When Helen Keller Meets Ray Charles
by Thomas A. Droleskey
Can the blind lead the blind? do they not both fall into the ditch? (Luke 6: 39)
These words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ apply most aptly to anyone and to everyone who is bereft of the Catholic Faith. Oh, yes, true, these words apply to those of us who have the Faith who have permitted our intellects to be darkened and the eyes of our souls blinded by means of our sins over the years. Absolutely. Each of us suffers from spiritual blindness, especially about the interior state of our own souls! Very few people, save for the truly humble and pious souls who rise to the third stage in the spiritual life, that of the "unitive stage" or the stage of perfection, truly see themselves as they are in light of Divine Justice. Each of us does indeed suffer from spiritual blindness.
Despite our own sins, however, those of us who have the true Faith through no merits of our own are at least able to see ourselves and the world around us more clearly through the eyes of the true Faith than would otherwise be the case. This does not make us one whit better than anyone else. This ability to see ourselves and the world through the eyes of the true Faith is a gratuitous gift from God Himself, a gift that can be lost in any number of ways, especially by inattentiveness to the interior life of prayer, especially by means of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary, and a failure to avail ourselves of the Sacrament of Penance on a regular basis. We must be grateful for the inestimable gift of the true Faith, the Catholic Faith, and seek always to foster its growth in our souls by means of the worthy reception of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in Holy Communion on a daily basis (or, for those who live n parts of the world where there is no access on a daily basis to Mass offered by a a true bishop or a true priest who makes no concessions to conciliarism or to its illegitimate "shepherds," a good Spiritual Communion, making sure also to send one's Guardian Angel to a church where Our Lord is truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament to pray for us).
We can lose the gift of the true Faith in a flash. So many have, especially in the wake of the doctrinal and liturgical revolutions wrought against the Faith by the "Second" Vatican Council and its aftermath.
Just look at how many Catholics will have no problem at all with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's receiving with respect and equanimity the various symbols of false religions that will be presented to him tomorrow, Thursday, April 17, 2008, at the "Pope" John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, District of Columbia.
Just look at how many Catholics will think nothing of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's walking into a synagogue to pay a "private" visit to Rabbi Arthur Schneier to wish him a "happy Passover" on Friday, April 18, 2008.
Just look at how many Catholics will think nothing of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's leading an "inter-religious" prayer service at Saint Joseph's Church in the Yorkville section of the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York, New York, that same day.
Just look at how many Catholics will have no problem with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI appearing at the United Masonic Nations organization that day.
Just look at how many Catholics have no problems with "outdoor Masses" and the distribution of what purports to be Holy Communion in the hand and the proliferation of the laity in improvised "sanctuaries" at baseball stadia in the nation's capital and in the Borough of the Bronx of the City of New York, New York.
Just look at how many Catholics will have no problem with Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's refusal to mention the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in a prayer that he will utter at the site of the former twin towers of the World Trade Center on Sunday, April 20, 2008, in the Borough of Manhattan in the City of New York, New York.
Just look at how many Catholics will have no problem with a parade of thoroughly pro-abortion public officials receiving what purports to be Holy Communion in the "papal" "Masses" at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., and Yankee Stadium in The Bronx (although it is possible that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict might use his "homily: at that "Mass" to dissuade them from doing so, which would be an unlikely, but not entirely out of the question, open contradiction of the policies of his own appointee as the conciliar "archbishop" of Washington, D.C., Donald Wuerl, who like his Americanist predecessor, Theodore "In the name of Allah" McCarrick, does not believe that what purports to be Holy Communion in the Novus Ordo service should be used as a "weapon" against pro-death Catholic politicians).
Just look at how many Catholics are supporting with great enthusiasm the presidential candidacies of the fully pro-abortion and pro-perversity of Helen Keller (Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-New York) and Ray Charles (Senator Barack Obama, D-Illinois).
Yes, the Democrat Party presidential nominating contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is a case of the blind leading the blind. It is really a case of the blind leading the blind leading the blind, Clinton and Obama leading the vast majority, perhaps up to as much as ninety-nine percent or more of the American populace, of those blinded by the errors of Modernity and Modernism that will be chronicled once again in this article in the event that those errors are not familiar to you by now.
Nothing other than blindness of Modernity can cause this ridiculous exchange about "faith" that took place at the Clinton-Obama debate at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, April 13, 2008 (an institution that would not exist an Augustinian monk named Martin Luther refused to reform his life and thus made up a "theology" to justify himself in his own sins against the Fifth and Sixth and Ninth Commandments):
CLINTON: You know, I have, ever since I've been a little girl, felt the presence of God in my life. And it has been a gift of grace that has, for me, been incredibly sustaining. But, really, ever since I was a child, I have felt the enveloping support and love of God and I have had the experiences on many, many occasions where I felt like the Holy Spirit was there with me as I made a journey.
It didn't have to be a hard time. You know, it could be taking a walk in the woods. It could be watching a sunset.
You know, I am someone who has talked a lot about my life. You know more about my life than you know about nearly anybody else's, about 60 books worth...some of which are, you know, frankly, a little bit off-base. But I don't think that I could have made my life's journey without being anchored in God's grace and without having that, you know, sense of forgiveness and unconditional love.
And I am not going to point to one or another matter. I mean, some of my struggles and challenges have been extremely public. And I have talked about how I have been both guided and supported through those, trying to find my own way through, because, for me, my faith has given me the confidence to make decisions that were right for me, whether anybody else agreed with me or not.
And it is just such a part of who I am and what I have lived through for so many years that trying to pull out and say, oh, I remember, I was sitting right there when I felt, you know, God's love embrace me, would be, I think, trivializing what has been an extraordinary sense of support and possibility that I have had with me my entire life.
MEACHAM: Senator, you -- right after New Hampshire, you and I had a conversation a couple of days after that in which you described your moment in the setting where you said that you worked very hard and it was seen as a turning point by many people. You described that as a moment of grace.
CLINTON: Yes.
MEACHAM: So that is a specific in...
CLINTON: Right, right. Well, you know, Jon, it is -- it is perhaps a reluctance on my part that is rooted in my personal reserve, rooted in the way I was raised, that I worry and I -- you know, I understand you want to ask a lot of personal questions, and I appreciate that. But I also worry, as I suggested to you in that same interview, that you have to walk the walk of faith. And talking about it is important because it's important to share that experience. But I also believe that, you know, faith is just -- it's grace. It's love. It's mystery. It's provocation.
It is everything that makes life and its purpose meaningful as a human being.
CLINTON: And those moments of grace are ones that I cherish and, you know, in asked a specific question about how I felt when I shared my belief that politics is not a game, it is not a who's up, who's down.
I mean, it is a serious search and we are so fortunate because we have taken the gifts that God gave us and we have created this democracy where we choose our leaders and we have to be more mindful of how important and serious a business this is.
And, therefore, when I say politics is not a game, it is really coming from deep within me because I know that we have the opportunity to really give other people a chance to live up to their own God-given potential. And that, to me, is the kind of grace note that makes politics worthwhile. Because, believe me, there's a lot about it that is not particularly welcoming or easy.
But every day as I travel around the country, I meet people whose faith just knocks me over. I mean, I was with a woman in Philadelphia Friday morning whose son was murdered on the streets in Philadelphia, whose grandson was murdered. And she and I just sat together and she told me about how strong her faith is and how it has sustained her and how she believes, you know, God is with her and she doesn't understand why this happened to her son and her grandson.
But every day she's grateful, and she is determined to be the person that she believes God meant her to be. And so when I sit there and I listen to that woman tell me about how it felt and how today she is still, you know, getting up every morning, has a smile on her face, looking to go to her daycare business and take care of all of these children who have been entrusted to her, that's a moment of grace.
But it's not about me. I mean, not every moment of grace is about you. More often it is about the interaction and the relationship. You know, grace is that relationship with God. But it's also the relationships with our fellow human beings in which we know grace is present. And so I just feel very fortunate that, you know, I have been able to experience that and I wish it for everyone. (RealClearPolitics - Articles - Hillary Clinton at the Compassion Forum.)
Moments of grace? Hillary Rodham Clinton probably believes this. Why shouldn't she? Who in the counterfeit church of conciliarism has told her that Protestantism is wrong? Oh, some conciliar "bishops" have criticized the Clintons for their stands on abortion and contraception, doing so mostly on Americanist principles (a violation of the "principles" of the Declaration of Independence, for example) rather than a violation of the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law that have been entrusted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ exclusively to the Catholic Church. None have criticized them for adhering to the false principles of Protestantism. How can they? Conciliarism does not condemn those false principles.
Barack Obama's remarks at the "Compassion Forum" were no better. Indeed, this elitist, who recently said in a private fund-raiser in the City of San Francisco, California, that people in rural communities "cling" to God in times of economic crisis, tried to find some "common ground" between being "pro-choice" (pro-death, thank you very much) and pro-life:
OBAMA: I absolutely think we can find common ground. And it requires a couple of things. Number one, it requires us to acknowledge that there is a moral dimension to abortion, which I think that all too often those of us who are pro-choice have not talked about or tried to tamp down. I think that's a mistake because I think all of us understand that it is a wrenching choice for anybody to think about.
The second thing, once we acknowledge that, is to recognize that people of good will can exist on both sides. That nobody wishes to be placed in a circumstance where they are even confronted with the choice of abortion. How we determine what's right at that moment, I think, people of good will can differ.
And if we can acknowledge that much, then we can certainly agree on the fact that we should be doing everything we can to avoid unwanted pregnancies that might even lead somebody to consider having an abortion.
And we've actually made progress over the last several years in reducing teen pregnancies, for example. And what I have consistently talked about is to take a comprehensive approach where we focus on abstinence, where we are teaching the sacredness of sexuality to our children.
But we also recognize the importance of good medical care for women, that we're also recognizing the importance of age-appropriate education to reduce risks. I do believe that contraception has to be part of that education process.
And if we do those things, then I think that we can reduce abortions and I think we should make sure that adoption is an option for people out there. If we put all of those things in place, then I think we will take some of the edge off the debate.
We're not going to completely resolve it. I mean, there -- you know, at some point, there may just be an irreconcilable difference. And those who are opposed to abortion, I think, should continue to be able to lawfully object and try to change the laws.
OBAMA: Those of us, like myself, who believe that in this difficult situation it is a woman's responsibility and choice to make in consultation with her doctor and her pastor and her family.
I think we will continue to suggest that that's the right legal framework to deal with the issue. But at least we can start focusing on how to move in a better direction than the one we've been in the past.
(RealClearPolitics - Articles - Barack Obama at the Compassion Forum) Articles - Barack Obama at the Compassion Forum
Many Catholics in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism are not in the least bit fazed by the remarks of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama. Why should they be? Most of their "pastors" are not in the least bit concerned.
Consider this brief excerpt from an article in yesterday's online edition of The New York Times:
On Sunday, the Democratic candidates appeared separately at a forum at Messiah College in Grantham, Pa., for a televised discussion of poverty, health care, energy prices and the rest of the party’s policy agenda as moral and spiritual issues. (The forum also offered Mr. Obama a chance to note that he had once attended Catholic school, and Mrs. Clinton a chance to praise the Vatican as “the first carbon-neutral state in the world.”)
Mrs. Clinton, a Methodist, carried the Catholic vote overwhelmingly in Ohio, Texas and several other major states that have held primaries and caucuses this year, according to surveys of voters leaving the polls; she hopes to do so again in Pennsylvania, which holds its primary next week. (Aides say she is particularly popular among nuns.) In an open letter to Pennsylvania Catholics, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., two children of Robert F. Kennedy, wrote, “Catholics have a partner in Hillary Clinton, one who will work to advance the common good of all Pennsylvanians and all Americans.”
Burns Strider, senior adviser and director of faith outreach for the Clinton campaign, said: “There’s no grand clandestine or secret message or formula here. It’s just a matter of middle-class and working-class people whose values match up very well with Senator Clinton’s.”
Bill Clinton carried the Catholic vote in 1992 and 1996. Some analysts say that considerable loyalty remains to the “Clinton brand,” notably on bread-and-butter issues like health care. The Obama campaign is acutely sensitive to the notion that their candidate is vulnerable among these voters; some of Mr. Obama’s allies argue that it makes little sense to even think of Catholics as a voting bloc, given the huge differences among them.
Even so, on Friday, the Obama campaign unveiled its national advisory council of prominent Catholics, including elected officials, theologians, academics, nuns and social advocates. On a conference call, Representative Patrick J. Murphy — who represents Bucks County, Pa., and prefaced his remarks by noting that he was St. Anselm’s Altar Boy of the Year in 1987 — said that Mr. Obama spoke “to the better angels in all of us.”
Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, another prominent Catholic supporting Mr. Obama, noted: “I don’t agree with him on some issues. We disagree on abortion.” But Mr. Casey said he believed that Mr. Obama, as president, would advocate for “the least, the last and the lost.” The Antipope's Visit: Faith in Spotlight, Candidates Battle for Catholic Votes
Why wouldn't Hillary Rodham Clinton be popular among conciliar nuns? The junior United States senator from the State of New York once engaged in a "seance" when she was First Lady, conjuring up the voice of Eleanor Roosevelt Roosevelt (who was her thirty-third degree husband's fifth cousin, the daughter of Elliott Roosevelt, who was the brother of her thirty-third degree uncle, Theodore Roosevelt). Such occult and New Age practices are very common in certain communities of "religious" men and women in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. Indeed, open support for surgical and chemical child-killing under cover of law is quite common in those communities of "religious" men and women in the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, to say nothing of open support for and the practice of perversity sins in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments.
Senator Clinton's occult dabblings, which made the news back in the 1990s, were documented in a recent biography of her:
WASHINGTON, September 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new biography on Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton reveals that during her time as First Lady, Clinton participated in strange moments of imaginary conversation with a deceased Eleanor Roosevelt from the solarium atop the White House. Grove City College professor Paul Kengor’s “God and Hillary Clinton” also notes the religious devotion with which Senator Clinton advocates abortion.
An overview of the book by Kengor’s Grove City colleague Dr. Warren Thockmorton notes that the book - with information from friends, colleagues and acquaintances - paints an accurate picture of Clinton’s version of faith.
The woman who arranged the séance-type sessions atop the White House, Jean Houston, became very close to the Senator. Houston who was known for delving into altered consciousness, the spirit world, and psychic experiences, according to a source quoted in the book, compared Clinton to Joan of Arc and believed her to be the most pivotal woman in all of human history.
Thockmorton also extracts from the book an analysis of Clinton’s devotion to abortion. “There is no issue closer to Mrs. Clinton’s heart than abortion rights—to which she holds a nearly religious devotion—so much so that it has become a kind of political theology to the senator, equipped with its own set of apologetics.”
“On the abortion issue", writes Thockmorton, “Kengor has provided unprecedented information on Mrs. Clinton and the root causes of her position. Interviewed several times for this book is Mrs. Clinton’s close friend and one-time OB-GYN, William F. Harrison, the nationally known Fayetteville, Arkansas abortion doctor. Harrison was very candid, and provided telling insights into Hillary’s sudden deep devotion to the cause of abortion rights by the time of Roe v. Wade, a marked moment on her political-religious path from Park Ridge Methodist to the White House.”
The new information revealed in the book corresponds with findings last year that it was Hillary Clinton who spearheaded the pro-abortion efforts under her husband’s term in Office.
Biography Reveals Hillary Clinton Séance, Religious Devotion to Abortion
Although I would say that the Lifesite author, John Henry Westen, used the wrong wrong ("reveals") to describe nothing new (the seances, Hillary Clinton's devotion to abortion), the article's review of God and Hillary Clinton does remind readers that no Catholic who takes his Faith seriously could even consider voting (if said Catholic considered voting in our naturalistic, anti-Incarnational, semi-Pelagian system to serve a good purpose; see
When Lesser is Greater) for a candidate for public office who adheres to a false religion, Methodism, therefore suffering from the blindness imposed by said false religion, which is nothing other than a tool of the devil, and who has called upon the demons to engage in seances and supports mystical attacks upon Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the persons of preborn human beings. How can anyone who says he "loves" Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ support His mystical dismemberment in the wombs of mothers?
No less supportive of the mystical attacks upon Our Blessed and Saviour Jesus Christ in the wombs of mothers is Senator Barack Obama, who cut his eye-teeth as a "community activist" and "organizer" relying upon the principles of his opponent's one-time mentor, the late Saul Alinsky (see They Never Take Prisoners). Despite Obama's full-throated support for surgical and chemical baby-killing, which he repeats over and over again, he has his own cadre of Catholic supporters, including a Catholic "outreach" committee, as was noted in The New York Times article quoted above.
There are three types of blindness at work in all of this, both of which are inter-related.
First, there is, of course, the blindness wrought by Modernity, itself the product the Protestant Revolution's assault on the Divine plan that God Himself instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church. Men and women live their entire lives steeped in the consequences of the Protestant Revolt: the rejection of the Social Reign of Christ the King (institutionalizing the heresy of the separation of Church and State, thereby "liberating" men from a due and docile submission to the Deposit of Faith as it has been entrusted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ exclusively to the Catholic Church, which has the authority, exercised judiciously and only after the exhausting of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation, to interpose herself with civil authorities when they propose to do or have i fact done things contrary to the good of souls), semi-Pelagianism (the belief that we are more or less self-redemptive, that we more or less stir up graces within ourselves, that we do not need belief in, access to or cooperation with Sanctifying Grace to be virtuous, that social order does not depend upon men being in a state of Sanctifying Grace), naturalism (the reduction of the affairs of personal and social life to the merely natural level with no thought of Divine Revelation or the necessity of keeping in mind at all times the eternal good of souls), and religious indifferentism (the belief that it does not make any difference what religion, if any, one believes in as long as one is a "good" person). This blindness has been deepened by the rise of Judeo-Masonry, which added an element of overt anti-Incarnationalism into the formation of the Modern civil state, and by the rise of an endless series of naturalistic political philosophies and ideologies that propose to "solve" social problems that have their remote cause in Original Sin and their proximate cause in the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King.
Second, there is the blindness wrought by Americanism's accommodation to the principles of Modernity, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution of the United States of America. Most, although certainly far from all, of the American bishops of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries believed that the First Amendment to that Constitution permitted Catholics the "freedom" to practice their religion openly after over two decades of oppression in those European countries under the domination of Protestants, especially The Netherlands, England and Ireland. As I have noted on many other occasions on this site, these bishops fell into a diabolical trap: the devil, having raised up bloodthirsty Protestants who persecuted Catholics in Europe, raised up "nice" and "tolerant" Protestants in the United States of America in order to lull Catholics to sleep, to convince them that there was no need to convert the nation to the Social Reign of Christ the King, that everything about the founding of the pluralistic and religiously indifferentist United States of America was more or less compatible with the Catholic Faith.
Third, there is the blindness wrought by conciliarism's formal embrace of Americanism, especially by Dignitatis Humanae, December 7, 1965, and by the words and deeds of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, which has confirmed the accommodations of Catholics in the United States of America in their embrace of the false foundations of naturalistic Modern civil state.
Thus it is that Americanism paved the way for the "Second" Vatican Council's embrace of "religious liberty" and for the false "pontiffs" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, especially Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, to endorse the heresy of the "separation of Church and State" in the name of a "healthy secularity." It is not enough, as Ratzinger/Benedict himself will say in the next few days, for the Catholic Church to have a "say" in a pluralistic nation, itself the product of the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry. She must be recognized as the true religion.
Yes, the Church acknowledges the reality of situations such as those that exist in the United States of America, using the "freedom" of pluralism that exists here to sanctify her children and to exhort them to try to do their best to influence the course of public policy as best they can without compromising the Faith or acknowledging the false principles upon which their political system is based. Fine. The Catholic Church does not accept such a situation as the ideal. She never stops exhorting her children to pray and to plant the seeds for the conversion of their nations to the true Faith. She does not accept false, anti-Incarnational, religiously indifferentist, naturalistic and semi-Pelagian principles as the foundations of either personal or social order.
Pope Pius IX, writing in Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864, put the matter this way:
But, although we have not omitted often to proscribe and reprobate the chief errors of this kind, yet the cause of the Catholic Church, and the salvation of souls entrusted to us by God, and the welfare of human society itself, altogether demand that we again stir up your pastoral solicitude to exterminate other evil opinions, which spring forth from the said errors as from a fountain. Which false and perverse opinions are on that ground the more to be detested, because they chiefly tend to this, that that salutary influence be impeded and (even) removed, which the Catholic Church, according to the institution and command of her Divine Author, should freely exercise even to the end of the world -- not only over private individuals, but over nations, peoples, and their sovereign princes; and (tend also) to take away that mutual fellowship and concord of counsels between Church and State which has ever proved itself propitious and salutary, both for religious and civil interests.
For you well know, venerable brethren, that at this time men are found not a few who, applying to civil society the impious and absurd principle of "naturalism," as they call it, dare to teach that "the best constitution of public society and (also) civil progress altogether require that human society be conducted and governed without regard being had to religion any more than if it did not exist; or, at least, without any distinction being made between the true religion and false ones." And, against the doctrine of Scripture, of the Church, and of the Holy Fathers, they do not hesitate to assert that "that is the best condition of civil society, in which no duty is recognized, as attached to the civil power, of restraining by enacted penalties, offenders against the Catholic religion, except so far as public peace may require." From which totally false idea of social government they do not fear to foster that erroneous opinion, most fatal in its effects on the Catholic Church and the salvation of souls, called by Our Predecessor, Gregory XVI, an "insanity," viz., that "liberty of conscience and worship is each man's personal right, which ought to be legally proclaimed and asserted in every rightly constituted society; and that a right resides in the citizens to an absolute liberty, which should be restrained by no authority whether ecclesiastical or civil, whereby they may be able openly and publicly to manifest and declare any of their ideas whatever, either by word of mouth, by the press, or in any other way." But, while they rashly affirm this, they do not think and consider that they are preaching "liberty of perdition;" and that "if human arguments are always allowed free room for discussion, there will never be wanting men who will dare to resist truth, and to trust in the flowing speech of human wisdom; whereas we know, from the very teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ, how carefully Christian faith and wisdom should avoid this most injurious babbling."
And, since where religion has been removed from civil society, and the doctrine and authority of divine revelation repudiated, the genuine notion itself of justice and human right is darkened and lost, and the place of true justice and legitimate right is supplied by material force, thence it appears why it is that some, utterly neglecting and disregarding the surest principles of sound reason, dare to proclaim that "the people's will, manifested by what is called public opinion or in some other way, constitutes a supreme law, free from all divine and human control; and that in the political order accomplished facts, from the very circumstance that they are accomplished, have the force of right." But who, does not see and clearly perceive that human society, when set loose from the bonds of religion and true justice, can have, in truth, no other end than the purpose of obtaining and amassing wealth, and that (society under such circumstances) follows no other law in its actions, except the unchastened desire of ministering to its own pleasure and interests? (Pope Pius IX, Quanta Cura, December 8, 1864.)
Pope Leo XIII, writing in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, explained that religious indifferentism necessarily must result in practical atheism as a nation's lowest common denominator:
To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God.
So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from the business of life, from the making of laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action.
And, yes, for the umpteen zillionth time, can it get any clearer than Pope Saint Pius X's Vehementer, Nos, February 11, 1906?
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." (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)
No Catholic in public life in the United States of America, whether Democrat or Republican, naturalistic liberal or naturalistic conservative (the two "false opposites" of Judeo-Masonry that control the political process and the mechanisms of the mass media in this country), agrees with any of this. And why should he? Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not agree with this. This is one of those truths that are "anchored" in one place at one time and then "anchor" themselves at another place at another time. As Ratzinger/Benedict will make clear throughout the formal parts of his visit to the United States of America, which begins today with his visit to the White House to visit the partly pro-abortion President George Walker Bush (who believes in the slicing of dicing of innocent human beings in their mothers' wombs only in certain "hard" cases, but who supports the chemical assassination of preborn children without any restrictions whatsoever, increasing the funding for these chemical assassinations each year and exporting these killing agents to foreign countries, including Iraq following the American invasion of that country five years ago), "America" is the model for the rest of the world. It is not.
True, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not believe that the American model can be "copied" intact and transplanted elsewhere. It remains, nevertheless, a "model" to be admired, as he made clear onboard "[False] Shepherd One" while flying to the United States of America yesterday, Tuesday, April 15, 2008:
Asked if the United States could serve as a religious model Europe and other areas of the world, the pope replied, ”Certainly Europe can’t simply copy the United States. We have our own history. We all have to learn from each other.”
But he said the United States was interesting because it “started with positive idea of secularism.”
“This new people was made of communities that had escaped official state purges and wanted a lay state, a secular state that opened the possibility for all confessions and all form of religious exercise,” he added. “Therefore it was a state that was intentionally secular. It was the exact opposite of state religion, but it was secular out of love for religion and for an authenticity that can only be lived freely."( Antipope Arrives in U.S.; Expresses Shame Over Priest Scandal.)
Exactly as advertised in
Admiringly Understanding the Mind of an Arch-Americanist a week ago today, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI is making of his American visit a gigantic exercise in the celebration of the condemned heresy of Americanism. It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that the civil state must recognize the true Church as its official religion. There is only one true religion. Other "religions" are false and hateful in the sight of God, possessing no means to save any of their adherents. Each and every false religion belongs to the devil. No false "religion" has any right founded in the Deposit of Faith to propagate its false beliefs in civil society. Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not believe this.
No false "religion" has any "ability" to "contribute" to the betterment of a nation or to the cause of "world peace." However, this is precisely what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI in an absolute and arrogant defiance of the immutable teaching of the Catholic Church and the Sacred Rights of Christ the King. No sane human being can claim that Pope Pius VII's simple restatement of the heresy that is religious liberty is accepted as the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church by the conciliar revolutionaries, including and especially Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:
But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 28, 1814.)
Pope Gregory XVI amplified this point in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832:
Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that "there is one God, one faith, one baptism" may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that "those who are not with Christ are against Him," and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore "without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate." Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: "He who is for the See of Peter is for me." A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: "The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?"
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?
The Church has always taken action to destroy the plague of bad books. This was true even in apostolic times for we read that the apostles themselves burned a large number of books. It may be enough to consult the laws of the fifth Council of the Lateran on this matter and the Constitution which Leo X published afterwards lest "that which has been discovered advantageous for the increase of the faith and the spread of useful arts be converted to the contrary use and work harm for the salvation of the faithful." This also was of great concern to the fathers of Trent, who applied a remedy against this great evil by publishing that wholesome decree concerning the Index of books which contain false doctrine. "We must fight valiantly," Clement XIII says in an encyclical letter about the banning of bad books, "as much as the matter itself demands and must exterminate the deadly poison of so many books; for never will the material for error be withdrawn, unless the criminal sources of depravity perish in flames." Thus it is evident that this Holy See has always striven, throughout the ages, to condemn and to remove suspect and harmful books. The teaching of those who reject the censure of books as too heavy and onerous a burden causes immense harm to the Catholic people and to this See. They are even so depraved as to affirm that it is contrary to the principles of law, and they deny the Church the right to decree and to maintain it. (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832.)
We need to reflect once again on the Catholic wisdom contained in the writings of the late Louis-Edouard-François-Desiré Cardinal Pie, as can be seen in this passage from Selected Writings of Cardinal Pie of Poitiers:
"If Jesus Christ," proclaims Msgr. Pie in a magnificent pastoral instruction, "if Jesus Christ Who is our light whereby we are drawn out of the seat of darkness and from the shadow of death, and Who has given to the world the treasure of truth and grace, if He has not enriched the world, I mean to say the social and political world itself, from the great evils which prevail in the heart of paganism, then it is to say that the work of Jesus Christ is not a divine work. Even more so: if the Gospel which would save men is incapable of procuring the actual progress of peoples, if the revealed light which is profitable to individuals is detrimental to society at large, if the scepter of Christ, sweet and beneficial to souls, and perhaps to families, is harmful and unacceptable for cities and empires; in other words, if Jesus Christ to whom the Prophets had promised and to Whom His Father had given the nations as a heritage, is not able to exercise His authority over them for it would be to their detriment and temporal disadvantage, it would have to be concluded that Jesus Christ is not God". . . .
"To say Jesus Christ is the God of individuals and of families, but not the God of peoples and of societies, is to say that He is not God. To say that Christianity is the law of individual man and is not the law of collective man, is to say that Christianity is not divine. To say that the Church is the judge of private morality, but has nothing to do with public and political morality, is to say that the Church is not divine."
In fine, Cardinal Pie insists:
"Christianity would not be divine if it were to have existence within individuals but not with regard to societies."
Fr. de St. Just asks, in conclusion:
"Could it be proven in clearer terms that social atheism conduces to individualistic atheism?" (See
Catholic Action Resource Center for information on ordering this most important book.)
The blindness of our modern age, the rotten fruit of Modernity and Modernism, causes millions upon millions of Catholics to swoon at the words of George Walker Bush or Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama or John McCain (who supports the slicing and dicing of little babies in the "hard cases" and supports no restrictions on the chemical assassination of children by means of abortifacient contraceptives). The blindness of our modern age, the rotten fruit of Modernity and Modernism, causes millions upon millions of Catholics to swoon at the Americanist songs that will be sung to them by their false "pope," who does not believe in the immutable doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King, starting today while he visits with President Bush at the White House.
Lest anyone think that he, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, is not required to believe in the Social Reign of Christ the King and the necessity of the confessionally Catholic civil state, perhaps yet another review of Pope Pius XI's reminder to the contrary, contained in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, might be rather instructive:
Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.
There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.
It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements which We have made; it is no less necessary to reawaken that spirit of faith, of supernatural love, and of Christian discipline which alone can bring to these principles correct understanding, and can lead to their observance. This is particularly important in the case of youth, and especially those who aspire to the priesthood, so that in the almost universal confusion in which we live they at least, as the Apostle writes, will not be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians iv, 14)
Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI believes that a generic expression of Christianity and a general embrace of the Natural Law is enough to "compete" in the market place of ideas and to formulate sound public policy. Not so, as Pope Leo XIII made clear on a number of occasions, including in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, and A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902:
The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. So soon as Catholic truth is apprehended by a simple and unprejudiced soul, reason yields assent. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae.)
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. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)
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. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)
The great Modernist synthesizer, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, believes in the very antitheses of these papal reaffirmations of the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church. He is as blind as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. All of his appeals to the Natural Law and all of his protests against moral relativism (there is likely to be a firm condemnation of abortion at the "Mass" at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., without a single mention of the simple truth that child-killing under cover of law is the logical consequence of the Protestant Revolt and the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King, that Catholicism is the only antidote to the poisons of Modernity) that will be make in the next few days are insufficient. It is Catholicism and Catholicism alone that is the sole foundation of personal and social order. This is what the citizens of the United States of America need to hear so that the blinders of Modernity and Modernism might start to be removed from their eyes. Alas, how can Louis Braille remove the blinders from Helen Keller and Ray Charles? A man committed to the very false principles of Modernity as enshrined in the founding of the United States of America will simply reaffirm people in a blindness that keeps them from recognizing this fundamental truth that was spoken by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque:
"I will reign in spite of all who oppose Me."
(quoted in: The Right Reverend Emile Bougaud. The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, reprinted by TAN Books and Publishers in 1990, p. 361.)
Praying our Rosaries of reparation this week for the multiple offenses, including offenses against the truth of the Social Reign of Christ the King, that will be given to God starting today by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, may we seek to envelop our own families in the mantle of Our Lady's loving, maternal protection, offer to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart all of our prayers and penances and mortifications and humiliations and calumnies as we seek to build up the Social Reign her Divine Son in our own hearts and homes as a prelude to the restoration of that Social Reign of Christ the King in the world.
May Our Lady help us to see ourselves, so blinded by our own sins, and the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith, which alone is the sole standard of judging right from wrong and truth from error as we remember these stirring words contained in Pope Saint Pius X's Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:
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. . . .
Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one's personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism.
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
