Victims of Compromise

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Many of the conciliar "bishops," the very men who have let their priests and presbyters tell penitents to "follow their consciences" concerning the use of contraceptive pills and devices for nearly five decades now, are still huffing and puffing over the way that Caesar Barackus Obamus Ignoramus is stiffing them by refusing to do more than what he did on Friday, February 10, 2011, by playing the old shell game with them by requiring their insurance companies to pay for their employees' access to pills and devices that deny the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage and, in most instances, result in the death of living human beings whose only crime is having been conceived. These blind-as-bats men do not realize that they are the victims of the compromises that have been made by their Americanist predecessors, men who believed that it was "opportune" to be silent about certain truths, such as the Social Reign of Christ the King, in order to advance the alleged "greater good" of harmony and comity with Protestants and Freemasons and all other men of divergent beliefs or of no beliefs, whether religious or philosophical, at all.

These points have been made endlessly on this site. Why? Because it is important to remind readers to be focused on root causes. This is the whole point of Conversion in Reverse. The last few articles on this site dealing with the Obama contraception insurance mandate have been all about the root causes that have led to this situation.

Pope Leo XIII explained that the spirit of compromise created by the American bishops in the Nineteenth Century was resulting in a watering down of doctrine in order to "appeal" to the Protestant majority for the sake of a false sense of "peace" and "unity" that was and remains nothing other than rank sentimentality:"

But if this is to be so understood that the doctrines which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn it as being most injurious to themselves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world  (Pope Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22 1899.)

 

The Americanist bishops and priests of the late-Nineteenth and early-Twentieth Centuries lit the fire that would lead to the conflagration known as the "Second" Vatican Council. Americanism's accommodations to the "virtues" of the religiously indifferentist modern civil state were meant to be spread throughout the world, as Monsignor Henri Delassus noted when writing of the views of Americanism's chief apologist, Father Isaac Thomas Hecker, and his proteges in the American hierarchy:

American Catholicism" is not, in the thought of is promoters, a way of thinking and of practicing Catholicism solely in the contingent and changing things that would be common to the United States, in accordance with the particular conditions that are found on American soil. If this had been so, we would not have believed it incumbent upon us to be concerned with it.

No, their pretension is to speak to the entire universe: "The ear of the world is open to our thinking, if we know what to say to them," Msgr. [Bishop of Richmond, John] Keane had written to the Congress of Brussels. And in fact they are speaking, and their word has not been without echo upon each part of France. If, at least, they had not put into the ear of the world anything other than what the Church leaves to our free discussion; but, no, as we shall see, we shall come to understand that their words are more or less imposed upon that which belongs to the very fundamentals of the Catholic faith.

The Abbot Klein had said in the preface he gave to The Life of Fr. Hecker: "His [Fr. Hecker's] unique and original work is to have shown the profound harmonies joining the new state of the human spirit to the true Christianity." "The American ideas that he recommended are, he knew, those which GOD wanted all civilized people of our time to be at home with  ..."

"The times are solemn," Msgr. Ireland had said, in his discourse, The Church and the Age. "At such an epoch of history ... the desire to know is intense ... The ambition of the spirit, fired up by the marvelous success in every field of human knowledge ... The human heart lets itself go to the strangest ideals ... Something new! Such is the ordered word of humanity, and to renew all things is its firm resolution.

"The moment is opportune for men of talent and character among the children of the Church of God. Today the routine of old times is dead;  today the ordinary means lead to the decrepitude of the aged; the crisis demands something new, something extraordinary; and it is upon this condition that the Church shall record the greatest of victories in the greatest of historical ages" (Discourse given in the Cathedral of Baltimore, October 18, 1893, on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Episcopal consecration of Cardinal Gibbons.) (Monsignor Henri Delassus, Americanism and the Anti-Christian Conspiracy, available from Catholic Action Resource Center, pp. 9-10.)

 

Pope Leo XIII was most explicit in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae in warning about the long term dangers of Americanism. He had already warned the American bishops in Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895, that they were not making known the Social Teaching of the Church that he had been explicating in one encyclical letter after another, thereby depriving the sheep entrusted unto their pastoral care from even recognizing that they had an obligation to plant the seeds for the conversion of the nation to the true Faith, that it was not correct for the Church and State in the United States of America to be dissevered and divorced:

The main factor, no doubt, in bringing things into this happy state were the ordinances and decrees of your synods, especially of those which in more recent times were convened and confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic See. But, moreover (a fact which it gives pleasure to acknowledge), thanks are due to the equity of the laws which obtain in America and to the customs of the well-ordered Republic. For the Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority. . . .

As regards civil affairs, experience has shown how important it is that the citizens should be upright and virtuous. In a free State, unless justice be generally cultivated, unless the people be repeatedly and diligently urged to observe the precepts and laws of the Gospel, liberty itself may be pernicious. Let those of the clergy, therefore, who are occupied with the instruction of the multitude, treat plainly this topic of the duties of citizens, so that all may understand and feel the necessity, in political life, of conscientiousness, self restraint, and integrity; for that cannot be lawful in public which is unlawful in private affairs. On this whole subject there are to be found, as you know, in the encyclical letters written by Us from time to time in the course of Our pontificate, many things which Catholics should attend to and observe. In these writings and expositions We have treated of human liberty, of the chief Christian duties, of civil government, and of the Christian constitution of States, drawing Our principles as well from the teaching of the Gospels as from reason. They, then, who wish to be good citizens and discharge their duties faithfully may readily learn from Our Letters the ideal of an upright life. In like manner, let the priests be persistent in keeping before the minds of the people the enactments of the Third Council of Baltimore, particularly those which inculcate the virtue of temperance, the frequent use of the sacraments and the observance of the just laws and institutions of the Republic. (Pope Leo XIII, Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895.)

 

Pope Leo XIII was warning the likes of John Ireland, the arch-Americanist Bishop and Archbishop of Saint Paul from 1884 to 1918, that the growth of the Catholic Church in the United States of America was not the result of the "free exercise of religion" clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America but of the graces won for us on Calvary by the shedding of every single drop of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. "Religious liberty" as enshrined in the Constitution of the United States of America was not the reason that the Catholic Church had experienced such growth. God Himself was responsible for effecting this growth in spite of, not because of, the "dissevered and divorced" status of the Church from the civil state in the United States of America.

As noted four days ago in John Carroll's Caesar, the conciliar "bishops" are fighting for the very heresy, "religious liberty," that brought about their current confrontation with the man who is but the end result of the compromises made by John Carroll as a priest, bishop and archbishop. Our current "philosopher-king" is neither a philosopher or a king but a philosophe (one impressed with novelty and evolution of thought) and a tyrant. The state must supplant Holy Mother Church as the guiding force of personal and social life when she does not exercise her rights under the Social Reign of Christ the King to serve as the ultimate check upon the abuse of civil power when the good of souls demands her motherly intervention as a last resort after the exhausting of her Indirect Power of preaching, teaching and exhortation. The American bishops of yore believed that the Constitution of the United States of American could provide that "check." Their successors in the counterfeit church of concilairism have openly abandoned the Social Reign of Christ the King in favor of the Americanist of pluralism that is resulting in a neocaesarism of brute statist power.

Those who learn to compromise on points of truth as a modus vivendi (mode of living) might manage to buy themselves some time of "peace" in the midst of a particular crisis. That "peace," though, is illusory as it is purchased at the price of a firm, unequivocal defense of truth that is willing to lay aside all human respect in order to die to self to such an extent that he will be hated for all for his love of the truth in the Holy Name of the One Who is the Way, the Truth and the Life, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He who is the King of both men and their nations.

The Gospel we hear at Holy Mass today, the Feast of Saint Valentine (this is not "Valentine's Day," a day of empty sentimentality, but Saint Valentine's Day), a priest who was martyred for the Holy Faith, reminds us of the sacrifices that me must make in defense of the doctrines revealed by Our Lord and taught infallibly by Holy Mother Church without any degree of shadow or change, without any kind of compromise for the sake of expediency or utilitarianism:

 

 

[34] Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. [35] For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

[36] And a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. [37] He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. [38] And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. [39] He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. [40] He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me.

[41] He that receiveth a prophet in the name of a prophet, shall receive the reward of a prophet: and he that receiveth a just man in the name of a just man, shall receive the reward of a just man. [42] And whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. (Matthew 10: 34-42).

 

The passages in Chapter Ten of the Gospel According to Saint Matthew just prior to these that are read at a Mass for a confessor-martyr who was not a bishop such as Saint Valentine also speak to the cowardice of those who are guided by the prudence of the flesh rather than a firm trust in the loving hand of God's Holy Providence and the intercessory power of His Most Blessed Mother to provide us with the fortitude to make no compromises at all for the sake of a false "peace" and to recognize that a stalwart defense of truth has its reward eternity, if not in this passing, mortal vale of tears when, quite indeed, a man's enemies shall be those of his own household, including, of course, the household of the Holy Faith:

 

 

Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. [17] But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. [18] And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles: [19] But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. [20] For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you.

[21] The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. [22] And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. [23] And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come. [24] The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. [25] It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?

[26] Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. [27] That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops. [28] And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. [29] Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. [30] But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

[31] Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows. [32] Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 10: 16-33.)

 

The American bishops of yore feared that a firm proclamation of Catholic Faith in a pluralistic country would jeopardize their own "religious liberty." The compromised, believing that the "greater good" was social peace, a belief that accustomed them to making compromises so repeatedly and so regularly that these decisions became some of the very important building blocks of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, which was constructed out of many different elements, including the apostasies of Protestantism that sprang up in Europe nearly five hundred years ago.

It cannot be that way with us. Truth is own reward.

Those who are novel in the ways of compromise might suffer from a guilty conscience for a while. For a while. The more they compromise, however, and let events overtake and imprison them will be the more that they can rationalize away any and all objections to a path that they charted for themselves by their refusal to run the risk of rejection, ridicule, ostracism and even great personal sacrifice in temporal terms for refusing to follow the words of Christ the King that have been preserved for us in the Gospel of Saint Matthew under the inspiration and protection of God the Holy Ghost.

The conciliar "bishops" of the United States of America are the victims of having been the heirs of spirit of compromise and accommodation. They do not realize this, which is why they will flail against our caesar in vain as caesar has already received the "blessings" of most of them for his statist monstrosity, ObamaCare, and, having exploited them for this, now ignores them with contempt as must happen always when appeasers compromise in the always vain effort to appease voracious thugs intent on having their own way at all costs. The conciliar "bishops" in this country reject the doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King, and God is choosing to chastise them for their infidelity and us for our own refusal to quit compromising with the Americanist spirit of naturalism and the prudence of the flesh.

For, you see, even though the Jewish high priest Caiphas was referring to Our Lord when he said that it was better for one man to die than to have the nation destroyed, his efforts to offer Our Lord Himself to Pontius Pilate as an appeasement offering, if you will, can refer just as much to those who play Caiphas at any time for the sake of a false "peace" or to "buy time", including those who do so to jettison any single point of doctrine such as the immutable doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King in order to "accommodate" themselves to the "progress" of "modern times."

The easiest path for martyrs such as Saint Valentine, who offered the ineffable mysteries of our salvation upon altars of sacrifice as an alter Christus acting in persona Christi, would have been to think naturalistically, to act according to the prudence of the flesh, to surrender on just one little bitty point of the Faith or to eat just one little morsel that had been offered to false idols or to just add one microscopic scoop of a  grain of incense to the images of those false gods. To stand fast in behalf of the Christ the King, however, means to be willing to die the white martyrdom of rejection by the world and the red martyrdom of being tortured and killed for Him. It means to love the Holy Cross upon Which was wrought our salvation by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and by Which His Most Blessed Mother stood as our Co-Redemptrix, Mediatrix and Advocate.

There is little love of the Holy Cross in a world filled with compromise and utilitarianism, and this is why the conciliar "bishops" will always be bested by the likes of Barack Hussein Obama as their "church" is not the Catholic Church, against which the gates of hell will never prevail, but an entity born of a spirit of compromise with the forces of Modernity and Modernism. Such a "church" will collapse as its leaders are mocked by the very people whom they thought could be dealt with in a "reasonable" manner according to the ways of the "modern men."

May we cleave unto the loving protection of Our Blessed Mother and her Most Chaste Spouse, Saint Joseph, and the intercession of martyrs such as Saint Valentine to persevere in the truths of the Holy Faith at all times in all circumstances as we seek to make reparation to Christ the King through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for those times when we may have compromised in this or that situation before recognizing the error of our ways and begging Our King's forgiveness in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. Every Rosary we pray helps us to cooperate more fully with the Gifts and Fruits of God the Holy Ghost that we received in the Sacrament of Confirmation so that we can fulfill our baptismal duties as Catholics without regard to any fear of the forces of the world, the flesh and the devil

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon, a triumph that will be heralded by unceasing shouts of:

Our Lady of the Rosary, 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 Valentine, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?