by Thomas A. Droleskey
"My names is Alfred Bones, and I's been oppressed for over 200 years!"
Thus screamed a student, whose name has been changed for the sake of my own survival, of mine at Illinois State University in December of 1977 when demanding to know the answers to the final examination in my American National Government course before the examination was administered. The student had telephoned me at 2:00 a.m. a few hours before (that's before I got an unlisted telephone number) to demand to know the answers to the examination so that he could pass the course, something that his perpetual absences from class made an unlikely possibility.
Arrogant in spirit, this young man had been indemnified throughout his life for his irresponsible behavior by claiming that he was a "victim" of one sort of another, playing the "race card" to a hilt in this case. To his credit, my late department chairman, Dr. Hibbert Roberts, would have none of the victimology act, backing me up completely in my confrontation with the student who believed that he was "special" because of his race and could be exempt from having to attend classes and to actually study the material covered in course lectures so that he could he demonstration his level of comprehension of that material on an examination. Hib Roberts actually got a little bit of a chuckle when I responded to the student's comment that "he" had been oppressed for over two hundred years by saying, "You don't look a day over 112."
Millions upon millions of people have taught to how to intimidate others by the use of various devices (slogans, "identity cards" of race, gender, ethnicity, proclivities in the direction of perverse sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, insults and epithets designed to silence critics).
One of the most common devices has been use of the "victim card" that has employed by all manner of people to excuse their commission of the most heinous sorts of crimes against others.
This "victim card" was used to explain the killings of nearly sixty people and the injuring of over 2,300 others people in south central Los Angeles in a four day period starting on April 29, 1992, following the acquittal of three of the four City of Los Angeles police officers by a jury in Simi Valley, California, on charges of manhandling and using excessive force on drunken motorist Rodney King as he was resisting arrest on March 3, 1991. Over 3100 businesses were damaged in the riots, some irreparably. Some psychologists and talk show hosts came up with a justification for this violence: "black rage," a psychological condition produced in certain people as a result of living in what is said to be an "oppressive" and "racist" society. Not one single person was ever arrested, no less prosecuted, for the deaths that occurred in the 1992 riots in south central Los Angeles, meaning that those murderers are just as free to walk the streets as those who murder innocent preborn babies in our "civilized" "land of the free."
The "black rage" argument was proposed by radical attorney William Kuntsler and his associate, Ron Kuby, who was a radio talk show host for many years on WABC Radio with Curtis Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels vigilante organizations, in their attempt to defend the Long Island Rail Road shooter, Colin Ferguson, who chose to defend himself, rejecting the "black rage" defense strategy. The fact that Kuntsler and Kuby even proposed the "black rage" argument to prove that Ferguson was not culpable for the shootings he did on the 5:33 p.m. train from Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan to Hicksville, Long Island, on December 7, 1993, because of the "mental illness" induced by living in a "racist" and "oppressive" society outraged many people.
The "victim card" is always used in an effort to shield oneself from personal responsibility for doing things that are objectively wrong (lying, cheating, killing) and/or as a means to shield oneself from criticism for positions taken in public life. "You're just criticizing me because I'm a black (or a Jew or a Latino or a pervert or a woman)." This is used as a slogan that is supposed to stop all rational discussion of the particular person's positions on matters of public policy, making it appear as though their own public policy positions are exempt from review and criticism because they are of a certain race or religion or ethnicity or gender or perverse "orientation." This is rank cowardice that is designed to intimidate potential critics into "standing down" lest they be accused of bigotry or hatred or intolerance or judgmentalness or insensitivity, thus giving them a "free pass" on anything they say or do. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and countless other race-baiters have used this strategy over the years before reforming their act as they gained "respectability" in the mainstream media and became figures who had, at one point or another, actual influence despite their past comments and actions.
The "victim card," of course, is only another consequence of naturalism's deification of man.
There is but one Victim, that is, the Chief Victim and Priest of every Mass, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Although guilty of nothing, He offered Himself up to redeem us on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday, a bloody sacrifice to atone for the debt of human sins. That Sacrifice of the Cross is perpetuated or re-presented in an unbloody manner on altars of Sacrifice as an alter Christus, acting in persona Christi, offers the Mass. Sinful human beings are only truly victim-souls if they offer their sufferings and mortifications and penances and humiliations and injustices that they endure in this life to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, which suffered in a perfect communion of love with Him during His Passion and Death. A true victim is one who offers himself to Jesus through Mary in reparation for his own sins and those of the whole world.
While people are, of course, victims of the words and actions of others, any injury or injustice we suffer in this life is to be embraced as an opportunity to unite ourselves more fully with the Cross of the Divine Redeemer. Doing this does not mean that the pursuit of justice to correct a wrong or to punish a malefactor cannot be undertaken according to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law, making sure that malice is avoided and the punishment imposed is just and seeks the true reform of the wrongdoer(s) by means of an abiding cooperation with Sanctifying Grace and also in accord with the demands of natural justice and the temporal good of the civil polity. We must, however, forgive those who injure us and to will their good, which is their eternal salvation as members of the Catholic Church, remembering that we are forgiven by Our Lord Himself in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance and that nothing we suffer in this passing, mortal vale of tears is ever the equal of what one of our least venial sins caused Him to suffer during His Passion and Death and caused His Most Blessed Mother's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart to be pierced through and through with Seven Swords of Sorrow. We have been forgiven by the One Who offered Himself up to His Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross. Who are we to nourish grudges for years on end for slights and injuries, whether real or imagined or exaggerated, no less to claim that our sufferings entitle us to be called "victims" who must be pitied and forever bestowed "privileges," including absolute immunity from criticism and absolute impunity for our sinful actions.
Anyone who enters the public arena better be ready for a good deal of criticism. While it may be necessary now and again to respond to critics, one must do so without invective and without harboring grudges ad nauseam, ad infinitum, certainly not raising a banner of victimology of one sort or another to attempt to immunize oneself from further criticism and analysis of his positions. The "politics of personal destruction" that was denounced by William Jefferson Blythe Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton as they engaged in it with a savage abandon has taken such hold in our naturalistic discourse that those who make the wildest accusations retreat into various bunkers, replete with protect armor, of victimology when anyone attempts to hold a candle to shine a light on the darkness of their words and actions.
The latest practitioner of this victimology and the demonizing of his opponents, Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro and his large assembly of victimologists and demagogues that he he recruited straight out of central casting, whose headquarters is located miles and miles below the surface of the earth (if you get my drift, that is), is perhaps the most shameless of them all in seeking to shield himself from those attempting to hold his feet to the fire concerning his reaction to and subsequent cover-up of the terrorist attacks that took place in Benghazi, Libya, on September 12, 2012. Obama/Soetoro knows that he can just sit back while his merchants of propaganda in the "mainstream media" use various "identity cards" of race and gender to attempt to deflect criticism of himself and his Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice. Obama/Soetoro can just sit back as his obvious dereliction of duty and violation of his constitutional oath as President of the United States of America is shielded by accusations of "racism" against members of the United States House of Representatives and of the United States Senate who want to conduct a full investigation of these offenses.
Additionally, Obama/Soetoro, who placed the personnel of the United States of America in harm's way in Libya without a just cause or any kind of declaration of war in order support what he considered to be the Mohammedan "Arab Spring" of 2011, knows that most Americans respond to the use of the "identity card," having become conditioned" by America's concentration camps and the lords of the "news" and "entertainment" media to accept demagoguery in the place of rational thought and cold, hard logic. As explained a few weeks ago, Obama/Soetero knows that most Americans, do not have any outage now over the Benghazi tragedy and that they will not have any in the future.
The use of the "victim card" is just one device used to intimidate and/or brainwash "enemies" or those who attempt to resist social and ecclesiastical schemes of one sort or another.
Alas, this is nothing new, especially when one considers that contemporary sloganeering has its proximate antecedent roots during various elements of the Renaissance and, of course, during the Protestant Revolution that had begun on October 31, 1517, when Father Martin Luther tacked those ninety-five theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany.
Thus it is that we live in a world of naturalism wherein most people, including most Catholics, do not see in others the image and likeness
of the Most Blessed Trinity and/or who believe in the "salvific" power
of the myths of nationalism or of some secular, naturalistic ideology
or philosophy, thus having ready recourse in their own lives to the use of various devices,
including sloganeering, to attempt to define and thus to discredit those who disagree with them, especially those who call immorality by its proper name. These exercises in propagandizing, although they have been
refined in our modern age of instant mass communications, are nothing
new. Indeed, the Sophists, that party of relativists who contended, in
contradistinction to Socrates, that truth was relative, not absolute,
used such slogans as the means to advance their relativism in the Fifth
Century before Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ:
"It is as though we had returned to the age of
Protagoras and the Sophists, the age when the art of persuasion--whose
modern equivalent is advertising slogans, publicity, propaganda
meetings, the press, the cinema, and radio--took the place of thought
and controlled the fate of cities and accomplished coups d'etat. So the
ninth book of Plato's Republic looks like a description of contemporary
events." (Simone Weil, quoted in Russell Kirk, The Roots of American Order.)
Sloganeering, which can be defined as an attempt to
stop all rational thought on an issue by the utterance of a word or a
phrase that is supposed command the immediate assent of all to whom the
slogan is addressed, was revived during the Renaissance as various
philosophes (pseudo-philosophers) attempted to drive a wedge between the
true Faith and popular culture. Sloganeering picked up greater strength
during the Protestant Revolt ("salvation by faith alone, "sola
Scriptural," "no intermediary needed between God and man," etc.),
becoming a true art form by the time of the American and French
Revolutions.
Citizens of the United States of America who believe
that slogans are only the stuff of the French and Bolshevik Revolutions
and Nazism ought to consider the fact that the very term "patriotism"
was perverted by those supporting the American Revolution into a test of
whether those living in the thirteen original states were "loyal" to
the cause of independence from the British Crown. Slogans have been used
throughout the course of American history to attempt to silence
unwanted political dissent in this land of supposed "civil" liberty. The
slogan of "Americanism" was used very openly after the entry of the
United States of America into World War I on April 6, 1917, so as to
signify that anyone opposed to then President Thomas Woodrow Wilson's
well-calculated decision to use the then-called "Great War" or "World
War" as a means of "making the world safe for democracy" was not a true
"patriot."
Slogan after slogan is used today throughout a
popular culture corrupted by the after-effects of the Protestant Revolt
and the rise of Judeo-Masonry, replete with a civil state founded upon
false, naturalistic, religiously indifferentist, anti-Incarnational and
semi-Pelagian principles. "Choice," "diversity," "tolerance." and
"diversity" are just some of the buzzwords that are used by various
naturalists of the false opposite of the "left" to silence those who are
not so "enlightened" as to accept the "infallible" pronouncements of
the secular magisterium. These slogans are used in public and conciliar
schools. They are used in American courtrooms. They are used in
political discourse. And they are used by various naturalists of the
false opposite of "right," mostly without their even knowing it.
The Soviets used all manner of slogans during the
Cold War to convince left-leaning Americans and Europeans that anyone
who opposed their wars of "national liberation" in the Third World or
who criticized Marxism was an enemy of "peace" and "peaceful
coexistence." The Soviets and their propagandists in the United States
of America wanted to "define" opposition to Soviet expansionism as a
"threat" to world peace and to portray Western leaders as "Cold Warrior"
war mongers who were the true threats to the world. The Soviet
propaganda machine was alive and well in the United States of America
right through the apparent "collapse" of the Soviet empire in 1989 and
1991. As I explained to my classes in the 1970s and 1980s, "Yes, the
Soviets do indeed want 'piece.' They want a 'piece' of Virginia. They
want a 'piece' of North Carolina. They want a 'piece' of New York." The
students got the point.
(Oh, yes, I was accused by leftist colleagues
frequently of being "unscholarly" for criticizing Marxism. They could
criticize the true Faith no end. I was being "unscholarly" for mocking
Marxism after critiquing its inherent flaws. One of these lefties, a man
who despised me greatly--he's got lots of company these days, was in
need of a batch of "blue books" to distribute to his students during
final examinations. He came into my classroom as I was giving my own
final examination to an American National Government course. When the
fellow asked for some blue books, however, a student, who met her future
husband at a pizza party that I had once hosted, piped up from the back
of the classroom and said the following, "We don't have any blue books.
We've got pink books just for you!" My colleague was not amused.
Although my student spoke out of turn, I must admit that it was hard to
contain my desire to burst out laughing. All right, all right. I am a fallen creature, you know.)
Why should we be surprised that that the practice of sloganeering and demagoguery extends now to the protection of outright violations of the laws of man (the Constitution of the United States of America) after having been refined to defend violations of the law of God, including the chemical and surgical assassination of children, natural and unnatural sins against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments and, perhaps most egregiously of all, blasphemies and rank denials of the Divine Revelation that He has entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.
This effort to "define" and thus to marginalize one's
enemies by the use of sloganeering is common also to the ecclesiastical revolutionaries who helped to propagate and are continuing to institutionalize the blasphemies, sacrileges and apostasies of conciliarism.
The lords of
the counterfeit church of concilairism themselves have been very
successful in defining traditionally-minded Catholics who make no concessions to their doctrinal, liturgical, moral and pastoral revolutions as enemies of the
Faith. This effort has been led by "bishops" at the diocesan level in
the conciliar structures, aided and abetted by a ready slew of
"priests," religious, lay teachers, seminary and university professors
and "progressive" lay commentators and columnists. The standard of being
"Catholic" for these agents of the doctrinal and liturgical revolutions
of conciliarism is a complete and uncritical acceptance of the
Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service and of the major
apostasies of the "Second" Vatican Council and the false "pontiffs (the
new ecclesiology, false ecumenism, inter-religious "dialogue" and prayer
services, religious liberty, separation of Church and State, episcopal
collegiality, the 1983 "Code of Canon Law").
Great care has been taken to "create" a false
"memory" of the "past" so as to justify the novelties and abominations
and apostasies and sacrileges of the past forty years. How many
ordinary, well-meaning Catholics have been convinced into believing that
the "old Mass" was not "understandable," that they in the laity had no
"role" to play in the Church, that it was "wrong" for the Church to
assert that she had all of the answers to life, that it was wrong for
popes and bishops and priests of the past to assert that doctrine is
unchanging and that the Sacred Liturgy must convey the beauty of that
unchanging doctrine in a spirit of solemnity and reverence?
Indeed, a conciliar "bishop" for whom I worked
twenty years ago as his communications director, the late James S.
Sullivan, said to me in 1999 when I (an indulterer at the time, of
course, who thought that the establishment of the seminary of the
Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter in Denton, Nebraska, was a positive
sign) was attempting to convince him of the necessity of restoring the
Immemorial Mass of Tradition, "That Mass was never meant to
come back!" Although I was still drafting material for "Bishop" Sullivan
up to that point, I could no longer do so after that conversation. Here
was a man who spent much time in prayer before what he believed was the
Blessed Sacrament, a man who was devoted to the Mother of God and her
Fatima Message. He was, however, thoroughly convinced of the doctrinal
and liturgical revolutions wrought by conciliarism and had a hatred for
"that" Mass.
This hostility for the Immemorial Mass of Tradition
is on display currently as "progressive" "bishops" in the conciliar
structures fail to recognize that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, a
progenitor and chief apologist of all things conciliar, is attempting to
institutionalize the conciliar revolution by neutralizing any
opposition thereto from traditionally-minded Catholics. These
"progressives" speak in terms of a complete break from the past (see Continuity Plus Discontinuity Will Always Equal Insanity)
without realizing that Ratzinger/Benedict is trying to save the revolution by
claiming that no break occurred at all since we have yet to "arrive" at a
"full" understanding of the "Second" Vatican Council.
The philosophically absurd and dogmatically-condemned
thesis advanced by Ratzinger's "hermeneutic of continuity and
discontinuity" is an effort to claim that the "Second" Vatican Council
was, despite some innovations here and there, "faithful" to the
Tradition of the Catholic Church. Ratzinger is using the full weight of
his false "pontificate" to convince traditionally-minded Catholics of
this proposition, using the methodological tools provided by the
condemned precepts of the New Theology to make Saint Paul and Saint
Augustine and other Fathers of the Church "witnesses" in behalf of a
"hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity." Ratzinger/Benedict
believes that he can convince enough traditionally-minded Catholics of
this philosophically absurd and theologically condemned thesis to
silence them permanently about objections to the Novus Ordo and such matters as religious liberty and separation of Church and State.
Ratzinger/Benedict believes that the only ones who
refuse to accept the "hermeneutic of continuity" are
the "progressives" who have spoken for years of the conciliar revolution
as a rejection of the Catholic past and those faithful Catholics who
recognize that it is impossible to reconcile apostasy with the Faith,
which is why he seeks to marginalize the latter before being able to
reassure his fellow revolutionaries that the revolution is safe from
internal opposition for the foreseeable future.
Ratzinger/Benedict has used the entirety of his priestly career to redefine the
Catholic Faith, seeking to discover that "synthesis of faith" that will appeal to
the mythical entity known as "modern man."
To be sure, Ratzinger/Benedict, rejecting the clarity
and consistency of Scholasticism, says contradictory things, sometimes
in the context of the same article. As noted on this site ten months
ago, New Oxford Review, whose editors reject sedevacantism, had
a very frank and honest assessment of the contradictions inherent in
the writings of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:
In Cardinal Ratzinger’s Values in a Time of Upheaval,
he muddies up his phrase [the dictatorship of relativism]; indeed, he
reverses his position. He says, “The modem concept of democracy seems
indissolubly linked to that of relativism.” Well, well! But then he
backtracks: “This means that a basic element of truth, namely, ethical
truth, is indispensable to democracy.” But then he backtracks again: “We
do not want the State to impose one particular idea of the good on us.
... Truth is controversial, and the attempt to impose on all persons
what one part of the citizenry holds to be true looks like enslavement
of people’s consciences.” And he says this on the same page!
Yes, we know: Some of our readers feel that the Pope is above all
criticism; he cannot make a mistake, even in his previous writings. But
what he has written here is contradictory and inscrutable.
Ratzinger says, “The relativists ...[are] flirting with
totalitarianism even though they seek to establish the primacy of
freedom ...” Huh?
So, what is he saying? “The State is not itself the source of
truth and morality.... Accordingly, the State must receive from outside
itself the essential measure of knowledge and truth with regard to that
which is good. ... The Church remains outside’ the State. ... The Church
must exert itself with all its vigor so that in it there may shine
forth moral truth ...”
Then he says, “Conscience is the highest norm [italics in
original] and ... and one must follow it even against authority. When
authority - in this case the Church’s Magisterium - speaks on matters of
morality, it supplies the material that helps the conscience form its
own judgment, but ultimately it is only conscience that has the last
word.” A Contradictory Definition of Relativism (See also: 
Cardinal Ratzinger's Subjectivism.)
That is, it is a vain exercise
to seek to find clarity of though in the mind of a man who rejects
Scholasticism, the official philosophy of the Catholic Church, and who
does not realize how many times he contradicts himself and presents the
Faith, which is something sure and clear, in the form of one paradox
after another.
Pope Saint Pius X noted the contradictory "double-minded"--nature of the Modernist in Pascendi Dominic Gregis, September 8, 1907:
This will appear more clearly to anybody who
studies the conduct of Modernists, which is in perfect harmony with
their teachings. In their writings and addresses they seem not
unfrequently to advocate doctrines which are contrary one to the other,
so that one would be disposed to regard their attitude as double and
doubtful. But this is done deliberately and advisedly, and the reason of
it is to be found in their opinion as to the mutual separation of
science and faith. Thus in their books one finds some things which might
well be approved by a Catholic, but on turning over the page one is
confronted by other things which might well have been dictated by a
rationalist. When they write history they make no mention of the
divinity of Christ, but when they are in the pulpit they profess it
clearly; again, when they are dealing with history they take no account
of the Fathers and the Councils, but when they catechize the people,
they cite them respectfully. In the same way they draw their
distinctions between exegesis which is theological and pastoral and
exegesis which is scientific and historical. So, too, when they treat of
philosophy, history, and criticism, acting on the principle that
science in no way depends upon faith, they feel no especial horror in
treading in the footsteps of Luther and are wont to display a manifold
contempt for Catholic doctrines, for the Holy Fathers, for the
Ecumenical Councils, for the ecclesiastical magisterium; and should they
be taken to task for this, they complain that they are being deprived
of their liberty. Lastly, maintaining the theory that faith must be
subject to science, they continuously and openly rebuke the Church on
the ground that she resolutely refuses to submit and accommodate her
dogmas to the opinions of philosophy; while they, on their side, having
for this purpose blotted out the old theology, endeavor to introduce a
new theology which shall support the aberrations of philosophers. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, September 8, 1907.)
Anyone who cannot admit that
this describes Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is not examining his
writings honestly. The currently reigning head of the counterfeit church
of conciliarism has at varying times criticized Gaudium et Spes,
the "pastoral constitution on the Church and the world" issued by the
"Second" Vatican Council on December 7, 1965, as having a semi-Pelagian
flavor to it (which it does) while also praising it approvingly as a
"countersyllabus" of errors, meaning that Pope Pius IX was wrong to have
issued The Syllabus of Errors on December 8, 1864. (Only
fatigue prevents me at this point from dredging up quotes from
out-of-print books that discuss Ratzinger's praise of Gaudium et Spes as a "countersyllabus" of errors.) Thus it is that Ratzinger/Benedict approves of Gaudium et Spes's efforts to correct and nullify The Syllabus of Errors,
which is nothing other than an effort to redefine the Catholic Faith
while disparaging the work of God the Holy Ghost in the pontificate of
Pope Pius IX:
Let us be content to say here that the text [of Gaudium et Spes] serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789.
Only from this perspective can we understand, on the one hand, the
ghetto-mentality, of which we have spoken above; only from this
perspective can we understand, on the other hand, the meaning of the
remarkable meeting of the Church and the world. Basically, the word
"world" means the spirit of the modern era, in contrast to which the
Church's group-consciousness saw itself as a separate subject that now,
after a war that had been in turn both hot and cold, was intent on
dialogue and cooperation. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 382.)
Does this mean that the Council should be revoked?
Certainly not. It means only that the real reception of the Council has
not yet even begun. What devastated the Church in the decade after the
Council was not the Council but the refusal to accept it. This becomes
clear precisely in the history of the influence of Gaudium et spes.
What was identified with the Council was, for the most part, the
expression of an attitude that did not coincide with the statements to
be found in the text itself, although it is recognizable as a tendency
in its development and in some of its individual formulations. The task
is not, therefore, to suppress the Council but to discover the real
Council and to deepen its true intention in the light of the present
experience. That means that there can be no return to the
Syllabus, which may have marked the first stage in the confrontation
with liberalism and a newly conceived Marxism but cannot be the last
stage. In the long run, neither embrace nor ghetto can solve for
Christians the problem of the modern world. The fact is, as Hans Urs von
Balthasar pointed out as early as 1952, that the "demolition of the
bastions" is a long-overdue task. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 391.)
Pope Leo XIII taught us in Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892, that can be no "reconciliation" between the principles of the Revolution and the Faith:
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. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)
Pope Pius VIII, writing in his one only encyclical letter, Traditi Humilitate Nostrae,
May 24, 1829, during his very brief pontificate warned us about those
such as Hans Urs von Balthasar who sought to "raze" the foundations of
the Church:
Although God may console Us with you, We are nonetheless sad. This
is due to the numberless errors and the teachings of perverse doctrines
which, no longer secretly and clandestinely but openly and vigorously,
attack the Catholic faith. You know how evil men have raised
the standard of revolt against religion through philosophy (of which
they proclaim themselves doctors) and through empty fallacies devised
according to natural reason. In the first place, the Roman See is
assailed and the bonds of unity are, every day, being severed. The
authority of the Church is weakened and the protectors of things sacred
are snatched away and held in contempt. The holy precepts are despised,
the celebration of divine offices is ridiculed, and the worship of God
is cursed by the sinner. All things which concern religion are
relegated to the fables of old women and the superstitions of priests.
Truly lions have roared in Israel. With tears We say: "Truly they have
conspired against the Lord and against His Christ." Truly the impious
have said: "Raze it, raze it down to its foundations." (Pope Pius VIII, Traditi Humilitate Nostrae,
May 24, 1829.)
We must strive to be victims for Christ the King and for Mary our Immaculate Queen as we make reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our own sins and those of the whole world. No Catholic, including this one, is proud of his sins. Indeed, we abhor them. We do not blame others for our sins. We do not seek to destroy those who may have firsthand knowledge of our sins of thoughts, words, and deeds. We take full and complete responsibility for our sins, recognizing that we are absolutely no better than anyone else. We must give thanks to God that it is by His own gratuitous gift of the Holy Faith and of the graces that He won for us by the shedding of His own Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, that we have even a little bit of a chance of undoing the damage that our sins have done to our souls--and for the bad example, if not outright scandal--we might have given to the souls of others--by living penitentially, especially as we fulfill Our Lady's Fatima Message in our own lives on a daily basis. Yes, we must strive to be victims for Christ the King and Mary our Immaculate Queen as we pray as many Rosaries as our states-in-life permit.
The petty tyrants of Modernity in the world and of Modernism in the counterfeit church of concilairism who seek to intimidate us now will fade from view soon enough. God is more powerful than any of the fools who think that their grand ideas and schemes can "save" society absent a firm adherence to the immutable truths of the Catholic Faith and thus make our own lives "easier" and "more comfortable" (sort of like they want to create a huge internationally organized "hospice" of mind-control for us).
We must, therefore, embrace the Cross as never before, hoping that our lives of prayer and penance and fasting and mortification and almsgiving and total consecration to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary will help, especially by means of Eucharistic piety and our devotion to Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, to plant just a few seeds for the day when all men will hail the Chief Victim and Priest, the One Who become Man for us to die on the wood of the Cross so that we might know an unending Easter Sunday of glory in Paradise.
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?
Our Lady of Fatima, 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.
Pope Saint Clement I, pray for us.
Saint Felicity, pray for us.
See also: A Litany of Saints
