by
Thomas A Droleskey
Americanism is the condemned heresy that is founded in large measure, although hardly exclusively, on the exaltation of the religiously indifferentist Constitution of the United States of America--and the cultural pluralism which produced and sustains it--as completely compatible with the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church. As I have noted throughout the course of my writing in the past twenty years, including in the printed pages of Christ or Chaos and in Christ in the Voting Booth and Restoring Christ as the King of All Nations, the Constitution of the United States of America is premised upon several errors:
1 That it is possible for men to know order in their own personal lives and in the larger life of their society without submitting themselves at all times and in all circumstances to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.
2 That is possible for men to pursue and to sustain themselves in virtue without belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace,
3 That is not absolutely necessary for the civil state to recognize the true Church and to afford her the protection of the favor of the laws, recognizing her right, exercised as a Last Resort following the discharge of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation, to interpose herself with its officials if the good of souls demands such an intervention.
4 That the first purpose of the civil state is the maintenance of temporal justice and prosperity alone without reference to the eternal good of man as entrusted to the Catholic Church.
One can see the lack of Catholicity in the work of James Madison, who wrote twenty-nine articles in the series known as The Federalist.
Madison explained in Number Ten, published on November 23, 1787, one of his most famous contributions in defense of the Constitution during its ratification process, that there was no one unifying force that could serve to prevent men from forming into "factions." These factions, which we call "interest groups" today, would be composed of people with different interests (regional, economic, cultural, religious, political), making them destined to clash with one another. As the stronger factions have the tendency to dominate weaker factions, Madison argued that there needed to be some institutional safeguards to prevent against the tyranny of a majority of factions, examining various forms of government that might contain a "solution" to the "vice known as factions."
In other words, Madison accepted the divisions wrought by the Protestant Revolt in the 270 years following Martin Luther's ninety-five theses as having created a world wherein it was impossible to expect that any one interest could predominate in a civil society. Men were bound to clash on such fundamental things as their own commercial self-interest, religious views and philosophical proclivities, among other things, that it was necessary to find some means by which this clash would take account of the views of the less strong and less numerous factions (the minority), forcing the stronger and more numerous factions (the majority) into being sensitive to and concerned about the viewpoints of those who disagreed with them. This is called by many political scientists as the "Madisonian Dialectic," that is, the process by which competing interests will be forced to "compromise, negotiate and bargain" with each other in the legislative processes of the Congress of the United States of America.
Madison, after examining in The Federalist, Number Ten, the case of "democracy" (wherein the people directly represent themselves in legislative assemblies) and of the "republic" (wherein the whole number of those eligible to participate in government elect others to represent them in legislative assemblies), concluded that it would take a "large republic" composed of a diversity of factions or interests that would make it difficult, although not impossible, for a majority of same to run roughshod over the rights of smaller interests in the policy-making processes of the Congress of the United States of America. The existence of multiplicity of diverse factions would make it difficult for any one of them to exercise a policy monopoly at all times on all issues, forcing even the strongest faction into a position of compromise at some point or another. A large republic, that is, one spread out over a large piece of territory with a diversity of interests, would prove to be the best safeguard, Madison believed, against the "tyranny of the majority."
Madison explained it this way in The Federalist, Number Ten:
Extend the sphere [of the government], and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. Besides other impediments, it may be remarked that, where there is a consciousness of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose concurrence is necessary.
Hence, it clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic,--is enjoyed by the Union over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist in the substitution of representatives whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices and schemes of injustice? It will not be denied that the representation of the Union will be most likely to possess these requisite endowments. Does it consist in the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of parties comprised within the Union, increase this security. Does it, in fine, consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent of the Union gives it the most palpable advantage.
The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.
Powerful factions, perhaps even of a "religious" nature, might exercise a monopoly of political influence in a particular state (a small republic). Such factions at the national level would have to coexist with competing factions from other parts of the nation. The entirety of the structure of the Congress of the United States of America is premised upon the Madisonian Dialectic, which is itself premised upon the belief that there is no one "view" that can unite men in pursuit of the common temporal good.
Alas, of course, Madison was mistaken. Although fallen men will be divided about many things, especially about the pursuit of personal ambition and their own economic self-aggrandizement, God has given us His Holy Truth, the Catholic Faith, to unite all men so that they might be able to rise above the vagaries of their fallen natures and cooperative with the graces He won for them by the shedding of His Most Precious Blood on the Wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces. The pursuit of our common eternal good is what men are supposed to keep in mind as they pursue the common temporal good. As Pope Pius XI noted in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929, when quoting a Sixteenth Century Cardinal, Silvio Antoniano, true temporal peace and prosperity can never be realized if things repugnant to the peace and tranquility of eternity are permitted:
Whoever refuses to admit these principles, and hence to apply them to education, must necessarily deny that Christ has founded His Church for the eternal salvation of mankind, and maintain instead that civil society and the State are not subject to God and to His law, natural and divine. Such a doctrine is manifestly impious, contrary to right reason, and, especially in this matter of education, extremely harmful to the proper training of youth, and disastrous as well for civil society as for the well-being of all mankind. On the other hand from the application of these principles, there inevitably result immense advantages for the right formation of citizens. This is abundantly proved by the history of every age Tertullian in his Apologeticus could throw down a challenge to the enemies of the Church in the early days of Christianity, just as St Augustine did in his; and we today can repeat with him:
Let those who declare the teaching of Christ to be opposed to the welfare of the State, furnish us with an army of soldiers such as Christ says soldiers ought to be; let them give us subjects, husbands, wives, parents, children, masters, servants, kings, judges, taxpayers and tax gatherers who live up to the teachings of Christ; and then let them dare assert that Christian doctrine is harmful to the State. Rather let them not hesitate one moment to acclaim that doctrine, rightly observed, the greatest safeguard of the State.
While treating of education, it is not out of place to show here how an ecclesiastical writer, who flourished in more recent times, during the Renaissance, the holy and learned Cardinal Silvio Antoniano, to whom the cause of Christian education is greatly indebted, has set forth most clearly this well established point of Catholic doctrine. He had been a disciple of that wonderful educator of youth, St Philip Neri; he was teacher and Latin secretary to St Charles Borromeo, and it was at the latter's suggestion and under his inspiration that he wrote his splendid treatise on The Christian Education of Youth In it he argues as follows:
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.
It is most eminently clear, ladies and gentlemen, that the founders of the United States of America believed that it was possible to produce true temporal peace and tranquility by things directly repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity as that peace and tranquility were defined by the one and only true Church, the Catholic Church. Building upon the foundation of Protestantism's rejection of the Social Reign of Christ the King and Judeo-Masonry's "gospel" of universal brotherhood and toleration, which, as we know, worked their way only too well into Modernism and from them into the ethos of conciliarism, the American founders did not believe that it was necessary to submit to a particular set of religious beliefs in order to know personal or social order. Indeed, some of them were particularly hostile to the true Faith.
Although John Adams was not at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, serving at the time as the Ambassador of the United States to the Court of Saint James in the United Kingdom, he was the first vice president and second president of the United States of America, having been a signatory of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. His hostility to Catholicism was made known in his defense of the state constitutions of the United States of America, written in 1787, and in some of the famous correspondence he maintained with his one-time friend turned adversary turned friend again, the hideous anti-Catholic named Thomas Jefferson. Take a look:
The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.
Unembarrassed by attachments to noble families, hereditary lines and successions, or any considerations of royal blood, even the pious mystery of holy oil had no more influence than that other of holy water: the people universally were too enlightened to be imposed on by artifice; and their leaders, or more properly followers, were men of too much honour to attempt it. Thirteen governments thus founded on the natural authority of the people alone, without a pretence of miracle or mystery, which are destined to spread over the northern part of that whole quarter of the globe, are a great point gained in favour of the rights of mankind. ( President John Adams: "A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America," 1787-1788)
Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion? (Letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821)
I almost shudder at the thought of alluding to the most fatal example of the abuses of grief which the history of mankind has preserved -- the Cross Consider what calamities that engine of grief has produced! (Letter to Thomas Jefferson, quoted in 200 Years of Disbelief, by James Hauck)
Consider these remarks of the aforementioned James Madison, considered by many to be the "father" of the Constitution of the United States of America:
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect."—letter to William Bradford, Jr„ April I, 1774
". . . Freedom arises from the multiplicity of sects, which pervades America and which is the best and only security for religious liberty in any society. For where there is such a variety of sects, there cannot be a majority of any one sect to oppress and persecute the rest."—spoken at the Virginia convention on ratification of the Constitution, June 1778
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution."—-A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the Virginia General Assembly, 1785
How about just two of many anti-Catholic comments from Thomas Jefferson? Oh, why not?
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. (Letter to Alexander von Humboldt, December, 1813.)
May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them. (Letter to Roger Weigthman, June 24, 1826, ten days before Jefferson's death.)
Article 11 of the Treaty between the United States of America and Tripoli, June 10, 1797, reads as follows:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
How any Catholic can praise any of these men is beyond me. Some Americanist Catholics, who are the sort of political Modernists condemned by Pope Pius XI in paragraph sixty-one of Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, quote these reprobates all of the time, preferring them--and the "insights" of Jewish agnostics, such as Murray Rothbard, to the infallible, irreformable teaching of the Catholic Church that the civil state must recognize her and must seek the good of souls as the precondition for the pursuit of the just temporal order. It is thus no wonder that so many Catholics still believe that a Judeo-Masonic constitutional and electoral system that is indifferent to the Deposit of Faith can serve as the foundation of social order.
We should keep the quotes above very much in mind when considering today just how willing Catholics are across the ecclesiastical divide (and across every ideological divide imaginable) to suspend their sensus Catholicus in order to support whoever it is they believe at any given moment is going to advance this or that short-term objective of the temporal order. Archbishop John Carroll and other Catholics of the late-Eighteenth Century and early-Nineteenth Century were willing to ignore the blatant anti-Catholicism of many of the founders as they, the Catholics, had received an important concession in the Constitution of the United States of America to be able to practice their Faith openly without the open persecution that had taken place for well over two and one-half centuries in England and Ireland.
This short-sightedness played right into the devil's hands: the adversary raised up "nice" and "tolerant" Protestants in the former English Colonies of North America after subjecting Catholics to the cruel persecutions of "bad" and "intolerant" Protestants, thus predisposing many, although far from all, Catholics in the early years of this nation's history to accept the "religious liberty" enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America as being a great protection of their own right to worship rather than being the means by which false religions could propagate themselves in civil society. The "magnanimity" of the First Amendment would also prove to be the means by which future generations of Catholics would be coopted into viewing the Church through the eyes of the world rather than viewing the world through the eyes of the true Faith, to say nothing of serving as the model for conciliarism's own view of the subject as expressed in Dignitatis Humanae, December 7, 1965. John Carroll and his cohorts did not recognize this at the time, focused as they were about simply being "free" to practice the Catholic Faith without fear of arrest and execution.
Thus it has been throughout the course of the history of the United States of America. Catholics, again with some exceptions here and there, have proven themselves all too willing over the course of the past 230 years to align themselves with various career politicians in the hopes that this or that objective could be achieved without ever considering the simple fact that there can never be true temporal peace when things that are repugnant to the peace and tranquility of eternity are promoted under cover of law and in practically every aspect of popular culture. Just a few examples of this will suffice.
The Democrat Party, for example, was open to providing Catholic immigrants with the means of upward social and economic mobility in the Nineteenth Century at a time when nativist groups, many of whom were allied with the Republican Party after the War Between the States, were seeking to discriminate most actively against these immigrants and/or to commit acts of violence against them. The Democrat Party's openness to Catholic immigrants in in the Nineteenth Century is what accounts to this very day for the fact that the lion's share of baptized Catholics vote for Democrat candidates for public office no matter the support that these candidates offer for baby-killing under cover of law (among other moral evils).
The belief that "progress" is made by means of the ballot box has thus entrapped many Catholics today who oppose the moral evils of the day into thinking that the other organized crime family in the United States, the Republican Party, is the means of improving the temporal order, thus repeating the exact same mistake that Catholics had made in the Nineteenth Century with the Democrat Party. Having been locked into the prison of the American electoral box, many Catholics spend their time by spinning their wheels on this or that political machination without ever seeing that their plans come to nothing, change nothing, and wind up deluding those from who they seek money and volunteer efforts valuable time that could have been spent much more profitably in behalf of the cause of the true Catholic Church as she finds herself in the catacombs at the present time. Without even realizing it, you see, Catholics have for a long time adopted the lies of naturalism and ecumenism in the realm of civil politics, forgetting that there is only one way to retard any evil, personal or social, that is, Catholicism.
Pope Leo XIII saw that Catholics were coopted by the "American" way. He explained in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899, that the subtle influences of the Americanist heresy put Catholics in greater dangers than that to which they had been exposed in the past. So what if you lose your life while maintaining the Faith in the midst of a bloody persecution? It is far worse to lose you soul as your lose your vigilance in defense of Catholicism by permitting yourself to be seduced by the snares of naturalism and pluralism and religious indifferentism and the "rush" of partisan political activity:
But, beloved son, in this present matter of which we are speaking, there is even a greater danger and a more manifest opposition to Catholic doctrine and discipline in that opinion of the lovers of novelty, according to which they hold such liberty should be allowed in the Church, that her supervision and watchfulness being in some sense lessened, allowance be granted the faithful, each one to follow out more freely the leading of his own mind and the trend of his own proper activity. They are of opinion that such liberty has its counterpart in the newly given civil freedom which is now the right and the foundation of almost every secular state.
The prelate to whom Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae was addressed, James Cardinal Gibbons, the longtime Americanist Archbishop of Baltimore, Maryland, was unfazed by this warning, choosing to do the bidding of the egregious anti-Catholic, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, in April of 1917 at the outset of the unjust involvement of the United States of America in the descent into madness known now as the First World War. Wilson had such contempt for the Church and for the titles of her prelates that he referred to Cardinal Gibbons as "Mister" Gibbons. This insult did not stop "Mister" Gibbons from fawning all over Wilson when asked to "prove" the "patriotism" of Catholics in the United States of America, promising the anti-Catholic Wilson that the Catholic bishops would form a special council, the National Catholic War Council, to support the American war effort. The name of the National Catholic War Council was changed in 1919 to become the National Catholic Welfare Conference, which became the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1966 (now known as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops). From the very beginning, you see, the official agency of the American bishops did the bidding of a leftist, statist, anti-Catholic president of the Democrat Party. The current USCCB (United States Conference of Conciliar Bishops) is as wedded to leftism and statism as was old National Catholic War Council.
Indeed, James Cardinal Gibbons's doing the bidding of Woodrow Wilson in 1917 came one year after one of his own representatives, a Father Kelley, had met with Wilson to plead with him to defend the Catholics who were being slaughtered in Mexico at the hands of the Masonic revolutionaries there. Wilson's response, recorded by Robert Leckie in Catholic and American, simply did not matter to Gibbons when being asked to "prove" the patriotism of people Wilson despised (but whose votes he wanted), Catholics. Here is the passage from Robert Leckie's book:
"Wilson replied [to a Father Kelley, who was a representative of James Cardinal Gibbons, the Archbishop of Baltimore, for whom Wilson had such contempt that he addressed him as Mister Gibbons]: 'I have no doubt but that the terrible things you mention have happened during the Mexican revolution. But terrible things happened also during the French revolution, perhaps more terrible things than have happened in Mexico. Nevertheless, out of that French revolution came the liberal ideas that have dominated in so many countries, including our own. I hope that out of the bloodletting in Mexico some such good yet may come.'
"Having thus instructed his caller in the benefits which must perforce accrue to mankind out of the systematic robbery, murder, torture and rape of people holding a proscribed religious conviction, the professor of politics [Wilson] suggested that Father Kelley visit Secretary of State Williams Jennings Bryan, who expressed his deepest sympathy. Obviously, the Wilson administration was committed to supporting the revolutionaries (Leckie, p. 274.)
The same sort of lapdog behavior was exhibited by Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York from 1939 to 1967, throughout his career as an ecclesiastical and political power broker. Mrs. Randy Engel's The Rite of Sodomy details Spellman's shameless shilling for Roosevelt and for the Americanist heresy of the separation of Church and State:
Yet during the Second World War, when President Roosevelt issued an order that required post exchanges to stock condoms and required quarter-masters (including Catholic officers) to distribute prophylactics, Spellman was again silent. further the Roosevelt Administration consistently failed to prosecute violations of the Comstock Law that prohibited the interstate traffic and foreign importation of articles of "immoral use" to prevent conception.
With the exception of one or two well-publicized attacks on Planned Parenthood clinics in New York City, Spellman tended to ignore the increased encroachment of government sponsored Malthusian programs at home and abroad. He viewed the issue of population control through a political rather than a moral lens. This was in sharp contrast to his predecessor Cardinal Hayes who had fought the Anti-Life Establishment tooth and nail and won.
That Cardinal Spellman was more than willing and able to compromise Catholic moral teaching when it suited him politically was amply demonstrated by the Puerto Rican birth control debacle of 1960.
In the mid-1930s, Cardinal Hayes effectively squashed all attempts by the Roosevelt Administration to impose a Malthusian program of population limitation on Puerto Rico. Hayes, a master of "punishment politics," told FDR either to withdraw the birth control initiative his administration had started on the island or face the loss of Catholic vote in the upcoming election. Roosevelt took Hayes' warning to heart and ordered that the Comstock Law be enforced in the [Territory] of Puerto Rico [which became a Commonwealth after World War II]. On September 15, 1936, the "Grand Experiment" was put on hold.
After Hayes' death in 1938, the American hierarchy, including the Powerhouse in New York, began to take a more lenient position toward federal and private population control initiatives on the island, especially under the Eisenhower Administration from 1953 to 1961.
With the repeal of the Comstock Law, and the massive influx of millions of U.S. dollars from the American-based Gamble, Rockefeller, McCormick and Ford Foundations, together with the dollar-hungry pharmaceutical industry, the Church in Puerto Rico braced itself for a major anti-life assault. The Puerto Rican bishops also had to contend with the loss of the traditional legal and political support they had come to expect form the American hierarchy.
In 1960, the Puerto Rico hierarchy decided to make one last concerted effort to drive the Sangerite forces from the island. The Catholic resistance was lead by two American Bishops--James F. Davis of San Juan and James E. McManus of Ponce. The Catholic Church in Puerto Rico helped to organize a national political party--the Christian Action Party (CAP). The new political front was composed primarily of Catholic laymen and its platform included opposition to existing permissive legislation on birth control and sterilization.
When increasing numbers of CAP flags began to fly from the rooftops of Puerto Rico's Catholic homes, the leaders of the opposition parties, who favored turning Puerto Rico into an international Sangerite playground for massive U.S.-based contraceptive/abortifacient/sterilization experimental programs, became increasingly concerned for their own political futures. Then unexpected help arrived in the unlikely person of His Eminence Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York.
One month before the hotly contested national election, Spellman arrived in Puerto Rico ostensibly to preside over two formal Church functions. While on the island, Spellman agreed to meet with CAP's major political rival, Governor Luis Munoz Marin, leader of the Popular Democratic Party (PDP) and a supporter of federal population control programs for Puerto Rico.
In an interview that followed his meeting with Munoz, Spellman, known for years as FDR's errand boy with a miter, claimed that politics were outside his purview. The cardinal's statement was interpreted by the press as an indictment of the partisan politics of Bishops Davis and McManus. To underscore his message, as soon as Spellman returned to the States he made a public statement in opposition to the latest directives of the Puerto Rico bishops prohibiting Catholics from voting for Munoz and his anti-life PDP cohorts. Catholic voters in Puerto Rico should vote their conscience without the threat of Church penalties, Spellman said.
Boston's Cardinal Cushing, John F. Kennedy's "political godfather," joined Spellman in expressed "feigned horror" at the thought of ecclesiastical authority attempting to dictate political voting. "This has never been a part of our history, and I pray God that it will never be!" said Cushing. Cushing's main concern was not the Puerto Rican people. His main worry was that the flack caused by the Puerto Rican birth control affair might overflow into the upcoming presidential campaign and hurt John Kennedy's bid for the White House.
The national election turned out to be a political disaster for CAP. Munoz and the PDP won by a landslide. Bishop Davis was forced to end the tragic state of confusion among the Catholic laity by declaring just before the election that no penalties would be imposed on those who voted for PDP.
Two years later, with the knowledge and approval of the American hierarchy and the Holy See, the Puerto Rican hierarchy was pressured into singing a secret concordat of "non-interference" in government-sponsored birth control programs--a sop being that the programs would now include instruction in the "rhythm method." While insisting on their right to hold and express legitimate opposition to such programs, the Puerto Rican bishops promised they would "never impose their own moral doctrines upon individuals who do not accept the Catholic teaching."
When the Sangerite storm hit the mainland in the late 1960s, AmChurch would echo this same theme song, opening the floodgates to a multi-billion dollar federal-life-prevention (and destruction) program. (pp. 647-649)
Another Americanist, Richard Cardinal Cushing, the Archbishop of Boston from 1944 to 1970, told legislators in Massachusetts that the Catholic Church would not "impose" his "view" on a bill that had been introduced by then State Senator Michael S. Dukakis to legalize the sale of contraceptives:
Early in the summer of 1965, the Massachusetts legislature took up a proposal to repeal the state's Birth Control law, which barred the use of contraceptives. . . . In a state where Catholics constituted a voting majority, and dominated the legislature, the prospects for repeal appeared remote. Then on June 22, Cardinal Cushing appeared on a local radio program, 'An Afternoon with Haywood Vincent,' and effectively scuttled the opposition. Cardinal Cushing announced: 'My position in this matter is that birth control in accordance with artificial means is immoral, and not permissible. But this is Catholic teaching. I am also convinced that I should not impose my position upon those of other faiths'. Warming to the subject, the cardinal told his radio audience that 'I could not in conscience approve the legislation' that had been proposed. However, he quickly added, 'I will make no effort to impose my opinion upon others.' So there it was: the 'personally opposed' argument, in fully developed form, enunciated by a Prince of the Church nearly 40 years ago! Notice how the unvarying teaching of the Catholic Church, which condemned artificial contraception as an offense against natural law, is reduced here to a matter of the cardinal's personal belief. And notice how he makes no effort to persuade legislators with the force of his arguments; any such effort is condemned in advance as a bid to 'impose' his opinion. Cardinal Cushing conceded that in the past, Catholic leaders had opposed any effort to alter the Birth Control law. 'But my thinking has changed on that matter,' he reported, 'for the simple reason that I do not see where I have an obligation to impose my religious beliefs on people who just do not accept the same faith as I do'. . . . Before the end of his fateful radio broadcast, Cardinal Cushing gave his advice to the Catholic members of the Massachusetts legislature: 'If your constituents want this legislation, vote for it. You represent them. You don't represent the Catholic Church.' Dozens of Catholic legislators did vote for the bill, and the Birth Control law was abolished. Perhaps more important in the long run, the 'personally opposed' politician had his rationale." (Catholic World Report, November 2003)
Time does not permit a listing of the numerous ways in which "conservative" bishops of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have enabled phony pro-life candidates of the Republican Party in the past twenty-seven to thirty years. Those caught up in the Americanist trap are constantly diverted from the time they could spend before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer and the number of Rosaries they could say each day in order to delude themselves into thinking that their concerted, well-intentioned "action" is going to make a "difference" in the country.
Sure, I used to believe this, at least to a certain extent. Although I ran various campaigns on the Right to Life Party in order to speak to the truths of the Social Reign of Christ the King, I also campaigned for others who were not willing to do so, one of whom knew of this teaching and refused to speak about it publicly. I withdrew from all of this in 2000 to concentrate totally on the promotion of the Social Reign of Christ the King, thus trying to help Catholics (and perhaps some others; remember that mostly Protestant group of conservatives before whom I spoke in February of 2006?) to see the world more clearly through the eyes of the true Faith. We are supposed to learn from our mistakes.
It is a mistake to think that "political action" is going to save a nation that has been lost in the mire of falsehoods from its very inception. Only the true Faith can save men or nations. And while there have been bishops, such as Archbishop John Hughes of New York (1842-1864), who prayed openly for the conversion of every American and of the nation itself to the true Faith, most of the Catholic bishops of the United States of America made the mistake of believing that the Constitutional regime of the United States, although having elements that could be useful in an authentically Catholic nation, was perfectly compatible with Catholicism. Thus it is that most Catholics have never heard this simple reiteration of Catholic teaching that binds all consciences at all times and in all places:
That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error." (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)
To re-emphasize what I wrote three days ago in Not Over Until the Last Day, it serves no useful purpose to try to raise funds from Catholics, most of whose resources are limited enough to begin with, to support candidates for public office who do not believe this immutable teaching of the Catholic Church and/or are not willing to articulate it so as to plant a few seeds in the souls of their listeners, entrusting all to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Why, for example, should a Catholic give any credibility or support to a candidate who believes that state governments can, in the name of the false "god" of "states' rights," permit baby-killing under cover of law? How can one ignore such a fundamental defect in the mind of a candidate? No human institution of civil governance has any authority to permit grave evils that cry out to Heaven for vengeance. The only authority a human institution of civil governance has when dealing with grave evils is to determine the specific range of penalties that will be meted out to those adjudged guilty of committing such evils after due process of law.
The suspension of the sensus Catholicus to support such a candidate is as irresponsible as John Carroll's blithe acceptance of the Constitution of the United States of America and James Gibbons's doing the bidding of Woodrow Wilson and Francis Spellman's and Richard Cushing's abdication of episcopal authority in the name of popular sovereignty. What rational good that redounds to the peace and tranquility of eternity is accomplished by fleecing people for their money to support a candidate--and one who has absolutely zero chance of winning the Republican presidential nomination and/or the general election on a third party ticket--who believes that the taking of innocent human life is something that can be permitted or restricted by a state government? Each level of government would restrict itself to only those things necessary to advance the common temporal good in light of man's Last End if we lived in a Catholic country. The popes teach us this. Why is it necessary to "reinvent the wheel" by relying upon naturalist philosophies and ideologies that exalt the false god of "civil liberty" while making absolutely no room at all for the Social Reign of Christ the King?
There are some people, I am afraid, who are so addicted to the "rush" of partisan politics that they fail to see the fact that the money they seek to raise from others to support candidates steeped in the errors of Protestantism and libertarianism, which rejects the Catholic teaching that the civil state has the obligation to punish blasphemers and heretics and to promote the good of souls as its first end, could be better used to support traditional Catholic chapels in the catacombs that make no concessions to the Modernist and Americanist ethos of conciliarism or to the legitimacy of the conciliar wolves. The money diverted for quixotic campaigns that have nothing to do with the Social Reign of Christ the King and have no chance of realizing even their own short-term goals, such as securing a political party's nomination or winning a general election, could be used to promote Home Enthronement to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary and to purchase and distribute Green Scapulars and Miraculous Medals and Rosaries (and booklets to explain to people how to pray the Rosary).
Walking away from the naturalist lies of American electoral politics, at least at the national level (it might, emphasis on might, be possible at the local level in some instances for a rightly-formed Catholic to make something of a positive contribution in defense of the common temporal good in light of man's Last End), is difficult for those who watch the cable news networks around the clock and who have immersed themselves in the "thick" of "things" for a long time. The history of the Catholic Church teaches us, however, that nations were not converted by elections. Nations have been converted by the slow, tedious process of inviting individual souls into the maternal bosom of the Catholic Church, thus enabling them to attempt on a daily basis to scale the heights of personal sanctity while seeking to root out even their slightest Venial Sins from their souls by the weekly use of the Sacred Tribunal of Penance.
Very few people recall the details of past general elections for the presidency, to say nothing of the policy stands taken by specific candidates during the nomination process who garnered only one to ten percent of the primary or caucus vote nationally. What is the rational purpose of getting all wound up about campaigns that influence almost no one and that carry with them the intolerable burden of propagating errors, such as "freedom of conscience" and "freedom of religion," that have been condemned repeatedly the Catholic Church (yet embraced by the counterfeit church of conciliarism)? You show me a candidate who supports Pope Gregory XVI's condemnation of these evils, as contained in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, and I'll write an article in defense of his candidacy as a means to propagate Catholic truth no matter his chances of getting elected:
Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that "there is one God, one faith, one baptism" may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that "those who are not with Christ are against Him," and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore "without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate." Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: "He who is for the See of Peter is for me." A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: "The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?"
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. . . .
These beautiful examples of the unchanging subjection to the princes necessarily proceeded from the most holy precepts of the Christian religion. They condemn the detestable insolence and improbity of those who, consumed with the unbridled lust for freedom, are entirely devoted to impairing and destroying all rights of dominion while bringing servitude to the people under the slogan of liberty. Here surely belong the infamous and wild plans of the Waldensians, the Beghards, the Wycliffites, and other such sons of Belial, who were the sores and disgrace of the human race; they often received a richly deserved anathema from the Holy See. For no other reason do experienced deceivers devote their efforts, except so that they, along with Luther, might joyfully deem themselves "free of all." To attain this end more easily and quickly, they undertake with audacity any infamous plan whatever.
Nor can We predict happier times for religion and government from the plans of those who desire vehemently to separate the Church from the state, and to break the mutual concord between temporal authority and the priesthood. It is certain that that concord which always was favorable and beneficial for the sacred and the civil order is feared by the shameless lovers of liberty.
But for the other painful causes We are concerned about, you should recall that certain societies and assemblages seem to draw up a battle line together with the followers of every false religion and cult. They feign piety for religion; but they are driven by a passion for promoting novelties and sedition everywhere. They preach liberty of every sort; they stir up disturbances in sacred and civil affairs, and pluck authority to pieces.
We do not worship at the altar of the false "god" of civil liberty. Catholics must consider themselves privileged to be the consecrated slaves of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, wherein they find their true liberation from that which causes all of the problems of the world, Original Sin and Actual Sins, by being willing to lift high the Cross upon which the Most Sacred Heart was pierced with a lance and under which the Immaculate Heart was pierced through and through with Its fifth Sword of Sorrow. Once again, my friends, we do not fight naturalism with naturalism. We do not fight secularism with secularism. We fight naturalism and secularism with Catholicism and with absolutely nothing else at any time for any reason under any circumstances. We must speak and act and think and pray as Catholics all of the time without any exception whatsoever.
Pope Pius XI put the matter this way in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio:
Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.
When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.
There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.
It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations.
It is possible to sum up all We have said in one word, "the Kingdom of Christ." For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. Jesus reigns over the family when it, modeled after the holy ideals of the sacrament of matrimony instituted by Christ, maintains unspotted its true character of sanctuary. In such a sanctuary of love, parental authority is fashioned after the authority of God, the Father, from Whom, as a matter of fact, it originates and after which even it is named. (Ephesians iii, 15) The obedience of the children imitates that of the Divine Child of Nazareth, and the whole family life is inspired by the sacred ideals of the Holy Family. Finally, Jesus Christ reigns over society when men recognize and reverence the sovereignty of Christ, when they accept the divine origin and control over all social forces, a recognition which is the basis of the right to command for those in authority and of the duty to obey for those who are subjects, a duty which cannot but ennoble all who live up to its demands. Christ reigns where the position in society which He Himself has assigned to His Church is recognized, for He bestowed on the Church the status and the constitution of a society which, by reason of the perfect ends which it is called upon to attain, must be held to be supreme in its own sphere; He also made her the depository and interpreter of His divine teachings, and, by consequence, the teacher and guide of every other society whatsoever, not of course in the sense that she should abstract in the least from their authority, each in its own sphere supreme, but that she should really perfect their authority, just as divine grace perfects human nature, and should give to them the assistance necessary for men to attain their true final end, eternal happiness, and by that very fact make them the more deserving and certain promoters of their happiness here below.
It is, therefore, a fact which cannot be questioned that the true peace of Christ can only exist in the Kingdom of Christ -- "the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ." It is no less unquestionable that, in doing all we can to bring about the re-establishment of Christ's kingdom, we will be working most effectively toward a lasting world peace.
Pope Saint Pius X had put even more succinctly in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:
No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo.
An impossible goal? Not with the graces won for us on Calvary and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of the Mediatrix of All Graces? Why do we settle for Protestants and libertarians who spread error rather than seeking to promote the Catholic City at all times and in all circumstances?
Trusting, therefore, in Our Lady, who effected the conversion of over nine million people in the Americas following her apparitions in 1531 to the Venerable Juan Diego, may we fly unto the refuge that is her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, especially in this month of August, giving her as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit, giving out as many Green Scapulars and Miraculous Medals and Rosaries as we can, inviting more and more people to enthrone their homes to the Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son and to her own Immaculate Heart. This is the path to peace in the soul and to peace in the world. There is no other path to peace than that of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
It is time for all people, especially Catholics, to proclaim this, especially since the spiritual robber barons of conciliarism have made their own sordid "reconciliation" with the principles of 1787 and of 1789.
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary right now on this Feast of Saints Cajetan and Donatus?
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and the hour of our death Amen
Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us
Saint Joseph, pray for us
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us
Saint Cajetan, pray for us.
Saint Donatus, pray for us.
Saint Dominic de Guzman, pray for us
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us
Pope Saint Stephen I, pray for us
Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us
Saint Christopher, pray for us
Saint James the Greater, pray for us
Simon Stock, pray for us
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us
Saint Bonaventure, 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 Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us
Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us
Saint Peter Damian, 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 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 Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us
Saint Genevieve, pray for us
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us
Pope Saint Pius X, 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
Sister Teresa Benedicta, 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
