by Thomas A. Droleskey
Selective Use of Executive Power, which was posted eleven days ago now, examined how the administration of President George Walker Bush uses an expansive view of executive power that is alleged to be expressed or at least broadly implied in the Article II of the Constitution of the United States of America when it comes to the "global war on terror" while it takes a most restrictive view of that power in the daily warfare, both chemical and surgical, waged against the innocent preborn on a daily basis right here within the United States of America. In other words, the Skull and Bonesman George Walker Bush finds ways to do things that he wants do while he makes excuses not to do the things that he should do in seeking to end all abortions, both chemical and surgical, without any exceptions whatsoever and without any delay at all.
This same phenomenon is on ready display amongst the "bishops" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism in the United States of America. Some of the very men who "cut deals" with the various civil authorities to permit the distribution of contraceptives in allegedly "Catholic" hospitals or to have children placed in the care of foster homes by means of Catholic social services agencies receive information in their teen years pertaining to matters of the Sixth and the Ninth Commandments, saying that they have no "option" but to comply with the "law," are most defiant in breaking just civil laws pertaining to the administration of the death penalty and the regulation of immigration to the United States of America.
Some of these conciliar "bishops" and their chancery factotums actually give sanctuary to illegal immigrants in conciliar facilities, making it appear that those who break the legitimate laws of a nation that are meant to regulate the flow of people through its borders are "victims" of multiple racial and ethnic injustices. This proves yet again that the revolutionaries in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism are in league with their like-minded brethren in the bowels of the social services bureaucracies of all levels of government, believing that social engineering is the way to "reform" society rather than the reform of individual sols in cooperating with Sanctifying Grace. Thoroughly trained in the ideology of the late Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundations and supporters, for the most part, of every jot and tittle of the agenda of the Homosexual Collective, these conciliar officials give full support to unjust laws that seek to give "rights" to those steeped in unrepentant acts of perversity in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments while shrugging their shoulders about how their hospitals and social service agencies cooperate with the anti-life forces of contraception and abortion.
The agenda of the leftist revolutionaries in the United States Conference of Conciliar Bishops (U.S.C.C.B.) and the conciliar chancery offices within the United States of America makes no room for the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen. Although the peculiar radicality of their efforts in many instances may be too much even for some in the conciliar Vatican now and again, the plain fact of the matter is that the conciliar "bishops" and their chancery factotums who promote various evils under cover of law and who countenance the breaking of just civil laws while their cooperate in unjust, evil civil laws, such as happened a few months ago when the conciliar "bishops" in the State of Connecticut endorsed legislation to permit the over-the-counter-sales of the "morning after" "emergency contraception,: are permitted to remain in office with hardly a word of rebuke ever coming from conciliar officials. Exceptions to this can be cited in the case of the "Catholic" Charities in the Archdiocese of Boston and in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, which were required by the conciliar Vatican to relinquish its role in finding homes for abandoned and orphaned children rather than to continue to acquiesce to state or local laws requiring adoption agencies to consider placing children in the care of perverted "couples."
More often that not, however, corruption of doctrine and of morals in the conciliar structures goes uncorrected by official sin the conciliar Vatican. Letters sent by lay Catholics to the "Papal" Nunciature in Washington, District of Columbia, to complain about this or that doctrinal error or scandal are, with very few exceptions, returned to the "bishops" in whose dioceses the offenses have taken place and who have stonewalled the people who resorted to writing to the "Papal" Nuncio. Letter campaigns and petition drives are then launched to get "Rome" to "do something" about this or that problem. After all of these years, however, the conciliar revolutionaries and their friends remain completely undisciplined by the conciliar Vatican. Many of the conciliar "bishops" receive promotions to prestigious sees and become in a position to recommend others of their like-minded apostates to the conciliar "episcopal" fraternity.
Although long tainted by the heresy of Americanism, which has eaten away so insidiously at the ability of the average Catholic to view the world through the eyes of the true Faith and has robbed them of access to the Church's authentic Social Teaching about the necessity of the civil state's recognizing the Catholic Church as its official religion, many of the Catholic bishops of the United States were influenced in many ways by Modernist concepts even in the years prior to the "Second" Vatican Council. This is certainly true in the areas of religious liberty and the separation of Church and State and false ecumenism. One after another can be recited the list of Americanist bishops who helped to undermine the Faith and to pave the way for the conciliar bishops' as they demonstrate their utter contempt for truth and their total belief in social engineering and behavioral science as the way to "reform" society.
Richard Cardinal Cushing, the Archbishop of Boston from 1944 to 1970, boasted before he died that he had never made a convert to the Catholic Faith in his entire life. Cushing served the interests of the Kennedy family just as Francis Cardinal Spellman, the Archbishop of New York from 1939 to 1967, served the interests of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and as James Cardinal Gibbons, the Archbishop of Baltimore from 1877-1921, did the bidding of the arch anti-Catholic Thomas Woodrow Wilson. (There have two presidents of the United States of America whose first names were Thomas. Both have been virulent anti-Catholics, Jefferson and Wilson.) And there there was the bishop who started it all by his constant praising of a Constitution that made no reference to Christ the King and placed all religions and irreligion on a plane of equality with the true Faith, John Carroll, the Bishop (and Archbishop) of Baltimore from 1789 to 1815 (he had been prefect of the United States of America as Father John Carroll from 1784 to 1789).
Oh, there were others in the Nineteenth Century, including, John Lancaster Spalding, the Bishop of Peoria from 1878 to 1908, once wrote in opposition to the appointment of a papal nuncio to the United States of America, believing that this would "interfere" with the functioning of the Church in the United States of America:
This opposition arises in part from a fixed and strongly-rooted desire, which exists throughout the English-speaking world, to manage as far as possible one's own affairs. The firm determination of the American people to permit no needless foreign interference is shown in the Monroe Doctrine, and it was more practically demonstrated by the overthrow and death of Maximilian. Catholics who live here, and who, wherever they were born, are true American citizens, feel the impulse of this desire and wish to manage as far as possible their own affairs. They are devoted to the Church; they recognize in the Pope Christ's Vicar, and gladly receive from him faith and morals; but for rest, they ask him to interfere as little as possible. (quoted in Robert Leckie, American and Catholic, Garden City, New York, Doubleday and Company, 1970.)
This letter is quite telling. Spalding analogized the appointment of a Papal delegate to an interference with American national sovereignty, implying that the Church in the United States was autonomous in her governance from Rome. He also lionized the murder of the Catholic Emperor of Mexico, Maximilian, as something that was a laudable display of the spirit of independence which prevails in the Americas. His letter is a road map to the current state of the counterfeit church of conciliarism in the United States of America.
One of the other arch-Americanists of the Nineteenth Century was John Ireland, the Bishop (and later the Archbishop) of Saint Paul from 1884 to 1918 was an arch-Americanist who praised the work being done by public schools at a meeting of the National Education Association in 1890, stating unequivocally that the civil state had the right to exercise a role in education, something that is opposed to Catholic teaching. The civil state has no right to open schools and to devise a mandated curriculum, thus arrogating unto the state what belongs to parents as the primary educators o their children. Ireland, who believed that the "freedom" extant in the United States of America would give the Church an opportunity to prevail in the marketplace of ideas, something that is of the essence of conciliarism and of the very mind of Joseph Ratzinger himself, gave an opening address at the Third Plenary Council in Baltimore in 1884 that praised the United States of America, not the Catholic Church, as the standard-bearer of the "highest liberty" possible for man (yes, freedom of speech, of press, of religion, each of which had been condemned by Pope Gregory XVI and by Pope Pius IX):
Republic of America, receive from me the tribute of my love and of my loyalty. I am proud to do thee homage, and I pray from my heart that thy glory never be dimmed. Esto perpetua!
Thou bearest in thy hands the brightest hopes of the human race. God’s mission to thee is to show to nations that man is capable of the highest liberty. Oh! Be ever free and prosperous that liberty triumph over the earth from the rising to the setting sun. Esto perpetua!
These prelates have been "succeeded" in more recent times by the likes of John Cardinal Dearden, the the conciliar Archbishop of Detroit from 1958 to 1980, who helped to launch "Call to Action" to further the "Americanization" of what had become by then the counterfeit church of conciliarism, Joseph Bernardin, the conciliar Archbishop of Cincinnati from 1972 to 1982 and of Chicago from 1992 to 1996 (Bernardin was a real bishop, believe it or not), Roger Mahony, the conciliar "archbishop of Los Angeles from 1985 to the present, Theodore McCarrick, ordained to the priesthood by Francis Cardinal Spellman and consecrated as a conciliar "bishop" by Terence Cardinal Cooke before becoming the founding "bishop" of Metuchen and then the "archbishop" of Newark, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C.,, where he distinguished himself as a supporter of the entrance of perverts into seminary study of not withhold what purports to be Holy Communion in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service to Catholics in public life who support the taking of innocent preborn life under cover of law. There are scores upon scores of others who have truly worthy successors to the Americanist bishops of the past, seeking to subordinate what purports to be the Catholic Faith to the interests of career politicians who share their own leftist predilections about how to "resolve" social problems.
Lost in the continuous "angst" expressed by what is now called the "United States Conference of Catholic Bishops" (which began its life as the National Catholic War Council in 1917 to support Thomas Woodrow Wilson's involvement of the United States of America so needlessly in the unjust war that was World War I) about "social justice" is the simple fact that each and every social problem is the result of the sins of men. The one and only way to ameliorate the problems of society is to effect the reform of individual men by their cooperation with the graces won for them by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the wood of the Holy Cross and that flows into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces. Baptized Catholics must constantly seek to reform their lives, which is why they must have recourse to the Sacred Tribunal of Penance on a weekly basis, if at all possible and to live lives of prayer, penance, sacrifice, mortification and almsgiving. Those outside of the maternal bosom of the true Church must be exhorted to convert in order to save their souls and to try to climb the heights of personal sanctity on a daily basis.
There is no talk in the United States Conference of "Catholic Bishops" about the reform of individual lives or the absolute necessity of seeking with urgency the conversion of all men and of all nations to the true Faith. The conciliar "bishops" would blanche if forced to face the truths contained in Pope Saint Pius X's Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, as he condemned the interdenominational, quasi-socialist approach to social problems adopted by the Sillon in France, an approach that is identifical to the one taken by the counterfeit church of conciliarism in general and its affiliate in the United States of America:
We know well that they [the Sillonists] flatter themselves with the idea of raising human dignity and the discredited condition of the working class. We know that they wish to render just and perfect the labor laws and the relations between employers and employees, thus causing a more complete justice and a greater measure of charity to prevail upon earth, and causing also a profound and fruitful transformation in society by which mankind would make an undreamed-of progress. Certainly, We do not blame these efforts; they would be excellent in every respect if the Sillonist did not forget that a person’s progress consists in developing his natural abilities by fresh motivations; that it consists also in permitting these motivations to operate within the frame of, and in conformity with, the laws of human nature. But, on the contrary, by ignoring the laws governing human nature and by breaking the bounds within which they operate, the human person is lead, not toward progress, but towards death. This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.
No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. . . .
Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. The new Sillonists cannot pretend that they are merely working on “the ground of practical realities” where differences of belief do not matter. Their leader is so conscious of the influence which the convictions of the mind have upon the result of the action, that he invites them, whatever religion they may belong to, “to provide on the ground of practical realities, the proof of the excellence of their personal convictions.” And with good reason: indeed, all practical results reflect the nature of one’s religious convictions, just as the limbs of a man down to his finger-tips, owe their very shape to the principle of life that dwells in his body.
This being said, what must be thought of the promiscuity in which young Catholics will be caught up with heterodox and unbelieving folk in a work of this nature? Is it not a thousand-fold more dangerous for them than a neutral association? What are we to think of this appeal to all the heterodox, and to all the unbelievers, to prove the excellence of their convictions in the social sphere in a sort of apologetic contest? Has not this contest lasted for nineteen centuries in conditions less dangerous for the faith of Catholics? And was it not all to the credit of the Catholic Church? What are we to think of this respect for all errors, and of this strange invitation made by a Catholic to all the dissidents to strengthen their convictions through study so that they may have more and more abundant sources of fresh forces? What are we to think of an association in which all religions and even Free-Thought may express themselves openly and in complete freedom? For the Sillonists who, in public lectures and elsewhere, proudly proclaim their personal faith, certainly do not intend to silence others nor do they intend to prevent a Protestant from asserting his Protestantism, and the skeptic from affirming his skepticism. Finally, what are we to think of a Catholic who, on entering his study group, leaves his Catholicism outside the door so as not to alarm his comrades who, “dreaming of disinterested social action, are not inclined to make it serve the triumph of interests, coteries and even convictions whatever they may be”? Such is the profession of faith of the New Democratic Committee for Social Action which has taken over the main objective of the previous organization and which, they say, “breaking the double meaning which surround the Greater Sillon both in reactionary and anti-clerical circles”, is now open to all men “who respect moral and religious forces and who are convinced that no genuine social emancipation is possible without the leaven of generous idealism". . . .
Alas! yes, the double meaning has been broken: the social action of the Sillon is no longer Catholic. The Sillonist, as such, does not work for a coterie, and “the Church”, he says, “cannot in any sense benefit from the sympathies that his action may stimulate.” A strange situation, indeed! They fear lest the Church should profit for a selfish and interested end by the social action of the Sillon, as if everything that benefited the Church did not benefit the whole human race! A curious reversal of notions! The Church might benefit from social action! As if the greatest economists had not recognized and proved that it is social action alone which, if serious and fruitful, must benefit the Church! But stranger still, alarming and saddening at the same time, are the audacity and frivolity of men who call themselves Catholics and dream of re-shaping society under such conditions, and of establishing on earth, over and beyond the pale of the Catholic Church, "the reign of love and justice" with workers coming from everywhere, of all religions and of no religion, with or without beliefs, so long as they forego what might divide them - their religious and philosophical convictions, and so long as they share what unites them - a "generous idealism and moral forces drawn from whence they can" When we consider the forces, knowledge, and supernatural virtues which are necessary to establish the Christian City, and the sufferings of millions of martyrs, and the light given by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the self-sacrifice of all the heroes of charity, and a powerful hierarchy ordained in heaven, and the streams of Divine Grace - the whole having been built up, bound together, and impregnated by the life and spirit of Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God, the Word made man - when we think, I say, of all this, it is frightening to behold new apostles eagerly attempting to do better by a common interchange of vague idealism and civic virtues. What are they going to produce? What is to come of this collaboration? A mere verbal and chimerical construction in which we shall see, glowing in a jumble, and in seductive confusion, the words Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Love, Equality, and human exultation, all resting upon an ill-understood human dignity. It will be a tumultuous agitation, sterile for the end proposed, but which will benefit the less Utopian exploiters of the people. Yes, we can truly say that the Sillon, its eyes fixed on a chimera, brings Socialism in its train.
We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the "Kingdom of God". - "We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind."
And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity, would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer.
We know only too well the dark workshops in which are elaborated these mischievous doctrines which ought not to seduce clear-thinking minds. The leaders of the Sillon have not been able to guard against these doctrines. The exaltation of their sentiments, the undiscriminating good-will of their hearts, their philosophical mysticism, mixed with a measure of illuminism, have carried them away towards another Gospel which they thought was the true Gospel of Our Savior. To such an extent that they speak of Our Lord Jesus Christ with a familiarity supremely disrespectful, and that - their ideal being akin to that of the Revolution - they fear not to draw between the Gospel and the Revolution blasphemous comparisons for which the excuse cannot be made that they are due to some confused and over-hasty composition.
We wish to draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to this distortion of the Gospel and to the sacred character of Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, prevailing within the Sillon and elsewhere. As soon as the social question is being approached, it is the fashion in some quarters to first put aside the divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to mention only His unlimited clemency, His compassion for all human miseries, and His pressing exhortations to the love of our neighbor and to the brotherhood of men. True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors. Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one's personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.
As for you, Venerable Brethren, carry on diligently with the work of the Saviour of men by emulating His gentleness and His strength. Minister to every misery; let no sorrow escape your pastoral solicitude; let no lament find you indifferent. But, on the other hand, preach fearlessly their duties to the powerful and to the lowly; it is your function to form the conscience of the people and of the public authorities. The social question will be much nearer a solution when all those concerned, less demanding as regards their respective rights, shall fulfill their duties more exactingly.
This is all anathema to the conciliarists. Also anathema to the conciliarists is this plain injunction of Pope Leo XIII, contained in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890, which exhorted all Catholics, clergy and laity alike, to proclaim the truths of the Catholic Faith without any hesitation or qualification whatsoever:
But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.
The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. So soon as Catholic truth is apprehended by a simple and unprejudiced soul, reason yields assent.
What have most of the conciliar "bishops" in the United States of America done over the course of the past thirty-five years or so? They have enabled one pro-abortion politician after another, mostly those who belong to the Democrat Party but also some who have belonged to its absolutely false opposite, the Republican Party. Indeed, there is no--as in not a single one--conciliar "bishop" in the past thirty-five to forty-five years who has stated clearly and unequivocally that no one who supports a single abortion, whether chemical or surgical, under cover of law is "pro-life" or ought to be called pro-life. Anyone who supports a single exception to the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment that prohibit the direct, intentional taking of innocent human life is simply less pro-abortion than those who support a greater degree of baby-killing under cover of law, including those who support the unrestricted killing of the innocent preborn in their mothers' wombs. We have seen the absurd scenario develop wherein most of the conciliar "bishops" are in league with pro-abortion politicians because these politicians support Socialist public policies that are alleged to "help" the poor (but always wind up enslaving the poor as wards of the state and/or various social service agencies that work within the network of the Industrial Areas Foundation) while those conciliar "bishops" who say that they are "pro-life" and actually threaten to discipline Catholics who support abortion-on-demand never raise their once to remonstrate with those phony "pro-life" politicians who defy God's laws and decide arbitrarily to make "exceptions" to the absolute inviolability of innocent human life.
Indeed, as I pointed out in "Affirming the Merchants of Death," which was written in 2003 and revised in 2005, appearing in Volume 1 of Restoring Christ as the King of All Nations, the conciliar "bishops" have consistently compromised the absolute inviolability of innocent human life in order to achieve legislative "goals" founded on false premises. The whole thrust of the "bishops'" "pro-life" efforts has been flawed from the very beginning, conceding that the "best" we can ever get is some kind of legislation with at least a "life of the mother" exception contained in it:
Pragmatism is a particularly American phenomenon, although it has spread elsewhere from this country. That is, Americans are as a whole not very reflective or philosophical. Most Americans, both contemporaneously and historically, care about "solving" problems more than taking the time to understand their root causes. A typical American does not take the time to read an owner's manual accompanying a particular product, thus resulting in frustration when the product fails to work properly when the first attempt is made to use it, precisely because of the carelessness and sloth that led the user to ignore the instruction manual as burdensome and incomprehensible. The typical American simply wants his desires gratified instantly, refusing to do the work necessary to study a problem in depth. This is what results in demands being made of career politicians to solve various problems as fast as they can, no matter what precepts of God are violated or how much more of our legitimate freedom and property are surrendered to the government and its agencies.
Pragmatism is what has guided many in the pro-life movement since the decision of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Roe v. Wade, issue on January 22, 1973. Although horrified by the heinous decision of the Court in that case, many people who term themselves "pro-life" conceded important ground almost from the beginning, contending that we would have to live with "a little bit" of abortion in order to get rid of abortion on demand. This concession ignored the simple fact that we got state statutes decriminalizing abortion in the late 1960s precisely because of the exceptions (for rape, incest, alleged threats to the life of a mother) that existed in most state laws at the time that Bill Baird and Bernard Nathanson and Lawrence Laeder were agitating for "abortion reform." Those interested in institutionalizing abortion on demand in this country managed to be successful in several states (Colorado, Hawaii, California, New York, New Jersey) even prior to Roe v. Wade because they appealed to a sense of egalitarianism: why shouldn't every woman have the same access to abortion as the rich and the famous, who were able to get doctors to certify that their pregnancy fell into one of the exceptions included in state law? That lesson was lost on the pragmatists within the pro-life movement from the very beginning.
The first manifestation of the failure of pragmatism came in 1973, shortly after Roe v. Wade had been issued by the Supreme Court. Then Senator James Buckley (R-New York) proposed a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade by prohibiting all abortions except in cases where it was alleged that a mother's life was endangered by a pregnancy. This was a fatal, morally flawed concession that, sadly, has characterized every effort sponsored by the National Right to Life Committee, which itself states that babies may be sliced and diced licitly under cover of law in instances where a mother's life is said to be endangered, ever since. The morally flawed nature of the Buckley Amendment was criticized by four American cardinals, including John Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Humberto Cardinal Medeiros of Boston, Massachusetts, John Cardinal Cody of Chicago, Illinois, and Timothy Cardinal Manning of Los Angeles, California. They opposed passage of the Buckley Amendment on the grounds that the law could never licitly permit the direct, intentional killing of an innocent human being regardless of the age of the victim (that is, from the first moment of fertilization to the moment of natural death willed by God). Although they praised Senator Buckley for his concern about the issue, the cardinals stood tall in opposition to the pragmatism concerned in his amendment. That would be the last time that any member of the American hierarchy, with the exception of the late Bishop Joseph V. Sullivan of Baton Rouge, Louisiana (who I was privileged to meet one month before he died in 1982), opposed the pragmatism of the National Right to Life Committee.
The first alleged success of the pragmatists in the pro-life movement came in 1977 when Representative Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) was able to attach an amendment to the funding of Medicaid that prohibited the use of Medicaid funds to pay for abortions for poor women except in cases where a mother's life was said to be endangered. The legislation containing the Hyde Amendment, which was "liberalized" in 1993 to include the rape and incest exceptions, was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. Far from being a success, however, the Hyde Amendment conceded the false idea that innocent human beings could be put to death under cover of law and that American taxpayers could licitly pay for their savage murders. The flawed nature of the single exception contained in the original Hyde Amendment was the basis of its eventual, if not inevitable, expansion sixteen years later.
The principal legislative effort during the administration of President Ronald Reagan centered on efforts to pass a constitutional amendment that was introduced by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). The Hatch Amendment would have reversed Roe v. Wade by establishing the principle that the right to permit or restrict abortion was held solely by the state legislatures, not by Federal or state courts. This fatally flawed piece of legislation conceded that a human institution, a state legislature, had the authority to permit something that was proscribed by the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law. If it had been approved by a two-thirds majority in Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the nation's state legislatures, the Hatch Amendment would have enshrined abortion as matter of legal right whose exact parameters were subject to the deliberation of state legislators. This morally repugnant legislative initiative was "hatched" by the then Monsignor James T. McHugh of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and endorsed very strongly by the full body of American bishops, save for Bishop Joseph Sullivan of Baton Rouge, and the National Right to Life Committee, which lobbied very hard for its passage in Congress.
The failure of the Hatch Amendment led to the pragmatists to adopt "incrementalism" as their buzzword. As legislative efforts to reverse Roe v. Wade had proved unsuccessful, the only thing that could be done was to limit abortion around the margins. Thus, such initiatives as "parental consent" legislation at the state level became the focus of the National Right to Life Committee and its state affiliate organizations. Again, this was and remains a morally flawed effort. No one has the right to give his consent to his daughter to murder his grandchild inside of her womb. The legal "experts" at the National Right to Life Committee have contended ad nauseam that parental consent laws have been crafted so as to pass the scrutiny of constitutional challenges in Federal and state courts. Well, not only are these laws morally flawed of their nature, they include a judicial bypass provision whereby a minor woman can get a judge's order to kill her child without the "consent" or her parents. Planned Parenthood and related organizations are more than willing to fill out the boilerplate forms necessary to secure the judicial bypass for one of their "clients."'
As I have written over and over again in the last eight years, the recently passed Congressional legislation conditionally banning partial-birth abortions is another morally flawed effort that will wind up saving no innocent lives. Not only is there the needless and immoral life of the mother exception contained in the bill, signed into law by President George W. Bush, but the bill ignores the fact that there are two other ways (hysterotomy, dilation and evacuation) by which children may be killed in their mothers' wombs in the later stages of pregnancy. If the baby-killers cannot use partial-birth abortion to kill a child, they will simply resort to one of the other two methods (which might also include saline solution abortion if the child is young enough to be killed by this method). The passage of this morally flawed legislation is already being used by careerist politicians to say that we've done all we can do to stem abortion in the midst of our current circumstances. "The country is not ready to ban all abortions," as President Bush noted in his press conference of Tuesday, October 28, 2003. Well, the country never will be ready to ban all abortions if those who call themselves pro-life are not completely, totally, one hundred percent pro-life and do not exert all of the influence they can to change hearts and minds and to change unjust laws and court decisions.
This sorry history of the conciliar "bishops" in the United States of America enabling phony pro-life legislation and phony pro-life politicians coexists with the history of abject cooperation in the promotion of the careers of such Catholic reprobates as Edward Moore Kennedy and Mario Matthew Cuomo and Rudolph William Giuliani and Nancy Pelosi and Geraldine Ferraro and Joseph Biden and Richard Durbin and Thomas Harkin and Susan Collins and Rick Lazio and Susan Molinari and Tom Ridge and Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis and Henry Gonzales and George Pataki and Christopher Dodd and Bill Richardson and Barbara Mikulski and Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Patrick Kennedy III and Joseph Kennedy III and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Jennifer Granholm and Jim Doyle and John Kerry and Patricia Murray and so many scores upon scores of others at every level of government (state, local, national--elected or appointed) imaginable. The late Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, William Brennan, one of the seven justices to vote in the affirmative in the case of Roe v. Wade, was given a conciliar "Mass of Christian Burial" at Saint Matthew's Cathedral on July 29, 1997, with the expressed permission of the then conciliar "archbishop" of Washington, District of Columbia, James "Cardinal" Hickey.
Although some conciliar "bishops," such as Raymond L. Burke in St. Louis and Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs, have stated that they would not give what purports to be Holy Communion in the Novus Ordo to pro-aborts, neither has stated that those who support some abortions but who term themselves "pro-life" nevertheless would be denied at the altar rail, excuse me--on the "communion line," in conciliar churches. One of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, willful murder, is thus enabled time and time again by the men whom most people, including most Catholics, are the "bishops" of the Catholic Church. Some enable fully pro-death politicians. The rest enable those who support some baby-killing some of the time in some circumstances without even exhorting anyone to be fully pro-life at all times and without exhorting those who believe it worthwhile to participate in the fraud that is American electoral politics to refrain from casting their vote for anyone who supports a single abortion, whether chemical or surgical, at any time for any reason whatsoever.
Indeed, most of the conciliar "bishops," again with some few exceptions here and there, never think or speak in supernatural terms. Most of them have never informed those who are trapped in their false structures that masquerade as the "Catholic" Church that every abortion is an indirect attack on the Incarnation of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost in His Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate womb at the Annunciation. Our Lord, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity through Whom all things were made, could have become Man in any way of His choosing. He chose to become a helpless embryo in His Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb, thereby hypostatically uniting to Himself a Sacred Humanity to His Sacred Divinity, placing Him in completely and unequivocal solidarity with every child in every mother's womb no matter the condition of the conception or the condition of the child conceived.
To support abortion of any time, whether surgical or chemical, is to support a mystical attack upon the preborn baby Jesus in the tabernacle of His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb. How many conciliar "bishops," many of whom are steeped in the promotion of perversity and are still unbent in how they helped to cover-up their own crimes and the crimes of their perverted "priests," would ever say this to a Kennedy or a Giuliani or a Kerry or a Durbin or a Schwarzenegger or any of the other Catholics in public life who say that they "love" their Faith while they support the "right" of an expectant mother to kill her preborn baby? How is it possible to say one "loves" Our Lord and His Catholic Faith while supporting His own mystical dismemberment in the persons of preborn children? What rational, sane human being would say that he "loves" his mother or his spouse or his children but yet supported the "right" of others to kill them when "convenience" mandates their liquidation?
Even though I have come in the last three years to believe that voting in our Judeo-Masonic system advances nothing, a view that is not received from the hand of God but is only a prudential judgment that I seek to impose upon no one, what does it mean to be a Catholic if one is willing to concede as a matter of principle that one can be called "pro-life" while supporting the deliberate, intentional taking of innocent preborn human life in some circumstances? This results, as Mrs. Judie Brown, the founder and President of the American Life League, has noted so well, in the "dumbing down" of the phrase "pro-life," thus enabling career politicians to buy rather cheaply the votes of those who still participate in the fraud of American electoral politics and who consider themselves to be "pro-life."
It is no wonder that the seven hundred eighty-eight thousandth "position paper" of the United States Conference of "Catholic Bishops" on the matter of a Catholic citizen's political responsibility, while making giving lip service to the "sanctity of life" and while attempting to make "distinctions" between what they consider to be the "life issues" (the death penalty is not a "life" issue, thank you; it is a matter of justice), states once again that Catholics are not "single issue voters." If I were still voting and believed that we could advance the cause of the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King through the ballot box as I once did so very mistakenly, I would remain now what I was throughout from 1973 to the time I stopped voting in 2002: a single issue voter. As Dr. Charles E. Rice, one of the foremost experts in the Natural Law, noted in 1998 in a piece in The Wanderer assessing the primary race between then Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato and his challenger in a primary in the New York State Right to Life Party, no one who supports a single abortion under cover of law is fit to hold any office, whether elected or appointed, including being "the trustee of a mosquito abatement district." Je concours absolument.
Those who support the slaughter of the innocent preborn, whether by chemical or surgical means, are denying the Sovereignty of God's Commandments over themselves and their nations, thus blinding their intellects and weakening their wills. Such people will make bad decisions on a lot of fundamental issues because they do not realize that most of the social problems the social engineers have tried to address in the past eighty to ninety years are the result of the systematic, planned and carefully-orchestrated attack on the family by the organized forces of naturalism. Divorce and contraception destabilized marriage and paved the way for abortion and the promotion of all manner of perversity under cover of law. This has resulted in the feminization of poverty, the rise of maladjusted children who spend most of their time in schools or day care centers or being shuttled back and forth between this or that step-family, rootlessness, violent crime, depression, suicide, drug and alcohol addiction and a variety of other social ills. This has also resulted in the acceptance of the so-called "lesser of two evils" to such an extent that the dose of the supposedly "lesser evil" becomes higher and higher in each succeeding election cycle, becoming indistinguishable ultimately from the supposedly "greater" evil.
Why has this happened? Why have the organized forces of naturalism been so successful in undermining the stability and the integrity of the family to such an extent that even the definition of the family For the simple fact that a world that does not recognize the Catholic Church as the one and only true Faith is bound to lose its way. It is impossible for Protestantism or Orthodoxy or well-intentioned secularists or political ideologues of the false opposite known as the "left" or the false opposite known as the "right" to combat social evils. Evil can be combated only by the graces made present in the world by the working of God the Holy Ghost, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, in the Catholic Church as men seek to root out personal sin from their own lives and to submit themselves without any hesitation or qualification of exception whatsoever to the Deposit of Faith that the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made Man in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of the Holy Ghost has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church for its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication. Do the conciliarists understand this? Do they accept it and proclaim it publicly? Quite the contrary, I am afraid, quite the contrary, and all to the great detriment of individual souls and thus of countries and the whole world.
The conciliar "bishops" have yet to admit that they not only do not proclaim the perennial teachings of the Catholic Church, marching in lockstep with the man who rejects the Social Reign of Christ the King and abhors the confessionally Catholic civil state as he embraces separation of Church and State and a "healthy secularity," Joseph Ratzinger, but they refuse to recognize that their own corruption of doctrine and their countenancing of it in conciliar parishes and schools and universities and colleges and professional schools and workshops and "update" programs and conferences have actually encouraged women to kill their preborn babies by means of surgical abortion in many instances. As horrible as abortion is as one of the four crimes that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, very few commentators want to recognize the simple truth that abortion-on-demand is just one of the panoply of evils that have been visited on the world as a result of the Protestant Revolt and the subsequent rise of Judeo-Masonry and all of the other, related naturalistic ideologies and "philosophies" that have arisen to replace the Catholic Faith as the one and only foundation of personal and social life.
Take it from one who taught in college classrooms for over thirty years, most products of allegedly "Catholic" schools today don't know anything about the Faith, and the little that they think they know is wrong. The conciliar "bishops" are as responsible as anyone for giving business to the baby-killers by the way they have killed Catholic doctrine in their institutions and by the way that they have profaned Our Lord Himself by means of the sacrilege known as the Novus Ordo Missae, to say nothing of how they have countenanced and suborned the undermining of the purity of our children by means of the sort of explicit classroom instruction in matters pertaining to the Sixth and Ninth Commandments that was prohibited by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929. The conciliar "bishops," starting with the non-bishop in Rome who remains unbent in his lifelong commitment to Hegelianism, are unfailingly faithful to their faithless cause that offends God and harms the souls for whom He gave up His very life on the wood of the Holy Cross.
We must be apostles of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus as was the saint we celebrate today, Saint Gertrude the Great. We must give to the Most Sacred Heart all of our prayers and sufferings and sacrifices, doing so through the Immaculate Heart of Mary as has been taught to us in the more recent past, so that we can make reparation for our own many sins and those of the whole world, thereby purifying our hearts and enlarging them to suffer more and more in union with the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and that Heart out of which It was formed, the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. We can never lose confidence in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Never. Not under any circumstances. What matters to us individually is the salvation of our own immortal souls. We need to trust in the ineffable Mercy and Love that flows forth from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, which beats for us with unmatched love in every tabernacle of a truly Catholic Church, and to give to It our own heart's oblation through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, demonstrating our love especially by means of fervent Eucharistic piety and total consecration to Mary Immaculate, praying as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit.
We must be unfailingly faithful to the cause of the true Faith, cleaving to the catacombs where we will find true bishops and true bishops administering true sacraments to us. May it continue to be our privilege, despite our own unworthiness and our own sins and sinful tendencies, to plant a few seeds as the consecrated slaves of Jesus through Mary to advance the day when all souls everywhere will exclaim with jubilation:
Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us now and the hour of our deaths. Amen.
All to thee, Blessed Mother. All to thy Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we love you. Save souls!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.
Saint Joseph, pray for us.
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.
Saint Luke 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.
Saint Gertrude the Great, pray for us.
Saint Josaphat, pray for us.
Saint Albert the Great, pray for us.
Saint Didacus, pray for us.
Pope Saint Martin I, pray for us.
Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us.
Saint Charles Borromeo, pray for us.
Saints Vitalis and Agricola, pray for us.
Saint Hilarion, pray for us.
Saint John Cantius, pray for us.
Saint Peter of Alcantara, pray for us.
Saint Hedwig, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.
Saint Francis Borgia, pray for us.
Saint Edward the Confessor, pray for us.
Saint John Leonard, pray for us.
Saint Dionysisus (Denis), Rusticus and Eleutherius, pray for us.
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Placidus and Companions, pray for us.
Saint Bruno, pray for us.
Saint Wenceslaus, pray for us.
Saint Jerome, pray for us.
Saint Remigius, pray for us.
Saint Clotilde, pray for us.
Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.
Pope Saint Linus, pray for us.
Saint Peter Nolasco, pray for us.
Saint Raymond Pennafort, pray for us.
Saint Raymond Nonnatus, pray for us.
Saint Thecla, pray for us.
Saint Matthew, pray for us.
Saint Eustachius and Family, pray for us.
Saint Leonard of Port Maurice, pray for us.
Saint Joseph Cupertino, pray for us.
Saint Januarius, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saints Cornelius and Cyprian, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us.
Saint Giles, pray for us.
Saint Stephen of Hungary, pray for us.
Saint Rose of Lima, pray for us.
Saint Nicomedes, pray for us.
Saint Joseph Calasanctius, pray for us.
Pope Saint Zephyrinus, pray for us.
Saint Louis IX, King of France, pray for us.
Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, pray for us.
Saint Bartholomew, pray for us.
Saint Philip Benizi, pray for us.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.
Saint John Eudes, pray for us.
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us, pray for us.
Saint Agapitus, pray for us.
Saint Helena, pray for us.
Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.
Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Irenaeus, pray for us.
Saints Monica, pray for us.
Saint Jude, pray for us.
Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.
Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.
Saint John Bosco, pray for us.
Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.
Saint Scholastica, pray for us.
Saint Benedict, pray for us.
Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us.
Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us.
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.
Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.
Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.
Saint Turibius, pray for us.
Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Monica, pray for us.
Saint Agatha, pray for us.
Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.
Saint Basil the Great, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Saint Cecilia, pray for us.
Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.
Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.
Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.
Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.
Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.
Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.
Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.
Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.
Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Dominic, pray for us.
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.
Saint Basil, pray for us.
Saint Benedict, pray for us.
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Sebastian, pray for us.
Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.
Saint Genevieve, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.
Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.
Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us.
Blessed Humbeline, pray for us.
Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.
Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.
Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.
Francisco Marto, pray for us.
Jacinta Marto, pray for us.
Juan Diego, pray for us.
Father Maximilian Kolbe,M.I., pray for us.
Father Frederick Faber, pray for us.
The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888
O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil. Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil. Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven. That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory. That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity. These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered. Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen.
Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.
Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.
Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.
Response: As we have hoped in Thee.
Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.
Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.
Verse: Let us pray. O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls.
Response: Amen.
