Those Who Deny The Holocaust

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Sensationalism has characterized a great deal of the reporting of Bishop Richard Williamson's interview with a Swedish television reporter, taped on All Souls Day, November 2, 2008, t a Society of Saint Pius X Seminary in Bavaria, Germany, but aired on Wednesday, January 21, 2009, the Feast of Saint Agnes, the very day that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI approved the decree "lifting" the "excommunications" that were imposed on July 1, 1988, by Karol Wojtyla/John Paul upon himself upon and three other priests consecrated as bishops the day before by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and co-consecrated by Bishop Antonio de Castro Mayer of the Society of Saint John Mary Vianney in Campos, Brazil. Perhaps the most shameful piece of this sensationalist reporting was featured for a few hours on the website of The New York Times before the following incendiary headline was changed: Pope Rehabilitates Holocaust Denier. As much as I am critical of the multiple apostasies and blasphemies and sacrileges emanating from Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, the false "pontiff" did not act on January 21, 2009, to "rehabilitate" a "holocaust denier." That headline from The New York Times, which was changed within a few hours, was a cheap shot written by someone with an axe to grind against Catholics.

It was during this interview with a reporter from Swedish television that Bishop Williamson chose, perhaps imprudently, to answer a question posed to him about his views concerning the nature and extent of the genocide of Jews by the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler. Relying upon the work of historical revisionists who have studied the matter, Bishop Williamson gave a clear, lucid and most thoughtful answer to his questioner. He denied the extent of the genocide imposed upon European Jews by the Third Reich, stating that it was his belief, based on evidence he had assessed from the work of historical revisionists, that between 200,000 to 300,000 Jews were killed in Europe, although none, he stated, died in gas chambers.

Bishop Williamson's tone of speech in the interview was measured and reflective. While one can question the prudence of "taking the bait" of the interviewer on this matter, His Excellency was not speaking as a representative of the Society of Saint Pius and is to be commended for having the courage to state his convictions on a matter that most people do not even want to consider despite the fact that the events of the Nazi genocide have been used to justify everything from the establishment of the State of Israel--and that state's persecution of innocent civilians amongst the Arab population within its own borders and those in neighboring countries and semi-autonomous districts--to the counterfeit church of conciliarism's renunciation of any efforts to seek to convert adherents of the Talmud, meaning, of course, that such adherents are more or less perfectly assured of their salvation.

Indeed, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has used what he calls the "Shoah" as an excuse for concluding that a Jewish reading of the Bible is a "possible" one, a contention that is utter apostasy on its face and an act of blasphemy against the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, Who has made the truth of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity's Sacred Divinity eminently clear in the words of Sacred Scripture. Here is what the then Joseph "Cardinal Ratzinger wrote on May 24, 2001:

In its work, the Biblical Commission could not ignore the contemporary context, where the shock of the Shoah has put the whole question under a new light. Two main problems are posed: Can Christians, after all that has happened, still claim in good conscience to be the legitimate heirs of Israel's Bible? Have they the right to propose a Christian interpretation of this Bible, or should they not instead, respectfully and humbly, renounce any claim that, in the light of what has happened, must look like a usurpation? The second question follows from the first: In its presentation of the Jews and the Jewish people, has not the New Testament itself contributed to creating a hostility towards the Jewish people that provided a support for the ideology of those who wished to destroy Israel? The Commission set about addressing those two questions. It is clear that a Christian rejection of the Old Testament would not only put an end to Christianity itself as indicated above, but, in addition, would prevent the fostering of positive relations between Christians and Jews, precisely because they would lack common ground. In the light of what has happened, what ought to emerge now is a new respect for the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. On this subject, the Document says two things. First it declares that “the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Scriptures of the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading, which developed in parallel fashion” (no. 22). It adds that Christians can learn a great deal from a Jewish exegesis practised for more than 2000 years; in return, Christians may hope that Jews can profit from Christian exegetical research (ibid.). I think this analysis will prove useful for the pursuit of Judeo-Christian dialogue, as well as for the interior formation of Christian consciousness. (Joseph Ratzinger, Preface to The Jewish People and Their Scriptures in the Christian Bible.)

 

A Jewish reading of the Bible is a "possible" one? God positively desires people to live without knowledge of His plan of salvation? Blasphemous beyond all telling.

Oh, yes, my friends, the adversary has used the genocide that took place under the auspices of the Third Reich to his own nefarious purposes. Justifying in no manner at all the crimes committed by the devil-worshipers and occultists of the Third Reich who rose to power precisely because of the systematic de-Catholicization of Europe that was wrought as a result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King effected by the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry and scores of naturalistic programs and ideologies of "secular salvation," it is nevertheless necessary to point out some of the ways to which the devil has used the crimes of the Third Reich--whether exaggerated or not--to attack the true Faith and to keep souls out of the true Church.

Consider the fact that very word used to describe the crimes of the Third Reich--holocaust--is to be used to refer only to the one and only Holocaust, that which our sins subjected the God-Man, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross. It is an act of blasphemy to use the word "holocaust" to anything other than the propitiatory offering that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ made of Himself to the Father in Spirit and in Truth to redeem us by shedding every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. However, the Talmudic propaganda machine has been quite successful in appropriating the word "holocaust" and applying it to the events that transpired under the Third Reich to make of the Jews perpetual victims and to give the "Gentiles" a perpetual sense of guilt for what happened during World War II, thereby indemnifying various demands made by Talmudic organizations, whose greatest triumphs were realized during the "Second" Vatican Council.

Consider the fact that the counterfeit church of concilairism has gone to extraordinary lengths to appease the ancient enemies of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, providing them with opportunities to express their "grievances" when a conciliar "pontiff" or a conciliar "bishop" does something to upset their tender sensibilities. (See Bishop Donald Sanborn's Genuflecting to the Jews.)

Consider the fact also that those who are quick to accuse people of denying the "holocaust" deny the historical facts of the late Pope Pius XII's efforts to save the Jewry of Europe. Indeed, one can assert quite accurately that the first true historical "revisionism" with respect to World War II took place with the production in 1963 of Rolf Hochhuth's play The Deputy, which portrayed Pope Pius XII as an agent of Hitler's despite the fact--or perhaps because of it--that the Chief Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, converted to the Faith in gratitude for what Pope Pius XII had done during World War II, taking the pontiff's own first name, Eugenio, as his baptismal name.

Consider the fact that there are now "thought crimes" in the supposedly "free" countries of the Western world that prohibit what is called "holocaust denial," meaning that any effort to engage in a critical historical review of facts is a criminal fact, freezing research in place on matters that are certainly open to review and debate. While I have not made a study of the research of the historical revisionists concerning the events of the Third Reich, there must be a place for true historians (and there are some true historians who are not tainted by formal and frequent association with truly racist, white "supremacist" groups  formed to promote various aspects of naturalism that led up to the rise of monster states like the Soviet Union and the Third Reich in the first place) to collect and present evidence for review and examination without criminal sanctions. Marxist and fascist states seek to repress and thus criminalize true historical research. As one trained in scholarly research, I try to review evidence in light of the facts presented and not on the basis of an ad hominem reaction to a particular author or rushing to judgment about his conclusions before assessing the facts that he presents. The professional 'holocaust" community, however, want to criminalize research, something that is in and of itself criminal.

There are, of course, many other ways in which the events of the Third Reich have been used by the devil in nefarious ways. Those who try to point out that it is adherents of the Talmud who have been in the vanguard of promoting pornography and blasphemy in motion pictures and of promoting abortion and other evils in civil society are accused of anti-Semitism. Sadly, it was when asked about anti-Semitism that in his interview with Swedish television that Bishop Williamson failed to give a good account of himself, failing to make the distinctions made by Father Denis Fahey in his The Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World:

The annual celebration of the Feast of Christ the King is meant to lead men “to reflect on the Last Judgement, in which Christ, who has been cast out of public life, despised, neglected and ignored, will severely avenge such insults.” Our Lord Jesus Christ came down to proclaim His Father’s programme for the restoration of ordered life in the world and died proclaiming it. After Pope Pius IX in the Syllabus had catalogued modern errors against the order of society demanded by the infinite dignity of the Life of Sanctifying Grace, restored through the foundation of the Mystical Body on Calvary, Popes Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI and Pius XII have set forth in their Encyclicals the Positive programme for order enjoined upon us by Christ Our Head, Priest and King. In this series of books I am endeavouring to make known that positive programme to as many as possible, so that they may have a thorough knowledge of the order of the world they should stand for as members of Christ. The series is placed under the patronage of St. Joan of Arc. At the beatification of that lovely saint in 1908, Blessed Pius X sadly reminded members of Christ that: “All the strength of Satan’s reign is due to the easy-going weakness of Catholics.”

As I was not able to bring out this book when it was originally written, it has been laid aside for years. In the meantime, the need for setting forth the full doctrine of the Kingship of Christ has been forcibly brought home to me by the confusion created in minds owing to the use of the term “Anti-Semitism.” The Hitlerite naturalistic or anti-supernatural régime in Germany gave to the world the odious spectacle of a display of Anti-Semitism, that is, of hatred of the Jewish Nation. Yet all the propaganda about that display of Anti-Semitism should not have made Catholics forget the existence of age-long Jewish Naturalism or Anti-Supernaturalism. Forgetfulness of the disorder of Jewish Naturalistic opposition to Christ the King is keeping Catholics blind to the danger that is arising from the clever extension of the term “Anti-Semitism,” with all its war-connotation in the minds of the unthinking, to include any form of opposition to the Jewish Nation’s naturalistic aims. For the leaders of the Jewish Nation, to stand for the rights of Christ the King is logically to be “anti-Semitic.”

In March, 1917, Pope Benedict XV wrote to the Archbishop of Tours: “In the midst of the present upheavals, it is important to repeat to men that by her divine institution the Catholic Church is the only ark of salvation for the human race . . . . Accordingly, it is more seasonable than ever to teach . . . that the truth which liberates, not only individuals, but societies, is supernatural truth in all its fulness and in all its purity, without attenuation, diminution or compromise: in a word, exactly as Our Lord Jesus Christ delivered it to the world.” These sublime words of the Vicar of Christ have nerved me to do all in my power to set forth the opposition of every form of Naturalism, including Jewish Naturalism, to the supernatural Reign of Christ the King. In addition, for over twenty years I have been offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass every year, on the Feasts of the Resurrection, Corpus Christi, SS. Peter and Paul and the Assumption of Our Blessed Mother, for the acceptance by the Jewish Nation of the Divine Plan for order. Thus I have been striving to follow the example of our Divine Master. Blessed Pius X insists that “though Jesus was kind to those who had gone astray, and to sinners, He did not respect their erroneous convictions, however sincere they appeared to be.”the need of combining firmness in the proclamation of the integral truth with loving charity towards those in error is insisted on, even more emphatically, by Pope Pius XI: “Comprehending and merciful charity towards the erring,” he writes, “and even towards the contemptuous, does not mean and can not mean that you renounce in any way the proclaiming of, the insisting on, and the courageous defence of the truth and its free and unhindered application to the realities about you. The first and obvious duty the priest owes to the world about him is service to the truth, the whole truth, the unmasking and refutation of error in whatever form or disguise it conceals itself.”

A day will come when the Jewish Nation will cease to oppose order and will turn in sorrow and repentance to Him Whom they rejected before Pilate. That will be a glorious triumph for the Immaculate Heart of Our Blessed Mother. Until that day dawns, however, their naturalistic opposition to the True Supernatural Order of the world must be exposed and combated. (Father Denis Fahey, Foreword, The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation.)

 

Father Fahey pointed out above that Catholics must never be intimidated by the slogan of anti-Semitism. Consider once again these telling words:

Yet all the propaganda about that display of Anti-Semitism should not have made Catholics forget the existence of age-long Jewish Naturalism or Anti-Supernaturalism. Forgetfulness of the disorder of Jewish Naturalistic opposition to Christ the King is keeping Catholics blind to the danger that is arising from the clever extension of the term “Anti-Semitism,” with all its war-connotation in the minds of the unthinking, to include any form of opposition to the Jewish Nation’s naturalistic aims. For the leaders of the Jewish Nation, to stand for the rights of Christ the King is logically to be “anti-Semitic.”

 

Bishop Williamson's failure to make these very important distinctions was the weakest part of his interview. It is important to keep these distinctions in mind as it is not "anti-Semitic" to adhere to the Catholic Faith as it has been taught perennially without making any concessions to conciliarism. It is not "anti-Semitic" to oppose the falsehoods of conciliarism. It is not "anti-Semitic' to oppose the murderous policies of the Zionist State of Israel. It is not "anti-Semitic" to oppose Zionism. It is not "anti-Semitic" to identify that the chief purveyors of objective evil in the United States of America and many other parts of the world are adherents of the Talmud. It is not "anti-Semitic" to pray and to work for the conversion of Talmudic Jews. It is not "anti-Semitic" to pray and work for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King. It is not "anti-Semitic" to apply the rigors of true historical research into the events that occurred during World War II. Research can be accepted or rejected. To apply the label of "anti-Semitic" to research because those who have conducted it have reached conclusions not accepted by the "mainstream" is the height of fascistic duplicity.

Bishop Williamson is taking a lot of heat for his interview from those who belong to various Talmudic organizations. He is also taking some degree of heat, at least indirectly, from the Superior-General of the Society of Saint Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, whose pronouncements on certain elements of the "Second" Vatican Council are beginning to sound very much like those of Bishop Fernando Areas Rifan of the Society of Saint John Mary Vianney of Campos, Brazil. A bit of attention needs to be paid to the reaction to Bishop Williamson's interview.

First of all, it is, of course, to be expected that anyone who puts into question the extent and nature of the Nazi genocide of Jews in Europe is going to be excoriated by those in Talmudic organizations and by representatives of the conciliar Vatican and various conciliar 'bishops" in different parts of the world. YouTube makes it possible for one to live out the Imitation of Christ in a matter of minutes as humiliation, calumny and scorn comes one's way to conform one's soul more fully to that of the Chief Priest and Victim of every Mass, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Deo gratias.

Secondly, the reaction of Bishop Fellay--and by the District Superior of the Society of Saint Pius X in Germany, Father Franz Schmidberger--is both disingenuous and at the same time calculated to curry favor with the conciliar Vatican at a "sensitive" time. His Excellency Bishop Fellay and Father Schmidberger know full well that the views expressed by Bishop Williamson are held by a number of priests and members of the laity within the Society of Saint Pius X. They know that there have been well-publicized reports in various print journals (now available on various internet sites) of a priest of the Society of Saint Pius X being accused, by a now former priest of the Society, who stood by his accusation in print, and by students, of behavior that some have interpreted as sympathetic to Adolf Hitler personally and to the Third Reich. Bishop Fellay knows that there was the well-publicized incident, confirmed by the then District Superior of the South and West District in the United States of America, Father Hector Bolduc, of one of the Society's priests wearing the uniform of the Nazi S.S. in public. And surely Bishop Fellay must remember the nasty business of how a prior of the Society's in Nice, France, gave refuge to a Nazi war criminal named Paul Touvier.

To "deplore" Bishop Williamson's remarks, as Bishop Fellay and Father Schmidberger have done, is disingenuous. While the incidents just summarized are doubtless anomalies reflective of the idiosyncrasies of individual priests and not reflective of the Society of Saint Pius X, whose founder's father died in a Nazi concentration camp, Bishop Williamson was no more "representing" the Society of Saint Pius X with his personal views on the genocide conducted by the Third Reich than were those priests whose seemingly favorable attitudes about the Third Reich have been chronicled in various print journals. Bishop Fellay is concerned now not about a search for historical facts but a desire to do nothing to "jeopardize" the "progress" he believes is represented by the "lifting" of the "excommunications" whose validity the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre rejected categorically as being null and void.

Indeed, Bishop Fellay's recent remarks about the doctrinal exactitude of the "Second" Vatican Council indicates that he has already entered the murky world of trying to defend the indefensible, of trying to read Catholicism into documents and beliefs that run contrary to the Faith. This is not "progress." This is a step into Mister Peabody's Wayback Machine as a prelate who used to be firm in his denunciations of the "Second" Vatican Council speaks at present about various elements of the "Second" Vatican Council as many of us did in our "conservative" years as we tried to project Catholicism into the minds and hearts of men who were then and who remain now as apostates and blasphemers, men who believe in a false religion, conciliarism.

To wit, Bishop Fellay told a reporter for the Swiss newspaper, Le Temps, the following about the conciliar doctrines of religious liberty and of the separation of Church and State:

Regarding religious liberty, it is necessary to distinguish two situations: the religious liberty of the person, and the relations between Church and State. Religious liberty implies liberty of conscience. We agree with the fact that there is not a right to force anyone to accept a religion. As for our reflection on the relations between Church and State, it is based on the principle of tolerance. It seems clear to us that there where there are multiple religions, the State should be watchful of their good coexistence and peace. Nevertheless, there is but one religion that is true, and the others are not. But we tolerate this situation for the good of all.

 

Bishop Fellay knows full well that the "religious liberty" promoted the "Second" Vatican Council and the conciliar "pontiffs" goes far beyond the mere toleration of false beliefs so as to do no violence to the liberty of personal conscience. He knows full well that the Dignitatis Humanae, which Archbishop Lefebvre refused to sign, and the conciliar "pontiffs" have said that adherents of false religions have a positive right from God to propagate their false beliefs in public and that those false beliefs can contribute to the "betterment" of society and contribute to "world peace." Such contentions are utterly false and blaspheme God, making a mockery of this sterling condemnation of religious liberty as a heresy by Pope Pius VII in Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814:

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

 

Do false religions have a "right" from God to propagate their false beliefs in public? Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that they do. To even imply that Ratzinger/Benedict's view of false religions in the public domain is one of mere toleration rather than of acceptance and esteem is rank intellectual dishonesty that makes a mockery of not only of the pronouncements of Popes Pius VII, Gregory XVI and Pius IX and Leo XIII but which casts aside the following words spoken of by Archbishop Lefebvre to Giovanni Montini/Paul VI on September 11, 1976:

Montini: "Why do yo not accept the Council? You signed the decrees."

Lefebvre: "There were two that I did not sign."

Montini: "Yes, two, religious liberty and Gaudium et Spes."

(Archbishop Lefebvre's mental note: "I thought at the time: 'I signed he others out of respect for the Holy Father. He [Montini] went on.")

Montini: "And why not religious liberty?"

Lefebvre: "It contains passages that are word for word contrary to what was taught by Gregory XVI and Pius IX."

Montini: "Let's leave that aside! We are not here to discuss theology."

(Archbishop Lefebvre's mental note: "I thought to myself: 'This is unbelievable.'") (Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, The Biography of Marcel Lefebvre, Kansas City, Missouri, Angelus Press, pp. 491-492.)

 

Was Archbishop Lefebvre wrong about this, Bishop Fellay? Was your founder, the archbishop who ordained you a priest and consecrated you a bishop, wrong and the conciliarists correct?

It is also intellectually dishonest to imply that the conciliar view of the separation of Church and State is "based on the principle of tolerance." This is not so. The Catholic Church condemns the separation of Church and State, making allowances, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Libertas, June 20, 1888, for the fact she must make concessions in the practical order of things as they exist in the world in order to continue her work amongst her children in those countries where she is not recognized as the true religion. These concessions in the practical order of things are but recognitions of the realities in which the children of Holy Mother Church find themselves and in no way concedes the licitness of the separation of Church and State as a matter of principle. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that the separation of Church and State, deemed a "thesis absolutely false" by Pope Saint Pius X in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, represents "progress" for "humanity." Is your "pope" correct, Bishop Fellay? Or was Archbishop Lefebvre correct in 1987 when remonstrating with the man you consider to be the "pope" about the Sacred Rights of the Social Reign of Christ the King?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

The Catholic teaching on the Social Reign of Christ the King is so foreign to the mind of Joseph Ratzinger that he sat "motionless" with "expressionless" eyes as the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre defended the rights of Our King to reign over men and their nations. There would be a similar reaction if any one of us tried to explain to him that he has offended God greatly by many of his words and actions.

You see, he, Ratzinger/Benedict, does not believe that God hates false religions. He believes that God the Holy Ghost works in and through these false religions. And although he has been quite careful not to embrace openly the theology of universal salvation that was advanced by one of his chief mentors, the late Father Hans Urs von Balthasar, his actions and his words have certainly given the impression that those who adhere to false religions are not in any jeopardy whatsoever of losing their immortal souls for all eternity. And Bishop Bernard Fellay, much like those who have "paid the price for recognition" by the counterfeit church of conciliarism before him, has learned to "finesse" truths that his founder and ordaining archbishop saw in stark terms, understanding that Ratzinger was at war with the Social Reign of Christ the King and the confessionally Catholic civil state.

A Protestant "observer" at the "Second" Vatican Council, Douglas Horton made entries in diary of notes that he took during the council to express approval of what he saw as the Catholic Church's embrace of "enlightened" few of religious liberty, taking a pot shot at an archbishop who dared to speak out against the schema on religious liberty that would be approved by the council fathers:

Yesterday after church Al Outler told us that he had heard that the schema on religious liberty was in trouble and that the presidents of the council, in response to a petition by over a hundred bishops, had decided to postpone the voting upon it--and this morning the newspapers seemed to support this doleful prognostication. This would mean that the delaying tactics of the last two years would again be applied, and possibly again succeed. So today we waited with bated breath for an undesired announcement.

But no such announcement came.

The debate went on, and is likely to be carried on for a day or two more; and in view of the tenseness of emotions it is surely the part of a wise moderatorship to allow the minority to have its say to the last man. As the day has advanced, indeed, I have grown more and more skeptical about the truth of the rumor. Direct word from one peritus who occupies a high seat indicates that the presidents have not acceded to the request of the conservatives, and indirect word from another discloses that the form of the vote on religious liberty is already being considered--I think the ship is still on course in spite of inclement seas--or perhaps I should say sees.

Before the business meeting began this morning [September 20, 1965], the Secretary General read a letter prepared in behalf of the council to be sent to the Holy Father. It expressed warm thanks to His Holiness for establishing the synod of bishops. "It now becomes our concern to obey and cooperate." It also thanked the Pope for his encyclical on the Eucharist, promised prayers for the success of his prospective trip to New York, and asked his blessing. The clapping hands of the fathers signified their approval. An account of the felicities of Felici should not omit his appeal to the fathers who had forgotten to bring with them the text of the schema on divine revelation. Said the Secretary General, "Unfortunately, there are no more available, so borrow a copy if you can--or at least get hold of one in the most honest manner possible."

The array of speakers for the affirmative this morning made it clear that the forces of progress are not lacking either in men or materiel. Of the nine cardinals who made their witness, only one was shadowed by negativism--Cardinal Browne of the Roman curia. Out of the caves of the past he drew the troglodyte theology that in a Catholic state the spreading of another religion is a violation of public morality.

In what contrast were the others! I cite, for instance the Archbishop of Baltimore [Lawrence Sheehan], who made his maiden speech as a cardinal. In a historical address which showed in a most satisfying way the steady evolution of the definition of religious freedom in the church from the time of Leo XIII to the present day, he cannot but have been convincing to the more thoughtful of the fathers.

Cardinal Beran, Archbishop of Prague, who had just stepped out of prison, to which his championing of religious freedom had condemned him, needed hardly to say a word to be convincing. The marks and memories of his incarceration were his eloquence. The council cannot have been impervious to his plea to approve the document as its stands, without dilution.

Equally telling was the testimony of Cardinal Cardijn--who had recently been elevated to his high office from the ranks of the priesthood, without ever having been a bishop, this because of his surpassing saintliness and his founding and developing of the worldwide organization of Young Christian Workers. His sixty years of experience with youth spoke for him when he said, "If this schema is not approved, the hope of tomorrow will be destroyed."

Of the four bishops who spoke this morning, only one condemned the declaration. Two Lefebvres were participants in the debate. The one, the cardinal, the Archbishop of Bourges, had spoken with complete clarity in meeting the several major objections of the conservatives, but now Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre proved himself a cousin so distant as hardly to belong to the same family. He argued that the schema really came from the pens of such eighteenth-century philosophers as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau and that it paid more attention to the human conscience than it did to the church. He wanted none of it. He is the Superior General of the Congregation of the Holy Spirit; one of my neighbor observers, in a not exactly neutral frame of mind, expressed the wish that the Holy Spirit might be admitted to the order

Rome must surely see that Rome will be the chief sufferer if the declaration on religious liberty is finally defeated. The cock has crowed twice--in the second and third sessions. I remember Papini's description of Peter after the cock crew for the last time: "Then in the dim light of dawn the last stars saw a man staggering along like a drunkard, his head hidden in his cloak, his shoulders shaken by the sobs of a depressing lament." I do not think that Peter will take that course again today. (Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary 1965: A Protestant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Philadelphia and Boston, United Church Press, pp. 33-35.)

 

Horton also analyzed the "shift" from the confessionally Catholic civil state to an embrace of the religiously neutral or indifferent civil state in the contemporaneous diary he kept of the notes that he took while attending a talk given on September 17, 1965, by the Americanist Father John Courtney Murray, S.J., to the Protestant "observers" in attendance at the "Second" Vatican Council while the council was deliberating the document that he, Murray, helped to shepherd to passage, Dignitatis Humanae:

Fr. John Courtney Murray introduced the schema on religious liberty in a way that revealed his knowledge not only of the document itself but also of the whole area of Christian ethics in which the subject of religious liberty lies. In answer to certain critics he pointed out that the document is based not on the passing social situation of today but upon the eternal truth of the dignity of the human person. He hopes the schema would open the way to full dialogue with the World Council of Churches and men of goodwill everywhere. As late as the nineteenth century the church regarded the state as being, as it were, within it, part of itself. Then came the great revolutions, which the church did not understand. Only today the church is coming to see the state as secular, but in a good sense--not hostile or indifferent to religion, but concerned only for the good of the human person, justice, charity, freedom.

In the course of the discussion it became evident that most of the suggestions made by the observers had already been considered by the Secretariat during the now long period of gestation of the schema. (Douglas Horton, Vatican Diary 1965: A Protestant Observes the Fourth Session of Vatican Council II. Philadelphia and Boston, United Church Press, pp. 27-28.)

 

In other words, God the Holy Ghost failed Popes Pius VII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX and Leo XIII, among others, when they condemned religious and civil liberty in the sense those concepts were being used by the anti-Incarnational and naturalist scions of Modernity, that is, of course, Judeo-Masonry. Archbishop Lefebvre himself was wrong to have placed in stark terms what should have been expressed in a more "nuanced, "balanced" way. This is, of course, preposterous on its very face. Such is the inevitable path of those who seek to be "recognized" by apostates and blasphemers who have cast themselves out of the Catholic Church and who are forerunners in their own way of Antichrist.

Bishop Fellay is replicating now the old policy of the Society of Saint Pius X, practiced most sadly by the late Archbishop Lefebvre himself, of throwing out the "hardliners" when "deals" appear to be imminent with the conciliar Vatican. It was the attack on "hardliners" in 1983, when a "thaw" between the Society and the conciliar Vatican appeared to be taking place, that led to the expulsion of "The Nine," who were right then and remain correct (see Letter of 'the Nine' to Abp. Marcel Lefebvre).

Ironically, Bishop Williamson, now considered by Bishop Fellay and Father Schmidberger to be an expendable "hardliner," played a key role in urging Archbishop Lefebvre to expel "The Nine" twenty-six years ago (see The Mountains of Gelboe and The Nine vs. Lefebvre: We Resist You to Your Face). With all due respect to His Excellency Bishop Williamson, it is time to admit that Father Anthony Cekada's Bp. Williamson's Mentevacantist Error is a correct assessment of his mistaken view of the "legitimacy" of the "pontificate" of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and that it is thus time to admit that "The Nine" have been correct all along.

As can be seen in the furor created by Bishop Williamson's remarks in his recently televised interview, those who put into question any of the facts relating to the undeniable crimes committed by the diabolically-inspired minions of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich are considered to be "holocaust deniers" who must be sent to prison or cast into the outer darkness, stripped of their dignity and shorn of all respect. The truth of the matter, however, is that we should be concerned about praying and working for the conversion of those who deny the one and only Holocaust, that which our sins imposed upon the God-Man, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as He paid back the debt of our own sins by shedding every single drop of His Most Precious Blood.

Pope Saint Pius X told the founder of international Zionism, Theodore Herzl, on January 25, 1904, 105 years ago now, that the Catholic Church was would be " be ready with churches and priests to baptize all of you" if the adherents of the Talmud attempted to settle in Palestine. Is this the approach of the counterfeit church of conciliarism? No, those who deny the Holocaust are esteemed and catered to at almost every turn, making a mockery of the words uttered by the saint celebrated on the Roman Calendar yesterday, Saint John Chrysostom:

 

SERMON I 

TODAY I HAD INTENDED to complete my discussion on the topic on which I spoke to you a few days ago; I wished to present you with even clearer proof that God's nature is more than our minds can grasp. Last Sunday I spoke on this at great length and I brought forward as my witnesses Isaiah, David, and Paul. For it was Isaiah who exclaimed: "Who shall declare his generation?" David knew God was beyond his comprehension and so he gave thanks to him and said: "I will praise you for you are fearfully magnified: wonderful are your works". And again it was David who said: "The knowledge of you is to wonderful for me, a height to which my mind cannot attain". Paul did not search and pry into God's very essence, but only into his providence; I should say rather that he looked only on the small portion of divine providence which God had made manifest when he called the gentiles. And Paul saw this small part as a vast and incomprehensible sea when he exclaimed: "O the depth of the riches and of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are his judgments, and how unsearchable his ways!"

(2) These three witnesses gave us proof enough, but I was not satisfied with prophets nor did I settle for apostles. I mounted to the heavens and gave you as proof the chorus of angels as they sang: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men". Again, you heard the Seraphim as they shuddered and cried out in astonishment:

"Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God of hosts, all the earth is filled with his glory". And I gave you also the cherubim who exclaimed: "Blessed be his glory in his dwelling".

(3) So there were three witnesses on earth and three in Heaven who made it clear that God's glory cannot be approached. For the rest, the proof was beyond dispute; there was great applause, the audience warmed with enthusiasm, you assembly came aflame. I did rejoice at this, yet my joy was not because praise was coming to me but because glory was coming to my Master. For that applause and praise showed the love you have for God in your souls. If a servant loves his master and hears someone speak in praise of that master, his heart comes aflame with a love for him who speaks. This is because the servant loves his master. You acted just that way when I spoke: by the abundance of your applause you showed clearly your abundant love for the Master.

(4) And so I wanted again today to engage in that contest. For if the enemies of the truth never have enough of blaspheming our Benefactor, we must be all the more tireless in praising the God of all. But what am I to do? Another very serious illness calls for any cure my words can bring, an illness which has become implanted in the body of the Church. We must first root this ailment out and then take thought for matters outside; we must first cure our own and then be concerned for others who are strangers.

(5) What is this disease? The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews are soon to march upon us one after the other and in quick succession: the feast of Trumpets, the feast of Tabernacles, the fasts. There are many in our ranks who say they think as we do. Yet some of these are going to watch the festivals and others will join the Jews in keeping their feasts and observing their fasts. I wish to drive this perverse custom from the Church right now. My homilies against the Anomians can be put off to another time, and the postponement would cause no harm. But now that the Jewish festivals are close by and at the very door, if I should fail to cure those who are sick with the Judaizing disease. I am afraid that, because of their ill-suited association and deep ignorance, some Christians may partake in the Jews' transgressions; once they have done so, I fear my homilies on these transgressions will be in vain. For if they hear no word from me today, they will then join the Jews in their fasts; once they have committed this sin it will be useless for me to apply the remedy.

(6) And so it is that I hasten to anticipate this danger and prevent it. This is what physicians do. They first check the diseases which are most urgent and acute. But the danger from this sickness is very closely related to the danger from the other; since the Anomians impiety is akin to that of the Jews, my present conflict is akin to my former one. And there is a kingship because the Jews and the Anomians make the same accusation. And what charges do the Jews make? That He called God His own Father and so made Himself equal to God. The Anomians also make this charge-I should not say they make this a charge; they even blot out the phrase "equal to God" and what it connotes, by their resolve to reject it even if they do not physically erase it.

II

But do not be surprised that I called the Jews pitiable. They really are pitiable and miserable. When so many blessings from heaven came into their hands, they thrust them aside and were at great pains to reject them. The morning Sun of Justice arose for them, but they thrust aside its rays and still sit in darkness. We, who were nurtured by darkness, drew the light to ourselves and were freed from the gloom of their error. They were the branches of that holy root, but those branches were broken. We had no share in the root, but we did reap the fruit of godliness. From their childhood they read the prophets, but they crucified him whom the prophets had foretold. We did not hear the divine prophecies but we did worship him of whom they prophesied. And so they are pitiful because they rejected the blessings which were sent to them, while others seized hold of these blessing and drew them to themselves. Although those Jews had been called to the adoption of sons, they fell to kinship with dogs; we who were dogs received the strength, through God's grace, to put aside the irrational nature which was ours and to rise to the honor of sons. How do I prove this? Christ said: "It is no fair to take the children's bread and to cast it to the dogs". Christ was speaking to the Canaanite woman when He called the Jews children and the Gentiles dogs.

(2) But see how thereafter the order was changed about: they became dogs, and we became the children. Paul said of the Jews: "Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the mutilation. For we are the circumcision". Do you see how those who at first were children became dogs? Do you wish to find out how we, who at first were dogs, became children? "But to as many as received him, he gave the power of becoming sons of God".

(3) Nothing is more miserable than those people who never failed to attack their own salvation. When there was need to observe the Law, they trampled it under foot. Now that the Law has ceased to bind, they obstinately strive to observe it. What could be more pitiable that those who provoke God not only by transgressing the Law but also by keeping it? On this account Stephen said: "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, you always resist the Holy Spirit", not only by transgressing the Law but also by wishing to observe it at the wrong time.

(4) Stephen was right in calling them stiff-necked. For they failed to take up the yoke of Christ, although it was sweet and had nothing about it which was either burdensome or oppressive. For he said: "Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart", and "Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is sweet and my burden light". Nonetheless they failed to take up the yoke because of the stiffness of their necks. Not only did they fail to take it up but they broke it and destroyed it. For Jeremiah said: "Long ago you broke your yoke and burst your bonds". It was not Paul who said this but the voice of the prophet speaking loud and clear. When he spoke of the yoke and the bonds, he meant the symbols of rule, because the Jews rejected the rule of Christ when they said: "We have no king but Caesar". You Jews broke the yoke, you burst the bonds, you cast yourselves out of the kingdom of heaven, and you made yourselves subject to the rule of men. Please consider with me how accurately the prophet hinted that their hearts were uncontrolled. He did not say: "You set aside the yoke", but "You broke the yoke" and this is the crime of untamed beasts, who are uncontrolled and reject rule.

(5) But what is the source of this hardness? It come from gluttony and drunkenness. Who say so? Moses himself. "Israel ate and was filled and the darling grew fat and frisky". When brute animals feed from a full manger, they grow plump and become more obstinate and hard to hold in check; they endure neither the yoke, the reins, nor the hand of the charioteer. Just so the Jewish people were driven by their drunkenness and plumpness to the ultimate evil; they kicked about, they failed to accept the yoke of Christ, nor did they pull the plow of his teaching. Another prophet hinted at this when he said: "Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer". And still another called the Jews "an untamed calf".

(6) Although such beasts are unfit for work, they are fit for killing. And this is what happened to the Jews: while they were making themselves unfit for work, they grew fit for slaughter. This is why Christ said: "But as for these my enemies, who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and slay them". You Jews should have fasted then, when drunkenness was doing those terrible things to you, when your gluttony was giving birth to your ungodliness-not now. Now your fasting is untimely and an abomination. Who said so? Isaiah himself when he called out in a loud voice: "I did not choose this fast, say the Lord". Why? "You quarrel and squabble when you fast and strike those subject to you with your fists". But if you fasting was an abomination when you were striking your fellow slaves, does it become acceptable now that you have slain your Master? How could that be right?

(7) The man who fast should be properly restrained, contrite, humbled-not drunk with anger. But do you strike your fellow slaves? In Isaiah's day they quarreled and squabbled when they fasted; now when fast, they go in for excesses and the ultimate licentiousness, dancing with bare feet in the marketplace. The pretext is that they are fasting, but they act like men who are drunk. Hear how the prophet bit them to fast. "Sanctify a fast", he said. He did not say: "Make a parade of your fasting", but "call an assembly; gather together the ancients". But these Jews are gathering choruses of effeminates and a great rubbish heap of harlots; they drag into the synagogue the whole theater, actors and all. For there is no difference between the theater and the synagogue. I know that some suspect me of rashness because I said there is no difference between the theater and the synagogue; but I suspect them of rashness if they do not think that this is so. If my declaration that the two are the same rests on my own authority, then charge me with rashness. But if the words I speak are the words of the prophet, then accept his decision.

III

Many, I know, respect the Jews and think that their present way of life is a venerable one. This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion. I said that the synagogue is no better than a theater and I bring forward a prophet as my witness. Surely the Jews are not more deserving of belief than their prophets. "You had a harlot's brow; you became shameless before all". Where a harlot has set herself up, that place is a brothel. But the synagogue is not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts. Jeremiah said: "Your house has become for me the den of a hyena". He does not simply say "of wild beast", but "of a filthy wild beast", and again: "I have abandoned my house, I have cast off my inheritance". But when God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons.

(2) But at any rate the Jews say that they, too, adore God. God forbid that I say that. No Jew adores God! Who says so? The Son of God says so. For he said: "If you were to know my Father, you would also know me. But you neither know me nor do you know my Father". Could I produce a witness more trustworthy than the Son of God?

(3) If, then, the Jews fail to know the Father, if they crucified the Son, if they thrust off the help of the Spirit, who should not make bold to declare plainly that the synagogue is a dwelling of demons? God is not worshipped there. Heaven forbid! From now on it remains a place of idolatry. But still some people pay it honor as a holy place.

(4) Let me tell you this, not from guesswork but from my own experience. Three days ago-believe me, I am not lying-I saw a free woman of good bearing, modest, and a believer. A brutal, unfeeling man, reputed to be a Christian (for I would not call a person who would dare to do such a thing a sincere Christian) was forcing her to enter the shrine of the Hebrews and to swear there an oath about some matters under dispute with him. She came up to me and asked for help; she begged me to prevent this lawless violence-for it was forbidden to her, who had shared in the divine mysteries, to enter that place. I was fired with indignation, I became angry, I rose up, I refused to let her be dragged into that transgression, I snatched her from the hands of her abductor. I asked him if were a Christian, and he said he was. Then I set upon him vigorously, charging him with lack of feeling and the worst stupidity; I told him he was no better off than a mule if he, who professed to worship Christ, would drag someone off to the dens of the Jews who had crucified him. I talked to him a long time, drawing my lesson from the Holy Gospels; I told him first that it was altogether forbidden to swear and that it was wrong to impose the necessity of swearing on anyone. I then told him that he most not subject a baptize believer to this necessity. In fact, he must not force even an unbaptized person to swear an oath.

(5) After I talked with him at great length and had driven the folly of his error from his soul, I asked him why he rejected the Church and dragged the woman to the place where the Hebrews assembled. He answered that many people had told him that oaths sworn there were more to be feared. His words made me groan, then I grew angry, and finally I began to smile. When I saw the devil's wickedness, I groaned because he had the power to seduce men; I grew angry when I considered how careless were those who were deceived; when I saw the extent and depth of the folly of those who were deceived, I smiled.

(6) I told you this story because you are savage and ruthless in your attitude toward those who do such things and undergo these experiences. If you see one of your brothers falling into such transgressions, you consider that it is someone else's misfortune, not your own; you think you have defended yourselves against your accusers when you say: "What concern of mine is it? What do I have in common with that man"? When you say that, your words manifest the utmost hatred for mankind and a cruelty which benefits the devil. What are you saying? You are a man and share the same nature. Why speak of a common nature when you have but a single head, Christ? Do you dare to say you have nothing in common with your own members? In what sense do you admit that Christ is the head of the Church? For certainly it is the function of the head to join all the limbs together, to order them carefully to each other, and to bind them into one nature. But if you have nothing in common with your members, then you have nothing in common with your brother, nor do you have Christ as your head.

(7) The Jews frighten you as if you were little children, and you do not see it. Many wicked slaves show frightening and ridiculous masks to youngsters-the masks are not frightening by their nature, but they seem so to the children's simple minds-and in this way they stir up many a laugh. This is the way the Jews frighten the simpler-minded Christians with the bugbears and hobgoblins of their shrines. Yet how could their ridiculous and disgraceful synagogues frighten you? Are they not the shrines of men who have been rejected, dishonored, and condemned?

IV

Our churches are not like that; they are truly frightening and filled with fear. God's presence makes a place frightening because he has power over life and death. In our churches we hear countless homilies on eternal punishments, on rivers of fire, on the venomous worm, on bonds that cannot be burst, or exterior darkness. But the Jews neither know nor dream of these things. They live for their bellies, they gape for the things of this world, their condition is not better than that of pigs or goats because of their wanton ways and excessive gluttony. They know but one thing: to fill their bellies and be drunk, to get all cut and bruised, to be hurt and wounded while fighting for their favorite charioteers.

(2) Tell me, then, are their shrines awful and frightening? Who would say so? what reasons do we have for thinking that they are frightening unless someone should tell us that dishonored slaves, who have no right to speak and who have been driven from their Master's home, should frighten us, who have been given honor and the freedom to speak? Certainly this is not the case. Inns are not more august then royal palaces. Indeed the synagogue is less deserving of honor than any inn. It is not merely a lodging place for robbers and cheats but also for demons. This is true not only of the synagogues but also of the souls of the Jews, as I shall try to prove at the end of my homily.

(3) I urge you to keep my words in your minds in a special way. For I am not now speaking for show or applause but to cure your souls. And what else is left for me to say when some of you are still sick although there are so many physicians to effect a cure?

(4) There were twelve apostles and they drew the whole world to themselves. The greater portion of the city is Christian, yet some are still sick with the Judaizing disease. And what could we, who are healthy, say in our own defense? Surely those who are sick deserve to be accused. But we are not free from blame, because we have neglected them in their hour of illness; if we had shown great concern for them and they had the benefit of this care, they could not possibly still be sick.

(5) Let me get the start on you by saying this now, so that each of you may win over his brother. Even if you must impose restraint, even if you must use force, even if you must treat him ill and obstinately, do everything to save him from the devil's snare and to free him from fellowship with those who slew Christ.

(6) Tell me this. Suppose you were to see a man who had been justly condemned being led to execution through the marketplace. Suppose it were in your power to save him from the hands of the public executioner. Would you not do all you could to keep him from being dragged off? But now you see your own brother being dragged off unjustly to the depth of destruction. And it is not the executioner who drags him of, but the devil. Would you be so bold as not to do your part toward rescuing him from his transgression? If you don't help him, what excuse would you find? But your brother is stronger and more powerful than you. Show him to me. If he will stand fast in his obstinate resolve, I shall choose to risk my life rather than let him enter the doors of the synagogue.

(7) I shall say to him: What fellowship do you have with the free Jerusalem, with the Jerusalem above? You chose the one below; be a slave with that earthly Jerusalem which, according to the word of the Apostle, is a slave together with her children. Do you fast with the Jews? Then take off your shoes with the Jews, and walk barefoot in the marketplace, and share with them in their indecency and laughter. But you would not chose to do this because you are ashamed and apt to blush. Are you ashamed to share with them in outward appearance but unashamed to share in their impiety? What excuse will you have, you who are only half a Christian?

(8) Believe me, I shall risk my life before I would neglect any one who is sick with this disease-if I see him. If I fail to see him, surely God will grant me pardon. And let each one of you consider this matter; let him not think it is something of secondary importance. Do you take no notice of what the deacon continuously calls out in the mysteries? "Recognize one another", he says. Do you not see how he entrusts to you the careful examination of your brothers? Do this in the case of Judaizers, too. When you observe someone Judaizing, take hold of him, show him what he is doing, so that you may not yourself be an accessory to the risk he runs.

(9) If any Roman soldier serving overseas is caught favoring the barbarians and the Persians, not only is he in danger but so also is everyone who was aware of how this felt and failed to make this fact known to the general. Since you are the army of Christ, be overly careful in searching to see if anyone favoring an alien faith has mingled among you, and make his presence know-not so that we may put him to death as those generals did, nor that we may punish him or take our vengeance upon him, but that we may free him from his error and ungodliness and make him entirely our own.

(10) If you are unwilling to do this, if you know of such a person but conceal him, be sure that both you and he will be subject to the same penalty. For Paul subjects to chastisement and punishment not only those who commit acts of wickedness but also those who approve what they have done. The prophet, too, brings to the same judgment not only thieves but also who run with the thieves. And this is quite reasonable. For if a man is aware of a criminal's actions but covers them up and conceals them, he is providing a stronger basis for the criminal to be careless of the law and making him less afraid in his career of crime.

V

But I must get back again to those who are sick. Consider, then, with whom they are sharing their fasts. It is with those who shouted: "Crucify him, Crucify him", with those who said: "His blood be upon us and upon our children". If some men had been caught in rebellion against their ruler and were condemned, would you have dared to go up to them and to speak with them? I think not. Is it not foolish, then, to show such readiness to flee from those who have sinned against a man, but to enter into fellowship with those who have committed outrages against God himself? Is it not strange that those who worship the Crucified keep common festival with those who crucified him? Is it not a sign of folly and the worst madness?

(2) Since there are some who think of the synagogue as a holy place, I must say a few words to them. Why do you reverence that place? Must you not despise it, hold it in abomination, run away from it? They answer that the Law and the books of the prophets are kept there. What is this? Will any place where these books are be a holy place? By no means! This is the reason above all others why I hate the synagogue and abhor it. They have the prophets but not believe them; they read the sacred writings but reject their witness-and this is a mark of men guilty of the greatest outrage.

(3) Tell me this. If you were to see a venerable man, illustrious and renowned, dragged off into a tavern or den of robbers; if you were to see him outraged, beaten, and subjected there to the worst violence, would you have held that tavern or den in high esteem because that great and esteemed man had been inside it while undergoing that violent treatment? I think not. Rather, for this very reason you would have hated and abhorred the place.

(4) Let that be your judgment about the synagogue, too. For they brought the books of Moses and the prophets along with them into the synagogue, not to honor them but to outrage them with dishonor. When they say that Moses and the prophets knew not Christ and said nothing about his coming, what greater outrage could they do to those holy men than to accuse them of failing to recognize their Master, than to say that those saintly prophets are partners of their impiety? And so it is that we must hate both them and their synagogue all the more because of their offensive treatment of those holy men.

(5) Why do I speak about the books and the synagogues? In time of persecution, the public executioners lay hold of the bodies of the martyrs, they scourge them, and tear them to pieces. Does it make the executioners' hands holy because they lay hold of the body of holy men? Heaven forbid! The hands which grasped and held the bodies of the holy ones still stay unholy. Why? Because those executioners did a wicked thing when they laid their hands upon the holy. And will those who handle and outrage the writings of the holy ones be any more venerable for this than those who executed the martyrs? Would that not be the ultimate foolishness? If the maltreated bodies of the martyrs do not sanctify those who maltreated them but even add to their blood-guilt, much less could the Scriptures, if read without belief, ever help those who read without believing. The very act of deliberately choosing to maltreat the Scriptures convicts them of greater godlessness.

(6) If they did not have the prophets, they would not deserve such punishment; if they had not read the sacred books, they would not be so unclean and so unholy. But, as it is, they have been stripped of all excuse. They do have the heralds of the truth but, with hostile heart, they set themselves against the prophets and the truth they speak. So it is for this reason that they would be all the more profane and blood-guilty: they have the prophets, but they treat them with hostile hearts.

(7) So it is that I exhort you to flee and shun their gatherings. The harm they bring to our weaker brothers is not slight; they offer no slight excuse to sustain to the folly of the Jews. For when they see that you, who worship the Christ whom they crucified, are reverently following their rituals, how can they fail to think that the rites they have performed are the best and that our ceremonies are worthless? For after you worship and adore at our mysteries, you run to the very men who destroy our rites. Paul said: "If a man sees you that have knowledge sit at meat in the idol's temple, shall not his conscience, being weak, be emboldened to eat those things which are sacrificed to idols"? And let me say: If a man sees you that have knowledge come into the synagogue and participate in the festival of the Trumpets, shall not his conscience, being weak, be emboldened to admire what the Jews do? He who falls not only pays the penalty for his own fall, but he is also punished because he trips others as well. But the man who has stood firm is rewarded not only because of his own virtue but people admire him for leading others to desire the same things.

(8) Therefore, flee the gatherings and holy places of the Jews. Let no man venerate the synagogue because of the holy books; let him hate and avoid it because the Jews outrage and maltreat the holy ones, because they refuse to believe their words, because they accuse them of the ultimate impiety.

VI

That you may know that the sacred books do not make a place holy but that the purpose of those who frequent a place does make it profane, I shall tell an old story. Ptolemy Philadelphus had collected books from all over the world. When he learned that the Jews had writings which treated of God and the ideal state, he sent for men from Judea and had them translate those books, which he then had deposited in the temple of Serapis, for he was a pagan. Up to the present day the translated books remain there in the temple. But will the temple of Serapis be holy because of the holy books? Heaven forbid! Although the books have their own holiness, they do not give a share of it to the place because those who frequent the place are defiled.

(2) You must apply the same argument to the synagogue. Even if there is no idol there, still demons do inhabit the place. And I say this not only about the synagogue here in town but about the one in Daphne as well; for at Daphne you have a more wicked place of perdition which they call Matrona's. I have heard that many of the faithful go up there and sleep beside the place.

(3) But heaven forbid that I call these people faithful. For to me the shrine of Matrona and the temple of Apollo are equally profane. If anyone charges me with boldness, I will in turn charge him with the utmost madness. For, tell me, is not the dwelling place of demons a place of impiety even if no god's statue stands there? Here the slayers of Christ gather together, here the cross is driven out, here God is blasphemed, here the Father is ignored, here the Son is outraged, here the grace of the Spirit is rejected. Does not greater harm come from this place since the Jews themselves are demons? In the pagan temple the impiety is naked and obvious; it would not be ease to deceive a man of sound and prudent mind or entice him to go there. But in the synagogue there are men who say they worship God and abhor idols, men who say they have prophets and pay them honor. But by their words they make ready an abundance of bait to catch in their nets the simpler souls who are so foolish as to be caught of guard.

(4) So the godlessness of the Jews and the pagans is on a par. But the Jews practice a deceit which is more dangerous. In their synagogue stands an invisible altar of deceit on which they sacrifice not sheep and calves but the souls of men.

(5) Finally, if the ceremonies of the Jews move you to admiration, what do you have in common with us? If the Jewish ceremonies are venerable and great, our are lies. But if ours are true, as they are true, theirs are filled with deceit. I am not speaking of the Scriptures. Heaven forbid! It was the Scriptures which took me by the hand and led me to Christ. But I am talking about the ungodliness and present madness of the Jews.

(6) Certainly it is the time for me to show that demons dwell in the synagogue, not only in the place itself but also in the souls of the Jews. As Christ said: "When an unclean spirit is gone out, he walks through dry places seeking rest. If he does not find it he says: I shall return to my house. And coming he finds it empty, swept, and garnished. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter into him and the last state of that man is made worse than the first. So shall it be also to this generations".

(7) Do you see that demons dwell in their souls and that these demons are more dangerous than the ones of old? And this is very reasonable. In the old days the Jews acted impiously toward the prophets; now they outrage the Master of the prophets. Tell me this. Do you not shudder to come into the same place with men possessed, who have so many unclean spirits, who have been reared amid slaughter and bloodshed? Must you share a greeting with them and exchange a bare word? Must you not turn away from them since they are the common disgrace and infection of the whole world? Have they not come to every form of wickedness? Have not all the prophets spent themselves making many and long speeches of accusation against them? What tragedy, what manner of lawlessness have they not eclipsed by their blood-guiltiness? They sacrificed their own sons and daughters to demons. They refused to recognize nature, they forgot the pangs, of birth, they trod underfoot the rearing of their children, they overturned from their foundations the laws of kingship, they became more savage than any wild beast.

(8) Wild beasts oftentimes lay down their lives and scorn their own safety to protect their young. No necessity forced the Jews when they slew their own children with their own hands to pay honor to the avenging demons, the foes of our life. What deed of theirs should strike us with greater astonishment? Their ungodliness or their cruelty or their inhumanity? That they sacrificed their children or that they sacrificed them to demons? Because of their licentiousness, did they not show a lust beyond that of irrational animals? Hear what the prophet says of their excesses. "They are become as amorous stallions. Every one neighed after his neighbor's wife". He did not say: "Everyone lusted after his neighbor's wife", but he expressed the madness which came from their licentiousness with the greatest clarity by speaking of it as the neighing of brute beasts.

VII

What else do you wish me to tell you? Shall I tell you of their plundering, their covetousness, their abandonment of the poor, their thefts, their cheating in trade? the whole day long will not be enough to give you an account of these things. But do their festivals have something solemn and great about them? They have shown that these, too, are impure. Listen to the prophets; rather, listen to God and with how strong a statement he turns his back on them: "I have found your festivals hateful, I have thrust them away from myself".

(2) Does God hate their festivals and do you share in them? He did not say this or that festival, but all of them together. Do you wish to see that God hates the worship paid with kettledrums, with lyres, with harps, and other instruments? God said: "Take away from me the sound of your songs and I will not hear the canticle of you harps". If God said: "Take them away from me", do you run to listen to the trumpets? Are these sacrifices and offerings not an abomination? "If you bring me the finest wheaten flour, it is in vain: incense is an abomination to me". The incense is an abomination. Is not the place also an abomination? Before they committed the crime of crimes, before they killed their Master, before the cross, before the slaying of Christ, it was an abomination. Is it not now all the more an abomination? And yet what is more fragrant than incense? But God looks not to the nature of the gifts but to the intention of those who bring them; it is this intention that he judges their offerings.

(3) He paid heed to Abel and then to his gifts. He looked at Cain and then turned away from his offering. For Scripture says: "For Cain and his offerings he had no regard". Noah offered to God sacrifices of sheep and calves and birds. The Scripture say: "And the Lord smelled a sweet odor", that is, he accepted the offerings. For God has no nostrils but is a bodiless spirit. Yet what is carried up from the altar is the odor and smoke from burning bodies, and nothing is more malodorous than such a savor. But that you may learn that God attends to the intention of the one offering the sacrifice and then accepts or rejects it, Scripture calls the odor and the smoke a sweet savor; but it calls the incense an abomination because the intention of those offering it reeked with a great stench.

(4) Do you wish to learn that, together with the sacrifices and the musical instruments and the festivals and the incense, God also rejects the temple because of those who enter it? He showed this mostly by his deeds, when he gave it over to barbarian hands, and later when he utterly destroyed it. But even before its destruction, through his prophet he shouted aloud and said: "Put not your trust in deceitful words for it will not help you when you say: "This is the temple of the Lord! The temple of the Lord"! What the prophet says is that the temple does not make holy those who gather there, but those who gather there make the temple holy. If the temple did not help at a time when the Cherubim and the Ark were there, much less will it help now that all those things are gone, now that God's rejection is complete, now that there is greater ground for enmity. How great an act of madness and derangement would it be to take as your partners in the festivals those who have been dishonored, those whom God has forsaken, those who angered the Master?

(5) Tell me this. If a man were to have slain your son, would you endure to look upon him, or accept his greeting? Would you not shun him as a wicked demon, as the devil himself? They slew the Son of your Lord; do you have the boldness to enter with them under the same roof? After he was slain he heaped such honor upon you that he made you his brother and coheir. But you dishonor him so much that you pay honor to those who slew him on the cross, that you observe with them the fellowship of the festivals, that you go to their profane places, enter their unclean doors, and share in the tables of demons. For I am persuaded to call the fasting of the Jews a table of demons because they slew God. If the Jews are acting against God, must they not be serving the demons? Are you looking for demons to cure you? When Christ allowed the demons to enter into the swine, straightway they plunged into the sea. Will these demons spare the bodies of men? I wish they would not kill men's bodies, that they would not plot against them. But they will. The demons cast men from Paradise and deprived them the honor from above. Will they cure their bodies? That is ridiculous, mere stories. The demons know how to plot and do harm, not to cure. They do not spare souls. Tell me, then, will they spare bodies? They try to drive men from the Kingdom. Will they choose to free them from disease?

(6) Did you not hear what the prophet said? Rather, did you hear what God said through the prophet? He said that the demons can do neither good nor evil. Even if they could cure and wanted to do so-which is impossible-you must not take an indestructible and unending punishment in exchange for a slight benefit which can soon be destroyed. Will you cure your body and destroy your soul? You are making a poor exchange. Are you angering God who made your body, and are you calling to your aid the demon who plots against you?

(7) If any demon-fearing pagan has medical knowledge, will he also find it easy to win you over to worship the pagan gods? Those pagans, too, have their skill. They, too, have often cured many diseases and brought the sick back to health. Are we going to share in their godlessness on this account? Heaven forbid! Hear what Moses said to the Jews. "If there arise in the midst of you a prophet or one that says he has dreamed a dream and he foretell a sign and a wonder, and that sign or wonder which he spoke come to pass, and he say to you: "Let us go and serve strange gods whom our fathers did not know, you shall not hear the words of that prophet or dreamer".

(8) What Moses means is this. If some prophet rises up, he says, and performs a sign, by either raising a dead man or cleansing a leper, or curing a maimed man, and after working the wonder calls you to impiety, do not heed him just because his sign comes to pass. Why? "The Lord your God is trying you to see whether you love him with all your heart and all your soul". From this it is clear that demons do not cure. If ever God should permit demons to cure, as he might permit a man to do, his permission is given to test you-not because God does not know what you are, but that he may teach you to reject even the demons who do cure.

(9) And why do I speak of bodily cures? If any man threatens you with Gehenna unless you deny Christ, do not heed his words. If someone should promise you a kingdom to revolt from the only-begotten Son of God, turn away from him and hate him. Be a disciple of Paul and emulate those words which his blessed and noble soul exclaimed when he said: "I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, no height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ our Lord".

(10) No angels, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor any other creature separated Paul from the love of Christ. Do you revolt to cure your body? And what excuse could we find? Certainly we must fear Christ more than Gehenna and desire him more than a kingdom. Even if we be sick, it is better to remain in ill health than to fall into impiety for the sake of a cure; for even if a demon cures you, he has hurt more than he has helped. He has helped the body, which a short time later will altogether die and rot away. But he has hurt the soul, which will never die. Kidnappers often entice little boys by offering them sweets, and cakes, and marbles, and other such things; then they deprive them of their freedom and their very life. So, too, the demons promise cure of a limb and then dash the whole salvation of the soul into the sea.

(11) Beloved, let us not put up with that; in every way let us seek to keep ourselves free from godlessness. Could Job not have heeded his wife, blasphemed against God, and been free from the disaster which beset him? "Curse God and die" she said. But he chose to suffer the pain and to waste away; he chose to endure that unbearable blow rather to blaspheme and be free from the evils which beset him. You must emulate him. If the demon shall promise you ten thousand cures from the ills which beset you, do not heed him, do not put up with him-just as Job refused to heed his wife. Chose to endure your illness rather than destroy your faith and the salvation of your soul. God does not forsake you. It is because he wishes to increase your glory that oftentimes he permits you to fall sick. Keep up your courage so that you may also hear him say: "Do you think I have dealt with you otherwise than that you may be shown to be just"?

VIII

I could have said more than this, but to keep you from forgetting what I have said, I shall bring my homily to an end here with the words of Moses: "I call heaven and earth to witness against you". If any of you, whether you are here present or not, shall go to the spectacle of the Trumpets, or rush off to the synagogue, or go up to the shrine of Matrona, or take part in fasting, or share in the Sabbath, or observe any other Jewish ritual great or small, I call heaven and earth as my witnesses that I am guiltless of the blood of all of you.

(2) These words will stand by your side and mine on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. If you heed them, they will bring you great confidence; if you heed them not or conceal anyone who dares to do those things, my words shall stand against you as bitter accusations. "For I have not shrunk from declaring to you the whole counsel of God".

(3) I have deposited the money with the bankers. It remains for you to increase the deposit and to use the profit from my words for the salvation of your brothers. Do you find it an oppressive burden to denounce those who commit these sins? It is an oppressive burden to remain silent. For this silence makes you an enemy to God and brings destruction both to you who conceal such sinners and to those whose sins go unrevealed. How much better it is to become hateful to our fellow servants for saving them to provoke God's anger against yourselves. Even if your fellow servant be vexed with you now, he will not be able to harm you but will be grateful later on for his cure. But if you seek to win your fellow servant's favor, if you remain silent and hurt him by concealing his sin, God will exact from you the ultimate penalty. Your silence will make God your foe and will hurt your brother; if you denounce him and reveal his sin, you will make God propitious and benefit your brother and you will gain as a friend one who was crazed but who learned from experience that you served him well.

(4) Do not think, then, that you are doing your brothers a favor if you should see them pursuing some absurdity and should fail to accuse them with all zeal. If you lose a cloak, do you not consider as your foe not only the one who stole it but also the man who knew of the theft and refused to denounce the thief? Our common Mother (the Church) has lost not a cloak but a brother. The devil stole him and now holds him in Judaism. You know who stole him; you know him who was stolen. Do you see me lighting, as it were, the lamp of my instruction and searching everywhere in my grief? And do you stand silent, refusing to denounce him? What excuse will you have? Will the Church not reckon you among her worst enemies? Will she not consider you a foe and destroyer?

(5) Heaven forbid that anyone who hears my words of advice should commit such a sin as to betray the brother for whom Christ died. Christ poured out his blood on his account. Are you too reluctant to utter a word on this account? I urge you not to be so reluctant. Right after you leave here, stir yourselves to the chase and let each of you bring me one of those suffering from this disease.

(6) But heaven forbid that so many be sick with it. Let two or three, or ten or twenty of you bring me one man. One the day you do and when I see in your nets the game you have caught, I will set before you a more plentiful table. If I see that the advice I gave today has been put to work, I shall be more zealous in undertaking the cure of those men, and this will be a greater boon both for you and them.

(7) Do not regard my words lightly. Be scrupulous in hunting out those who suffer from this sickness. Let the women search for the women, the men for the men, the slaves for the slaves, the freemen for the freemen, and the children for the children. Come all of you to our next meeting with such success that you win praise from me-and, before any praise of mine, that you obtain, from God a great and indescribable reward which in abundant measure surpasses the labors of those who succeed. May all of us obtain this by the grace and loving-kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father together with the Holy Spirit now and forever, world without end. Amen. Saint John Chrysostom: Eight Homilies Against the Jews (this "hot link" may no longer work)

 

We must never be intimidated by the charge of "anti-Semitism" into refraining from our praying and working for the conversion of the real Holocaust-deniers in the world, those who deny that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of the human race Who made of Himself a Holocaust so that sinners could have a share in the very inner life of the Blessed Trinity as members of the Catholic Church in this passing, mortal vale of tears and thus have access to the graces won as a result of that Holocaust, which is perpetuated in an unbloody manner on altars of sacrifice by true bishops and true priests in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere to the point of their dying breaths and thus to enjoy the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, Himself--God the Son--and the God the Holy Ghost for all eternity.

Our Lady desires very much the conversion of her Jewish people. She sought out the Catholic-hating Jew named Alfonse Ratisbonne to convert him 167 years ago, that is, on January 20, 1842, as she appeared to him the image of her representation on the Miraculous Medal that had been given to Ratisbonne by his brother Theodore, who had converted to the true Faith. Alfonse Ratisbonne converted, becoming Father Maria Alfonse Ratisbonne, spending his time--with the expressed permission of Pope Pius IX--to work for the conversion of the Jews then living in Palestine. For it is only when the deniers of the one and only Holocaust, that which was offered on the wood of the Holy Cross by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to His Co-Eternal and Co-Equal Father in Spirit and in Truth, are converted to the true Faith that they can come to forgive those who perpertrated the crimes associated with the Third Reich as Our Lord forgave their Abrahamic predecessors--and, of course, each one of us--when He said from the gibbet of the Holy Cross on which He hung these words of His ineffable Mercy:

Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. (Luke 23: 34)

 

It will not be until the deniers of the one and only Holocaust come to forgive those who have perpetrated crimes against their people, recognizing that nothing anyone suffers is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused the God-Man to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death and caused His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with Seven Swords of Sorrow, that they will come to view others as their brothers in Christ and will review with dispassion--rather than with the blazing heat of anger and emotion fueled by their being in states of Original Sin--comments made by those who are their friends, not their enemies, men and women who seek only the truth in the Order of Redemption (the Order of Grace) and in the Order of Creation (the Order of Nature).

May the Rosaries that we pray every day help to effect the conversion of those who adhere to all false religions, including the Talmud and of its enabling force in the world today, concilairism, as we offer up our prayers and sacrifices and penances and humiliations and mortifications and almsgiving to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

May Our Lady help us to pray for the day when no one on the face of the earth will dare to commit the crime of denying the Holocaust, the day when all men and women will be humble sons and daughters of the one, true Church, the Catholic Church, that her Divine Son founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, exclaiming with one voice and with one heart the words that were uttered by Father Miguel Augustin Pro, S.J., on November 23, 1927, when he was shot and killed by the Masonic revolutionaries in Mexico, the very same words that were uttered by the brave Catholic martyrs during the Spanish Revolution a decade later:

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, pray for us!

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

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint John Chrysostom, pray for us.

Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.

Saint Agnes, pray for us.

Father Maria-Alfonse Ratisbonne, pray for us.

Father Theodore Ratisbonne, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, O.P., pray for us.

Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints