With A Shrug of the "Papal" Shoulders

by Thomas A. Droleskey

This article could easily be entitled "Another Year of the Same Conciliar Apostasy, part four." As it is, however, a different title has been selected in order to convey the casual, blase attitude that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict has concerning heresy and error and even open support for sin. This casual, blase attitude has been demonstrate by the conciliar "pontiff" time and time and time again throughout the course of his priestly life, including during the 2,090 days of his "pontificate."

To wit, the "pope" has given a gigantic shrug of the "papal" shoulders in response to the apostasy of his fellow countryman, "Archbishop" Robert Zollitsch of Freiburg-Breisgau, Germany, for the past six hundred thirty seven days. What's the big deal about denying that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ died on the wood of the Holy Cross in atonement for our sins?

The "pope" has given a gigantic shrug of the "papal" shoulders to the binding nature of dogmatic statements made by our true councils and our true popes. So what if our true councils have taught us that the Mosaic Covenant has been abrogated and has the power to save no one, that Talmudic Judaism is the work of the devil? So what if our true popes have condemned religious liberty and separation of Church and State? A shrug of the "papal" shoulders and a nod in the direction of the philosophically absurd and dogmatically condemned "hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity" makes it all just kind of go away or disappear or become irrelevant.

The "pope" has given a gigantic shrug of the "papal" shoulders to the binding precepts of the First and Second Commandments as he has personally esteemed the symbols of false religions and called places of false worship as "sacred" when they are such only to the devil himself. This shrug of the "papal" shoulders has extended to entering into those places of false worship and even giving "joint blessings" with the alleged ministers of false religions, content to being treated as an inferior by his non-Catholic hosts.

The "pope" has given a gigantic shrug of the "papal" shoulders to the outrageous articles and editorials that have appeared in the Vatican's semi-official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano. The Beatles? The Rolling Stone? Harry Potter? Homer Simpson? Oscar Wilde? Karl Marx? Martin Luther? Charles Darwin? John Calvin? Barack Obama has turned out not to be so pro-abortion after all? Ah, just a few differences here and there with the Catholic Faith and with even reality on the purely natural level. We can still find "value" in each, right?

The "pope" has given a gigantic shrug of the "papal" shoulders to rank displays of immodesty in his presence. Actually, as was noted in Benedict in Wonderland, he did more than shrug his shoulders when the Pellegrini Brothers performed their strip-tease dance in front him at the Paul VI Audience Hall on Wednesday, December 15, 2010. He gawked at them. He applauded them. So did the assembled "cardinals" and "bishops."

The "pope" has given a gigantic shrug of the "papal" shoulders to "Archbishop" Rino Fisichella's support for the direct, intentional killing of twin babies being carried by a nine-year old girl in Brazil in 2009 (see Vatican Archbishop, Spokesman Come Out Swinging against Pro-Life Critics; see also So Long to the Fifth Commandment, the Statement of those "Pontifical Academy for Life" members who criticized Fisichella, Dr. Marian Therese Horvat's The Holy See Abandons its Pro-Life Position, and Rotten To The Very Roots.)

Why should we be surprised that the pretended "pope" has himself, all on his octogenarian own, nominated a Duke University professor, a Brazilian national, to the "Pontifical" Academy of Sciences who is an open, avid supporter of chemical and surgical baby-killing and of perverse acts committed in violation of the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, a man who criticized pro-life critics of Brazil's pro-abortion president, Dilma Rousseff , during his presidential campaign?

A Brazilian reader calls our attention to the nomination, today, of Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, a Brazilian scientist and professor at Duke University, as a new ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. In last year's presidential campaign in Brazil, Dr. Nicolelis backed the winning candidate, current President Dilma Rousseff, of the Workers' Party; that alone would not disqualify him from holding a position in a venerable Church institution. However, in his staunch support letter for the candidate, Dr. Nicolelis included the following astounding words, in criticism of the campaign which was being supposedly waged by the opponent of Ms. Rousseff:

"Going back to the American strategy of winning elections, in a second phase, in case the opponent survives the first round, one resorts another infallible weapon: the evident lack of Christian values of the opponent, manifested by her explicit acceptance of abortion; her sexual libertinage and lack of moral values, invariably linked to the ghost that haunts the tradition, family, and property of the hysterical right, represented by the as defamed as it is legitimate approval of the civil union of homosexual couples. Under this implacable steamroll, everything is related to victory, whatever it may cost, and it matters little to the Brazilian George Bush that thousands of humble and abandoned women die every year, in the hospitals and emergency rooms of Brazil, the victims of horrendous infections caused by clandestine abortions.

"George Bush, both the original one as well as the generic version of the tropics, probably knows several women of his class that, due to circumstances and vicissitudes of life, were forced to have abortions in well-equipped clinics, conducted by highly specialized professionals, paid very well for this procedure. Neither of both Georges Bushes, however, has ever been on duty in the emergency room of the Hospital of the Clinics of Sao Paulo and witnessed, with their own eyes and tears, the death of a teenager, victimized by generalized septicemia, caused by an illegal abortion, committed by some butcher posing as a doctor and a savior." [Tip and translation: reader; source: Universities for Dilma Blog] (See the entry at http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/.)

 

A notification of the "papal" nomination of Dr. Miguel Nicolelis to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences can be found on the Vatican Information Service:

Appointed Miguel A. L. Nicolelis, professor of neurosciences at Duke University in Durham, U.S.A., as an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences  (OTHER PONTIFICAL ACTS .)

 

So what that Miguel Nicolelis supports baby-killing and engages in the sort of hyperbolic rhetoric about massive numbers of women dying from illegal abortions in Brazil that was used by pro-death advocates in the United States of America in the 1960s? So what that he supports the commission of the sin of Sodom? After all, the man is a "qualified" neuroscientist, right? He's got true scientific "credentials." Isn't that all that matters to serve on the "Pontifical" Academy of Sciences?

No, no one but no one who supports these two crimes that cry out to Heaven for vengeance is qualified to serve on a panel that purports to be part of the Catholic Church. Those who support such crimes as baby-killing and perversity have no kind of legitimate expertise to offer the Catholic Church as their minds are poisoned by holding beliefs that are contrary to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law. Genuine scientific work needs to proceed from a humble submission to the true God of Divine Revelation Who ordered the universe with its properties and laws. There will always be a flaw in the research of those who have such a contempt for God as He has revealed Himself through His true Church.

Moreover, any purported scientist or researcher in any other field, whether be in the natural sciences or the social sciences, who supports the slaughter of the innocent preborn has no regard at all for the fact that the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity became Incarnate in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, thereby placing Himself in solidarity with every child in every mother's womb. Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, He Who is the Lord of history, knew what would be happening in these our days. He knew that there would be the slaughter of the preborn in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries. He was teaching us even whilst He reposed in Our Lady's blessed womb.

He could have assumed a human nature in any way of His choosing as He is God. He chose to become a helpless embryo, spending nine months as a prisoner in the tabernacle of His Most Blessed Mother's womb just as He is the prisoner of Love Incarnate in the tabernacles of our Catholic churches where He is truly present in the Most Blessed Sacrament in this time of apostasy and betrayal. To support the execution of any child in the womb, whether by chemical or surgical means, is to engage in an indirect attack on the Incarnation.

Dr. Miguel Nicolelis is an adamant, militant supporter of baby-killing. He is thus an enemy of Christ the King and of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross  to redeem. Enemies of Christ the King have no place advising what purports to be the Catholic Church on anything at any time for any reason.

Some might protest at this juncture that the false "pontiff" merely provided a pro forma approval to a name that had been recommended to him by others. Let me concede the point for the moment. Let us assume that "all" that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI did was to give his "papal" approval to a nominee about whom he knew very little, if anything. Fine.

It is also possible that the person or persons who recommended the name of Miguel Nicolelis to be nominated to serve on the "Pontifical" Academy for Sciences did not know about his open support for abortion and perversity. This is, of course, very possible.

I will also concede that it is entirely possible that there are those, such as Raymond "Cardinal" Burke, who serve in the conciliar cura who might be protesting this nomination and calling privately for it to be rescinded.

Conceding all of the above as perfectly within the realm of possibility, if not of probability in this instance, the question remains as to what Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI will do once he is informed of Miguel Nicolelis' positions, assuming once again for the sake of argument, you see, that the "pope" was not so informed prior to approving the pro-abort's nomination. The information is now publicly known beyond any question.

Sure, perhaps Ratzinger/Benedict will, uncharacteristically, rescind the nomination. What if he does not? What if he gives a most characteristic "papal" shrug of the shoulders upon receipt of the information about Dr. Miguel Nicolelis, preferring to believe that the neuroscientist has "important" contributions to make to the "Pontifical" Academy for Sciences? What then?

Ratzinger/Benedict has a very, very high threshold of tolerance for error and heresy, except, of course, when it comes to those who dare to insult the false religion of Talmudic Judaism or put into question the nature and extent of the monstrous crimes of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich (see Williamson, Bishop Richard).

Once again, my diminishing readership, I direct your attention to how he, as Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger, gave a conference in which he declared that Protestant "theologians" who denied the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ still continued "believing in a Christian manner," that they possessed valuable "insights" to help us understand Our Lord better:

Up to the very end of his conference, Card. Ratzinger resolutely continues on this road of agnosticism and now logically comes to the most disastrous of conclusions. He writes:

In conclusion, as we contemplate our present-day religious situation, of which I have tried to throw some light on some of its elements, we may well marvel at the fact that, after all, people still continue believing in a Christian manner, not only according to Hick's, Knitter's as well as others' substitute ways or forms, but also according to that full and joyous Faith found in the New Testament of the Church of all time.

So, there it is: For Card. Ratzinger, "Hick, Knitter, and others" who deny the divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, His Church, His sacraments, and, in short, all of Christianity, continue "despite everything" "believing in a Christian manner," even though they do so using "substitute forms of belief"! Here, the Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith leaves us wondering indeed, just what it is he means by "believing in a Christian manner."

Moreover, once the "preambula fidei" have been eliminated, that "full and joyous Faith of the Church of all time" which seems [for Card. Ratzinger] to be no different from modern-day apostasies other than by its style and total character, is utterly lacking in any rational credibility in comparison with and in relation to what he refers to as "substitute ways or forms" of faith. "How is it," Card. Ratzinger wonders, "in fact, that the Faith [the one of all time] still has a chance of success?" Answer:

I would say that it is because it finds a correspondence in man's nature…..There is, in man, an insatiable desire for the infinite. None of the answers we have sought is sufficient [but must we take his own word for it, or must we go through the exercise of experiencing all religions?]. God alone [but Whom, according to Card. Ratzinger, human reason cannot prove to be truly God], Who made Himself finite in order to shatter the bonds of our own finitude and bring us to the dimension of His infinity [...and not to redeem us from the slavery of sin?] is able to meet all the needs of our human existence.

 

According to this, it is therefore not objective motives based on history and reason, and thus the truth of Christianity, but only a subjective appreciation which brings us to "see" that it [Christianity] is able to satisfy the profound needs of human nature and which would explain the "success" [modernists would say the "vitality"] of the "faith" ["of all time" or in its "substitute forms," it is of but little importance]. Such, however, is not at all Catholic doctrine: this is simply modernist apologetics (cf. Pope St. Pius X, Pascendi), based on their affirmed impossibility of grasping metaphysical knowledge (or agnosticism or skepticism), which Card. Ratzinger seemed to want to shun in the first part of his address.

Now we are in a position to better understand why Card. Ratzinger has such a wide-open concept of "theology" and of "faith" that he includes everything: theology as well as heresies, faith and apostasy. On that road of denial of the human reason's ability of attaining metaphysical knowledge, a road which he continues to follow, he lacks the "means of discerning the difference between faith and non-faith" (R. Amerio, op. cit., p.340) and, consequently, theology from pseudo-theology, truth from heresy:

All theologies are nullified, because all are regarded as equivalent; the heart or kernel of religion is located in feelings or experiences, as the Modernists held at the beginning of this century (Amerio, op. cit., p.542).

 

We cannot see how this position of Card. Ratzinger can escape that solemn condemnation proclaimed at Vatican I: "If anyone says...that men must be brought to the Faith solely by their own personal interior experience...let him be anathema" (DB 1812). (Cardinal Ratzinger. This article, by the way, appeared in a publication of the Society of Saint Pius X, Si, Si, No, No in January of 1998.)

 

Unless there is a tremendous amount of pressure brought inside of the conciliar curia, my belief is that the false "pontiff" will say and do nothing about the nomination of Miguel Nicolelis to the "Pontifical" Academy for Sciences.

How many pro-abortion politicians in the United States of America and elsewhere around the world are permitted to receive what purports to be Our Lord in Holy Communion in the Protestant and Masonic Novus Ordo service? Wasn't former British Prime Minister Tony Blair received into the conciliar structures without abjuring his support for baby-killing, something that was a firm matter of the public record? Wasn't his wife, Cherie Blair, who is also pro-abortion, permitted to speak at The Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, The Angelicum, in December of 2008? Let me refresh your memories:

Moreover, claims by a professor of moral theology at the university that Mrs. Blair is “in line” with the teaching of the Church were refuted by Mrs. Blair’s own speech, in which she openly admitted that she does not agree with Catholic teaching on artificial contraception. Indeed, in the question and answer session, Blair took to task pro-life groups and individuals who objected to her appearance at the university for stifling the "debate" over artificial contraception, despite the fact that contraception has been definitely condemned by the Church as a grave moral evil. 

In the question period following her speech, Mrs. Blair was enthusiastically praised by a priest and professor of moral theology at the Angelicum, Fr. Bruce Williams, who asserted that in light of her “admirably fearless” comments, it is “crystal clear” that she is “in line” with Catholic teaching.

Fr. Williams said that the contentions by pro-life leaders that Mrs. Blair is pro-abortion and a dissenter from Catholic teaching were “rash, if not outright calumnious.” Fr. Williams said, “The way you came across was decisively contrary to the way you have been depicted recently by a number of websites.”

During her lecture, however, and despite Fr. Williams’ assertion, Mrs. Blair made no clear statement that abortion was “morally repugnant” (as Fr. Williams claimed) and carefully omitted any mention of her ongoing support for International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), the U.K.‘s Family Planning Association (FPA), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and other organizations whose agenda includes global abortion-on-demand.

Rather than condemning abortion outright, Blair instead condemned the “wide and indiscriminate” use of abortion due to the fact that it poses the problem of sex-selective abortions, resulting in lopsided boy-girl ratios.

“We almost all accept that human life in all its forms is sacred.  For some of us, this is a matter of religious faith,” she said. “While I am on record as having had difficulties with the current teaching on responsible parenthood, I do recognize that much of what Paul VI predicted could happen in Humane Vitae as a result of what could happen as a result of wide and indiscriminate use of abortion, has been born out in particular in relation to baby girls as the birth ratios of boys to girls in some countries.” (Full Text of Cherie Blair Speech at Angelicum.)

 

One of the books from my college years at Saint John's University in Jamaica, Queens, New York, that I still remember reading (and have just ordered online from Abe Books as I have not seen it in years now and would love to quote from it in a few articles now and again) was written by Dr. Charles E. Rice, now a professor emeritus at the Notre Dame Law School in Notre Dame, Indiana (and to whose campus office I scampered on Monday, January 22, 1973, after news of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the cases of Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton was announced). The book was entitled The Vanishing Right to Live, whose text prophetically linked support for contraception and abortion to the inevitable rise of euthanasia. The moral philosophy professor who assigned that book--and who was in full agreement with its contents--was a Dominican priest named Father Bruce Williams. I cannot tell you what deep sorrow fills my heart when reminded yet again of the change that took place within Father Williams from the time that he taught a wonderful course in moral philosophy in the Spring Semester of 1972 to the present today (a change I noted in 1987 when meeting him in Rome as he expressed disagreement with my having termed the then Governor of the State of New York, Mario Matthew Cuomo, as being pro-abortion).

Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI had no problem with Cherie Blair speaking at The Angelicum. He had no problem with the pro-abortion Barack Hussein Obama speaking at the University of Notre Dame on Sunday, May 17, 2009, nor has he spoken a word in defense of the "Notre Dame 88" who were arrested and still, yes, at this late date, faced with up to a year in jail for having "criminally trespassed" on the grounds of Our Lady's school by praying her Most Holy Rosary in reparation for Obama's appearance there. (See Persecuting Those Who Defended Our Lady's Honor and Refusing Any Semblance of Mercy.) It was Ratzinger/Benedict who gave a "blessing" on this murderer and all his work on Obama when he met with him in the Apostolic Palace on Friday, July 10, 2009. What did it matter to the false "pope" that part of Obama's work was well-known by that time, namely, executive orders permitting the direct, intentional killing of innocent preborn babies with American taxpayer dollars sent to subsidize "international family programs"? It did not matter much. " A blessing on all your work and also for you."

Thus, while it is not entirely out of the question that the nomination of Miguel Nicolelis to the "Pontifical" Academy of Sciences could be rescinded, there is a lot of evidence that points to his being able to serve as a member of that academy without a single complaint from the "pope."

After all, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who just recently told us that the madness of "inter-religious dialogue" cannot follow the path of indifference or syncretism, lives in a world of complete paradox and contraction. He is able to warn about the dangers of indifference or syncretism in a "world day of peace" message while seemingly oblivious to his own pastoral praxis that have fed into such indifference and syncretism. Or does someone want to contend that turning in the direction of Mecca and assuming the Mohammedan prayer position in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 30, 2006,  did not convey to Catholics and non-Catholics alike that Mohammedanism has prayer rituals worthy of respect?

Let us also remember that it was Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI who approved the world premiere of The Nativity Story in the Paul VI Audience Hall on November 26, 2006, even though this Protestant written, produced and directed motion picture portrayed Our Lady in ways that denied her Divine Maternity and denied the doctrinal effects of her Immaculate Conception by showing her to be a sulky, moody teenager.

Truth be told, of course, Miguel Nicolelis is not the only one who is an enemy of Christ the King. So is Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, who denies the doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King and, as noted above, blasphemes and offends God regularly. Like-minded folks tend to stick together.

The "pope" does not care about "differences" as he has "respect" for those whose own ":faith journey" has not caused to experience the truth of the Catholic Faith as of yet, not that he believes that it is necessary to be a Catholic to save your soul, you understand. How sad it is that so many even traditionally-minded Catholics simply shrug their shoulders as their "pope" esteems the symbols of false religions and exalts such errors as religious freedom and separation of Church and State and treats the non-clergy of false religions as having been given a mission from God to serve and thus to save souls. How very sad indeed.

We must love what God loves. We must hate what God hates. God hates heresy and error and sin and apostasy and blasphemy and sacrilege. So must we. (See the appendix below for a reprise of Father Frederick Faber's reflection on how so very few Catholics even in his own day had a proper and firm hatred of heresy.) Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI does not have this hatred. How can he? He sees "good" even in those things that that he accepts as erroneous, to say nothing of his promulgation of concepts and propositions that have been condemned by the Catholic Church and of his active, full and conscious participation in blasphemous, sacrilegious offenses against the honor and glory and majesty of the Most Blessed Trinity.

The Venerable Anne Katherine Emmerich prophesied of these very times as follows:

“I saw a strange church being built against every rule. . . No angels were supervising the building operations. In that church, nothing came from high above. . . There was only division and chaos. It is probably a church of human creation, following the latest fashion, as well as the new heterodox church of Rome, which seems of the same kind. . .

“I saw again the strange big church that was being built there (in Rome). There was nothing holy in it. I saw this just as I saw a movement led by Ecclesiastics to which contributed angels, saints and other Christians. But then (in the strange big change) all the work was being done mechanically (i.e. according to set rules and formulae). Everything was being done according to human reason. . .

“I saw all sorts of people, things, doctrines, and opinions. There was something proud, presumptuous, and violent about it, and they seemed to be very successful. I did not see a single Angel nor a single saint helping in the work. But far away in the background, I saw the seat of a cruel people armed with spears, and I saw a laughing figure which said: ‘Do build it as solid as you can; we will put it to the ground’ . . . . “(as found in Yves Dupont, Catholic Prophecy: The Coming Chastisement, TAN Books and Publishers, 1970, p. 61)

 

The signs are pretty clear that this prophecies are being realized in our own day, bringing to life the very words of Our Lady of La Salette:

The Church will be in eclipse, the world will be in dismay. But now Enoch and Eli will come, filled with the Spirit of God. They will preach with the might of God, and men of good will will believe in God, and many souls will be comforted. They will make great steps forward through the power of the Holy Spirit and will condemn the devilish lapses of the Antichrist. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth! There will be bloody wars and famines, plagues and infectious diseases. It will rain with a fearful hail of animals. There will be thunderstorms which will shake cities, earthquakes which will swallow up countries. Voices will be heard in the air. Men will beat their heads against walls, call for their death, and on another side death will be their torment. Blood will flow on all sides. Who will be the victor if God does not shorten the length of the test? At the blood, the tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent. Enoch and Eli will be put to death. Pagan Rome will disappear. The fire of Heaven will fall and consume three cities. All the universe will be struck with terror and many will let themselves be lead astray because they have not worshipped the true Christ who lives among them. It is time; the sun is darkening; only faith will survive.

Now is the time; the abyss is opening. Here is the King of Kings of darkness, here is the Beast with his subjects, calling himself the Savior of the world. He will rise proudly into the air to go to Heaven. He will be smothered by the breath of the Archangel Saint Michael. He will fall, and the earth, which will have been in a continuous series of evolutions for three days, will open up its fiery bowels; and he will have plunged for all eternity with all his followers into the everlasting chasms of hell. And then water and fire will purge the earth and consume all the works of men's pride and all will be renewed. God will be served and glorified."

 

We have nothing to fear as long as we keep close to Our Lady, begging her to help us remain in a state of Sanctifying Grace at all times as we seek to serve her Divine Son, Christ the King, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, especially by means of praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

This the time that God has known from all eternity that we would be alive. While we must be concerned about the problems in the world and that plague the Faith today as we have nothing to do with the spiritual robber barons of conciliarism as we pray fervently for the conversion of men and nations to true Faith and as we seek to make reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary for our sins, we know the end of the story. Our Lady's Immaculate Heart triumphs.

This should give us comfort and consolation at all times as we refuse to be so casual as to give a shrug of our shoulders to heresy and error and blasphemy and sacrilege.

Aren't we willing to suffer some more for the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary?

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

 

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

 

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint 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.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Appendix

Father Frederick William Faber on the Hatred of Heresy

The love of God brings many new instincts into the heart. Heavenly and noble as they are, they bear no resemblance to what men would call the finer and more heroic developments of character. A spiritual discernment is necessary to their right appreciation. They are so unlike the growth of earth, that they must expect to meet on earth with only suspicion, misunderstanding, and dislike. It is not easy to defend them from a controversial point of view; for our controversy is obliged to begin by begging the question, or else it would be unable so much as to state its case. The axioms of the world pass current in the world, the axioms of the gospel do not. Hence the world has its own way. It talks us down. It tries us before tribunals where our condemnation is secured beforehand. It appeals to principles which are fundamental with most men but are heresies with us. Hence its audience takes part with it against us. We are foreigners, and must pay the penalty of being so. If we are misunderstood, we had no right to reckon on any thing else, being as we are, out of our own country. We are made to be laughed at. We shall be understood in heaven. Woe to those easy-going Christians whom the world can understand, and will tolerate because it sees they have a mind to compromise!

The love of souls is one of these instincts which the love of Jesus brings into our hearts. To the world it is proselytism, there mere wish to add to a faction, one of the selfish developments of party spirit. One while the stain of lax morality is affixed to it, another while the reproach of pharisaic strictness! For what the world seems to suspect least of all in religion is consistency. But the love of souls, however apostolic, is always subordinate to love of Jesus. We love souls because of Jesus, not Jesus because of souls. Thus there are times and places when we pass from the instinct of divine love to another, from the love of souls to the hatred of heresy. This last is particularly offensive to the world. So especially opposed is it to the spirit of the world, that, even in good, believing hearts, every remnant of worldliness rises in arms against this hatred of heresy, embittering the very gentlest of characters and spoiling many a glorious work of grace. Many a convert, in whose soul God would have done grand things, goes to his grave a spiritual failure, because he would not hate heresy. The heart which feels the slightest suspicion against the hatred of heresy is not yet converted. God is far from reigning over it yet with an undivided sovereignty. The paths of higher sanctity are absolutely barred against it. In the judgment of the world, and of worldly Christians, this hatred of heresy is exaggerated, bitter, contrary to moderation, indiscreet, unreasonable, aiming at too much, bigoted, intolerant, narrow, stupid, and immoral. What can we say to defend it? Nothing which they can understand. We had, therefore, better hold our peace. If we understand God, and He understands us, it is not so very hard to go through life suspected, misunderstood and unpopular. The mild self-opinionatedness of the gentle, undiscerning good will also take the world's view and condemn us; for there is a meek-loving positiveness about timid goodness which is far from God, and the instincts of whose charity is more toward those who are less for God, while its timidity is searing enough for harsh judgment. There are conversions where three-quarters of the heart stop outside the Church and only a quarter enters, and heresy can only be hated by an undivided heart. But if it is hard, it has to be borne. A man can hardly have the full use of his senses who is bent on proving to the world, God's enemy, that a thorough-going Catholic hatred of heresy is a right frame of man. We might as well force a blind man to judge a question of color. Divine love inspheres in us a different circle of life, motive, and principle, which is not only not that of the world, but in direct enmity with it. From a worldly point of view, the craters in the moon are more explicable things than we Christians with our supernatural instincts. From the hatred of heresy we get to another of these instincts, the horror of sacrilege. The distress caused by profane words seems to the world but an exaggerated sentimentality. The penitential spirit of reparation which pervades the whole Church is, on its view, either a superstition or an unreality. The perfect misery which an unhallowed  touch of the Blessed Sacrament causes to the servants of God provokes either the world's anger or its derision. Men consider it either altogether absurd in itself, or at any rate out of all proportion; and, if otherwise they have proofs of our common sense, they are inclined to put down our unhappiness to sheer hypocrisy. The very fact that they do not believe as we believe removes us still further beyond the reach even of their charitable comprehension. If they do not believe in the very existence our sacred things, how they shall they judge the excesses of a soul to which these sacred things are far dearer than itself?

Now, it is important to bear all this in mind while we are considering the sixth dolor. Mary's heart was furnished, as never heart of saint was yet, yet with these three instincts regarding souls, heresy, and sacrilege. They were in her heart three grand abysses of grace, out of which arose perpetually new capabilities of suffering. Ordinarily speaking, the Passion tires us. It is a fatiguing devotion. It is necessarily so because of the strain of soul which it is every moment eliciting. So when our Lord dies a feeling of repose comes over us. For a moment we are tempted to think that our Lady's dolors ought to have ended there, and that the sixth dolor and the seventh are almost of our own creation, and that we tax our imagination in order to fill up the picture with the requisite dark shading of sorrow. But this is only one of the ways in which devotion to the dolors heightens and deepens our devotion to the Passion. It is not our imagination that we tax but our spiritual discernment. In these two last dolors we are led into greater refinements of woe, into the more abstruse delicacies of grief, because we have got to deal with a soul rendered even more wonderful than it was before by the elevations of the sorrows which have gone before. Thus, the piercing of our Lord with the spear as to our Blessed Lady by far the most awful sacrilege which it was then in man's power to perpetrate upon the earth. To break violently into the Holy of Holies in the temple, and pollute its dread sanctity with all manner of heathen defilement, would have been as nothing compared to the outrage of the adorable Body of God. It is in vain that we try to lift ourselves to a true appreciation of this horror in Mary's heart. Our love of God is wanting in keenness, our perceptions of divine things in fineness. We cannot do more than make approaches  and they are terrible enough. (Father Frederick Faber, The Foot of the Cross, published originally in England in 1857 under the title of The Dolors of Mary, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 291-295.)