on which it is impossible to reflect more broadly in this context. It is clear that in all these sectors, which all together form a single problem, some kind of discontinuity might emerge. Indeed, a discontinuity had been revealed but in which, after the various distinctions between concrete historical situations and their requirements had been made, the continuity of principles proved not to have been abandoned. It is easy to miss this fact at a first glance.

It is precisely in this combination of continuity and discontinuity at different levels that the very nature of true reform consists. In this process of innovation in continuity we must learn to understand more practically than before that the Church's decisions on contingent matters - for example, certain practical forms of liberalism or a free interpretation of the Bible - should necessarily be contingent themselves, precisely because they refer to a specific reality that is changeable in itself. It was necessary to learn to recognize that in these decisions it is only the principles that express the permanent aspect, since they remain as an undercurrent, motivating decisions from within.

On the other hand, not so permanent are the practical forms that depend on the historical situation and are therefore subject to change. (Christmas greetings to the Members of the Roman Curia and Prelature, December 22, 2005.)

 

The "humanist society," good readers, is merely taking its place in an "orderly and tolerant coexistence" with those who happen to believe in "some kind" of religion, including the true Faith. The blasphemies of the conciliarists are what make the blasphemies of the world all the more able to be accepted by baptized Catholics as nothing out of the ordinary and not all offensive to God. The Catholic Church has never made any "peace" with unbelief and its promotion in civil society.

No one is talking here about the forcible conversion of nonbelievers to the true Faith, something that the Catholic Church has never countenanced, although there were abuses in this regard every now and again in some places in the immediate aftermath of the Protestant Revolt. Catholic missionaries such as Saint Vincent Ferrer, O.P., and Saint Josaphat, whose feast we celebrate tomorrow, November 14, 2008, worked with urgency to convert those outside of the Church to her maternal bosom. They used nothing other than the inherent force of Divine Revelation and the power of the graces won for us on Calvary by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood and that flowed into their hearts and souls through the loving hand of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, to effect the conversions that they did.

What is being discussed here is the logical, inevitable degeneration of civil law and popular culture that must take place when the true Church is not recognized by the civil state and when irreligion is placed on the same level as the true Faith.

The blasphemies against the nature of God's dogmatic truth uttered by Joseph Ratzinger over the course of his priesthood stand condemned by the authority of the Catholic Church:

Hence, that meaning of the sacred dogmata is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by Holy Mother Church, and there must never be an abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding.... If anyone says that it is possible that at some given time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmata propounded by the Church which is different from that which the Church has always understood and understands: let him be anathema. [Vatican Council, 1870.]

Hence it is quite impossible [the Modernists assert] to maintain that they [dogmatic statements] absolutely contain the truth: for, in so far as they are symbols, they are the images of truth, and so must be adapted to the religious sense in its relation to man; and as instruments, they are the vehicles of truth, and must therefore in their turn be adapted to man in his relation to the religious sense. But the object of the religious sense, as something contained in the absolute, possesses an infinite variety of aspects, of which now one, now another, may present itself. In like manner he who believes can avail himself of varying conditions. Consequently, the formulas which we call dogma must be subject to these vicissitudes, and are, therefore, liable to change. Thus the way is open to the intrinsic evolution of dogma. Here we have an immense structure of sophisms which ruin and wreck all religion. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

Fourthly, I sincerely hold that the doctrine of faith was handed down to us from the apostles through the orthodox Fathers in exactly the same meaning and always in the same purport. Therefore, I entirely reject the heretical' misrepresentation that dogmas evolve and change from one meaning to another different from the one which the Church held previously. . . .

The purpose of this is, then, not that dogma may be tailored according to what seems better and more suited to the culture of each age; rather, that the absolute and immutable truth preached by the apostles from the beginning may never be believed to be different, may never be understood in any other way.

I promise that I shall keep all these articles faithfully, entirely, and sincerely, and guard them inviolate, in no way deviating from them in teaching or in any way in word or in writing. Thus I promise, this I swear, so help me God. (The Oath Against Modernism, September 1, 1910.)

 

As bad as the advertising campaign by the "humanist society" is, and it is very bad, it is just another symptom of the problems caused by the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry with which the counterfeit church of conciliarism has made its own "reconciliation" in the name of the heresy of "religious liberty," condemned as such by Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814:

There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me."

 

Yes, true, as I have pointed out on this site in numerous past articles on this site, the Catholic Church does not expect the impossible from her children who find themselves in nations where the civil state is based on the false, naturalistic principles of pluralism that encourage the proliferation of false religions as a result of their religiously indifferentist foundations. She recognizes that the authority that she would exercise in a Catholic State to exhort the civil officials to curb heresy and punish blasphemy does not exist in the modern civil state, something that Pope Leo XIII recognized quite frankly in Libertas, June 20, 1888:

 

Yet, with the discernment of a true mother, the Church weighs the great burden of human weakness, and well knows the course down which the minds and actions of men are in this our age being borne. For this reason, while not conceding any right to anything save what is true and honest, she does not forbid public authority to tolerate what is at variance with truth and justice, for the sake of avoiding some greater evil, or of obtaining or preserving some greater good. God Himself in His providence, though infinitely good and powerful, permits evil to exist in the world, partly that greater good may not be impeded, and partly that greater evil may not ensue. In the government of States it is not forbidden to imitate the Ruler of the world; and, as the authority of man is powerless to prevent every evil, it has (as St. Augustine says) to overlook and leave unpunished many things which are punished, and rightly, by Divine Providence. But if, in such circumstances, for the sake of the common good (and this is the only legitimate reason), human law may or even should tolerate evil, it may not and should not approve or desire evil for its own sake; for evil of itself, being a privation of good, is opposed to the common welfare which every legislator is bound to desire and defend to the best of his ability. In this, human law must endeavor to imitate God, who, as St. Thomas teaches, in allowing evil to exist in the world, "neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills only to permit it to be done; and this is good.'' This saying of the Angelic Doctor contains briefly the whole doctrine of the permission of evil.

But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting. And although in the extraordinary condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however, remains always true -- that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.

 

Our focus must be on the falsity of the ideas of Modernity and the evil consequences that must flow from these false, naturalistic ideas. The specific institutional arrangements that exist in the modern civil state are what they are. Holy Mother Church made accommodations with these arrangements in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries so as to continue the work of the instruction and sanctification of the souls of her children, making full use of "civil freedom" to her benefit and that of her children.

She does so, however, as Pope Leo XIII pointed out in Libertas, without conceding anything to the inherent "goodness" of false religions or their nonexistent "ability" to "contribute" to the betterment of nations and the world, a point made also by Pope Pius XII in Ci Riesce, December 6, 1953:

Thus the two principles are clarified to which recourse must be had in concrete cases for the answer to the serious question concerning the attitude which the jurist, the statesman and the sovereign Catholic state is to adopt in consideration of the community of nations in regard to a formula of religious and moral toleration as described above. First: that which does not correspond to truth or to the norm of morality objectively has no right to exist, to be spread or to be activated. Secondly: failure to impede this with civil laws and coercive measures can nevertheless be justified in the interests of a higher and more general good. .

. .

The Church must live among them and with them [the nations and peoples of the world]; she can never declare before anyone that she is "not interested." The mandate imposed upon her by her divine Founder renders it impossible for her to follow a policy of non-interference or laissez-faire. She has the duty of teaching and educating in all the inflexibility of truth and goodness, and with this absolute obligation she must remain and work among men and nations that in mental outlook are completely different from each other.

Let Us return now, however, to the two propositions mentioned above: and in the first place to the one which denies unconditionally everything that is religiously false and morally wrong. With regard to this point there never has been, and there is not now, in the Church any vacillation or any compromise, either in theory or in practice.

Her deportment has not changed in the course of history, nor can it change whenever or wherever, under the most diversified forms, she is confronted with the choice: either incense for idols or blood for Christ. The place where you are now present, Eternal Rome, with the remains of a greatness that was and with the glorious memories of its martyrs, is the most eloquent witness to the answer of the Church. Incense was not burned before the idols, and Christian blood flowed and consecrated the ground. But the temples of the gods lie in the cold devastation of ruins howsoever majestic; while at the tombs of the martyrs the faithful of all nations and all tongues fervently repeat the ancient Creed of the Apostles.

Concerning the second proposition, that is to say, concerning tolerance in determined circumstances, toleration even in cases in which one could proceed to repression, the Church - out of regard for those who in good conscience (though erroneous, but invincibly so) are of different opinion - has been led to act and has acted with that tolerance, after she became the State Church under Constantine the Great and the other Christian emperors, always for higher and more cogent motives. So she acts today, and also in the future she will be faced with the same necessity. In such individual cases the attitude of the Church is determined by what is demanded for safeguarding and considering the bonum commune, on the one hand, the common good of the Church and the State in individual states, and, on the other, the common good of the universal Church, the reign of God over the whole world. In considering the "pro" and "con" for resolving the "question of facts," as well as what concerns the final and supreme judge in these matters, no other norms are valid for the Church except the norms which We have just indicated for the Catholic jurist and statesman.

 

Toleration is a far, far different concept than asserting that religious falsehoods have the ability to "contribute" to the common good, a concept that was mocked roundly by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910. And no one who is intellectually honest can say that there has not been "any vacillation or any compromise, either in theory or in practice" on the part of the leaders counterfeit church of conciliarism concerning an unconditional denial of everything that is religiously false and morally wrong. Happy Diwali? A most precious and dear document (the Koran)? Esteeming the symbols of false religions? There has been little but vacillation and compromise both in theory and in practice on the part of the leaders of the counterfeit church of conciliarism concerning the nature of false religions.

Conciliarists such as Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his immediate predecessor in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, have gone far, far beyond the mere toleration of false religions by means of their words and, more importantly, their actions. They have extolled the ability of these false religions to contribute to the common good and to build "world peace." Both Wojtyla and Ratzinger have esteemed the symbols of false religions, the former with his episcopal hands, the latter with his priestly hands. There is no way, ladies and gentlemen, for anyone to find "continuity in discontinuity" between the esteeming of false religions and Pope Pius XII's firm exhortation against any semblance of esteem being shown unto their idols. A review of Bishop George Hay's The Laws of God Forbidding All Communication in Religion With Those of a False Religion will show that the Catholic Church has consistently condemned the actions undertaken by the conciliar "pontiffs." Indeed, we must make many acts of reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for those offenses to the honor and majesty and glory of God.

The open promotion of unbelief has always been condemned by the Catholic Church. Given the circumstances in which she finds herself today, the Catholic Church can do little to stop this promotion of unbelief as one of the all-too-logical consequences of the natural process of degeneration that must take place in a religiously indifferentist civil state. The counterfeit church of conciliarism shows respect for false religions, thus playing a contributing or supporting role in the devolution of society in the direction of unbelief, especially as its "pontiffs," including Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, deny that the civil state has any obligation whatsoever to recognize the Catholic Church as its official religion and to accord her the favor and the protection of the laws.

Then Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger expressed his support for the religiously neutral basis of the civil state in an exchange that he had in 1987 with the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the Society of Saint Pius X:

Under pressure, Rome gave in. On July 14, Cardinal Ratzinger received Archbishop Lefebvre at the Holy Office. At first the Cardinal persisted in arguing that "the State is competent in religious matters."

"But the State must have an ultimate and eternal end," replied the Archbishop.

"Your Grace, that is the case for the Church, not the State. By itself the State does not know."

Archbishop Lefebvre was distraught: a Cardinal and Prefect of the Holy Office wanted to show him that the State can have no religion and cannot prevent the spread of error. However, before talking about concessions, the Cardinal made a threat: the consequence of an illicit episcopal consecration would be "schism and excommunication."

"Schism?" retorted the Archbishop. "If there is a schism, it is because of what the Vatican did at Assisi and how you replied to our Dubiae: the Church is breaking with the traditional Magisterium. But the Church against her past and her Tradition is not the Catholic Church; this is why being excommunicated by a liberal, ecumenical, and revolutionary Church is a matter of indifference to us."

As this tirade ended, Joseph Ratzinger gave in: "Let us find a practical solution. Make a moderate declaration on the Council and the new missal a bit like the one that Jean Guitton has suggested to you. Then, we would give you a bishop for ordinations, we could work out an arrangement with the diocesan bishops, and you could continue as you are doing. As for a Cardinal Protector, and make your suggestions."

How did Marcel Lefebvre not jump for joy? Rome was giving in! But his penetrating faith went to the very heart of the Cardinal's rejection of doctrine. He said to himself: "So, must Jesus no longer reign? Is Jesus no longer God? Rome has lost the Faith. Rome is in apostasy. We can no longer trust this lot!" To the Cardinal, he said:

"Eminence, even if you give us everything--a bishop, some autonomy from the bishops, the 1962 liturgy, allow us to continue our seminaries--we cannot work together because we are going in different directions. You are working to dechristianize society and the Church, and we are working to Christianize them.

"For us, our Lord Jesus Christ is everything. He is our life. The Church is our Lord Jesus Christ; the priest is another Christ; the Mass is the triumph of Jesus Christ on the cross; in our seminaries everything tends towards the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. But you! You are doing the opposite: you have just wanted to prove to me that our Lord Jesus Christ cannot, and must not, reign over society.

Recounting this incident, the Archbishop described the Cardinal's attitude: "Motionless, he looked at me, his eyes expressionless, as if I had just suggested something incomprehensible or unheard of." Then Ratzinger tried to argue that "the Church can still say whatever she wants to the State," while Lefebvre, the intuitive master of Catholic metaphysics, did not lose sight of the true end of human societies: the Reign of Christ." Fr. de Tinguy hit the nail on the head when he said of Marcel Lefebvre: "His faith defies those who love theological quibbles." (His Excellency Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, The Biography of Marcel Lefebvre, Kansas City, Missouri: Angelus Press, 2004, pp. 547-548.)

 

We follow the true popes, who never once retreated from the necessity of the confessionally Catholic State prior to the dawning of the age of conciliarism even as they, the true popes, made the concessions that they believed they needed to make to the reality of the modern civil state in order to preserve the life and the work of the Church for the honor and glory of God and the good of souls in such a state. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes very much in the separation of Church and State as a matter of fundamental principle and denies that the state has an obligation to aid man in the pursuit of his Last End, placing him squarely and directly at odds with Pope Saint Pius X's affirmation of Catholic teaching in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error.

 

Anyone who contends that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes in this simple and eloquent reiteration of the consistent, perennial teaching of the Catholic Church is, to put it charitably, not thinking too clearly. Must he do so? Regardless of the specific circumstances in which we find ourselves, my fellow Catholics, does this statement of Pope Saint Pius X's contain universally binding and eternal truths from which no Catholic may dissent whatsoever?

Pope Pius XI made the answer abundantly clear in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:

 

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

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.

It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements which We have made; it is no less necessary to reawaken that spirit of faith, of supernatural love, and of Christian discipline which alone can bring to these principles correct understanding, and can lead to their observance. This is particularly important in the case of youth, and especially those who aspire to the priesthood, so that in the almost universal confusion in which we live they at least, as the Apostle writes, will not be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians iv, 14)

 

No one who is in his right mind can contend that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI agrees with the following exhortation of Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique:

This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.

No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

 

As the late Louis-Edouard-François-Desiré Cardinal Pie, as can be see in this passage from Selected Writings of Cardinal Pie of Poitiers (which is available from Mr. Hugh Akin's Catholic Action Resource Center):

"If Jesus Christ," proclaims Msgr. Pie in a magnificent pastoral instruction, "if Jesus Christ Who is our light whereby we are drawn out of the seat of darkness and from the shadow of death, and Who has given to the world the treasure of truth and grace, if He has not enriched the world, I mean to say the social and political world itself, from the great evils which prevail in the heart of paganism, then it is to say that the work of Jesus Christ is not a divine work. Even more so: if the Gospel which would save men is incapable of procuring the actual progress of peoples, if the revealed light which is profitable to individuals is detrimental to society at large, if the scepter of Christ, sweet and beneficial to souls, and perhaps to families, is harmful and unacceptable for cities and empires; in other words, if Jesus Christ to whom the Prophets had promised and to Whom His Father had given the nations as a heritage, is not able to exercise His authority over them for it would be to their detriment and temporal disadvantage, it would have to be concluded that Jesus Christ is not God". . . .

"To say Jesus Christ is the God of individuals and of families, but not the God of peoples and of societies, is to say that He is not God. To say that Christianity is the law of individual man and is not the law of collective man, is to say that Christianity is not divine. To say that the Church is the judge of private morality, but has nothing to do with public and political morality, is to say that the Church is not divine."

In fine, Cardinal Pie insists:

"Christianity would not be divine if it were to have existence within individuals but not with regard to societies."

Fr. de St. Just asks, in conclusion:

"Could it be proven in clearer terms that social atheism conduces to individualistic atheism?"

 

The road to the "humanist society's" campaign in favor of atheism runs from the Protestant Revolt through Judeo-Masonry and its stepchildren (the American and French Revolutions) and through the conciliar revolution's "reconciliation" with the "principles of 1789" as its "pontiffs" have done what millions of Catholics gave up their lives rather than even to give an appearance of doing, that is, of burning even one grain of incense to the idols of false religions.

Adherence to the Catholic Faith is the necessary precondition for order within the soul and for true liberty among men in civil society. Each of us sins. Each of us adds to the problems in the Church and the world by means of our sins. It is nevertheless true, however, that no man can be truly free from the enslavement to sin and to all of its falsehoods unless he enslaves himself voluntarily to the sweet yoke of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Behold the one and only standard of true personal and civil liberty:

 

May we stand by this tree of true liberty from sin and eternal death each day at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered by a true bishop or a true priest who makes no concessions to conciliarism or to the nonexistent legitimacy of its false shepherds, keeping Our Lady company every day at this unbloody re-presentation of her Divine Son's Sacrifice to the Father in Spirit and in Truth to redeem us and to make it possible for us to be freed from the torments of this passing, mortal vale of tears by knowing the true joys of Heaven for all eternity.

To this end, good readers, may we pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, never compromising one little bit with the enslaving errors of Modernity and Modernism, never flagging in our efforts to plant the seeds as clients of the Most Sacred Heart and Jesus and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for the day when all men will exclaim as truly free men:

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

 

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saint Didacus, pray for us.

Saint Stanislaus Kostka, pray for us.

Saint Brice, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?