by
Thomas A Droleskey
For what? For what do otherwise sane, rational Catholics continue to spend time and money and effort chasing naturalist rainbows and tilting at Judeo-Masonic windmills in an electoral system that is premised upon false premises and is thus irredeemable? To support out-and-out pro-aborts, such as Rudolph Giuliani? To support men who believe that the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment and make "exceptions" to the absolute inviolability of innocent preborn human life, such as Sam Brownback? To support men who believe that state legislatures may, in the name of "states' rights," permit the intentional killing of the preborn under cover of law, such as Ron Paul, who has the added liability of having prescribed contraceptives in his medical practice? To support a careerist politician who is the member of a heretical sect closely allied with Judeo-Masonry, such as Mitt Romney?*
If politics is the "art of the possible," as some Catholics deeply involved in the naturalist lie that is American version of politics like to remind us, then why are so many people oblivious to the cold and hard facts that demonstrate the utter futility of the frenzied activity associated with political campaigns? As has been noted in recent commentaries, there is no good Catholic end to be accomplished by supporting a candidate--and urging others to do with their own time and money and effort--who believes that a state government can permit, if it chooses to do so, the killing of innocent preborn children under cover of law? Does God want such errors publicly propagated? Consider, once again, these telling words from Pope Gregory XVI's Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832:
This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.
Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again?
We must not knowingly propagate error, nor must we aid and abet those who propagate errors. It matters not that others may believe in perfect sincerity that their objectively erroneous positions are correct. When it comes to matters of Faith and morals, you see, we can play absolutely zero role in the knowing and willing propagation of errors, whether by ourselves or others. In the matter of the taking of innocent preborn life, for example, we are not dealing with a matter of practical judgment about which men of good will may disagree quite legitimately. Each man on the face of this earth is duty-bound to recognize, defend and to propagate Catholic truth without any degree of dissent whatsoever. Pope Leo XIII made this absolutely clear in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:
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.
Why does any Catholic believe that he is exempt from this duty at any moment of his life? Why? To attempt to achieve some short-sighted political "goals" that never get achieved and wind up agitating people and getting them to use time that could have been spent much more profitably before the Blessed Sacrament in prayer and in offering Rosaries in reparation for their own sins and those of the whole world? To attempt to "prove" just how "committed" they are to the "betterment" of a nation that can only be bettered by its conversion to the Catholic Faith, which is not accomplished by supporting libertarians who believe that the civil state may permit the killing of the innocent preborn? To seek to be a Catholic privately while showing how naturalistically "clever" they are publicly, so clever that their clever strategies never work even in the temporal order into which they are so immersed?
As noted before, men cannot disagree about anything contained in the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has entrusted exclusively to the Catholic Church. Men may disagree about this or that form of civil government to adopt or about this or that constitutional amendment dealing with the structures of government or about the necessity of creating a particular bureaucratic agency or regulatory body or about this or that particular punishment to be meted out to malefactors who have been adjudged guilty of various crimes at the completion of the due process of the law, to name just a few areas in the civil realm open to legitimate debate and discussion. To reiterate a point that so many people seem willing to ignore as they plunge themselves headlong into the insanity of the naturalism of American politics: men may not disagree about the contents of the Deposit of Faith, which include the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law. God's eternal rights come before any other "rights," whether those said to belong to men as individuals or to "state" governments. It is gravely wrong to reaffirm or to serve as an apologist or a fund-raiser for one who makes fundamental errors concerning the nature of the civil state and its obligation to to subordinate itself to the Social Reign of Christ the King in all that pertains to the eternal good of the souls for whom Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.
The naturalism underlying the heresy of Americanism, however, has such a hold on the minds of and hearts of believing Catholics that there seems to be willful effort to shield oneself from the Social Teaching of the Church and its applicability in our daily lives, leading otherwise sane, rational people to ignore even the cold, unforgiving facts of life about the state of one's country, steeped in support for one objective evil after another.
To wit, one pastor explained recently that he wanted to vote for Dr. Ron Paul because he, the pastor, wanted another eight years to oppose perversity from the pulpit. Well, first of all, the duty to preach the truth does not depend upon whether the civil state permits it to be preached. A pastor must preach the truth no matter what it costs him. Pope Pius VI made this clear in Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775:
We thought it useful to speak to you lovingly on these matters in order to strengthen your excellent resolve. But a much more serious subject demands that We speak of it, or rather mourn over it. We refer to the pestilent disease which the wickedness of our times brings forth. We must unite our minds and strength in treating this plague before it grows rife and becomes incurable in the Church through Our oversight. For in recent days, the dangerous times foretold by the Apostle Paul have clearly arrived, when there will be "men who love themselves, who are lifted up, proud, blasphemous, traitors, lovers of pleasure instead of God, men who are always learning but never arriving at the knowledge of truth, possessing indeed the appearance of piety but denying its power, corrupt in mind, reprobate about the faith. These men raise themselves up into "lying" teachers, as they are called by Peter the prince of the Apostles, and bring in sects of perdition. They deny the Lord who bought them and bring upon themselves swift destruction. They say they are wise and they have become fools, and their uncomprehending heart is darkened.
You yourselves, established as scouts in the house of Israel, see clearly the many victories claimed by a philosophy full of deceit. You see the ease with which it attracts to itself a great host of peoples, concealing its impiety with the honorable name of philosophy. Who could express in words or call to mind the wickedness of the tenets and evil madness which it imparts? While such men apparently intend to search out wisdom, "they fail because they do not search in the proper way. . . and they fall into errors which lead them astray from ordinary wisdom."They have come to such a height of impiety that they make out that God does not exist, or if He does that He is idle and uncaring, making no revelation to men. Consequently it is not surprising that they assert that everything holy and divine is the product of the minds of inexperienced men smitten with empty fear of the future and seduced by a vain hope of immortality. But those deceitful sages soften and conceal the wickedness of their doctrine with seductive words and statements; in this way, they attract and wretchedly ensnare many of the weak into rejecting their faith or allowing it to be greatly shaken. While they pursue a remarkable knowledge, they open their eyes to behold a false light which is worse than the very darkness. Naturally our enemy, desirous of harming us and skilled in doing so, just as he made use of the serpent to deceive the first human beings, has armed the tongues of those men with the poison of his deceitfulness in order to lead astray the minds of the faithful. The prophet prays that his soul may be delivered from such deceitful tongues. In this way these men by their speech "enter in lowliness, capture mildly, softly bind and kill in secret." This results in great moral corruption, in license of thought and speech, in arrogance and rashness in every enterprise.
When they have spread this darkness abroad and torn religion out of men's hearts, these accursed philosophers proceed to destroy the bonds of union among men, both those which unite them to their rulers, and those which urge them to their duty. They keep proclaiming that man is born free and subject to no one, that society accordingly is a crowd of foolish men who stupidly yield to priests who deceive them and to kings who oppress them, so that the harmony of priest and ruler is only a monstrous conspiracy against the innate liberty of man.
Everyone must understand that such ravings and others like them, concealed in many deceitful guises, cause greater ruin to public calm the longer their impious originators are unrestrained. They cause a serious loss of souls redeemed by Christ's blood wherever their teaching spreads, like a cancer; it forces its way into public academies, into the houses of the great, into the palaces of kings, and even enters the sanctuary, shocking as it is to say so.
Consequently, you who are the salt of the earth, guardians and shepherds of the Lord's flock, whose business it is to fight the battles of the Lord, arise and gird on your sword, which is the word of God, and expel this foul contagion from your lands. How long are we to ignore the common insult to faith and Church? Let the words of Bernard arouse us like a lament of the spouse of Christ: "Of old was it foretold and the time of fulfillment is now at hand: Behold, in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. It was sorrowful first when the martyrs died; afterwards it was more sorrowful in the fight with the heretics and now it is most sorrowful in the conduct of the members of the household.... The Church is struck within and so in peace is my sorrow most sorrowful. But what peace? There is peace and there is no peace. There is peace from the pagans and peace from the heretics, but no peace from the children. At that time the voice will lament: Sons did I rear and exalt, but they despised me. They despised me and defiled me by a bad life, base gain, evil traffic, and business conducted in the dark." Who can hear these tearful complaints of our most holy mother without feeling a strong urge to devote all his energy and effort to the Church, as he has promised? Therefore cast out the old leaven, remove the evil from your midst. Forcefully and carefully banish poisonous books from the eyes of your flock, and at once courageously set apart those who have been infected, to prevent them harming the rest. The holy Pope Leo used to say, "We can rule those entrusted to us only by pursuing with zeal for the Lord's faith those who destroy and those who are destroyed and by cutting them off from sound minds with the utmost severity to prevent the plague spreading." In doing this We exhort and advise you to be all of one mind and in harmony as you strive for the same object, just as the Church has one faith, one baptism, and one spirit. As you are joined together in the hierarchy, so you should unite equally with virtue and desire.
The affair is of the greatest importance since it concerns the Catholic faith, the purity of the Church, the teaching of the saints, the peace of the empire, and the safety of nations. Since it concerns the entire body of the Church, it is a special concern of yours because you are called to share in Our pastoral concern, and the purity of the faith is particularly entrusted to your watchfulness. "Now therefore, Brothers, since you are overseers among God's people and their soul depends on you, raise their hearts to your utterance,"] that they may stand fast in faith and achieve the rest which is prepared for believers only. Beseech, accuse, correct, rebuke and fear not: for ill-judged silence leaves in their error those who could be taught, and this is most harmful both to them and to you who should have dispelled the error. The holy Church is powerfully refreshed in the truth as it struggles zealously for the truth. In this divine work you should not fear either the force or favor of your enemies. The bishop should not fear since the anointing of the Holy Spirit has strengthened him: the shepherd should not be afraid since the prince of pastors has taught him by his own example to despise life itself for the safety of his flock: the cowardice and depression of the hireling should not dwell in a bishop's heart. Our great predecessor Gregory, in instructing the heads of the churches, said with his usual excellence: "Often imprudent guides in their fear of losing human favor are afraid to speak the right freely. As the word of truth has it, they guard their flock not with a shepherd's zeal but as hirelings do, since they flee when the wolf approaches by hiding themselves in silence.... A shepherd fearing to speak the right is simply a man retreating by keeping silent." But if the wicked enemy of the human race, the better to frustrate your efforts, ever brings it about that a plague of epidemic proportions is hidden from the religious powers of the world, please do not be terrified but walk in God's house in harmony, with prayer, and in truth, the three arms of our service. Remember that when the people of Juda were defiled, the best means of purification was the public reading to all, from the least to the greatest, of the book of the law lately found by the priest Helcias in the Lord's temple; at once the whole people agreed to destroy the abominations and seal a covenant in the Lord's presence to follow after the Lord and observe His precepts, testimonies and ceremonies with their whole heart and soul." For the same reason Josaphat sent priests and Levites to bring the book of the law throughout the cities of Juda and to teach the people. The proclamation of the divine word has been entrusted to your faith by divine, not human, authority. So assemble your people and preach to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. From that divine source and heavenly teaching draw draughts of true philosophy for your flock. Persuade them that subjects ought to keep faith and show obedience to those who by God's ordering lead and rule them. To those who are devoted to the ministry of the Church, give proofs of faith, continence, sobriety, knowledge, and liberality, that they may please Him to whom they have proved themselves and boast only of what is serious, moderate, and religious. But above all kindle in the minds of everyone that love for one another which Christ the Lord so often and so specifically praised. For this is the one sign of Christians and the bond of perfection.
Secondly, the pastor is simply, to put it as charitably as it can be put, completely out of his mind to think that he must suspend his Catholicism to vote for Ron Paul because he wants "eight more years" to oppose perversity from the pulpit. Ron Paul, as I have been trying to explain to those who are subordinating their Catholicism to his libertarianism just as much as pro-abortion Democrat Catholics subordinate their Catholicism to the likes of the Kennedy and the Cuomos and the Clintons and any number of others, has no chance of getting the Republican presidential nomination or of being elected in a general election to the presidency of the United States of America. It is delusional to think that Ron Paul is going to get the Republican nomination, utterly pointless to support the candidacy of a man who, despite his correct and courageous opposition to the Iraq War, has views of the civil state that conflict with the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law and thus promote evil under cover of law.
Some might be wont to claim that Ron Paul's fifth place performance in the Iowa Straw Poll on Saturday, August 11, 2007, an event to which "voters," who must be residents of the State of Iowa, must pay a entrance fee of thirty-five dollars (or to have that fee paid for them by a particular presidential campaign), might have been weakened as a result of vote counting fraud. Fine. I saw vote fraud first-hand on February 12, 1996, in Dubuque, Iowa, as votes tallied for Patrick Buchanan, the clear winner in Dubuque County, were phoned into an election service in New York by an election official but never reported officially by the Republican Party of the State of Iowa. If our naturalist system is so permeated with vote fraud, which I believe it to be, how can there any be an honest counting of votes? In other words, what's the sense of enabling a fraudulent system that could be made honest only by the conversion of the nation to the Catholic Faith? The way we spend our time is not supposed to be involved in meaningless games. We are supposed to be about the business of saving our own souls and of helping others to do so, none of which is in the least advanced by endless arguments and statistical charts demonstrating what comes all too naturally to naturalists: dishonesty!
As much as I believe that the whole political process, in which I used to be very much involved, if you will recall, is a waste of time and money and effort, a case could be made that the candidacy of one completely committed to the promotion of Catholicism in his campaign, no matter his chances for nomination or election, might serve some useful purpose in helping a soul or two here and there to see the world more clearly through the eyes of the true Church, if not convert to the Faith as a result of the seeds planted in his soul by the efforts of the particular Catholic candidate committed to advancing the Social Reign of Christ the King. It is, as was noted earlier in this article, wrong to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the errors of candidates who might be good on one issue but who do, no matter how unwittingly, the devil's bidding in their propagation of errors in other important areas.
Good citizenship of a particular country is dependent upon being a good Catholic. Why? Because a Catholic, recognizing himself to be first and foremost a citizen of Heaven, will strive, despite his sins and failings, which is why he must seek to eradicate by the use of the Sacrament of Penance and by living a life of prayer and penance and mortification and almsgiving, to live in light of his eternal destiny, seeking to advance the common temporal good accordingly. Pope Leo XIII made this point in Sapientiae Christianae:
Now, if the natural law enjoins us to love devotedly and to defend the country in which we had birth, and in which we were brought up, so that every good citizen hesitates not to face death for his native land, very much more is it the urgent duty of Christians to be ever quickened by like feelings toward the Church. For the Church is the holy City of the living God, born of God Himself, and by Him built up and established. Upon this earth, indeed, she accomplishes her pilgrimage, but by instructing and guiding men she summons them to eternal happiness. We are bound, then, to love dearly the country whence we have received the means of enjoyment this mortal life affords, but we have a much more urgent obligation to love, with ardent love, the Church to which we owe the life of the soul, a life that will endure forever. For fitting it is to prefer the good of the soul to the well-being of the body, inasmuch as duties toward God are of a far more hallowed character than those toward men.
Moreover, if we would judge aright, the supernatural love for the Church and the natural love of our own country proceed from the same eternal principle, since God Himself is their Author and originating Cause. Consequently, it follows that between the duties they respectively enjoin, neither can come into collision with the other. We can, certainly, and should love ourselves, bear ourselves kindly toward our fellow men, nourish affection for the State and the governing powers; but at the same time we can and must cherish toward the Church a feeling of filial piety, and love God with the deepest love of which we are capable. The order of precedence of these duties is, however, at times, either under stress of public calamities, or through the perverse will of men, inverted. For, instances occur where the State seems to require from men as subjects one thing, and religion, from men as Christians, quite another; and this in reality without any other ground, than that the rulers of the State either hold the sacred power of the Church of no account, or endeavor to subject it to their own will. Hence arises a conflict, and an occasion, through such conflict, of virtue being put to the proof. The two powers are confronted and urge their behests in a contrary sense; to obey both is wholly impossible. No man can serve two masters, for to please the one amounts to contemning the other.
As to which should be preferred no one ought to balance for an instant. It is a high crime indeed to withdraw allegiance from God in order to please men, an act of consummate wickedness to break the laws of Jesus Christ, in order to yield obedience to earthly rulers, or, under pretext of keeping the civil law, to ignore the rights of the Church; "we ought to obey God rather than men." This answer, which of old Peter and the other Apostles were used to give the civil authorities who enjoined unrighteous things, we must, in like circumstances, give always and without hesitation. No better citizen is there, whether in time of peace or war, than the Christian who is mindful of his duty; but such a one should be ready to suffer all things, even death itself, rather than abandon the cause of God or of the Church.
Hence, they who blame, and call by the name of sedition, this steadfastness of attitude in the choice of duty have not rightly apprehended the force and nature of true law. We are speaking of matters widely known, and which We have before now more than once fully explained. Law is of its very essence a mandate of right reason, proclaimed by a properly constituted authority, for the common good. But true and legitimate authority is void of sanction, unless it proceed from God, the supreme Ruler and Lord of all. The Almighty alone can commit power to a man over his fellow men; nor may that be accounted as right reason which is in disaccord with truth and with divine reason; nor that held to be true good which is repugnant to the supreme and unchangeable good, or that wrests aside and draws away the wills of men from the charity of God.
Clearly, ladies and gentlemen it is gravely sinful, objectively speaking, for any human being to contend at any time or in any place that any institution of civil governance has any right to permit the deliberate, intentional killing of innocent human being under cover of law. It is thus gravely wrong for Catholics to support such candidates to public office, seriously irresponsible of them to place their trust in various Protestants and libertarians and naturalists, ignoring Pope Saint Pius X's injunction, contained in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910, to seek to restore the Catholic City and none other:
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.
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.
Protestantism and the many shades and varieties of naturalism are not the foundation of order within individual souls. They are not the foundation, therefore, of order within societies. It is Catholicism alone that builds up the temporal order justly in light of man's Last End, something that Pope Pius XI emphasized by quoting Silvio Cardinal Antoniano in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929:
"The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity."
Pope Leo XIII made a similar point in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900:
From this it may clearly be seen what consequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour's Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet, this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love: a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor selfdevotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ: but only on condition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God's law. By the law of Christ we mean not only the natural precepts of morality and the Ancient Law, all of which Jesus Christ has perfected and crowned by His declaration, explanation and sanction; but also the rest of His doctrine and His own peculiar institutions. Of these the chief is His Church. Indeed whatsoever things Christ has instituted are most fully contained in His Church. Moreover, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father by means of the ministry of the Church so gloriously founded by Himself. On the one hand He confided to her all the means of men's salvation, on the other He most solemnly commanded men to be subject to her and to obey her diligently, and to follow her even as Himself: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke x, 16). Wherefore the law of Christ must be sought in the Church. Christ is man's "Way"; the Church also is his "Way"-Christ of Himself and by His very nature, the Church by His commission and the communication of His power. Hence all who would find salvation apart from the Church, are led astray and strive in vain.
As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from "The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. "And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him" (Daniel vii., 14). "I am appointed King by Him . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psalm ii., 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at.
Some readers might ask why I keep hammering away at these points when so few people want to accept them. Well, first, the work that I do is for the honor and glory of God, given to Him through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. It matters not that so few people want to embrace Catholic Social Teaching and to recognize Americanism as a condemned heresy, a species of Modernism. The truth it is what it is. My articulating it makes it possible for others to have access to it. Whether or not the articles have any positive influence on the souls of readers is something that I will not know until the Last Day at the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead.
That having been noted, however, it is my hope that my defense of the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church will help at least a few souls to see the world more clearly through the eyes of the true Faith, thereby enabling them to see through the lies of the naturalists and to stop participating in the diabolical waste of time and energy and money involved in the following and active participation in an electoral system that belongs, quite frankly, to the devil. If Christ is not King of a nation, you see, then the devil is king. Catholics must come to understand that these words, contained in Pope Saint Pius X's Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, bind their consciences and perfectly summarize the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church that the civil state must recognize her and subordinate itself to her in all that pertains to the good of souls:
That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error."
Some well-meaning people will try to assert that to withdraw from the political process and simply to pray is "to do nothing." These people are most mistaken.
A reasoned, practical judgment as to the true state of the American electorate, steeped, objectively speaking, in one sin after another as it is mired in materialism and relativism and naturalism and all of the bread and circuses of Modernity, precludes rational discourse about First and Last Things in the realm of the Judeo-Masonically controlled electoral process does not mean that our recourse to prayer and fasting and sacrifice and mortification and penance as the consecrated slaves of Our Lady' Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart is "doing nothing."
Prayer is the most important work we can do to build up the Kingship of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in our own souls and hence in the world. Prayer before the Blessed Sacrament provides one with infused graces to enlighten the intellect and to strengthen the will, helping at the same time to build up the entire Mystical Body of Christ in the process. Prayer to the Mother of God, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, shows our filial dependency upon the woman who made possible our salvation and who pleads for us with her Divine Son. Just as it is the case that the world will end when the last true priest is captured or killed and thus the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is no longer offered, so is it also the case that our worlds come crashing in on us when we do not spend the time in mental prayer, especially that before the Blessed Sacrament, and when we do not pray at least one set of mysteries of the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We need to supplicate the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
The belief that our "action" will redeem the world on naturalist principles without publicly speaking about Catholic truth is a descent into the heresy of semi-Pelagianism. The dismissal of prayer as "doing nothing" is a quintessential manifestation of the one of the chief elements of the Americanist heresy: the belief that natural action and natural virtue unaided by Sanctifying Grace and unenlightened by the Deposit of Faith can change the world. The "American way" insists that we do not need an external guide such as the Catholic Church to help us to know what do do in the world. Americans live in the aftermath of the "Enlightenment." They can figure things out on their way. They do not need to talk about the Faith publicly. This was not in the past. It is not needed now. This does, of course disparage the glories of Christendom as having been but a passing phase in the "fuller development" of man's own self-knowledge and his ability to remake the world on this own without subordinating himself in all times and in all things to the Catholic Church.
Pope Leo XIII addressed this most specifically in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899:
First, all external guidance is set aside for those souls who are striving after Christian perfection as being superfluous or indeed, not useful in any sense -the contention being that the Holy Spirit pours richer and more abundant graces than formerly upon the souls of the faithful, so that without human intervention He teaches and guides them by some hidden instinct of His own. Yet it is the sign of no small over-confidence to desire to measure and determine the mode of the Divine communication to mankind, since it wholly depends upon His own good pleasure, and He is a most generous dispenser 'of his own gifts. "The Spirit breatheth whereso He listeth." -- John iii, 8.
"And to each one of us grace is given according to the measure of the giving of Christ." -- Eph. iv, 7.
And shall any one who recalls the history of the apostles, the faith of the nascent church, the trials and deaths of the martyrs- and, above all, those olden times, so fruitful in saints-dare to measure our age with these, or affirm that they received less of the divine outpouring from the Spirit of Holiness? Not to dwell upon this point, there is no one who calls in question the truth that the Holy Spirit does work by a secret descent into the souls of the just and that He stirs them alike by warnings and impulses, since unless this were the case all outward defense and authority would be unavailing. "For if any persuades himself that he can give assent to saving, that is, to gospel truth when proclaimed, without any illumination of the Holy Spirit, who give's unto all sweetness both to assent and to hold, such an one is deceived by a heretical spirit."-From the Second Council of Orange, Canon 7.
Moreover, as experience shows, these monitions and impulses of the Holy Spirit are for the most part felt through the medium of the aid and light of an external teaching authority. To quote St. Augustine. "He (the Holy Spirit) co-operates to the fruit gathered from the good trees, since He externally waters and cultivates them by the outward ministry of men, and yet of Himself bestows the inward increase."-De Gratia Christi, Chapter xix. This, indeed, belongs to the ordinary law of God's loving providence that as He has decreed that men for the most part shall be saved by the ministry also of men, so has He wished that those whom He calls to the higher planes of holiness should be led thereto by men; hence St. Chrysostom declares we are taught of God through the instrumentality of men.-Homily I in Inscrib. Altar. Of this a striking example is given us in the very first days of the Church.
For though Saul, intent upon blood and slaughter, had heard the voice of our Lord Himself and had asked, "What dost Thou wish me to do?" yet he was bidden to enter Damascus and search for Ananias. Acts ix: "Enter the city and it shall be there told to thee what thou must do."
Nor can we leave out of consideration the truth that those who are striving after perfection, since by that fact they walk in no beaten or well-known path, are the most liable to stray, and hence have greater need than others of a teacher and guide. Such guidance has ever obtained in the Church; it has been the universal teaching of those who throughout the ages have been eminent for wisdom and sanctity-and hence to reject it would be to commit one's self to a belief at once rash and dangerous.
A thorough consideration of this point, in the supposition that no exterior guide is granted such souls, will make us see the difficulty of locating or determining the direction and application of that more abundant influx of the Holy Spirit so greatly extolled by innovators To practice virtue there is absolute need of the assistance of the Holy Spirit, yet we find those who are fond of novelty giving an unwarranted importance to the natural virtues, as though they better responded to the customs and necessities of the times and that having these as his outfit man becomes more ready to act and more strenous in action. It is not easy to understand how persons possessed of Christian wisdom can either prefer natural to supernatural virtues or attribute to them a greater efficacy and fruifulness. Can it be that nature conjoined with grace is weaker than when left to herself?
Can it be that those men illustrious for sanctity, whom the Church distinguishes and openly pays homage to, were deficient, came short in the order of nature and its endowments, because they excelled in Christian strength? And although it be allowed at times to wonder at acts worthy of admiration which are the outcome of natural virtue-is there anyone at all endowed simply with an outfit of natural virtue? Is there any one not tried by mental anxiety, and this in no light degree? Yet ever to master such, as also to preserve in its entirety the law of the natural order, requires an assistance from on high These single notable acts to which we have alluded will frequently upon a closer investigation be found to exhibit the appearance rather than the reality of virtue. Grant that it is virtue, unless we would "run in vain" and be unmindful of that eternal bliss which a good God in his mercy has destined for us, of what avail are natural virtues unless seconded by the gift of divine grace? Hence St. Augustine well says: "Wonderful is the strength, and swift the course, but outside the true path." For as the nature of man, owing to the primal fault, is inclined to evil and dishonor, yet by the help of grace is raised up, is borne along with a new greatness and strength, so, too, virtue, which is not the product of nature alone, but of grace also, is made fruitful unto everlasting life and takes on a more strong and abiding character.
This overesteem of natural virtue finds a method of expression in assuming to divide all virtues in active and passive, and it is alleged that whereas passive virtues found better place in past times, our age is to be characterized by the active. That such a division and distinction cannot be maintained is patent-for there is not, nor can there be, merely passive virtue. "Virtue," says St. Thomas Aquinas, "designates the perfection of some faculty, but end of such faculty is an act, and an act of virtue is naught else than the good use of free will," acting, that is to say, under the grace of God if the act be one of supernatural virtue.
He alone could wish that some Christian virtues be adapted to certain times and different ones for other times who is unmindful of the apostle's words: "That those whom He foreknew, He predestined to be made conformable to the image of His Son."- Romans viii, 29. Christ is the teacher and the exemplar of all sanctity, and to His standard must all those conform who wish for eternal life. Nor does Christ know any change as the ages pass, "for He is yesterday and to-day and the same forever."-Hebrews xiii, 8. To the men of all ages was the precept given: "Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart."-Matt. xi, 29.
To every age has He been made manifest to us as obedient even unto death; in every age the apostle's dictum has its force: "Those who are Christ's have crucified their flesh with its vices and concupiscences." Would to God that more nowadays practiced these virtues in the degree of the saints of past times, who in humility, obedience and self-restraint were powerful "in word and in deed" -to the great advantage not only of religion, but of the state and the public welfare.
From this disregard of the - angelical virtues, erroneously styled passive, the step was a short one to a contempt of the religious life which has in some degree taken hold of minds. That such a value is generally held by the upholders of new views, we infer from certain statements concerning the vows which religious orders take. They say vows are alien to the spirit of our times, in that they limit the bounds of human liberty; that they are more suitable to weak than ›o strong minds; that so far from making for human perfection and the good of human organization, they are hurtful to both; but that this is as false as possible from the practice and the doctrine of the Church is clear, since she has always given the very highest approval to the religious method of life; nor without good cause, for those who under the divine call have freely embraced that state of life did not content themselves with the observance of precepts, but, going forward to the evangelical counsels, showed themselves ready and valiant soldiers of Christ. Shall we judge this to be a characteristic of weak minds, or shall we say that it is useless or hurtful to a more perfect state of life?
Those who so bind themselves by the vows of religion, far from having suffered a loss of liberty, enjoy that fuller and freer kind, that liberty, namely, by which Christ hath made us free. And this further view of theirs, namely, that the religious life is either entirely useless or of little service to the Church, besides being injurious to the religious orders cannot be the opinion of anyone who has read the annals of the Church. Did not your country, the United States, derive the beginnings both of faith and of culture from the children of these religious families? to one of whom but very lately, a thing greatly to your praise, you have decreed that a statue be publicly erected. And even at the present time wherever the religious families are found, how speedy and yet how fruitful a harvest of good works do they not bring forth! How very many leave home and seek strange lands to impart the truth of the gospel and to widen the bounds of civilization; and this they do with the greatest cheerfulness amid manifold dangers! Out of their number not less, indeed, than from the rest of the clergy, the Christian world finds the preachers of God's word, the directors of conscience, the teachers of youth and the Church itself the examples of all sanctity.
Nor should any difference of praise be made between those who follow the active state of life and those others who, charmed with solitude, give themselves to prayer and bodily mortification. And how much, indeed, of good report these have merited, and do merit, is known surely to all who do not forget that the "continual prayer of the just man" avails to placate and to bring down the blessings of heaven when to such prayers bodily mortification is added.
But if there be those who prefer to form one body without the obligation of the vows let them pursue such a course. It is not new in the Church, nor in any wise censurable. Let them be careful, however, not to set forth such a state above that of religious orders. But rather, since mankind are more disposed at the present time to indulge themselves in pleasures, let those be held in greater esteem "who having left all things have followed Christ."
An important qualification needs to be made at this juncture. Pope Leo XIII did write in Immortale Dei that it is important to take part in national affairs, that to remain aloof from the pursuit of the common temporal good would be irresponsible. That does not necessarily mean, however, that one needs to get wrapped up in electoral process, especially since the actual reality of our situation mitigates against earthly "success" given the fact the world is more in the grip of the devil now than it was at the time of Pope Leo XIII, who wrote both the long and the short version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer. There are other ways to be "involved" in national affairs, namely, by propagating the truths of the Catholic Faith.
Importantly, Pope Leo also noted that there might be times when
" for most urgent and just reasons, it is by no means expedient for Catholics to engage in public affairs or to take an active part in politics," as he himself instructed Italian Catholics to refrain from voting in the 1890s so as to lend no credibility to the Masonic regime of the Kingdom of Italy.
We must come to recognize that we can advance the common good by looking rationally and soberly at our situation and by trying to plant the seeds for the conversion of men and nations to the Social Reign of Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen.
As one who has followed politics and public policy for fifty years, dating back to the time I was six years old, and have been involved in partisan politics and whose life work has been to study it and to teach about it, my judgment, which is not infallible, obviously, is that we have seen national discourse going backwards in the past half-century as the assaults of the adversary become bolder. No naturalistic or inter-denominational or non-denominational approach can ameliorate social problems that have their remote cause in Original Sin and their proximate causes in our own Actual Sins. The world has regressed in the past one hundred years. All of the "involvement" of Catholics, no matter how well-intentioned, in the political process in the Nineteenth Century did little but to enable career politicians, most of whom were hostile to the Catholic Faith and supportive of abject evils. It will do nothing now.
Pope Leo XIII explained less than a year before his death, in A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902, that the goal for which we must work is the return of society to Catholicism:
Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely wise, good, and just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised It, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which it has received, to carry the Doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel It does not reveal Itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but it is still more the internal source of justice and Charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of Its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of Truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights of Justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity.
People are going to do what they want to do. They are going to believe what they want to believe, getting all worked up over the latest polls or debates. It is very difficult to break from the belief that political "action" is going to change the country. Catholic action will do so. Catholic action, however, makes no compromise with error and does not seek a reconciliation with the "principles of 1789" (or of 1787). Pope Leo XIII pointed this out in
Custodi Di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892:
Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God
As has been pointed out many times on this site, it is the likes of Joseph Ratzinger who seek to reconcile Christ and Belial (the "principles of 1789") and the "Church of God and the state without God." All the more reason to do something truly constructive to help our nation: to promote home enthronement to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. We can do more good for the conversion of this nation by promoting home enthronement to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary and by passing our Green Scapulars and Rosaries (and Rosary instruction booklets) and blessed Miraculous Medals than we can writing checks for candidates who dissent from Catholic teaching and who have no chance of winning as they promote their erroneous beliefs.
Saint Clare of Assisi, whose feast we commemorated two days ago, held back invaders of Frederick II's army from besieging the Convent of San Damiano by holding the Most Blessed Sacrament aloft in a ciborium. We can hold back the invaders of Modernity and Modernism by our lives of commitment to the Immemorial Mass of Tradition, offered by true bishops and priests who make no concession to conciliarism or its false shepherds, and to Eucharistic piety and Total Marian Consecration, especially by our daily praying of the Most Holy Rosary.
The world is changed one soul at a time, starting with ourselves, not one election at a time. Perhaps we need to learn this lesson once and for all.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us now and the hour of our death Amen
Vivat Christus Rex!
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us
Saint Joseph, pray for us
Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us
Saint John the Baptist, pray for us
Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us
Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us
Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us
Saint Romanus, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Saints Tiburtius and Susanna, pray for us.
Saint Clare of Assisi, pray for us.
Saint Lawrence the Deacon, pray for us.
Saint Cajetan, pray for us.
Saint Donatus, pray for us.
Saint Dominic de Guzman, pray for us
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us
Pope Saint Stephen I, pray for us
Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us
Saint Christopher, pray for us
Saint James the Greater, pray for us
Simon Stock, pray for us
Saint John of the Cross, pray for us
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us
Saint Bonaventure, pray for us
Saint Athanasius, pray for us
Saint Irenaeus, pray for us
Saints Monica, pray for us
Saint Jude, pray for us
Saint John the Beloved, pray for us
Saint Francis Solano, pray for us
Saint John Bosco, pray for us
Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us
Saint Scholastica, pray for us
Saint Benedict, pray for us
Saint Joan of Arc, pray for us
Saint Antony of the Desert, pray for us
Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us
Saint Bonaventure, pray for us
Saint Augustine, pray for us
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us
Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us
Saint Peter Damian, pray for us
Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us
Saint Lucy, pray for us
Saint Monica, pray for us
Saint Agatha, pray for us
Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us
Saint Basil the Great, pray for us
Saint Philomena, pray for us
Saint Cecilia, pray for us
Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us
Saint Athanasius, pray for us
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us
Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us
Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us
Saint John Lalonde, pray for us
Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us
Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us
Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us
Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us
Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us
Saint Hyacinth, pray for us
Saint Basil, pray for us
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us
Saint Sebastian, pray for us
Saint Tarcisius, pray for us
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us
Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us
Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us
Saint Genevieve, pray for us
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us
Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us
Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us
Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us
Saint Louis de Montfort, pray for us
Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us
Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us
Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us
Francisco Marto, pray for us
Jacinta Marto, pray for us
Juan Diego, pray for us
Sister Teresa Benedicta, pray for us
The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888
O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory That wicked dragon pours out as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations Amen
Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers
Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David
Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord
Response: As we have hoped in Thee
Verse: O Lord hear my prayer
Response: And let my cry come unto Thee
Verse: Let us pray O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls
Response: Amen
