Then, Now and Always: Viva Cristo Rey!

Part Five

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Human nature tends to propel people to get lost in the trees as they try to find the location of the nearest forest. God the Holy Ghost spoke to us directly about this phenomenon. inspiring King David to write as follows:

[16] They have a mouth, but they speak not: they have eyes, but they see not. [17] They have ears, but they hear not: neither is there any breath in their mouths. (Psalm 134: 16-17.)

Thus it is most people today, including most Catholics, tend to get all anxious and upset about legitimate problems without being at all interested in their proximate root causes. This is one of the consequences of living in a thoroughly naturalistic world wherein so many people are so immersed in 'activity" or diversions or endless "talking" (whether on the phone or by means of what is called today "social media"). Incessant activity and talking are detrimental to the life of one's immortal soul and for the common temporal good of one's nation. 

Pope Leo XIII warned us quite specifically about the dangers of being immersed in the diversions of the world of naturalism that envelops us and serves as a rival to Holy Mother Church as a rival catechist:

Now the whole essence of a Christian life is to reject the corruption of the world and to oppose constantly any indulgence in it; this is taught in the words and deeds, the laws and institutions, the life and death of Jesus Christ, "the author and finisher of faith." Hence, however strongly We are deterred by the evil disposition of nature and character, it is our duty to run to the "fight proposed to Us," fortified and armed with the same desire and the same arms as He who, "having joy set before him, endured the cross." Wherefore let men understand this specially, that it is most contrary to Christian duty to follow, in worldly fashion, pleasures of every kind, to be afraid of the hardships attending a virtuous life, and to deny nothing to self that soothes and delights the senses. "They that are Christ's, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences"] -- so that it follows that they who are not accustomed to suffering, and who hold not ease and pleasure in contempt belong not to Christ. By the infinite goodness of God man lived again to the hope of an immortal life, from which he had been cut off, but he cannot attain to it if he strives not to walk in the very footsteps of Christ and conform his mind to Christ's by the meditation of Christ's example. Therefore this is not a counsel but a duty, and it is the duty, not of those only who desire a more perfect life, but clearly of every man "always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus." How otherwise could the natural law, commanding man to live virtuously, be kept? For by holy baptism the sin which we contracted at birth is destroyed, but the evil and tortuous roots of sin, which sin has engrafted, and by no means removed. This part of man which is without reason -- although it cannot beat those who fight manfully by Christ's grace -- nevertheless struggles with reason for supremacy, clouds the whole soul and tyrannically bends the will from virtue with such power that we cannot escape vice or do our duty except by a daily struggle. "This holy synod teaches that in the baptized there remains concupiscence or an inclination to evil, which, being left to be fought against, cannot hurt those who do not consent to it, and manfully fight against it by the grace of Jesus Christ; for he is not crowned who does not strive lawfully." There is in this struggle a degree of strength to which only a very perfect virtue, belonging to those who, by putting to flight evil passions, has gained so high a place as to seem almost to live a heavenly life on earth. Granted; grant that few attain such excellence; even the philosophy of the ancients taught that every man should restrain his evil desires, and still more and with greater care those who from daily contact with the world have the greater temptations -- unless it be foolishly thought that where the danger is greater watchfulness is less needed, or that they who are more grievously ill need fewer medicines. (Pope Leo XIII, Exeunte Iam Anno, December 25, 1888.)

 

Writing twenty-eight years earlier, Father Frederick William Faber explained the allure of naturalism in his own day in an England that had finally become "tolerant" of Catholics, many of whom responded to this "tolerance" by becoming as worldly as their Protestant countrymen, many of whose descendants today have reverted back to their pre-Christian Druid origins:

All devotions have their characteristics; all of them have their own theological meanings. We must say something, therefore, upon the characteristics of the devotion to the Precious Blood. In reality the whole Treatise has more or less illustrated this matter. But something still remains to be said, and something will bear to be repeated. We will take the last first. Devotion to the Precious Blood is the devotional expression of the prominent and characteristic teaching of St. Paul. St. Paul is the apostle of redeeming grace. A devout study of his epistles would be our deliverance from most of the errors of the day. He is truly the apostle of all ages. To each age doubtless he seems to have a special mission. Certainly his mission to our is very special. The very air we breathe is Pelagian. Our heresies are only novel shapes of an old Pelagianism. The spirit of the world is eminently Pelagian. Hence it comes to pass that wrong theories among us are always constructed round a nuclear of Pelagianism; and Pelagianism is just the heresy which is least able to breathe in the atmosphere of St. Paul. It is the age of the natural as opposed to the supernatural, of the acquired as opposed to the infused, of the active as opposed to the passive. This is what I said in an earlier chapter, and here repeat. Now, this exclusive fondness for the natural is on the whole very captivating. It takes with the young, because it saves thought. It does not explain difficulties; but it lessens the number of difficulties to be explained. It takes with the idle; it dispenses from slowness and research. It takes with the unimaginative, because it withdraws just the very element in religion which teases them. It takes with the worldly, because it subtracts the enthusiasm from piety and the sacrifice from spirituality. It takes with the controversial, because it is a short road and a shallow ford. It forms a school of thought which, while it admits that we have an abundance of grace, intimates that we are not much better for it. It merges privileges in responsibilities, and makes the sovereignty of God odious by representing it as insidious. All this whole spirit, with all its ramifications, perishes in the sweet fires of devotion to the Precious Blood.

The time is also one of libertinage; and a time of libertinage is always, with a kind of practical logic, one of infidelity. Whatever brings out God's side in creation, and magnifies his incessant supernatural operation in it, is the controversy which infidelity can least withstand. Now, the devotion to the Precious Blood does this in a very remarkable way. It shows that the true significance in every thing is to be found in the scheme of redemption, apart from which it is useless to discuss the problems of creation. (Father Frederick Faber, The Precious Blood, written in 1860, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 258-259.)

This is just as much a description of our own days as it was of Father Faber's. Indeed, Father Faber was merely describing naturalism's hatred for the Holy Faith, a hatred that is from Hell and that is meant to send souls there for all eternity as disorder is sown into the hearts and souls of men to be spread abroad in one nation after another as even well-meaning people come to believe that there is some naturalistic "remedy" for the evils of naturalism that are at the proximate root of our personal and social problems today. Even most Catholics, including most traditionally-minded all up and down and across the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide, are steeped in some kind of Pelagianism, the belief that man is more or less "self-redemptive" and that "he" can "solve" whatever problems he faces by stirring up within him the natural strength or "energy" or "life force" to do so. Pelagianism is of the essence of the spirit of Americanism. It is of the essence of spirit of Modernity with which the counterfeit church of conciliarism has made its "official reconciliation."

Naturalism's pull on the human being is really nothing new. It has been manifested ever since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden after having partaken of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from which God had forbidden them to eat after He had created them out of the slime of the earth. Even the Hebrew people decided to worship a molten calf after they believed that Moses had abandoned while atop Mount Sinai conversing with God face to face:

And the people seeing that Moses delayed to come down from the mount, gathering together against Aaron, said: Arise, make us gods, that may go before us: for as to this Moses, the man that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we know not what has befallen him. And Aaron said to them: Take the golden earrings from the ears of your wives, and your sons and daughters, and bring them to me. And the people did what he had commanded, bringing the earrings to Aaron. And when he had received them, he fashioned them by founders' work, and made of them a molten calf. And they said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. And when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it, and made proclamation by a crier's voice, saying: Tomorrow is the solemnity of the Lord.

And rising in the morning, they offered holocausts, and peace victims, and the people sat down to eat, and drink, and they rose up to play.

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: Go, get thee down: thy people, which thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, hath sinned. They have quickly strayed from the way which thou didst shew them: and they have made to themselves a molten calf, and have adored it, and sacrificing victims to it, have said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. And again the Lord said to Moses: See that this people is stiffnecked: Let me alone, that my wrath may be kindled against them, and that I may destroy them, and I will make of thee a great nation.

But Moses besought the Lord his God, saying: Why, O Lord, is thy indignation kindled against thy people, whom thou hast brought out of the land of Egypt, with great power, and with a mighty hand? Let not the Egyptians say, I beseech thee: He craftily brought them out, that he might kill them in the mountains, and destroy them from the earth: let thy anger cease, and be appeased upon the wickedness of thy people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou sworest by thy own self, saying: I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven: and this whole land that I have spoken of, I will give to you seed, and you shall possess it for ever. And the Lord was appeased from doing the evil which he had spoken against his people. And Moses returned from the mount, carrying the two tables of the testimony in his hand, written on both sides,

And made by the work of God: the writing also of God was graven in the tables. And Josue hearing the noise of the people shouting, said to Moses: The noise of battle is heard in the camp. But he answered: It is not the cry of men encouraging to fight, nor the shout of men compelling to flee: but I hear the voice of singers. And when he came nigh to the camp, he saw the calf, and the dances: and being very angry, he threw the tables out of his hand, and broke them at the foot of the mount: And laying hold of the calf which they had made, he burnt it, and beat it to powder, which he strowed into water, and gave thereof to the children of Israel to drink.

And he said to Aaron: What has this people done to thee, that thou shouldst bring upon them a most heinous sin? And he answered him: Let not my lord be offended: for thou knowest this people, that they are prone to evil. They said to me: Make us gods, that may go before us: for as to this Moses, who brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, we know not what is befallen him. And I said to them: Which of you hath any gold? and they took and brought it to me: and I cast it into the fire, and this calf came out. And when Moses saw that the people were naked, (for Aaron had stripped them by occasion of the shame of the filth, and had set them naked among their enemies,)  (Exodus 32: 1-25)

There were many times during the one thousand or so years of Christendom when even baptized Catholics acted as pagans, which is one of the reasons that the Black Death was visited upon them in the Fourteenth Century. 

Faber Faber described how Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ explained in three private revelations, one to Blessed Henry Suso, O.P., and the other two to Saint Gertrude the Great, that His people of the New and Eternal Covenant were more concerned about "carnivals" than of serving Him by living more penitential lives:

There are three very beautiful revelations by which God has been pleased to make known how acceptable to His Divine Majesty is this reparation at the Carnival. One is to the Blessed Henry Suso, the Dominican; the other two to St. Gertrude. I will quote one of these last, as embodying the spirit which I am anxious this treatise should convey. It is from the fourth book of her Insinuations of Divine Piety.

At the time of the Carnival, the Lord Jesus appeared to her sitting upon the throne of His glory, and St. John the Evangelist was sitting at Our Lord's feet, writing. The Saint asked him what he was writing and Our Lord answered for him. "I am having every one of your devotions your congregation offered to Me yesterday, and all those they are going to offer these next two days, carefully noted down in this paper. And when I, to whom the Father has committed all judgment, shall faithfully render to everyone after his death, "good" measure for all the labors of his pious works, and shall add moreover the measure 'pressed down' of My most salutary Passion and death, whereby all man's merit is marvelously ennobled, I will take them with this paper to the Father, that He also, out of the omnipotence of His paternal kindness, may super-add them to His measure of 'shaken together and running over,' for these benefits kindly done to Me in this persecution by which worldly men on these days harass Me. For, as none are equal to Me in faithfulness, muss less can I omit to recompense My benefactors, seeing that even King David, who all his life through never omitted to heap kindnesses on his benefactors, yet, when he came to die, and committed his kingdom to Solomon, said to him, 'Thou shalt show favor the sons of Berzellai, the alaadite, and they shall eat at thy table, for they came to meet me when I fled from the face of thy brother Absalom. A kindness shown to men in the time of adversity is more acceptable than in the time of prosperity; so I the more gratefully accept this fidelity which is shown to Me when the world is especially persecuting Me with sin."

The Blessed John, sitting and writing, seemed sometimes to dip his pen into an inkhorn which he held in his hand, and out of it to write black letters, and sometimes he dipped it into the loving Wound of the Side of Jesus, which stood open before him, and out of that he wrote red letters. Again, he touched up the red letters, partly with black and partly with gold. And the Saint [Gertrude] understood that by the black letters were indicated those works which the religious did from custom, as the fast which they commonly begin on this Monday. By the red letters were expressed those words which were done in memory of the Passion of Jesus Christ, with a special intention for the emendation of the Church. As to the red letters partly blackened and partly gilded, she understood that by those partly blackened were meant works done in memory of Our Lord's Passion, to obtain for ourselves the grace of God and other gifts concerning our salvation. Those words, on the contrary, which were done purely for the glory of God, in union with Christ's Passion and for the salvation of all men, renouncing all merit, reward and favor, simply to give praise and show love to God, were expressed by the red letters, partly gilded. For although the foregoing works obtain from God a copious remuneration, those which are done purely for the love of God's praise are of much greater merit and dignity, and confer upon a man an infinitely greater augmentation of eternal bliss.

She then perceived that after every two paragraphs there was a vacant place, and she asked Our Lord what that denoted. He replied: "As it is your custom to serve Me at this season with devout desires and prayers in memory of My Passion, I have first the thoughts and then the words, by which you serve Me, carefully written down, every one of them. The vacant place means this, that the works which you do, you are not accustomed to do, like the thoughts and words in memory of My Passion." The Saint rejoined: "And how, O most loving God! can we laudably do this?" Our Lord replied: "By keeping all fasts, vigils and other regular observances in union with My Passion. And whensoever you refrain yourself in seeing, hearing, and speaking and the like, always offer it to Me in union with that love whereby I refrained all My senses in My Passion. With one glance I could have terrified all My adversaries, with one word I could have convicted of falsehood all who contradicted Me; yet was I like a sheep led to the slaughter; and with My head humbly bowed down, and My eyes fixed upon the ground; and before My judge I opened not My mouth for so much as one word of excuse from the false charges laid against Me." The Saint answered: "Teach me, O Best of Teachers, at least one thing which I may do especially in memory of Thy Passion." Our Lord replied, "Take, then, this practice, to pray with your arms extended, thus expressing the form of My Passion to God the Father, for the emendation of the Universal Church, in union with that love wherewith I stretched out My hands upon the Cross." And she said: "And as this is not a common devotion, should I seek out secret places to practice it in?" And Our Lord answered: "The custom of seeking out secret places pleases Me well, and is a fresh adornment to the work, as the gem adorns the necklace. Yet," He added, "if anyone should bring this devotion of praying with extended arms into common use, he need fear no contradiction, and he will pay Me the same honor as one pays to a kin who solemnly enthrones him."

What is it, then, for which I am pleading? Only for this: that you should not altogether cut yourselves off from the glory of God, as it it were no concern of yours, and that you and He were not in partnership! This is really all. God is going to give you His glory for your own in Heaven to all eternity. Surely you cannot altogether disclaim connection with it now; surely its interests very much concern you; its success must be your success, and its failure your failure too. You cannot stand aloof form the cause of Jesus on earth, and even keep up a sort of armed neutrality with God, when you desire as soon as ever you die, without so much as tasting the sharpness of Purgatory, to be locked in His closest embrace of unutterable love forevermore. Yet this is the plain English of the lives of most Catholics. And can anything be more unreasonable, more ungenerous, more mean! And you wonder we have not converted England! Verily we do not look like a people who have come to kindle a fire upon the earth, nor to be pining because it is not kindled. Ah, Jesus! these are Thy worst wounds. I think lightly of the ruddy scars of Thy hands and feet, of the bruised knee and the galled shoulder, of the thousand-wounded head and wide-open Heart. But these wounds--the wounds of coldness, neglect, unpraying selfishness--the wounds of the few that were once fervid and now are tepid, of the multitudes that never were fervent and so cannot even claim the odious honors of tepidity--the wounds wherewith Thou wert wounded in the house of Thy friends--these are the wounds to be wiped with our tears, and softened with the oil of our affectionate compassion. Blessed Lord! I can hardly believe Thou art what I know Thou art, when I see Thy people wound Thee thus! And my own wretched heart! It too, lets me into sad secrets about many's capability of coldness, and his infinity of ingratitude. Alas! the concluding chapters of the four Gospels--they read like a bitter jest upon the faithful! And then, we live as if we would petulantly say, "Well, we cannot help it. If Jesus chose do to and to be all this, it is His own affair. We only wanted absolution; we only wanted a machine to be saved by--a locomotive into Heaven--the cheapest and roughest that would do the work, and land us at the terminus. You devout people, in reality, stand in the way of religion. It may be hard for us to define enthusiasm; but you surely are enthusiasts. What we mean is, you are all heart and no head. Mere heat will not do instead of talent. Earnestness is not theology. There are other things to be done in life besides going to Mass and Confession. How can we have confidence in people who let themselves be run away with religious fervor? All this incarnation of a God, this romance of a Gospel, these unnecessary sufferings, this prodigal bloodshedding, this exuberance of humiliations, this service of love, this condolence of amorous sorrow, to say the truth, it is irksome to us; we are not at home in it at all; the thing might have been done otherwise; it was a matter of debtor and creditor; everyone is not a poet; everyone cannot take to the romantic. Really, there must be a mistake in the matter. God is very good, and His love is very well in its way. Of course He loves us, and of course we love Him. But really, by a little practical common sense, and a few wholesome reasonable precepts, and a strictly conscientious discharge of our relative duties, might we not put this tremendous mythology of Christian love, with all possible respect, a little on one side, and go to Heaven by a plan, beaten, sober, moderate path, more accordant to our character as men and to our dignity as British subjects? If 'the Anglo-Saxon race really fell in Adam,' why, obviously we must take the consequences. Still, let the mistake be repaired in that quiet, orderly way, and with that proper exhibition of sound sense which are so dear to Englishmen."

Well! if it must be so, I can only think of those bold words of St. Mary Magdalen de Pazzi: "O Jesus! Thou hast made a fool of Thyself through love."

O poor desolate glory of God! Thou art a foundling upon the earth! No one will claim thee, or acknowledge kindred with thee, or give thee a home. Cold as the world is, and pitiless the pelting of incessant sin, thou liest crying at or doors, and men heed thee not. Poor homeless glory! earth was meant for thee once as much as Heaven, but there have been robbers abroad, and it is not safe travelling for thee along our roads now. But there are some few of us still who have pledged ourselves to Heaven, that from this hour we will take thee to our homes, as John took Mary; "Henceforth our substance is thy substance, and all that we have is thine." (Father Frederick Faber, All For Jesus, written in 1854, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 66-71.)

It is important, therefore, to view past events, such as the Cristeros War, not principally through the lens of a splendid and stirring cinematic production, For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada. This very fine motion picture was,  of course, produced by well-meaning conciliarists who sought to transform a battle in behalf of the restoration of Mexico to the Catholic Faith under the banner of Christ the King and La Virgen de Guadalupe into one of the conciliar concept of religious liberty that was termed a "monstrous right" by Pope Pius VI and a heresy by Pope Pius VII and "insanity" by Pope Gregory XVI and by Pope Pius IX as responsible for permitting the spread of "babbling inanities" (see the appendix published in part two below for a reminder). It thus tells only part of the story about Cristiada and, as noted in part one and part three of this series, its omission of any mention of the assassination of Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J., is glaring as that event helped to galvanize the support for the cause of the Cristeros among many Catholics in Mexico who had theretofore kept silent.

Even though the League for the Defense of Religious Liberty sought to work within the legal framework in which Mexico found itself to petition the government for an end to the repression of Holy Mother Church, it should be remembered that its members understood very clearly once the battle had been engaged that the regime itself had to go and that all of the conditions of a justified revolt had been met (there had been a wound to justice, all peaceful means to remedy the wound had been exhausted and failed, and there was a reasonable chance of success in meeting the just end). It was, as noted in part three of this series, the military and economic assistance provided by the murderous regime of Plutarco Elias Calles and his stooges by the government of the United States of America that began to turn the tide in favor of Red Mexico. Even with that American assistance, however, the Cristeros were holding their own and might have prevailed had not the "peace accords," discussed in parts three and part four of this series.

There are many lessons from the Cristeros War to be applied to our times today. Although some of those lessons have been sketched out in each of the first four parts of this series, I want to conclude the series with a more sustained explanation as it is my hope that doing so will provide a general summary of the state of the world, steeped in the anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity, and the state of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which is steeped in the errors of Modernism that are but an embrace of the errors of Modernity with a slightly Catholic "gloss."

I. God and Anti-God, Christ and Anti-Christ

At the essence of the errors of Modernity is one of the essential lies of Judeo-Masonry: that it is possible for men to pursue virtue and thus to live together in "peace" in a "well-ordered republic" without a firm belief every jot and tittle contained in the Sacred Deposit of Faith and without an abiding belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace. It follows quite logically that the anti-Incarnational fervor of Modernity carries with it a hatred of the Mother of God in whose Virginal and Immaculate Womb the Word was made Flesh and dwelt amongst us. There can be no public honor accorded to Our Lady as a result. Indeed, there must be public mockery her as well as of her Divine Son, the very Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity made Incarnate within her by the power of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost.

As noted in part one in a summary of points made hundreds upon hundreds of time on this site and in Conversion in Reverse: How the Ethos of Americanism Converted Catholics and Contributed to the Rise of Conciliarism, the founders of the United States of America believed this with ever fiber of their being as they were inheritors of the rotten legacy of the Protestant Revolution's overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the so-called "Enlightenment's" deification of man.

The Jacobins of the French Revolution took this to its next level, waging what the late Father Vincent Miceli, S.J., said in his book The Antichrist was the world's first anti-Theistic revolution, that is, a revolution against God Himself. While it can be said that this was also true of the Protestant Revolution, which was an attack on God Himself and the Sacred Deposit of Faith that He entrusted exclusively to His perfect society, the Catholic Church, for its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication, the French Revolution was the first of the social revolutions founded specifically in a hatred for God and a contempt for His Holy Church, which was mocked with the formation of a state-sponsored "Constitutional Church," replete with true bishops, mind you, which is more than can be said of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, and a zeal for the murder of clerics and those who sponsored them. It is in this environment that, as noted in part three of this series, that Father William Joseph Chaminade worked in the underground and that formed the young Jean Marie Vianney, who was born on May 8, 1786, just a little over three years before the outbreak of the French Revolution on July 14, 1789.

Anticlerical fervor, fueled by the lodges of Judeo-Masonry, spread quickly throughout Europe, attacking the heart of the chief citadel of Christendom, the Papal States, with the Risorgimento of the Italian Masons, who seethed with anticlerical hatred and who, acting in the spirit of Martin Luther and Henry VIII, sought to close monasteries and dispossess religious communities. One of the first goals of the Italian Masons was to control the minds of the young by means of public schools, forcing Catholic teachers, including religious, to be "licensed" by the civil authorities, and, of course, to do what the French Revolutionaries had done, to strike at the heart of the domestic cell of Holy Mother Church, the family, by permitting divorce, which has been perhaps the singularly most powerful tool that the devil has used to turn people against the true God of Divine Revelation and the Holy Laws that He has entrusted to His Holy Church.

Otto von Bismarck's Kulturkampf, waged following Prussia's victory in the Franco-Prussian War and the unification of the German states, a revolution instituted by this consummate Freemason to consolidate the power of the united Germany as citizens were taught to obey the new hierarchy of civil authority that desired to make them more and more dependent upon the largesse of the civil state and to mind their masters without dissent, thus arrogating unto the civil state what belongs by right to the Catholic Church. The elderly were forced into retirement and a system of social security was established to make them dependent upon the largesse of the state and to drive a wedge between them and their children, who were "freed" from their obligations under the Fourth Commandment to return unto their parents the care and support that they themselves had received before they were grown. The warfare that Bismarck waged against the Church in Germany was denounced in no uncertain term by Pope Pius IX in Etsi Multa, November 21, 1873.

II God and Anti-God, Christ and Anti-Christ in Mexico Under Plutarco Elias Calles and the Naturalists of the United States of America

It was no different with Plutarco Elias Calles, who was an atheist possessed of a hatred for God and His Holy Church, descended as he was from a century-long line of Mexican anticlericalists. The battle being waged by the Cristeros, therefore, was a battle against the forces of anti-God, the forces of anti-Christ, and the peasant farmers and ranchers who made up the bulk of their fighting forces knew that this was so, just as had the brave French Catholics of the Vendee in the 1790s and the equally brave Spanish Catholics who fought against the "republicans" (Communists) in the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) to prevent the efforts of anticlericalists to rid Spain of Catholicism once and for all. The battle of the Cristeros was not a battle for "religious liberty." It was a battle against the forces of Hell itself, a veritable modern-day Battle of Lepanto that ended battle for the Christian forces because of the anticlericalists in the government of the United States of America and the betrayal of the man in the Vatican who trusted them, Pietro Cardinal Gasparri.

We face a similar situation today. Note that the word "similar" was used.

Our situation in the United States of America is not identical to that of Mexico.

First, we do not have and have never had a Catholic nation.

Yes, much of the land that constitutes the contiguous forty-eight states of the United States of America was Catholic in name and in practice long before English settlers came to these shores and that other parts of those states had been explored by Catholics as the natives in various places were evangelized by missionaries, principally the Jesuits and, especially in the southwest and west, the Franciscans.

Granted.

However, the entity known as the United States of America has never been Catholic. Most Catholics in this country believe in the ethos of Americanism. Most of them practice contraception. An sizable number support baby-killing on demand and see nothing with "loving couples" of the same gender having the "right" to "marry." They are merry participants in the rot of popular culture that comes from the devil and is designed to lead souls to Hell for all eternity. A majority of baptized Catholics voted for the current caesar, Barry Soetero (aka Barack Hussein Obama), on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, and perhaps as much as forty-five percent of them, will do so again on Tuesday, November 6, 2012.

Many Catholics, immersed in the ways of Americanism and its logical Catholic offshoot, conciliarism, support every form of statism imaginable, including ObamaCare and the the mandate issued by the pro-abortion Catholic Secretary of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, to require that all employers, including religious institutions, to provide health insurance coverage for contraception and other "family planning" services.

Far from opposing a man who is, all protestations to the contrary, effectively an atheist and a pagan, Obama, many Catholics actually find him "likeable" as a person despite-or, quite perhaps, because of--his constant resort to class warfare and his efforts to demonize all opposition as illegitimate. Never mind the fact that Obama, who has made remarks about those who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustration" that are remarkably similar to the anti-theistic screeds of the likes Plutarco Elias Calles and his stooges. No, never mind this at all. Obama is considered to be "likeable" when, of course, he is a figure to be pitied as he is ignorant of all true history and, most especially, of the true Faith and is thus the prisoner of all manner of self-delusional lies, starting with his own fictional biography.

Although many people today are focused on the "Fast and Furious" scandal whose cover-up by United States Attorney General Eric Holder has now resulted in Obama's close friend and confidante and one-time enabler of William Jefferson Clinton's crimes and of the fugitive financier Marc Rich (see Memo to Eric Holder: There Is No Affirmative Action Program In Heaven) being cited by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the United States House of Representatives with being in contempt of Congress, noting that both Americans and Mexicans have died as a result of the gun-running scheme, this is simply a continuation of basic American policy from the beginning.

That is, American officials intent on getting their way have always considered the lives of innocent human lives, both of Americans non-Americans alike, expendable to accomplish their goals.

Too bad for the Indians of North America, many of whom were evangelized by the Black Robes, the Jesuits, and the Friars of Saint Francis of Assisi. Too bad.

Too bad for the Mexicans from 1821 onward.

Too bad for the Catholics of The Philippines and Cuba and Puerto Rico and Guam.

Too bad for the innocent Iraqis and Afghans and Pakistanis who have died in the reckless pursuit of a Trotsky-like "global war on terror."

Too bad for the blacks who had to suffer from chattel slavery and then were subjected to share cropping and, finally, the social engineering of the statists from the time of Margaret Sanger and her allies in the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt onward.

Too bad for the over fifty-four million babies killed by surgical means alone in the United States of America since 1965.

Too bad for the babies in Red China who still continue to die as a result of forced abortions and the hideous one-child-per-family policy that receives no condemnation from the lips of Willard Mitt Romney and is supported by Barack Hussein Obama and has been denigrated by Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., who was force to backtrack a bit from his kowtowing to the Chicoms when in Red China last year (see Gruesome photos of forced abortion in China confirmed; Mutual Admiration Societies; Men Sin Wantonly, The Earth Rumbles and the Winds Blow).

Too bad that millions of American taxpayer dollars go to subsidize the pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-perversity World Health Organization without a word of criticism from Willard Mitt Romney and the full, open support of Barack Hussein Obama (see World Health Organization publishes manual on best ways to kill unborn babies).

Whether they be of the false opposite of the naturalist "left" or of the naturalist "right," men who are in the business of overseeing and justifying the killing of innocent human beings in the United States of America and elsewhere in the world as a matter of routine will think nothing of operations such as Fast and Furious. We must, as noted by Pope Gregory XVI in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, fall into the abyss whenever there is "immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty." Public life must, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, be stained with crime whenever Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ dos not reign as King both of men and of their nations.

Naturalism and the religious indifferentism in which it is based must produce men such as Plutarco Elias Calles, who was, of course, opposed fiercely by Catholics who stand up valiantly and died heroically as martyrs for the cause of Cristo Rey and La Virgen de Guadalupe, and Barry Soetero/Barack Hussein Obama, who is supported by at least two-fifths, if not more, of baptized Catholics despite his public crimes against God and man and thus the good of the nation he has sworn to serve.

Pope Leo XIII explained to us that the practical atheism of men such as Barack Hussein Obama and the actual atheism of men such as Plutarco Elias Calles, united as they are in the shedding of innocent blood under cover of the civil law, must occur as the consequence of the religiously neutral state, of the so-called "separation of Church and State" that Pope Saint Pius X called a "thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error" that our popes "have never ceased to condemn" but that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict praises as a boon both to the Catholic Church and the civil state:

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. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

To those Catholics who would answer that a generic form of "Christianity" is "good enough" for social order, I respond with a firm "nyet."

How can men who are disunited on First and Last Things be united in the pursuit of the common temporal good, which must be subordinated to man's Last End, the possession of the very Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity? Whatever semblance or approximation of order exited prior to the 1960s was the result of the Actual Graces in the world made present by the offerings of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at the hands of true priests. We are living witnesses of what happens to men and nations when such true Masses are not offered, when bogus priests stage liturgical ceremonies that are sacramentally barren and thus hideous in the sight of God. We only have to open the supernatural eyes of our immortal souls to see that this is so.

Finally on this point, Protestantism is not Christianity. Each of the over thirty-three thousands sects of Protestantism are heretical entities that are nothing other than rationalistic efforts to make of the true God of Divine Revelation a projection of their own meandering and self-contradictory rationalisms, a description that fits Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his band of conciliar revolutionaries just as much, of course, as will be demonstrated below in the next section.

Remember there can be no no Christianity without the Mass:

"Where there is no Mass," writes one of the Fathers of the English Oratory, "there is no Christianity." The reason is plain. Christ's life was one of sacrifice--not merely of the figurative sacrifice of praise and prayer, but one of outward act, of suffering and of death. His religion must be like Himself: it must be the continuation of the divine human life that He led upon earth, representing and perpetuating, by some sacred rite, the sacrifice that began in the womb of Mary and ended upon the cross of Calvary. That rite is the holy Mass. Do we always realize it as such? Does the conviction sink deep into us, when offering, or assisting at the adorable sacrifice, that Jesus is re-enacting, in our presence, the mysteries of His life and death?

The altar of the Mass is the holy house of Nazareth, the city of Bethlehem, the Egyptian place of exile, the hill of Calvary, the garden-tomb in which Our Saviour's corpse reposed, and the Mount of Olives from which He ascended. The Passion, it is true, is that which is primarily represented and continued in the holy Mass; yet the prayers and rites of the sacrifice refer, at times, to other mysteries. Thus the dropping of a part of the sacred host into the chalice, before the Agnus Dei, represents the reunion of Christ's soul with His body and blood on the morning of the Resurrection. For a description of the many and beautiful analogies between the eucharistic life of Our Lord and His sacred Infancy, we refer the reader to Father Faber's Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament.

The Mass is truly a "hidden treasure," and, alas, our cold, dead faith allows it to remain so. If we valued it as we ought, we would hurry every morning to the church, ceaseless of the snows of winter and the heats of summer, in order to get a share of the riches of this treasure.

The saints knew the value of one Mass: that it was a dark day in their calendar on which they were deprived of the happy privilege of saying or hearing Mass. Although St. Francis de Sales was overburdened with apostolic work on the Mission of the Chablais, he made it a point never to miss his daily Mass. In order to keep his holy resolution, he had frequently to cross the river Drance, to the village of Marin, in which there was a Catholic church. It happened, in the winter of 1596, that a great freshet carried away a portion of the bridge over the stream, and the passengers were, in consequence, compelled to cross on a plank laid over those arches of the broken structure that had withstood the waters. Heavy falls of snow, followed by severe frosts, made this board very slippery, so that it became dangerous to attempt passing on on it; but St. Francis was not be deterred, for despite the remonstration of his friends, he made the perilous journey every morning, creeping over the icy plank on his hands and feet, thus daily risking his life rather than lose Mass.

Dear Christian reader! beg this glorious saint to obtain for you and me some portion of his burning love for the most holy and adorable sacrifice of the altar. (The American preface to The Hidden Treasure: Holy Mass, by Saint Leonard of Port Maurice.)

 

No, no one who disbelieves in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass practices true Christianity, which is, of course, Catholicism. No baptized Catholic who disbelieves that the Mass is indeed the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Son to the Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross is a Catholic in good standing. We have seen, therefore, a convergence of the dark forces of Protestantism and of Modernism, the former of which which has helped to create and the latter of which has joined the former to sustain a world that can only degenerate over the course of time because of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and disbelief in the necessity of men and their nations to gather around the Sacrifice of the Cross every day in Holy Mass. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the chief means by which the souls of men are sanctified. It is thus the chief means by which nations can know any semblance of social order as individual men seek to live in this live as befits citizens of Heaven mindful that every one of their actions has an eternal dimension and must be subordinated to the Deposit of Faith that Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church.

Those who want to take false refuge in the assertion that some of the American founders were influenced by "Christian" beliefs have no place to hide as Protestantism is false and thus evil of its very nature. Similarly, those who want to assert that some of the American founders were influenced by the writings of Saint Robert Bellarmine and possibly Saint Thomas Aquinas do not understand or accept the fact that the founders read the writings of various Catholics as understood through the prism of the effects of the Protestant Revolution and the naturalism of the so-called "Enlightenment," not as Holy Mother Church understands these writings.

The Cristeros of Mexico did not fight for a generic Christianity. Vivified by the fruits of the Holy Mass and the graces sent to them by and their devotion to the Mother of God, they fought and died for the Catholic Faith, whose Roman Rite has only one true form of worship: the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, which is why it was as essential tot he conciliar revolutionaries to wipe this Mass off the face of this earth as it was for Plutarco Elias Calles to send his storm-troopers in to assassinate priests and to exile bishops while he made war upon Christ the King and La Virgen de Guadalupe.

Make no mistake about it: Barack Hussein Obama and his band of statists, inspired as they are by the devil himself, whether or not they know it, understand, however inchoately, the power of the true Mass, which is why agents of the United States Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms of the United States Department of Justice has been combing through to records of religious goods stores to ascertain the names and addresses of those who purchase altar wine. Our day is coming. Our own underground chapels, no matter how much they have been and continue to be at war with each other, are being monitored. Our day is coming.

Unlike the Cristeros, however, we do not have a united band of Catholics to resist with armed force. Our situation is much more similar to that faced by the Catholics of the Roman Empire, the brave souls who practiced the Faith underground during periods of the fiercest persecution but who, when push came to shove, gave up their freedom and their lives voluntarily without resistance in order to save the souls and to plant the seeds for the spread of the true Faith. These Catholics were outnumbered by military forces. So are we. Much like those brave souls, however, we are "weapons" that are far more powerful: we have the true Mass, we have True Devotion to Mary and her Fatima Message. We have her Most Holy Rosary and her Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel and her Miraculous Medal and Green Scapular. We have total consecration to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

How can we fail even if we have to forfeit our freedom and our lives. Indeed, this might the way that some of us wretched sinners, especially this writer, save our immortal souls despite own best efforts every day to go to Hell by means of our thoughts, words and deeds?

With Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen, my friends, how can we fail? How?

Do we not take seriously these words of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, Himself?

Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles: But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.

The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come. The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?

Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops. And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 

Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows. Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me. (Matthew 10: 16-33)

III. Anti-God, Anti-Christ in the Counterfeit Church of Concilairism

The anti-God crusades of the Antichrists of Modernity have made all the more successful by the allied anti-God crusades of the Antichrists within the counterfeit church of concilairism, headed by revolutionaries who deny the very essence of God Himself by claiming that the formulation of His dogmatic truths at councils guided by His Holy Ghost. This is a direct warfare against God, making the formulation of his dogmatic truths to be nothing more than statements that are contingent on the language and the historical circumstances that gave rise to them and thus contain "implications" that need to be made more explicit over time as the "particulars" that gave rise to them become "obsolete."

This is a point that has, of course, been made hundreds of times on this site. It is a point that cannot be made enough as one the principle of the immutability of God and the articles contained in His Sacred Deposit of Faith is overturned, as has been done by the Modernists of conciliarism, then what passes for the Catholic Faith becomes nothing other another form of Protestantism, a rationalistic "religion" that projects onto God all manner of personal, subjective ideas that have try to make of God and His only Faith something obscure and hard to understand, something that must be "discovered" anew by each person in the depths of his being as he "searches" for the meaning of life and what kind of "relationship" he is to have with "his" God.

The entirety of the supposedly "private" writing and the public speeches and allocutions of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI reveal him to be a consummate rationalist and subjectivist steeped in one Modernist lie after another, starting with his attack on the nature of dogmatic truth that was review most recently in What Lines Are You Reading Between, Bishop Fellay?. He is not "confused." He is not an "erring" "pope." He is outside of the Barque of Peter as he holds views that defect from the Catholic Faith and makes other statements that appear to be "Catholic" but contain within them many drops of poison, requiring us to look once again at the following statement of who is and who is not a member of the Catholic Church given us by Pope Leo XIII in Paragraph Nine of Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896:

The Church, founded on these principles and mindful of her office, has done nothing with greater zeal and endeavour than she has displayed in guarding the integrity of the faith. Hence she regarded as rebels and expelled from the ranks of her children all who held beliefs on any point of doctrine different from her own. The Arians, the Montanists, the Novatians, the Quartodecimans, the Eutychians, did not certainly reject all Catholic doctrine: they abandoned only a certain portion of it. Still who does not know that they were declared heretics and banished from the bosom of the Church? In like manner were condemned all authors of heretical tenets who followed them in subsequent ages. "There can be nothing more dangerous than those heretics who admit nearly the whole cycle of doctrine, and yet by one word, as with a drop of poison, infect the real and simple faith taught by our Lord and handed down by Apostolic tradition" (Auctor Tract. de Fide Orthodoxa contra Arianos).

The practice of the Church has always been the same, as is shown by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, who were wont to hold as outside Catholic communion, and alien to the Church, whoever would recede in the least degree from any point of doctrine proposed by her authoritative Magisterium. Epiphanius, Augustine, Theodore drew up a long list of the heresies of their times. St. Augustine notes that other heresies may spring up, to a single one of which, should any one give his assent, he is by the very fact cut off from Catholic unity. "No one who merely disbelieves in all (these heresies) can for that reason regard himself as a Catholic or call himself one. For there may be or may arise some other heresies, which are not set out in this work of ours, and, if any one holds to one single one of these he is not a Catholic" (S. Augustinus, De Haeresibus, n. 88). (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his band of conciliar revolutionaries are much more dangerous than the likes of the Jacobins of the French Revolution or the anticlericalists/Socialists/Communists of the Mexican Revolution or the Bolsheviks of Russia or the Maoists of China or the naturalists of the false opposites of the "right" or the "left" in the supposedly civilized "West" where the civil law permits each of the four sins that cry out for vengeance and where a manner of licentiousness that would make even the licentious Romans of the Third Century A.D. blush with shame.

Much in the manner of the French Revolutionaries, who were opposed so valiantly by the Vendee in the 1790s, and all manner of other atheistic, anti-Theistic, anticlerical revolutionaries, including, of course, Plutarco Elias Calles and his willing stooges, the anti-God crusade of the figures of anti-Christ, possessed of one Modernist lie after another, starting, as noted just above, with the inherent "evolutionary" nature of dogmatic truth and hence of God Himself, have robbed ordinary Catholics of their churches, which have been subjected to all manner of sacrilege and unspeakable abominations.

Worse than the French Revolutionaries and their "Constitutional Church," the conciliarists have robbed Catholics in what is alleged to be the "Roman Rite" or "ordinary form of the 'one' Roman Rite" true bishops and true priests and thus of true sacraments, depriving them of the Real Presence of Christ the King in the Most Blessed Sacrament and the world of Actual Grace.

Worse than Plutarco Calles, Ratzinger/Benedict and his conciliarists have murdered countless numbers of souls.

The rationalist, subjectivist "wreckovators" of the conciliar liturgical revolution, which has been the principal means of communicating and ritualistically institutionalizing the apostasies, blasphemies and sacrileges of conciliarism, have "shot up" our once thoroughly Catholic church buildings more effectively, more brutally and more systematically than was ever done by Calles and band of murderous anticlericalists.

Statues have been topped in scenes that bear great similarities to the scenes of the destruction of statutes and the burning of crucifixes in For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada.

High altars have been demolished. 

Altar rails have been removed, thereby extinguishing the distinction between the holy of holies that is the sanctuary and the nave of churches, communicating thereby that the the "presider" of the liturgical assembly is merely a figurehead whose function is little different, either in degree or in kind, from that the common priesthood of the lay faithful.

The sanctuary, which represents the timelessness of the ineffable Sacrifice of Calvary and the eternity of God Himself, has been invaded by an influx of the laity, making a mockery of its sacred character and of sacred orders.

What is alleged to be the Sacred Species of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is handled by a bevy of "extraordinary ministers," who distribute what they think, albeit falsely, are consecrated hosts and chalices containing the Most Precious Blood to the laity, who then take the hosts in their own hands to "feed" themselves even though Our Lord Himself clearly told Saint Peter, our first Pope, to "feed my lambs" (cf. Jn. 21: 15)

The conciliar revolutionaries are far more dangerous than Plutarco Elias Calles and his stooges as they murder souls on a daily basis.

Yet it is that it is appearing more and more likely that Bishop Bernard Fellay will indeed proceed, perhaps after a bit more of a delay following the Extraordinary Chapter meeting of the Society of Saint Pius X that is to start thirteen days from now, with his "reconciliation" with these murderers of souls.

The path of the Cristeros?

No.

They lifted the banner of Christ the King high. They were willing to die for Christ the King.

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does believe in the doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King that Pope Pius XI noted in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio (December 23, 1922) was among those teachings must be "ever kept in mind," stating forcefully that those who reject the Church's teaching on the duties of the civil to recognize the true religion and to accord her the favor and protection of the laws belongs to a " species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism." Does Ratzinger/Benedict care? Of course not. Not with his philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity"

Sanguine about his own Modernist, subjectivist defections from the Faith, he countenances outright denials of Catholic doctrine by his "cardinals" and "priests. Remember, it has been 1,174 days since "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch, the President of the German conciliar "bishops'" conference and the conciliar "archbishop" of Freising in Breisgau, denied that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ died on the wood of the Cross in atonement for our sins. Thee has not been a word of "papal" rebuke. Then again, how can Ratzinger/Benedict condemn that with which he agrees?

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI (Sixty Years of Priestly Apostasy) is worse than Plutarco Elias Calles as he represents the agnosticism of Modernism to be Catholicism. At least Calles had the honesty to profess his atheism openly without masking in a variety of self-contradictory distortions of truth.

Playing the role of Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, who sought "reconciliation" with Calles, Bishop Bernard Fellay is seeking "reconciliation" with one who is far worse than Calles, Ratzinger/Benedict.

Viva Cristo Rey, Bishop Fellay?

IV. The Cristeros Said No To Calles and His "Law;" We Must Say No to Ratzinger and His False Religion

It is now nearly fifty years after the commencement of the "Second" Vatican Council by Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII on October 11, 1962, the Feast of Divine Redeemer. The apostasy is still going strong (see Still Celebrating Half A Century Of Apostasy).

Most of those in the Motu communities have long since made their "peace" with their self-serving rationalizations about how "necessary," "prudent" and thus "virtuous" it is to keep a "circumspect" silence about things that they know offend God and are harmful to souls. Some of the priests/presbyters in these communities used to be very vocal in their criticism of conciliarism's false doctrines. Several with whom we were acquainted in the past were openly critical of the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service.

One presbyter who has risen to a position of great prominence in his Motu community told us outside of the "dual function" church where he served that he "hated the Novus Ordo" and couldn't wait to get away from a parish where it was the principal liturgy.

Many were the diocesan/priests presbyters I knew back in the 1980s and 1990s who, though staging the Novus Ordo, hated it, mocked it and were roundly critical of the presence of women in the sanctuary and the lay distribution of what they believed to have been Holy Communion.

Alas, bold talk in private is not very brave. Bravery requires actions. Only one of those men I knew back in the 1990s actually broke from the conciliar authorities to join up with the Society of Saint Pius X, and it is not clear where he stands now on the matter of the pending "reconciliation" that might require him to return to the local non-cardinal and non-archbishop.

Most of those who spoke bold words in the past learned how to accept the thirty pieces of silver in exchange for "good standing" and, in the case of traditionally-minded diocesan clergymen, the thirty pieces of silver represented pastorates in plumb parishes and close friendships with conciliar ordinaries and, quite possibly, even a promotion to be a "monsignor" or a conciliar "bishop". All of this to be "recognized" by the men who blaspheme God and reaffirm adherents of false religions that it is possible for them to sanctify and thus to save their souls by remaining attached to their false beliefs until the time they die.

Although some Catholics in Mexico held their tongues for fear of being targeted by the forces of Calles, those who took the obligations imposed upon them by the Sacrament of Confirmation as soldiers in the Army of Christ. They knew that silence in the face of grave evils, which never just "kind of" go away, was a sin that could cost them the salvation of their immortal souls for all eternity.

The students and professionals and lawyers associated with the League for the Defense of Religious Liberty in Mexico City, Mexico, and the peasants who took up arms to fight the Calles Law both had the same objective before joining together: to openly oppose evil by calling it by its rightful name.

This has nothing to do with Catholicism. Nothing.

It is one thing to imitate Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ when mocked and reviled by others, especially in public or to one's face, as the truth about each of our lives is revealed only on the Last Day at the General Judgment of the living and the dead. It is indeed virtuous and necessary to keep completely silent when one is mocked and reviled and accused of all manner of things he has done in fact done. We are not, however, to remain silent hen others are being attacked for their defense of truth and, much more importantly, we are not to remain silent as the very honor and majesty and glory of God is blasphemed, especially by men posing falsely as officials of His true Church, and as His Sacred Deposit of Faith is distorted and misrepresented.

Who says so?

Well, let's start with Pope Saint Leo the Great:

But it is vain for them to adopt the name of catholic, as they do not oppose these blasphemies: they must believe them, if they can listen so patiently to such words. (Pope Saint Leo the Great, Epistle XIV, To Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica, St. Leo the Great | Letters 1-59 )

Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen, who gave up his life at the hands of the wretched group of people known as Calvinists, boldly rejected an offer to apostatize in order to save his life:

Outside the church he was surrounded by a crowd led by the preachers who offered to save his life if he would apostatize. Fidelis replied: "I came to extirpate heresy, not to embrace it", whereupon he was struck down. He was the first martyr of the Congregation of Propaganda. (St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen.)

As noted near the beginning of this commentary, much of concilairism is premised upon both the rationalism of Protestantism and that of Modernity. Dom Prosper Gueranger's discussion of the life and martyrdom of Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen features the following passage that has application to the situation that prevails today in this era of apostasy and betrayal:

Protestantism was established and rooted by the shedding of torrents of blood; and yet Protestants count it as a great crime that, here and there, the children of the true Church made an armed resistance against them. The heresy of the sixteenth century was the cruel and untiring persecutor of men, whose only crime was their adhesion to the old faith--the faith that had civilized the world. The so-called Reformation proclaimed liberty in matters of religion, and massacred Catholics who exercised this liberty, and prayed and believed as their ancestors had done for long ages before Luther and Calvin were born. A Catholic who gives heretics credit for sincerity when they talk about religious toleration proves the he knows nothing about the past or the present. There is a fatal instinct in error, which leads it to hate the Truth; and the true Church, by its unchangeableness, is a perpetual reproach to them that refuse to be her children. Heresy starts with an attempt to annihilate them that remain faithful; when it has grown tired of open persecution it vents its spleen in insults and calumnies; and when these do not produce the desired effect, hypocrisy comes in with its assurances of friendly forbearance. The history of Protestant Europe, during the last three centuries, confirms these statements; it also justifies us in honouring those courageous servants of God who, during that same period, have died for the ancient faith. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, On Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen.)

 

The Catholic Church is unchangeable. Unchangeable. It is time for those within the Society of Saint Pius X who have spoken out against Bishop Fellay's "plans" to recognize once and for all that Joseph Ratzinger is not "Pope" Benedict XVI and that the church is he heads is not the Catholic Church but her counterfeit ape.

Yet it is that Bishop Fellay continues to seek "full communion" with a man who does indeed give heretics "credit for sincerity when they talk about religious toleration" as he, Ratzinger/Benedict, is a heretic who believes in the same thing. He is even willing to "tolerate" Bishop Fellay and the priests who march with him into oblivion as long as they remain silent about things they know to be offensive to God and thus harmful to souls.

Silence?

Silence about "joint blessings" with the "clergy" of Protestant sects.

Silence about praise given to Martin Luther?

Silence about saying "Jews and Christians worship the same God"?

Silence about the denial of the very nature of dogmatic truth, which is a denial of the essence of God Himself?

Silence?

Once again, let us turn our attention to a true pope:

The bishop should not fear since the anointing of the Holy Spirit has strengthened him: the shepherd should not be afraid since the prince of pastors has taught him by his own example to despise life itself for the safety of his flock: the cowardice and depression of the hireling should not dwell in a bishop's heart. Our great predecessor Gregory [the Great], in instructing the heads of the churches, said with his usual excellence: "Often imprudent guides in their fear of losing human favor are afraid to speak the right freely. As the word of truth has it, they guard their flock not with a shepherd's zeal but as hirelings do, since they flee when the wolf approaches by hiding themselves in silence.... A shepherd fearing to speak the right is simply a man retreating by keeping silent." (Pope Pius VI, Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775.)

 

Pope Leo XIII had a few words to say about silence in the face of attacks upon truth:

But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

Catholics are never silent in the face of apostasy and betrayal and sacrilege and blasphemy.

Catholics must never be silent in the face of moral evils whose gravity is minimized by clerics and as the victims themselves are castigated for seeking justice for those who commit them. 

Just look at how so many Catholics have been silent about the moral evils in the conciliar structures and about moral evils in the world. It is because Catholics have been silent about the moral evils of the today that they have grown to accept them, participate in them and to consider to be irrelevant that they are protected under cover of the civil law and spread so widely in popular culture that those who are steeped various evils are considered to be worthy of emulation, if not election to public office as they relish with delight in their sinful lifestyles.

Sentimentality, one of the enduring effects of the Protestant Revolution that is part and parcel of the Americanist heresy, thus triumphs little by little as parents look the other way as their children watch television programs and motion pictures that promote licentiousness, as their children fall away from the Holy Faith, as their children marry outside of the Faith, as they do and say things that would make a hardened sailor blush. "You can't criticize my child. I love my child. He can do anything he wants." It's a short step from that to actually applauding clerics steeped in immorality (see Weak In Mind, Weakest Yet In Faith) to doing pitched battle with anyone who criticizes a favored politician or some other personage in whom one has invested a good deal of time and emotion and support (see We Must Abide By Truth, Not By Persons).

The Cristeros were not silent in the face of evil. Even the priests who served their sacramental needs and who did not the join the dozen or so who took up arms were not inactive in the face of evil. Neither were the priests who courageous ministered to Catholics in their homes without, obviously, broadcasting what they were doing as they imitated the bravery of the likes of Blessed Edmund Campion, S.J., and the other English Martyrs who had impressed upon their immortal souls the Priesthood and Victimhood of Christ the King, He Who is the Chief Priest and Victim of every Mass.

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J., who has not been legitimately canonized but who is surely in Heaven as he died a martyr for the Holy Faith, was fearless in the face of the persecution wrought by Plutarco Elias Calles and his bloodthirsty stooges. This is what he wrote about the necessity of speaking out in the face of injustice and evil:

We must speak, cry out against injustice, with confidence and not with fear. We proclaim the principles of the Church, the reign of love, never forgetting that it is also sometimes the reign of justice. (As found in Ann Ball, Blessed Miguel Pro: Twentieth Century Martyr, TAN Books and publishers, 1996, p. 110.)

I am ready to give my life for souls, but I want nothing from anyone for myself. All that I want is to lead them to God. If I kept anything for myself, I should be a thief, infamous; I should no longer be a priest. (As found in Ann Ball, Blessed Miguel Pro: Twentieth Century Martyr, TAN Books and publishers, 1996, p. 110.)

Assassinated on the Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord on August 6, 1875, fifty-two years before Father Pro's own assassination, Gabriel Garcia Moreno, the President of Ecuador, the country where, over two and one-half centuries before, Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres was favored with the messages of Our Lady of Good Success, left us quite a tremendous "last will and testament," if you will, a collection of his writings concerning the how a civil state should be governed according to the Mind of Christ the King and how prepared we must be to die for Him.

"There is no morality without Religion."

"All our small advances would be short-lived and untruthful, if we did not found the social order of our Republic on the Rock of the Catholic Church, always combated against yet always the conqueror."

"Our rapid progress will not serve for anything if the Republic does not advance daily in morality, in accordance with the reform of customs by the free action and salvation of the Catholic Church."

"I must confess, in all justice, that we owe everything to God, not only the growing prosperity of our small Republic, but also the means I employ for developing it, and even the desire that He has inspired me to work for His glory."

"Oh that God illuminate me, direct me in all things, and grant me the grace to die in defense of the Faith and Holy Church!"

"We will preserve the true Faith of our elders unharmed, even at the cost of our own life."

"The hope of every true Catholic must be founded, after God, on The Holy Virgin Mary."

"We who feel daily the effects of the continuous protection of Divine Providence; who see our incomes increased threefold in seventy-two percent, without new contributions, with actively continued spacious and comfortable communication roads, with public education developed progressively at all levels, with charitable organizations extended and multiplied to relieve the unfortunate and above all, with habits improved in accordance with the awakening of religious sentiment in the people, we are far from attributing to ourselves the merit we do not have, and recognize thankfully that we only owe to God the prosperity the Republic enjoys, since it constituted itself in 1869 as a Catholic nation."

"Hope would have abandoned me if I had not raised my eyes and heart to Heaven. . . ."

"The enemies of God and the Church can kill me; but GOD DOES NOT DIE!"

"If my enemies attack me for some crime I have committed, I ask their pardon and will try to mend my ways; but they conspire against me because I really love my Nation, because I try to save its most precious treasure--the Faith--, as I am and show myself to be the submissive son of the Church [...];  I must not, then, answer them any other thing than GOD DOES NOT DIE!"

"A true friend of liberty is he who tries to moralize his country; that he attempts to rectify social injustices and associates himself with good men to work tirelessly in favor of the Nation."

"The greatest enemies of our independence are licentiousness, demagogy and anarchy." (Francisco Salazar Alvarado, Encounter with History: Garcia Moreno, Catholic Leader of Latin America, published in the United States of America in 2006 by the Apostolate of Our Lady of Good Success, pp. 99-101.)

 

Anacleto Gonzales Flores, who was killed by the agents of Plutarco Elias Calles on April 27, 1927, was so inspired by the example set by Gabriel Garcia Moreno a half century before that he uttered the same words as Moreno had done after he had been struck down: "I die but God does not die!"

Silence, anyone?

Silence, Bishop Fellay, in the face of the spiritually murderous beliefs and practices of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI?

How is remaining silent about Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's infamous blasphemies, apostasies and sacrileges anything other than a retreat into a self-serving effort to rationalize cowardice in order to curry favor with a man who is not even a member of the Catholic Church?

Indeed, Father Pro warned against priests who would retreat into petty self-interests, committed to serving one particular soul, rather than embracing the cross of mockery and scorn that comes with opposing evil openly, praying as follows to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus:

In the open heart of Jesus Christ one sees His heart burning with love for you, for me, for all men  . . . But one sees it surrounded with thorns, and in their center, the Cross. this fire of love must light up our poor hearts too, so that it can communicate itself to others--but surrounded with thorns to keep us on guard against petty self-interests and surmounted by a wide-armed cross to embrace all who surround us and not let us limit our zeal to any particular person. (As found in Ann Ball, Blessed Miguel Pro: Twentieth Century Martyr, TAN Books and publishers, 1996, p. 110.)

To love God fully and to please the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus we must be willing the to suffer the loss of everything we hold dear in this world, being ready at all times for the sacrifice of self-immolation.

To wit, Father Pro wrote the following shortly before his execution on Wednesday, November 23, 1927:

Does our life become from day to day more more painful, more oppressive, more replete with afflictions? Blessed be He a thousand times who desires it so. If life be harder, love makes it also stronger, and only this love, grounded on suffering, can carry the Cross of my Lord Jesus Christ. Love without egotism, without relying on self, but enkindling in the depth of the heart an ardent thirst to love and suffer for all those around us: a thirst that neither misfortune nor contempt can extinguish  . . .

I believe, O Lord; but strengthen my faith . . . Heart of Jesus, I love Thee, but give greater vigor to my confidence. Heart of Jesus, I give my heart to Thee; but so enclose it in Thee that it may never be separated from Thee. Heart of Jesus, I am all Thine; but take care of my promise so that I may be able to put it in practice even unto the complete sacrifice of my life. (As found in Ann Ball, Blessed Miguel Pro: Twentieth Century Martyr, TAN Books and publishers, 1996, p. 108.)

Writing on November 13, 1927, a scant ten days before his death, Father Pro, who, most unlike the actors who were adorned with Rosary beads around their necks but were never shown praying Our Lady's Psalter in For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada, actually prayed Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary every day, expressed his great love to the Blessed Virgin of Sorrows:

Let me live my life at your side, my Mother, and be the companion of your bitter solitude and your profound pain. Let my soul feel your eyes' sad weeping and the abandonment of your heart.

On the road of my life, I do not wish to savor the happiness of Bethlehem, adoring the Child Jesus in your virginal arms. I do not wish to enjoy the amiable presence of Jesus Christ in the humble little house of Nazareth. I do not care to accompany you on your glorious Assumption to the angels' choir.

For my life, I cover the jeers and mockery of Calvary; the slow agony of your Son, the contempt, the ignominy, the infamy of His Cross. I wish to stand at your side, most sorrowful Virgin, strengthening my spirit with your tears, consummating my sacrifice with your martyrdom, sustaining my heart with your solitude, loving my God and your God with the immolation of my being. (As found in Ann Ball, Blessed Miguel Pro: Twentieth Century Martyr, TAN Books and publishers, 1996, p. 109.)

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J., was no "Gloomy Gus." He was a Catholic! He knew that he would find his life by losing it, by being willing to suffer the death of martyrdom at the hands of the forces of Plutarco Elias Calles rather than keep himself "safe" for the sake of continuing to offer the sacraments to the faithful. He looked forward to a straight ticket up to Heaven, explaining to those who were saddened by the prospect of his being caught one day that:

"If I am ever caught, be prepared to ask me for things when I am in Heaven." (He also jokingly promised to cheer any any long-faced Saints he found in Heaven by performing a gay Mexican hat dance.) Many of his friends and fellow countrymen believed that Fr. Pro would answer their prayers. (As found in Ann Ball, Blessed Miguel Pro: Twentieth Century Martyr, TAN Books and publishers, 1996, p. 102.)

As one who used to dance as Miss Jane Jarvis played the Mexican Hat Dance on the Thomas organ during the seventh inning stretch at the now defunct William A. Shea Municipal Stadium in the 1970s, I would look most fondly to joining him in Heaven to do so with him if I cooperate with the graces sent to me by Our Lady to die in a state of Sanctifying Grace. Yes, of course, we must be joyful in the midst of suffering!

Apart from being a courageous defender of Christ the King and La Virgen de Guadalupe, it is entirely possible that Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J., was also given some prophetic insights as well. For even though the poem below was composed on the Feast of Christ the King, Sunday, October 30, 1927 (only the second time that the feast had been celebrated since its institution by Pope Pius XI in Quas Primas, which was issued on December 11, 1925), just twenty-five days before his martyrdom, readers will see that it was a prophetic proclamation of the situation we face today in this time of apostasy and betrayal when Our Lord is not present in our Catholic church buildings and the handful of Catholics who have, despite their own sins and bad examples and incessant disputes, responded to the graces sent them by Our Lady to seek out the Sacraments in the underground:

O Lord, Thy empty tabernacles mourn

  While we alone upon our Calvary,

As orphans ask Thee, Jesus, to return

  And dwell again within Thy sanctuary.

Since Thou hast left They earthly door ajar,

  Our lovely temples bare and dismal stand;

No chant of choir, no bells resound from afar;

  Dread silence hovers o'er our native land.

Since Thou descendest not as Victim meet

  In sacrifice choice graces to bestow,

No roses rill the church with fragrance sweet;

  No lighted candles on the altar glow.

Our naves, once quivering with the mystic flight

  Of prayer that fluttered as a heavenly breath,

Are now as silent as the somber night;

  All seems oblivion, sadness, sleep and death.

O Lord, why has thy presence from us fled?

  Dost Thou not remember how in days agone

Those countless hearts which in their trials bled

  Found comfort in the light that from Thee shone?

Souls trembling with the thought of morrow's griefs,

  Souls crush beneath the present cross of pain,

Souls tortured by the past--all found relief

  Before the golden door. Oh! come again.

Afflicted, aged, orphan, pilgrim spent

  With teasing struggles on life's darksome way;

The sick and those by cruel hunger bent,

  And sinners burdened--all came here to pray.

To Thee beneath the sacramental veil

  Thy fondly tuned, and ever found relief;

For not a soul, howe'er distressed, could fail

  To draw from Thee sweet solace in its grief.

No grief could stay, no comfort be deferred,

  No trial crush, when Thou wert biding there;

In mystic sweetness still Thy voice was heard,

  Whose accents shattered sin and banished care.

But now no longer dost Thou dwell as King

  Upon our altar, once as bright as day,

And we no more around Thee sweetly sing

  Our anthem. Ah, how long wilt from us stay?

The very breath of Hell floats in the air;

  The cup of crime is filled by tyrant's hand'

And through the hideous gloom no dawning fair

  Of hope is seem to glimmer o'er the land.

The barque of Peter on the stormy sea,

  With Christ, our Leader, wrapt in peaceful sleep,

Seems well-night wrecked by man's iniquity,

  That rages like a tempest o'er the deep.

Ah! why dost Thou abandon us, dear Lord?

  A hymn repentant from our hearts we sing.

Thou canst not fail to keep Thy loving word;

  In Mexico the faithful hail Thee King.

Those who offended Thee but yesterday

  Now rear-dimmed eyes turn trustfully to Thee;

With bleeding feet they went a pilgrim's ay

  From far and near to plead Thy clemency.

By the bitter tears of those who mourn their dead,

  By our martyrs' blood for Thee shed joyfully,

By crimson stream with which Thy Heart has bled,

  Return in haste to Thy dear sanctuary (As found in Ann Ball, Blessed Miguel Pro: Twentieth Century Martyr, TAN Books and publishers, 1996, pp. 105-108.)

 

Silence in the face of the evils of concilairism, Bishop Fellay?

"Reconciliation" with Plutarco Elias Ratzinger, Bishop Fellay?

Silence in the face of the evils of Modernity, anyone?

Silence in the face of the simple truth that the Catholic Church cannot give us false liturgies and erroneous doctrines founded in a denial of the very nature of dogmatic truth, anyone?

Consecrated to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary as pray as many Rosaries each day as our state in life permits, may we never cease exclaiming the words that were on the lips of Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J., as he stretched out his arms to make the form of a cross just before the bullets fired by the Masonic revolutionaries pierced his priestly body, Viva Cristo Rey!

Yes, then, now, and always--Viva Cristo Rey! Viva La Virgen de Guadalupe!

Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, 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.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint William the Abbot, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints