by
Thomas A. Droleskey
And almost all things, according to the law, are cleansed with blood: and without shedding of blood there is no remission. (Hebrews 9: 22)
Omniscience belongs to God alone. It is one of His attributes. He knows all things. God, living outside of time and space, sees all things in an instant "now," having before Himself the beginning and the end of the world, a concept that our puny, finite minds cannot even begin to grasp. All is known to Him, including the intentions of all hearts and the exact circumstances of each human life. He alone knows the details of the historical events which seem so bewildering to fallen man in this passing, mortal vale of tears. One of the things I was taught as a student at Saint Aloysius School in Great Neck, New York, is that there are some things in this life that we will never understand until the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead and that we should not waste our lives trying to explain everything that happens. That was good enough for me in 1957. It is good enough for me in 2007.
One of the historical mysteries that I realized at the time it happened would never be "resolved" adequately in this life was the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963, two days before my twelfth birthday, which saw the murder of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald by Jacob Rubinstein (aka "Jack Ruby") in the headquarters of the Dallas, Texas, police department. People have spent their entire lives trying to "solve" the assassination, the details of which simply will never be known in this life. There are more important matters for us to deal with than trying to figure out which "conspiracy theory" concerning the John F. Kennedy assassination is correct. (My father, Dr. Albert Henry Martin Droleskey, who died fifteen years ago last Wednesday, September 5, said at the time that he thought Lyndon Johnson was responsible, a supposition about which many people have subsequently written.)
Similarly, lots and lots of people are still trying to figure out exactly what happened six years ago this day, September 11, 2001, when the twin towers at the World Trade Center in Manhattan collapsed after being hit by two airplanes that were alleged to have been flown by Mohammedan hijackers. We were told that an airplane hit a mostly unoccupied part of the Department of Defense headquarters, the Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia,. A fourth airplane was said to have crashed into the ground in western Pennsylvania after a furious struggle took place between passengers and the Mohammedan hijackers. Six years have passed. An "independent commission," headed by former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean and former United States Representative Lee Hamilton (D-Indiana), has held hearings and reported findings. And all that has emerged from this is the simple truth that we really do not know the details of what happened on September 11, 2001.
Were there really Mohammedan hijackers who flew the planes into the twin towers and into the Pentagon? Were there internal explosives set within the twin towers to effect the collapse of the twin towers, as several former government experts testified before the 9/11 Commission was the only possible explanation for how steel-columnized buildings could collapse into its own "footprints" in a pancake manner? Were such explosives, if planted at all, the work of a foreign government which had ordered its own nationals out of the twin towers that day and whose nationals just happened to be filming those towers from across the North River (which is, technically speaking, the name of the southern end of the Hudson River as it flows into New York Bay, a fact that is being lost upon even native New Yorkers, sad to note) in New Jersey? How much did the officials of the administration of President George Walker Bush know about the attacks before they took place? Was the plane in Pennsylvania shot down by military aircraft? Why did not air defense squadrons respond more rapidly to the scene in lower Manhattan? Why were people in the twin towers told to stay in the buildings after the planes (or other projectiles, as some allege) hit them? Did Osama bin Laden actually have any control over what happened on September 11, 2001? Were the events, whether orchestrated internally or externally, a pretext to invade Iraq and start the neoconservatives' endless "war on terror"?
We will, most likely, never know the answers to these questions. We do know that the government of the United States of America capitalized on the tragic events of September 11, 2001, to increase its power over ordinary citizens and to launch and sustain its "war on terror" that destabilized the country of Iraq, making it a haven for operatives of al-Qaeda. This has plunged Iraq into a virtual civil war as thousands of Iraqis and Americans have been killed or wounded while billions of American taxpayer dollars have gone to fund the destruction and the carnage, lining the coffers of well-connected American and multinational contractors in the process. The initial onslaughts of the "war on terror" that began on October 7, 2001, in Afghanistan have not eliminated the Italian, which has shown signs of a great resurgence in the past year or so (Afghan fighters did, after all, defeat the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan).
Other terrorist attacks that have been laid at the doorsteps of Mohammedans, who may indeed play a role in these attacks, whether doing their own bidding or serving as agents provocateurs for others is unclear, have taken place in Madrid, Spain, on March 11, 2004, and July 7, 2005, in London, England, and in various locales in Indonesia and a few other places.
All I know now is that I know less than I thought I knew six years ago today, when it appeared to be pretty straight-forward that the attacks that day were the exclusive responsibility of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist cells. I thought I had it all figured out: Mohammedans had attacked Catholic Europe repeatedly since their false, diabolical religion began. The September 11, 2001, attacks were the result of Mohammedan resentment against the United States for its reflexive support of the Zionist State of Israel and for American cultural imperialism. It certainly appeared to me at the time that God was using the Mohammedan infidels to punish the United States of America for its many, many crimes against Him, including the daily slaughter of the preborn by means of chemical and surgical abortions and by means of the music and motion pictures and television programming and commercial advertising and other great "joys of American freedom" that pollute the souls of those living in the United States of America and are exported, mostly for financial profit, around the world.
Well, no matter what turns out to be the case on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead, God is using infidels, whether Mohammedans or naturalists within the United States of America and/or Israel, to punish the United States of America for its sins. Without minimizing for one moment the tragedy of the deaths of the people who were killed six years ago today, the plain fact of the matter is domestic terrorists walk among us every day, responsible for the surgical assassination of over 4,000 innocent preborn babies as well as untold numbers of preborn children who are poisoned by chemical abortifacients. The "war on terror" hatched by the clients of international Zionism known as neoconservatives has not made the United States of America even one bit safer from attacks, no matter their source, whether domestic or foreign, that will be used by God as the means to chastise it for its many crimes, both historically and contemporary, against Him and His Sacred Rights. The worst is yet to come.
Harsh? Not at all.
No one, including me, wants to see tragedies occur. An inescapable fact of the Catholic Faith, however, is that God punishes sins, as Saint Paul taught us in his Epistle to the Hebrews God punishes the sins of men and He punishes the sins of their nations. He has specifically ordered men at various points in salvation history to wage wars against infidels, and He has used infidels to punish His own children for their sins. Our Lady told the Jacinta and Francisco Marto and Lucia dos Santos that entire nations would be annihilated if her Fatima Message was not fulfilled. Only a nationalistic fool would think that a land that has promoted Protestantism and Judeo-Masonry into the Catholic countries of Latin America and the Philippines, as well as spreading the heresies of civil liberty (which include the "right" to blaspheme God and His Most Blessed Mother, the "right" to put into question or deny the truths He has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church, the "right" to dress indecently and to produce motion pictures and magazines full of enticements to sin, which caused the God-Man to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and caused Seven Swords of Sorrow to be thrust through His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart) and religious liberty around the world, will not be annihilated one day by those who have no more regard for the lives of its citizens that it has shown for God's laws and the inviolability of innocent human life.
Nations come and go. Empires come and go. What happened to the Egyptian Empire that had enslaved the Hebrew people for 440 years? Gone. What happened to the Hellenic Empire of Philip of Macedonia and his son, Alexander the Great? Gone. What happened to the Roman Empire? Gone. The glories of ancient Rome, both under the Republic and the Empire, all passed away, being swept away by the invasions of barbarians starting at the beginning of the Fifth Century. Even the Christendom of the Middle Ages, which had its periods of moral decrepitude, had to be punished by God, Who chastised it severely with the Black Death in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.
God's justifiable anger at our ingratitude and our sins can be appeased. The only thing that has held up the world since Our Lord's Redemptive Act on the wood of the Holy Cross on the first Good Friday is the fact that said Redemptive Act has been offered by priests, acting in persona Christi, to the Father in Spirit and Truth in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Indeed, the end of the world is going to occur when the last true priest is arrested and killed, thereby making it impossible for Holy Mass to be offered, a theme explored in the Myles Connolly novel, Mr. Blue. God is indeed appeased by the offering of Holy Mass. He is appeased by the offerings of our prayers and sacrifices and penances and mortifications and humiliations that we give to His Most Sacred Heart through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. He wants sinners to reform their lives and to do penance for their sins. However, sinners must realize that they have an obligation to reform their lives and to do penance for their sins, which is the exact opposite of what the "world" teaches us and not at all in conformity with the general ethos of conciliarism's embrace of the world (and its de facto alliance with the heresy of universal salvation, admitting that there are still Catholics in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism who have maintained the sensus Catholicus pretty much intact despite the best efforts of the conciliar revolutionaries to lead them astray).
God has given us a wonderful variety of means to save our souls, showing forth the mercies of His Most Sacred Heart to Saint Gertrude the Great four centuries before He used Saint John Eudes and Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque--and her confessor, Father Claude de la Colombiere--to combat the demonic heresies of Jansenism with public devotions in honor of His Heart of Mercy and of Love, starting with the practice of keeping the Nine First Fridays. He has in more recent days given us devotion to His own Most Blessed Mother's Immaculate Heart to help us realize that our sins not only wounded Him once in time but continue to grieve the Immaculata herself, who suffered so much with Him to effect our Redemption as His Co-Redemptrix. We must use these means of God's ineffable Mercy and Love to make reparation for our sins and to seek the conversion of all men and all nations to His true Church, thereby ushering in a new era of Christendom.
Nations must honor the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Kingdom of France suffered tremendous cataclysms and catastrophes, from which its "republican" successors have suffered ever since, as a result of King Louis XIV's refusal to honor Our Lord's specific request to place the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the battle flag of France and to order the bishops of France to consecrate the whole of that kingdom to that same Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. These words, contained in
The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, by the Right Revered Emile Bougaud, apply to every nation, not only to the Kingdom of France at the end of the Seventeenth Century:
There is to the devotion of the Sacred Heart a private side and a social side. Margaret Mary begins with the first.
"In fine, my dear Mother," she writes, " are we not all consumed in the burning heart of His pure love? It will reign, this amiable Heart, in spite of Satan, his imps and his agents. This world transports me with joy. But to be able to express to you the great graces and benedictions it will attract upon all that shall have procured it the most honor and glory is what I cannot do in the way that He has given me to understand it.
"He has made me see the devotion to His Sacred Heart as a beautiful tree, from all eternity to spring up and take root in the midst of our Institute, and to extend its branches into the houses that compose it, so that each may gather from it fruits most pleasing to her liking and taste. But He desires that the daughters of the Visitation should distribute abundantly to all that will eat of it the fruits of this sacred tree. By this means He desires to restore life to many; and, by withdrawing them from the way of perdition, and destroying the empire of Satan in their heart, to establish in them that of His love."
Behold the first design, the supernatural, the social side of devotion to the Sacred Heart, that which regards souls at all times and in all places. Margaret Mary continues: "But He does not wish to stop here. He has still greater designs, which can be executed only by His almighty power."
Which are those designs that the Saint calls the greatest, and for which she invokes the All-powerful?
"He desires, then, it seems to me, to enter with pomp and magnificence into the palaces of kings and princes, therein to be honored as much as He has been despised, humiliated, and outraged in His Passion. May He receive as much pleasure therein at seeing the great ones of the world abasing and humbling themselves before Him as He once felt bitterness at beholding Himself annihilated at their feet!"
The tone of these words convinces one that Margaret Mary, when uttering them,. was in a sort of ecstasy. What follows leaves no room for doubt on the subject.
"Here are," she continues, "the words that I heart on this point: 'MAKE KNOWN TO THE ELDEST SON OF MY HEART,' SPEAKING OF OUR KING, 'THAT AS HIS TEMPORAL BIRTH WAS OBTAINED THROUGH DEVOTION TO THE MERITS OF MY HOLY CHILDHOOD, IN THE SAME MANNER HE WILL OBTAIN HIS BIRTH OF GRACE AND ETERNAL GLORY BY THE CONSECRATION THAT HE WILL MAKE OF HIMSELF TO MY ADORABLE HEART, which wishes to triumph over those of the great ones of the world. IT WISHES TO REIGN IN HIS PALACE, TO BE PAINTED ON HIS STANDARDS AND ENGRAVEN ON HIS ARMS, IN ORDER TO RENDER HIM VICTORIOUS OVER ALL HIS ENEMIES.'"
Margaret Mary spoke only of the king, because, in the spirit of those times, the king and France were one. The king personified all the souls of France living and breathing in one single soul.
To comprehend Almighty God's request with regard to the standard, we must recall that, from the earliest ages, France had always had a sacred standard, one that was not borne to vulgar combats; one that rested in the sanctuary of St. Denis under the shadow of the country's holy protectors. It was removed from its sacred shrine only when the monarch headed the army, when it was solemnly sought in the hour of the greatest danger, or when it was to be carried afar to the holy wars. It symbolized the religious soul of France, and floated like a sacred prayer amid the nation's banners. It was a standard of this kind that God had given to Joan of Arc. He had prescribed its form and emblems, and communicated to it the secret virtue that roused exhausted France to unhoped-for triumphs. Today, through the lips of the virgin of Paray, God asked of the king of France something of the same kind, a sacred standard which was to symbolize an act of faith. It was to be borne side by side with the nation's flag, and, in a voice that could be distinctly heard above the proverbial bravado of her enemies, proclaim that France places her trust in the blessing of God.
Mother de Saumaise was probably rather surprised by so serious a communication and one that tallied so little with what she knew of Margaret Mary's humility. She made no reply, and our sweet and humble Marguerite became anxious at her silence. Were her letters lost? Would Mother de Saumaise, until then so courageous for the interests of the Heart of Jesus, hesitate before this new perspective? Again she wrote to her, August 12, 1689: "I declare to you, my dear Mother, that your silence regarding the two long letters that I have had the honor to write you has given me a little pain. I know not to what to attribute it, except that perhaps I have set down my thoughts too freely and simply. I should perhaps have kept them concealed under a humble silence. You have only to tell me this, and I assure you that it will greatly gratify my inclination never to speak of these things, but to bury them in the secret of the Sacred Heart of my Divine Master. He is witness of the violence that I must do myself to speak of them. I should never have resolved to do so, had He not made known to me that it is for the interest of His glory; and for that I should cheerfully sacrifice millions of lives, if I had them, through my great desire to make Him known, loved, and adored. But perhaps you have not received my letters, and that would be still more afflicting to me." It was perhaps in the fear that these letters were lost, and that in the event of her death her secret might not descend with her into the tomb, that Margaret Mary reduced to writing the following. It was in the month of August, some days after the 12th, perhaps the 25th, the feast of St. Louis. It is less a letter than a sort of declaration, throughout which reign unaccountable solemnity and majesty:
"Live + Jesus!
"August, 1689,
"The Eternal Father, wishing to repair the bitterness and agony that the Adorable Heart of His Divine Son endured in the palaces of earthly princes, amidst the humiliations and outrages of His Passion, wishes to establish His empire in the heart of our great monarch, of whom He desires to make use in the execution of His designs, which is to have an edifice erected in which shall be a picture of His divine Heart, to receive the consecration and homage of the king and all the court.
" Moreover, this divine Heart wishes to make itself the defender of the sacred person of the king, his protector against all his enemies. Therefore has it chosen him as its faithful friend, to have the Mass authorized by the Holy Apostolic See, and to obtain all the other privileges that ought to accompany devotion to this divine Heart.
"It is by this divine Heart that God wishes to dispense the treasures of His graces of sanctification and salvation, by bestowing His benediction on the king's undertakings, according a happy success to his arms, and making him triumph over the malice of his enemies."
A consecration of the nation to the Heart of Jesus, a national temple raised to the Heart of Jesus, an inscription to the Heart of Jesus on the national standard--this is what Our Lord asked of the blessed Sister. Under this condition: He will render the king, that is, France, victorious over all her enemies, and will give her an eternal reign of honor and glory.
Saint Margaret Mary then goes on to recount the best means for realizing this plan; the best means for reaching the ears of Louis XIV. She mentions Pere de la Chaise, the king's confessor, who at this time enjoyed great favor: "If the goodness of God," says she, "inspires this great servant of the Divine Majesty to employ the power He has given him, he may rest assured that he has never done an action more useful to God's glory, more salutary to his own soul, nor for which he will be better recompensed.
"It will be very difficult, on account of the great obstacles Satan purposes putting in the way, as well as of all the other difficulties God will permit in order to His power seen. He can effect all that He pleases, though He does not always do so, not wishing to do violence to man's will. For this we must pray much and get prayers."
We may have remarked that in all these letters there breathes a deep and holy enthusiasm. The Heart of Jesus will reign in spite of its enemies! All that God wishes from France--that national consecration, that national temple, that inscription to the Heart of Jesus on a standard,--all will be accomplished; but it will take time, and nothing less than the omnipotence of God is necessary. Fearful misfortunes will, moreover, take place in the mean time.
We have not Mother de Saumaise's answer to his letter of August, 1689. She who had known how to reach Rome and arouse the thoughts of the Sovereign Pontiffs would neglect nothing to to reach even Louis XIV. We know that she had recourse to the Superioress of the Visitation of Chaillot, the refuge of Mlle. de la Fayette, where dwelt the queen of England, and which held, so to say, its door open to the court of Louis XIV. Might it happen that Pere de la Chaise would not dare to speak of it to the king? Might it happen that Louis XIV's soul would not be sufficiently humble to comprehend the Christian grandeur of such a thought? Be that as it may, those tender and magnanimous advances to the Heart of Jesus were not understood, and Margaret Mary's last admonitions were without avail, were lost in oblivion. They were, indeed, her last words, we are at the close of 1689, and she was nearing her death.
1689! Involuntarily we pause at this date, for it evokes another, 1789! A century has just rolled by between the epoch in which the humble virgin, hidden in the depths of a cloister, pointed out to Louis XIV the ark of salvation prepared for him by the goodness of God, and that other epoch in which arose the storm that was to sweep away the monarchy, and with it all other monarchies. If told in the days of his splendor of the perils in store in France, of the necessity of seeking a remedy, a shelter far above man, yea, even in the Adorable Heart of Jesus, Louis XIV would have smiled incredulously. And yet this was true. From Louis XIV France descended to Louis XV, from Louis XV to Voltaire, from Voltaire to Robespierre and Marat; that is to say, from pride to corruption, from corruption to impiety, and from both the one and the other to a hatred of God and man which was to bring about her universal punishment.
Ah, this was only the beginning of our sorrows! From 1789 let us go to 1889. There we find a new century, one scarcely less sad than its predecessor; one in which minds are darkened and hearts chilled; one in which nothing is lasting; one whose every cycle of fifteen years witnessed a storm that carried away a throne; one in which man lives amidst constantly recurring political convulsions, in distrust of the present, in uncertainty of the future.
It was for such times that had been providentially prepared, and it was in the midst of such catastrophes, that we see making its way, painfully but surely, devotion to that Heart which is meek and humble, which suited so well the age of Louis XIV; which is pure, for it was of purity that Louis XV's reign had so much need; which was consumed by love and devotedness, qualities that would not have proved prejudicial to the age of such as Robespierre; which raises sad hearts and comforts crushed souls; which suits our own time and all times. (Right Reverend Emile Bougaud, The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque. Published in 1890 by Benziger Brothers. Re-printed by TAN Books and Publishers, 1990, pp. 267-273.)
The United States of America will never be blessed by Christ the King as long as it refuses to take Him publicly as its King and refuses to honor publicly His Most Blessed Mother as its Immaculate Queen. A nation that promotes sin under cover of law and in every aspect of its popular culture will continue to suffer the consequences of its own prideful rejection of the magisterial authority and sanctifying offices of the Catholic Church. Can no one see that at least some small part of the moral and geopolitical disaster taking place in Iraq at the present time is the result of the introduction of the false values of "Americanism" into its midst? What was one of the very first things introduced into Iraq following the unjust invasion of its borders by the military forces of the United States of America under the orders of President George Walker Bush? Contraceptives, that's what, sent into Iraq to "liberate" Iraqi women and to spread the "joys" of "American" values, which include, obviously, denying the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity of marital relations and the chemical killing of children in so many cases.
No country will be favored by God if it defies His laws, daring to promote under cover of law and in every aspect of its popular culture things offensive to Him and thus contrary to the good of souls. What is contrary to God's laws and detrimental to the good of souls is thus harmful to the good of individual nations domestically and to order internationally. No amount of the the use of military force to defend a nation legitimately when the precepts of the Theory of the Just War have been, as far as is humanly possible, fulfilled will come to any good end if that nation is steeped in the errors of civil liberty, which leads inexorably to licentiousness, religious liberty, moral relativism, cultural pluralism, legal positivism, Calvinist materialism, individualism, hedonism, utilitarianism and all of the other inter-related forces of naturalism. The Catholic Faith is not the guarantor of personal sanctity or social order. It is, however, the one and only necessary precondition for sanctity within souls and hence order within and among nations. Anyone who believes that sanctity in souls or order in societies can be produced by means other than that found in the Catholic Church is fool whose religious indifferentism and naturalism contribute mightily to social disorder in his own nation and warfare among nations.
Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI, in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929, put the matter this way in the Sixteenth Century:
The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity.
Pope Gregory XVI reiterated this same point less than three hundred years later in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, demonstrating that absolute consistency of the teaching of the Catholic Church in the centuries before the counterfeit church of conciliarism rejected the Catholic Church's Social Teaching:
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. 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.
Pope Leo XIII reiterated this same point in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, teaching us that the civil State may never permit the license and opinion and of action to lead the minds of men astray:
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.
Those steeped in the sin against the First Commandment that is nationalism, which deifies a nation and seeks to identify each of its actions with God Himself, ought to consider once again Pope Pius XI's utter condemnation of the belief that any nation has a right at any time to exempt itself from the the law of God and the reign of Christ the King. Although the words were directed to the Bishops of Germany to condemn the racialism of the Third Reich, they apply with equal force to those who ignore--at the peril of their own immortal souls--the grave evils committed by the United States of America and who seek to indemnify its immoral actions domestically and internationally without even for one moment admitting that God will never bless a land that is in open rebellion against Him as He has revealed Himself through His true Church:
Take care, Venerable Brethren, that above all, faith in God, the first and irreplaceable foundation of all religion, be preserved in Germany pure and unstained. The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God.
Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community -- however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things -- whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.
Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your influence on the Faithful, that they refuse to yield to this aberration. Our God is the Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, one in the Trinity of Persons, tri-personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all existence. Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the history of the world, who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival God by His side.
This God, this Sovereign Master, has issued commandments whose value is independent of time and space, country and race. As God's sun shines on every human face so His law knows neither privilege nor exception. Rulers and subjects, crowned and uncrowned, rich and poor are equally subject to His word. From the fullness of the Creators' right there naturally arises the fullness of His right to be obeyed by individuals and communities, whoever they are. This obedience permeates all branches of activity in which moral values claim harmony with the law of God, and pervades all integration of the ever-changing laws of man into the immutable laws of God.
None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are "as a drop of a bucket" (Isaiah xI, 15).
The Bishops of the Church of Christ, "ordained in the things that appertain to God (Heb. v, 1) must watch that pernicious errors of this sort, and consequent practices more pernicious still, shall not gain a footing among their flock. It is part of their sacred obligations to do whatever is in their power to enforce respect for, and obedience to, the commandments of God, as these are the necessary foundation of all private life and public morality; to see that the rights of His Divine Majesty, His name and His word be not profaned; to put a stop to the blasphemies, which, in words and pictures, are multiplying like the sands of the desert; to encounter the obstinacy and provocations of those who deny, despise and hate God, by the never-failing reparatory prayers of the Faithful, hourly rising like incense to the All-Highest and staying His vengeance.
We thank you, Venerable Brethren, your priests and Faithful, who have persisted in their Christian duty and in the defense of God's rights in the teeth of an aggressive paganism. Our gratitude, warmer still and admiring, goes out to those who, in fulfillment of their duty, have been deemed worthy of sacrifice and suffering for the love of God.
No faith in God can for long survive pure and unalloyed without the support of faith in Christ. "No one knoweth who the Son is, but the Father: and who the Father is, but the Son and to whom the Son will reveal Him" (Luke x. 22). "Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent" (John xvii. 3). Nobody, therefore, can say: "I believe in God, and that is enough religion for me," for the Savior's words brook no evasion: "Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. He that confesseth the Son hath the Father also" (1 John ii. 23).
In Jesus Christ, Son of God made Man, there shone the plentitude of divine revelation. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His Son" (Heb. i. 1). The sacred books of the Old Testament are exclusively the word of God, and constitute a substantial part of his revelation; they are penetrated by a subdued light, harmonizing with the slow development of revelation, the dawn of the bright day of the redemption. As should be expected in historical and didactic books, they reflect in many particulars the imperfection, the weakness and sinfulness of man. But side by side with innumerable touches of greatness and nobleness, they also record the story of the chosen people, bearers of the Revelation and the Promise, repeatedly straying from God and turning to the world. Eyes not blinded by prejudice or passion will see in this prevarication, as reported by the Biblical history, the luminous splendor of the divine light revealing the saving plan which finally triumphs over every fault and sin. It is precisely in the twilight of this background that one perceives the striking perspective of the divine tutorship of salvation, as it warms, admonishes, strikes, raises and beautifies its elect. Nothing but ignorance and pride could blind one to the treasures hoarded in the Old Testament.
Whoever wishes to see banished from church and school the Biblical history and the wise doctrines of the Old Testament, blasphemes the name of God, blasphemes the Almighty's plan of salvation, and makes limited and narrow human thought the judge of God's designs over the history of the world: he denies his faith in the true Christ, such as He appeared in the flesh, the Christ who took His human nature from a people that was to crucify Him; and he understands nothing of that universal tragedy of the Son of God who to His torturer's sacrilege opposed the divine and priestly sacrifice of His redeeming death, and made the new alliance the goal of the old alliance, its realization and its crown.
The peak of the revelation as reached in the Gospel of Christ is final and permanent. It knows no retouches by human hand; it admits no substitutes or arbitrary alternatives such as certain leaders pretend to draw from the so-called myth of race and blood. Since Christ, the Lord's Anointed, finished the task of Redemption, and by breaking up the reign of sin deserved for us the grace of being the children God, since that day no other name under heaven has been given to men, whereby we must be saved (Acts iv. 12). No man, were every science, power and worldly strength incarnated in him, can lay any other foundation but that which is laid: which is Christ Jesus (1 Cor. iii 11). Should any man dare, in sacrilegious disregard of the essential differences between God and His creature, between the God-man and the children of man, to place a mortal, were he the greatest of all times, by the side of, or over, or against, Christ, he would deserve to be called prophet of nothingness, to whom the terrifying words of Scripture would be applicable: "He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them" (Psalms ii. 3).
Faith in Christ cannot maintain itself pure and unalloyed without the support of faith in the Church, "the pillar and ground of the truth" (1 Tim. iii. 15); for Christ Himself, God eternally blessed, raised this pillar of the Faith. His command tO hear the Church (Matt. xviii. 15), to welcome in the words and commands of the Church His own words and His own commands (Luke x. 16), is addressed to all men, of all times and of all countries. The Church founded by the Redeemer is one, the same for all races and all nations. Beneath her dome, as beneath the vault of heaven, there is but one country for all nations and tongues; there is room for the development of every quality, advantage, task and vocation which God the Creator and Savior has allotted to individuals as well as to ethnical communities. The Church's maternal heart is big enough to see in the God-appointed development of individual characteristics and gifts, more than a mere danger of divergency. She rejoices at the spiritual superiorities among individuals and nations. In their successes she sees with maternal joy and pride fruits of education and progress, which she can only bless and encourage, whenever she can conscientiously do so. But she also knows that tO this freedom limits have been set by the majesty of the divine command, which founded that Church one and indivisible. Whoever tampers with that unity and that indivisibility wrenches from the Spouse of Christ one of the diadems with which God Himself crowned her; he subjects a divine structure, which stands on eternal foundations, tO criticism and transformation by architects whom the Father of Heaven never authorized to interfere.
The Church, whose work lies among men and operates through men, may see her divine mission obscured by human, too human, combination, persistently growing and developing like the cockle among the wheat of the Kingdom of God. Those who know the Savior's words on scandal and the giver of scandals, know, too, the judgment which the Church and all her sons must pronounce on what was and what is sin. But if, besides these reprehensible discrepancies be between faith and life, acts and words, exterior conduct and interior feelings, however numerous they be, anyone overlooks the overwhelming sum of authentic virtues, of spirit of sacrifice, fraternal love, heroic efforts of sanctity, he gives evidence of deplorable blindness and injustice. If later he forgets to apply the standard of severity, by which he measures the Church he hates, to other organizations in which he happens to be interested, then his appeal to an offended sense of purity identifies him with those who, for seeing the mote in their brother's eye, according to the Savior's incisive words, cannot see the beam in their own. But however suspicious the intention of those who make it their task, nay their vile profession, to scrutinize what is human in the Church, and although the priestly powers conferred by God are independent of the priest's human value, it yet remains true that at no moment of history, no individual, in no organization can dispense himself from the duty of loyally examining his conscience, of mercilessly purifying himself, and energetically renewing himself in spirit and in action. In Our Encyclical on the priesthood We have urged attention to the sacred duty of all those who belong to the Church, chiefly the members of the priestly and religious profession and of the lay apostolate, to square their faith and their conduct with the claims of the law of God and of the Church. And today we again repeat with all the insistency We can command: it is not enough to be a member of the Church of Christ, one needs to be a living member, in spirit and in truth, i.e., living in the state of grace and in the presence of God, either in innocence or in sincere repentance. If the Apostle of the nations, the vase of election, chastised his body and brought it into subjection: lest perhaps, when he had preached to others, he himself should become a castaway (1 Cor. ix. 27), could anybody responsible for the extension of the Kingdom of God claim any other method but personal sanctification? Only thus can we show to the present generation, and to the critics of the Church that "the salt of the earth," the leaven of Christianity has not decayed, but is ready to give the men of today -- prisoners of doubt and error, victims of indifference, tired of their Faith and straying from God -- the spiritual renewal they so much need. A Christianity which keeps a grip on itself, refuses every compromise with the world, takes the commands of God and the Church seriously, preserves its love of God and of men in all its freshness, such a Christianity can be, and will be, a model and a guide to a world which is sick to death and clamors for directions, unless it be condemned to a catastrophe that would baffle the imagination.
Every true and lasting reform has ultimately sprung from the sanctity of men who were driven by the love of God and of men. Generous, ready to stand to attention to any call from God, yet confident in themselves because confident in their vocation, they grew to the size of beacons and reformers. On the other hand, any reformatory zeal, which instead of springing from personal purity, flashes out of passion, has produced unrest instead of light, destruction instead of construction, and more than once set up evils worse than those it was out to remedy. No doubt "the Spirit breatheth where he will" (John iii. 8): "of stones He is able to raise men to prepare the way to his designs" (Matt. iii. 9). He chooses the instruments of His will according to His own plans, not those of men. But the Founder of the Church, who breathed her into existence at Pentecost, cannot disown the foundations as He laid them. Whoever is moved by the spirit of God, spontaneously adopts both outwardly and inwardly, the true attitude toward the Church, this sacred fruit from the tree of the cross, this gift from the Spirit of God, bestowed on Pentecost day to an erratic world.
In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders there is more than one whose official position is intended to create the impression that this infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of loyalty to the modern State. Secret and open measures of intimidation, the threat of economic and civic disabilities, bear on the loyalty of certain classes of Catholic functionaries, a pressure which violates every human right and dignity. Our wholehearted paternal sympathy goes out to those who must pay so dearly for their loyalty to Christ and the Church; but directly the highest interests are at stake, with the alternative of spiritual loss, there is but one alternative left, that of heroism. If the oppressor offers one the Judas bargain of apostasy he can only, at the cost of every worldly sacrifice, answer with Our Lord: "Begone, Satan! For it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. iv. 10). And turning to the Church, he shall say: "Thou, my mother since my infancy, the solace of my life and advocate at my death, may my tongue cleave to my palate if, yielding to worldly promises or threats, I betray the vows of my baptism." As to those who imagine that they can reconcile exterior infidelity tO one and the same Church, let them hear Our Lord's warning: -- "He that shall deny me before men shall be denied before the angels of God" (Luke xii. 9).
Faith in the Church cannot stand pure and true without the support of faith in the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. The same moment when Peter, in the presence of all the Apostles and disciples, confesses his faith in Christ, Son of the Living God, the answer he received in reward for his faith and his confession was the word that built the Church, the only Church of Christ, on the rock of Peter (Matt. xvi. 18). Thus was sealed the connection between the faith in Christ, the Church and the Primacy. True and lawful authority is invariably a bond of unity, a source of strength, a guarantee against division and ruin, a pledge for the future: and this is verified in the deepest and sublimest sense, when that authority, as in the case of the Church, and the Church alone, is sealed by the promise and the guidance of the Holy Ghost and His irresistible support. Should men, who are not even united by faith in Christ, come and offer you the seduction of a national German Church, be convinced that it is nothing but a denial of the one Church of Christ and the evident betrayal of that universal evangelical mission, for which a world Church alone is qualified and competent. The live history of other national churches with their paralysis, their domestication and subjection to worldly powers, is sufficient evidence of the sterility to which is condemned every branch that is severed from the trunk of the living Church. Whoever counters these erroneous developments with an uncompromising No from the very outset, not only serves the purity of his faith in Christ, but also the welfare and the vitality of his own people.
You will need to watch carefully, Venerable Brethren, that religious fundamental concepts be not emptied of their content and distorted to profane use. "Revelation" in its Christian sense, means the word of God addressed to man. The use of this word for the "suggestions" of race and blood, for the irradiations of a people's history, is mere equivocation. False coins of this sort do not deserve Christian currency. "Faith" consists in holding as true what God has revealed and proposes through His Church to man's acceptance. It is "the evidence of things that appear not" (Heb. ii. 1). The joyful and proud confidence in the future of one's people, instinct in every heart, is quite a different thing from faith in a religious sense. To substitute the one for the other, and demand on the strength of this, to be numbered among the faithful followers of Christ, is a senseless play on words, if it does not conceal a confusion of concepts, or worse.
"Immortality" in a Christian sense means the survival of man after his terrestrial death, for the purpose of eternal reward or punishment. Whoever only means by the term, the collective survival here on earth of his people for an indefinite length of time, distorts one of the fundamental notions of the Christian Faith and tampers with the very foundations of the religious concept of the universe, which requires a moral order.
"Original sin" is the hereditary but impersonal fault of Adam's descendants, who have sinned in him (Rom. v. 12). It is the loss of grace, and therefore of eternal life, together with a propensity to evil, which everybody must, with the assistance of grace, penance, resistance and moral effort, repress and conquer. The passion and death of the Son of God has redeemed the world from the hereditary curse of sin and death. Faith in these truths, which in your country are today the butt of the cheap derision of Christ's enemies, belongs to the inalienable treasury of Christian revelation.
The cross of Christ, though it has become to many a stumbling block and foolishness (1 Cor. i. 23) remains for the believer the holy sign of his redemption, the emblem of moral strength and greatness. We live in its shadow and die in its embrace. It will stand on our grave as a pledge of our faith and our hope in the eternal light.
Humility in the spirit of the Gospel and prayer for the assistance of grace are perfectly compatible with self-confidence and heroism. The Church of Christ, which throughout the ages and to the present day numbers more confessors and voluntary martyrs than any other moral collectivity, needs lessons from no one in heroism of feeling and action. The odious pride of reformers only covers itself with ridicule when it rails at Christian humility as though it were but a cowardly pose of self-degradation.
"Grace," in a wide sense, may stand for any of the Creator's gifts to His creature; but in its Christian designation, it means all the supernatural tokens of God's love; God's intervention which raises man to that intimate communion of life with Himself, called by the Gospel "adoption of the children of God." "Behold what manner of charity the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called and should be the sons of God" (1 John iii. 1). To discard this gratuitous and free elevation in the name of a so-called German type amounts to repudiating openly a fundamental truth of Christianity. It would be an abuse of our religious vocabulary to place on the same level supernatural grace and natural gifts. Pastors and guardians of the people of God will do well to resist this plunder of sacred things and this confusion of ideas.
It is on faith in God, preserved pure and stainless, that man's morality is based. All efforts to remove from under morality and the moral order the granite foundation of faith and to substitute for it the shifting sands of human regulations, sooner or later lead these individuals or societies to moral degradation. The fool who has said in his heart "there is no God" goes straight to moral corruption (Psalms xiii. 1), and the number of these fools who today are out to sever morality from religion, is legion. They either do not see or refuse to see that the banishment of confessional Christianity, i.e., the clear and precise notion of Christianity, from teaching and education, from the organization of social and political life, spells spiritual spoliation and degradation. No coercive power of the State, no purely human ideal, however noble and lofty it be, will ever be able to make shift of the supreme and decisive impulses generated by faith in God and Christ. If the man, who is called to the hard sacrifice of his own ego to the common good, loses the support of the eternal and the divine, that comforting and consoling faith in a God who rewards all good and punishes all evil, then the result of the majority will be, not the acceptance, but the refusal of their duty. The conscientious observation of the ten commandments of God and the precepts of the Church (which are nothing but practical specifications of rules of the Gospels) is for every one an unrivaled school of personal discipline, moral education and formation of character, a school that is exacting, but not to excess. A merciful God, who as Legislator, says -- Thou must! -- also gives by His grace the power to will and to do. To let forces of moral formation of such efficacy lie fallow, or to exclude them positively from public education, would spell religious under-feeding of a nation. To hand over the moral law to man's subjective opinion, which changes with the times, instead of anchoring it in the holy will of the eternal God and His commandments, is to open wide every door to the forces of destruction. The resulting dereliction of the eternal principles of an objective morality, which educates conscience and ennobles every department and organization of life, is a sin against the destiny of a nation, a sin whose bitter fruit will poison future generations.
Such is the rush of present-day life that it severs from the divine foundation of Revelation, not only morality, but also the theoretical and practical rights. We are especially referring to what is called the natural law, written by the Creator's hand on the tablet of the heart (Rom. ii. 14) and which reason, not blinded by sin or passion, can easily read. It is in the light of the commands of this natural law, that all positive law, whoever be the lawgiver, can be gauged in its moral content, and hence, in the authority it wields over conscience. Human laws in flagrant contradiction with the natural law are vitiated with a taint which no force, no power can mend. In the light of this principle one must judge the axiom, that "right is common utility," a proposition which may be given a correct significance, it means that what is morally indefensible, can never contribute to the good of the people. But ancient paganism acknowledged that the axiom, to be entirely true, must be reversed and be made to say: "Nothing can be useful, if it is not at the same time morally good" (Cicero, De Off. ii. 30). Emancipated from this oral rule, the principle would in international law carry a perpetual state of war between nations; for it ignores in national life, by confusion of right and utility, the basic fact that man as a person possesses rights he holds from God, and which any collectivity must protect against denial, suppression or neglect. To overlook this truth is to forget that the real common good ultimately takes its measure from man's nature, which balances personal rights and social obligations, and from the purpose of society, established for the benefit of human nature. Society, was intended by the Creator for the full development of individual possibilities, and for the social benefits, which by a give and take process, every one can claim for his own sake and that of others. Higher and more general values, which collectivity alone can provide, also derive from the Creator for the good of man, and for the full development, natural and supernatural, and the realization of his perfection. To neglect this order is to shake the pillars on which society rests, and to compromise social tranquillity, security and existence.
The believer has an absolute right to profess his Faith and live according to its dictates. Laws which impede this profession and practice of Faith are against natural law.
Parents who are earnest and conscious of their educative duties, have a primary right to the education of the children God has given them in the spirit of their Faith, and according to its prescriptions. Laws and measures which in school questions fail to respect this freedom of the parents go against natural law, and are immoral. The Church, whose mission it is to preserve and explain the natural law, as it is divine in its origin, cannot but declare that the recent enrollment into schools organized without a semblance of freedom, is the result of unjust pressure, and is a violation of every common right.
As the Vicar of Him who said to the young man of the Gospel: "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments" (Matt. xix. 17), We address a few paternal words to the young.
Thousands of voices ring into your ears a Gospel which has not been revealed by the Father of Heaven. Thousands of pens are wielded in the service of a Christianity, which is not of Christ. Press and wireless daily force on you productions hostile to the Faith and to the Church, impudently aggressive against whatever you should hold venerable and sacred. Many of you, clinging to your Faith and to your Church, as a result of your affiliation with religious associations guaranteed by the concordat, have often to face the tragic trial of seeing your loyalty to your country misunderstood, suspected, or even denied, and of being hurt in your professional and social life. We are well aware that there is many a humble soldier of Christ in your ranks, who with torn feelings, but a determined heart, accepts his fate, finding his one consolation in the thought of suffering insults for the name of Jesus (Acts v. 41). Today, as We see you threatened with new dangers and new molestations, We say to you: If any one should preach to you a Gospel other than the one you received on the knees of a pious mother, from the lips of a believing father, or through teaching faithful to God and His Church, "let him be anathema" (Gal. i. 9). If the State organizes a national youth, and makes this organization obligatory to all, then, without prejudice to rights of religious associations, it is the absolute right of youths as well as of parents to see to it that this organization is purged of all manifestations hostile to the Church and Christianity. These manifestations are even today placing Christian parents in a painful alternative, as they cannot give to the State what they owe to God alone.
American politicians use the word "God" all of the time. George W. Bush does this. He does not believe in God as He has revealed Himself through His true Church. He supports contraception, which his administration happily funds. He believes that there are instances in which babies may be surgically sliced and diced in their mothers' wombs under cover of law. He supports completely pro-abortion candidates for public office in his own political party and appoints such individuals to the highest echelons of his administration. He has said that the individual states should be free to grant "civil union" status to those engaged in perverse acts against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments. His concept of patriotism is nationalistic, not founded on the Catholic Church's patriotism as willing the good of one's nation, which is her Catholicization in every aspect of her social life without any naturalistic exception whatsoever. Why do so many Catholics, including some who think that they are devoted to the authentic tradition of the Catholic Church while supporting each of the condemned heresies of Americanism, continue to believe that God will "bless" a country that always has sought from its very inception to spread its false gospel of civil and religious liberty as the substitute for the Catholic Faith (and to coopt Catholics within its borders to accept this false gospel as perfectly compatible with the Faith)?
We must remember that the singularly greatest act of terror is Mortal Sin, which renders a soul captive to the devil, thereby making it more susceptible the adversary's wiles in his own life so that he can become an instrument of disorder and injustice in the lives of others, and that that the one and only remedy to this act of terror is the one and only Holocaust offered up by the God-Man to the Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross. Nations will thrive the more that the life of Sanctifying Grace lives and grows in the souls of men. Nations will suffer the more that Mortal Sins abound and are promoted under cover of law and in every aspect of popular culture.
There is no act of terror that anyone, whether a domestic or foreign agent, that can impose upon us that is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins, to say nothing of any Mortal Sins we have have committed, imposed upon the God-Man on the wood of the Holy Cross. We must simply be in a state of Sanctifying Grace at all times, understanding that this very day might be our last, that we may be called to make an account of our lives before Christ the King at the moment of our Particular Judgments when we least expect it.
While we pray for the souls of those killed in attacks, no matter what source is found to be responsible for them, and do indeed support all legitimate means to thwart future attacks, we must nevertheless remind ourselves and others that a nation steeped in the promotion of sin will never receive God's blessings and will indeed be subject to even worse punishments in the years ahead unless there is a conversion to Him and His true Church, something made all the more difficult, humanly speaking, that its, by conciliarism's own diabolical "reconciliation" with the principles of 1787 and 1789. We must proclaim the Sacred Right of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen no matter who makes fun of us, no matter what it costs us in terms of human respect and career success and financial security.
The Life and Revelations of Saint Gertrude the Great, she who was he great Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, put it this way on a Feast of Saint Mary Magdalene:
From this she understood three things: first, that they wiped Our Lord's Feet with their hair, if they now endeavored to expose themselves to every kind of adversity, to efface any faults which they might have committed formerly by not bearing their sufferings patiently; secondly, that they kissed His feet who confided fully in the goodness of God, who easily forgives all the sins for which we are truly penitent; thirdly, that we anoint them when we avoid carefully all that is displeasing to God.
Our Lord then said to her: "Pour forth this ointment on Me with the same devotion as Magdalen opened the alabaster box, and poured it upon My Head, so that the odor perfumed the whole house. And know, that if you defend the truth, you will act thus; those who love and defend the truth, and for its sake lose friends or any other advantage, pour forth on My Head a box of precious ointment, the perfume of which fills My house; for when who corrects others, by giving good example, emits a sweet odor. And if he fails in any way in the manner of correcting or reprehending either by omission or by roughness, I will excuse him before God My Father and the whole court of Heaven, even as I excused Magdalen."
To this Gertrude replied: "O Lord, since it is related of this loving penitent that she bought this ointment, can I not render Thee a similar service?" He answered, "Whosoever desires that My glory may be promoted in all things, in preference to his own advantage or convenience, purchases a most precious ointment for Me; although it may often happen that his good will cannot be carried into effect." (The Life and Revelations of Saint Gertrude the Great, first published in English in 1862, reprinted by TAN Books and Publishers, 1987, pp. 411-412.)
We must speak the truth about the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen at all times. This is an act of true Charity for others and of true Charity for our nation, which is lost and subject to the wrath of God Himself if it does not convert to the true Faith and then repent of its sins that have offended Him so much and caused so much damage to the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. Sure, yes, there are conciliarists who will contradict us. So what? The truth of the Divine Redeemer, a truth, unlike what is believed by Joseph Ratzinger, is immutable and not subject to varying interpretations or "anchorages" at different times to suit the "needs" of the mythical entity known as "modern man," is more powerful than apostasy. We must speak the truth in Charity, giving all of our efforts to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, making sure first and foremost that we are personally enslaved to these Twin Hearts and that our own homes are enthroned to Them.
As we pray our Rosaries every day, remembering the great military victories wrought by outnumbered forces who relied upon this great spiritual weapon, we must also remember to invoke the patronage of Saint Joseph, the Patron of the Universal Church and the Protector of the Faithful, in this time when the anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity and Modernism abound. Have confidence in Our Lady's Most Chaste Spouse. He will help us. (Indeed, he did so just this morning in our own lives. I prayed to him after Mass this morning to say that I would like to receive a check of a specific dollar amount in our post office box. A check of that specific dollar amount was waiting for us in our post office box when I checked it ten mintues later. Never doubt Saint Joseph, my friends. Never.) He will help us to keep close to His foster-Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, by our tender reliance upon his ever-Virginal and Immaculate Spouse, Our Lady, who vanquishes the foes of their Divine Son and crushes them under her feet.
With a true love for country that is motivated by seeking her conversion to the true Faith, may we make acts of reparation for our own sins--and those of the whole world--to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying for the day when all men and all nations will exclaim:
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Holy Name of Mary, be our our salvation!
Omnia instaurare in Christo.
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and at the hour of our deaths. Amen.
All to you, Blessed Mother. All to your Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.
Saint Peter Claver, pray for us.
Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, pray for us.
Saints Protus and Hyacinth, pray for us.
Saint Gorgonius, pray for us.
Saint Giles, pray for us.
Saint Cloud, pray for us.
Saint Lawrence Justinian, pray for us.
Saint Hadrian, pray for us.
Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.
Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.
Pope Saint Zephyrinus, pray for us.
Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.
Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us.
Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.
Saint Philip Benizi, pray for us.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.
Saint John Eudes, pray for us.
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us, pray for us.
Saint Agapitus, pray for us.
Saint Helena, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.
Saints Monica, pray for us.
Saint Jude, pray for us.
Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.
Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.
Saint John Bosco, pray for us.
Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.
Saint Scholastica, pray for us.
Saint Benedict, pray for us.
Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.
Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.
Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.
Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.
Saint Turibius, pray for us.
Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Monica, pray for us.
Saint Agatha, pray for us.
Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.
Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Saint Cecilia, pray for us.
Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.
Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.
Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.
Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.
Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.
Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.
Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.
Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Dominic, pray for us.
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.
Saint Basil, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Sebastian, pray for us.
Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.
Saint Genevieve, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.
Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.
Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.
Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.
Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.
Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.
Francisco Marto, pray for us.
Jacinta Marto, pray for us.
Juan Diego, pray for us.
Father Maximilian Kolbe,M.I., pray for us.
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.
