The "People" Have No Authority to Contravene God's Eternal Laws, Sean Hannity

Gradually Accepting Naturalism's False Premises, published on August 31, 2008, reviewed how many Catholics had gotten so accustomed to cultural trends contrary to God's Holy Laws and thus to the good of their own immortal souls that they become, at least for the most part, incapable of seeing the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith and of expressing even the slightest bit of outrage when the latest offense to God is given by the scions of popular culture and/or those in the realm of public policy and electoral politics, no less react at all when outrages are given to God by the scions of the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

An attitude of "ho-hum" greets this or that new descent into the abyss. Some might give a shrug of the shoulder or even grimace a little bit as they ask for extra gravy or more stuffing for their Thanksgiving turkey. However, most Catholics in the world today, including most Catholics in the United States of America, have made their peace with the "world," happy to be immersed in the midst of its profanities and blasphemies. Some Catholics believe that there is no need to oppose the evils of the day as "progress" must take its place and that it is "enough" for us to be "free" to believe an worship as we please. Other Catholics believe that the advances made by pluralism are "irreversible," that we must get on with the business of our lives in the world without worrying about things that are, they convince themselves, out of their control. All of this permits the devil to advance his agenda of evil on an incremental basis to such an extent that is imperceptible for the average Catholic to see or to admit.

Father Frederick Faber, writing in the Creator and the Creature, explained how perniciously the pluralism born of the Protestant Revolution against the Divine Plan that God Himself instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church and to order societies rightly according to the binding precepts contained in the Deposit of Faith seeps into the consciousness of men and blinds them to the insidious nature of theological and philosophical errors:

This forgetfulness that we are creatures, which prevails in that energetically bad portion of the world which is scripturally called the world, affects multitudes of persons, who are either less able to divest themselves of the influences of old traditions and early lessons, or are happily less possessed with the base spirit of the world. It leads them to form a sort of religion for themselves which singularly falls in with all the most corrupt propensities of our hearts: a religion which in effect teaches that we can live two lives and serve two masters. Such persons consider that religion has its own sphere, and worldly interests their sphere also, and that the one must not interfere with the other. Thus their tendency is to concentrate all the religion of the week into Sunday, and to conceive that they have thereby purchased a right to a large conscience for the rest of the week. The world, they say, has its claims and God has His claims. Both must be satisfied; God first, and most scrupulously; then the world, not less exactly, though it be indeed secondary. But it is not a "reasonable service" to neglect one for the other. God and the world are coordinate powers, coordinate fountains of moral duty and obligation. He is really the religious man who gives neither of them reason to complain. We must let our common sense hinder us from becoming over-righteous. Men who hold this doctrine, a doctrine admirably adapted for a commercial country, have a great advantage over the bolder men of whom we spoke before. For they enjoy all the practical laxity of unbelievers, without the trouble or responsibility of disbelieving; and besides that, they enjoy a certain good humor of conscience in consequence of the outward respect they pay, in due season and fitting place, to the ceremonies of religion.

Hitherto we have spoken of classes of persons in whom we take no interest, further than the sorrow which all who love God must feel at seeing Him defrauded of His honor, and all who love their fellow-men in seeing so much amiability, so much goodness, with a millstone round its neck which must inevitably sink it in the everlasting deeps. Let us come now to those with whom we are very much concerned; and for whom we have ventured to compose this little treatise. Errors filter from one class of men into another, and appear in different forms according to the new combinations into which they enter. We are all of us more affected by the errors which prevail around us than we really suppose. Almost every popular fallacy has its representative even among the children of faith; and as when a pestilence is raging, many are feeble and languid though they have no plague-spot, so  is it in matters of religion. The contagion of the world does us a mischief in many ways of which we are hardly conscious; and we often injure ourselves in our best and highest interests by views and practices, to which we cling with fatal obstinacy, little suspecting the relationship in which they stand to widely spread evils, which we behold in their naked deformity in other sections of society, and hold up to constant reprobation. The forgetfulness that we are creatures, which produces the various consequences already mentioned, is an error which is less obviously hateful than a direct forgetfulness of God, and consequently it wins its way into holy places where the other would find no admittance, or want hospitality. Good Christians hear conversations around them, catch the prevailing tone of society, read books, and become familiarized with certain fashionable principles of conduct; and it is impossible for their minds and hearts not to become imbued with the genius of all this. It is irksome to be always on our guard, and from being off our guard we soon grow to be unsuspicious. When a catholic enters into intimate dealings with protestants, he most not forget to place his sentries, and to act as if he was in an enemy's country; and this is unkindly work, and as miserable as it is unkindly. Yet so it is. When newspapers tell us that catholicism is always more reasonable and less superstitious when it is in the immediate presence of protestantism, they indicate something that they have observed, namely, a change. Now if our religion be changed by protestantism, we can have little difficulty in deciding whether it has changed for the better or the worse. All this illustrates what we mean. The prevailing errors of our time and country find their way down to us, and corrupt our faith, and lower our practice, and divide us among ourselves. This unstartling error of forgetting that we are creatures is thus not without grave influence upon conscientious catholics; and it is to this point that we are asking your attention. (Father Frederick Faber, The Creator and the Creature, written in 1856 and republished by TAN Books and Publishers in 1978, pp. 27-29.)

These two paragraphs summarize most succinctly how Catholics have come to make their "peace" with the evils represented by the errors of Modernity and Modernism, starting with the Protestant Revolution itself.

The errors flowing from the various strains of the Protestant Revolution are hateful in the sight of God. Protestantism, however, is evil of its nature. God hates all false religions. He hates all falsehoods.

Why?

Because theological falsehoods blaspheme Him and make a mockery of His work of Redeeming us by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

Protestantism is a revolution against the fact that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ founded but one Church upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, to be the sole repository of the Deposit of Faith, the sole and infallible teacher of all that is contained in that Deposit of Faith, the sole means of human sanctification and salvation on the face of this earth. This is not a "minor" matter.

Protestantism, with some few exceptions here and there, is a revolution against the fact that Divine Revelation consists of both Sacred Scripture and Apostolic or Sacred Tradition, making of each "believer" his own "interpreter" of the "Word," an absurdity that leads to a gazillion different "interpretations”as to the meaning of various Scriptural passages and, ultimately, to unbelief itself.

Catholics have nothing to "learn" from Protestantism. Nothing.

The Fathers of the Council Trent, as some apologists for the late arch-heretic who served as the head of the counterfeit church of conciliarism from April 19, 2005 to February 28, 2013, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, contended rather vigorously during the late new theologian’s false pontificate, did not "misunderstand" Martin Luther or John Calvin or Thomas Cranmer in the Sixteenth Century any more than the Fathers of the Council of Nicea "misunderstood" Arius and Arianism in the Fourth Century (although some defenders of Arius at the time contended that this was indeed the case). The Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, does not "get things wrong" in dogmatic councils that meet under his infallible guidance and protection.

Protestantism has given impetus to a new wave of radical individualism, anticlericalism and semi-Pelagianism in the past five hundred six years that has made possible the triumph of naturalism in the midst of the world and thus in the hearts and minds of so many hundreds of millions of Catholics yet attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism. It has been a relatively easy thing for Catholics who have made these accommodations to the spirit of Protestantism to have acted likewise as the counterfeit church of conciliarism has adopted and implemented much of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic spirit, starting with the abominable Novus Ordo service. There is no need to do battle with the "world" when its false spirit has been enshrined in what purports to be the Catholic liturgy and is defended in the "official" documents issued by and under the authority of the conciliar "pontiffs."

The blithe acceptance of the evils of Protestantism has led to the blithe acceptance of evils in the popular culture. It is, after all, a relatively easy thing to be sanguine about cultural evils once one has convinced himself that false religions are not hated by God and that the false, blasphemous tenets of these false religions do not pose a grave and immediate threat to the eternal good of souls and to the temporal good of society, making it easier for those who deny entirely the Incarnation of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in Our Lady's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of God the Holy Ghost to be about their demonic business of promoting immodesty of dress, indecency in speech and impurity in thought, word, and action.

The counterfeit church of conciliarism has aided and abetted this sanguine attitude of Catholics concerning the world and the evils abroad in its popular culture, admitting, of course, that a few "peeps," squeaked in the tones of "human dignity" and "human rights" absent any reference at all to the Social Reign of Christ the King, have passed from the lips of conciliar "pontiffs" and their "bishops," especially concerning surgical abortion, albeit without recognizing the fact that social evils protected under cover of law are the precise result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought by the Protestant Revolt.

Yes, it is an easy thing to accommodate oneself to the prevailing cultural trends once one accepts the "benign" nature of the Protestant Revolt and accepts the pluralistic, religiously indifferentist civil state as a "benefit" to Catholicism rather than a deadly poison.

Thus it is that many of the social evils that came to the surface of popular culture in the 1960s have been "mainstreamed" into daily life. Our immortal souls are bombarded in supermarkets and other retail stores with the horrors of "rock" "music." We must put up with this assault upon our senses as shopping is a necessity, although we should not subject our children to this assault if it possible to do so. We must not subject ourselves to the devil's "music" voluntarily. There are, for example, restaurants that do not play "rock" "music" and it is these that should be patronized.

"Rock" "music," however, is one of those evils that has been "mainstreamed" in the past seventy years. What was one an eclectic preserve of teenagers and college students that aroused the condemnation of at least a few solid Catholic bishops and priests is now an "accepted norm," especially as the "baby boomers" of the 1950s and 1960s have become older and serve now as the decision-makers of the corporations that make the marketing decisions, based on the same kind of focus-group polling that has been adapted for use by the organized crime families of naturalism in the political realm, as to what "music" to play in various retail outlets. As is the case with any other evil, such as Protestantism, that becomes "accepted" over time simply because most people, including most Catholics have come to believe that past judgments were too "harsh" and that we must seek to find the "good" in something that has become so widespread and institutionalize, "rock music" has become "accepted" precisely because most people are used to it after decades of being exposed to it day in and day out without cease.

That which is evil does not become "good" as it is accepted more and more over the passage of time. That which is evil does not become "less evil" simply because other evils have arisen that are said to be "worse" by means of comparison.

As the late Father John Anthony Hardon, S.J., the Protestant Revolution was all about lust and divorce. It is the terrible power of lust that has shaped contemporary law, politics, governance, international relations, “education,” entertainment, including sports, finance, and commerce. In word, the terrible power of lustful desires, including those of a perverse nature, has shaped our world to such an extent that more and more “influencers” within the organized crime family of the false opposite of the naturalist “right” have urged “conservative” candidates for public office to recognize that most people in the country support the availability of surgical baby-killing under the cover of the civil law and to stop trying to convince them otherwise.

Chief among these “influencers” is none other than the Catholic apostate named Sean Hannity, about I wrote Lame Excuses Never Die four years when he announced he no longer considered himself a Catholic but a “nondenominational” Christian. Hannity, whose path to apostasy began in the late-1990s when he said proudly that “no Church is going to tell me I can’t use contraception,” has now come out in support of “safe, legal, and rare” baby-killing, thereby adopting the very self-serving slogan used by a man who he criticized regularly in the late-1990s, the nefarious William Jefferson Blythe Clinton:

Closing out the segment, Hannity went even further than Dixon. “I think the American people – and I consider myself pro-life, I believe in the sanctity of life, but I think politically that there is – Republicans have gotta say as Bill Clinton once said – I never thought I’d quote him – ‘rare,’ ‘legal,’” he said. “And I’d add the word[s], ‘very early in a pregnancy.’ That seems to be – politically – where the country is. Maybe I’m wrong. But we’ll see. That vote in Ohio is pretty, pretty sobering.” 

I seem to remember a different Hannity from back in the day when I was a teen following conservative politics. So a moment ago, I headed over to my bookshelf and grabbed a copy of his 2002 anti-Clinton book Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism. I flipped to the chapter on abortion. Here’s what Hannity wrote:

Protecting life is deeply important to me. It was important to me before my wife and I had kids but is even more so now because the stakes are so high. There is no more important issue.

That’s how plenty of Republicans used to talk before Roe v. Wade fell. Over the next couple of years, we’re going to find out who really believed it. (Sean Hannity calls for ‘legal’ abortion in stunning reversal of pro-life stance.)

Not that Sean Hannity, who graduated from Saint Pius X Preparatory School in Uniondale, New York, in 1979, reads anything that I write, but in the event someone who reads this commentary wants to send it to him, permit me to say the following:

“Mr. Hannity, truth exists in the nature of things and it does not depend upon human acceptance for its binding force or validity. Truth is. It exists, and it does not matter how few people accept any kind of truth, natural or supernatural, as God is a majority of One and none of His rational creatures has any moral authority to contravene the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment.

“A baptized Catholic, which, despite your apostasy, you will always be, has an obligation to defend the truth no matter how few people accept it. Truth is not subjected to the arbitrary whims of plebiscites. The mere fact that “the people” want the nonexistent “choice” to butcher babies under cover of the civil law is absolutely and totally irrelevant to obligation imposed upon your immoral soul sixty-two years ago to defend the truth of Truth Incarnate without looking for results.

“Pope Leo XIII explained our obligation as follows:

But, if the laws of the State are manifestly at variance with the divine law, containing enactments hurtful to the Church, or conveying injunctions adverse to the duties imposed by religion, or if they violate in the person of the supreme Pontiff the authority of Jesus Christ, then, truly, to resist becomes a positive duty, to obey, a crime; a crime, moreover, combined with misdemeanor against the State itself, inasmuch as every offense leveled against religion is also a sin against the State. Here anew it becomes evident how unjust is the reproach of sedition; for the obedience due to rulers and legislators is not refused, but there is a deviation from their will in those precepts only which they have no power to enjoin. Commands that are issued adversely to the honor due to God, and hence are beyond the scope of justice, must be looked upon as anything rather than laws. You are fully aware, venerable brothers, that this is the very contention of the Apostle St. Paul, who, in writing to Titus, after reminding Christians that they are "to be subject to princes and powers, and to obey at a word," at once adds: "And to be ready to every good work. "Thereby he openly declares that, if laws of men contain injunctions contrary to the eternal law of God, it is right not to obey them. In like manner, the Prince of the Apostles gave this courageous and sublime answer to those who would have deprived him of the liberty of preaching the Gospel: "If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

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. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

“We have not been baptized and confirmed to curry favor with the masses in order to win elections.

“We have been baptized and confirmed to bear witness to the Sovereignty of Christ the King and His Holy Church over men and their nations. He is Sovereign, not ‘the people.’

“Your popularity will count for nothing before the court of the Divine Judge, Christ the King. Indeed, you are using your vast influence to surrender to the masses on one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, willful murder, after you long ago surrendered to mere human sentiment when speaking publicly in favor of “gay marriage.”

“Familiarize yourself with these words of Saint Jude Thaddeus, which were written under the Divine inspiration of God the Holy Ghost that no amount of Protestant deconstructionism can render invalid:

[1] Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James: to them that are beloved in God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ, and called. [2] Mercy unto you, and peace, and charity be fulfilled. [3] Dearly beloved, taking all care to write unto you concerning your common salvation, I was under a necessity to write unto you: to beseech you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. [4] For certain men are secretly entered in, (who were written of long ago unto this judgment,) ungodly men, turning the grace of our Lord God into riotousness, and denying the only sovereign Ruler, and our Lord Jesus Christ. [5] I will therefore admonish you, though ye once knew all things, that Jesus, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, did afterwards destroy them that believed not:

[6] And the angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day. [7] As Sodom and Gomorrha, and the neighbouring cities, in like manner, having given themselves to fornication, and going after other flesh, were made an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. [8] In like manner these men also defile the flesh, and despise dominion, and blaspheme majesty. [9] When Michael the archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him the judgment of railing speech, but said: The Lord command thee. [10] But these men blaspheme whatever things they know not: and what things soever they naturally know, like dumb beasts, in these they are corrupted.

[11] Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain: and after the error of Balaam they have for reward poured out themselves, and have perished in the contradiction of Core. [12] These are spots in their banquets, feasting together without fear, feeding themselves, clouds without water, which are carried about by winds, trees of the autumn, unfruitful, twice dead, plucked up by the roots, [13] Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own confusion; wandering stars, to whom the storm of darkness is reserved for ever. [14] Now of these Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying: Behold, the Lord cometh with thousands of his saints, [15] To execute judgment upon all, and to reprove all the ungodly for all the works of their ungodliness, whereby they have done ungodly, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against God. 

[16] These are murmurers, full of complaints, walking according to their own desires, and their mouth speaketh proud things, admiring persons for gain' s sake. [17] But you, my dearly beloved, be mindful of the words which have been spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, [18] Who told you, that in the last time there should come mockers, walking according to their own desires in ungodlinesses. [19] These are they, who separate themselves, sensual men, having not the Spirit. [20] But you, my beloved, building yourselves upon your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, 

[21] Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, unto life everlasting. [22] And some indeed reprove, being judged:[23] But others save, pulling them out of the fire. And on others have mercy, in fear, hating also the spotted garment which is carnal. [24] Now to him who is able to preserve you without sin, and to present you spotless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,[25] To the only God our Saviour through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and magnificence, empire and power, before all ages, and now, and for all ages of ages. Amen. (Jude 1-25.)

“Return to the true Church, Mister Hannity, which you can find just eight miles (seventeen minutes) from your home in Centre Island, New York, to the Church of Saint Pius V, 8 Pond Lane, Oyster Bay Cove, New York.”

"Finally, Mister Hannity, there is nothing "safe" about "legal abortion" for an innocent child, and there is nothing "safe" about baby-butchery for his mother, who will suffer in many bodily, spiritual, and psychologial ways in this life that she may not ever understand fully unless she is struck by the terrible reality of what she has done and seeks out the mercy of the Divine Redeemer in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance ("He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you. When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained."(John 20: 21-23.)

Sean Hannity is providing “cover” for Republican candidates to flee from any opposition the surgical killing of the innocent preborn in order to win elections. There is a special irony in this as it was the case fifty years ago this year after the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, January 22, 1973, that supposedly “pro-life” Catholics in the Democratic Party began to change their pro-life positions to curry favor with “the people.” Hannity’s callow support for the myth of “safe, legal, and rare” baby-slaughtering after the Court’s decision in Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi State Health Officer v. Jackson Women’s Organization, June 24, 2022, will make it “safe” for “conservatives” to do what the Democrats did fifty years ago.

Popular sovereignty leads to unrestrained popular madness.

The impetus for Mister Hannity’s support for “safe, legal, and rare” baby-butchery came from a pro-abortion victory in the State of Ohio on a referendum that would have made it easier to amend the state’s constitution, which pro-abortion forces intend to do by placing an amendment before the voters to enshrine the surgical execution of babies under the cover of civil law as a “right” guaranteed by Ohio Constitution, something that would be in perfect accord with the “let the people decide” decision written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito in the case of Thomas Dobbs, Mississippi State Health Officer v. Jackson Women’s Organization, June 24, 2022. Like efforts are underway in the State of Arizona (see Pro-Abortion Groups File Proposed AZ Amendment Enabling ‘Professionals’ to Subjectively Authorize Abortion Until Birth) and elsewhere. I went to great lengths last year to point out the fatal flaws contained in Justice Alito’s decision, and anyone who has not read my three-part series is invited to do so now: Roe v. Wade is Gone, Baby-Killing Will Continue, part one, Roe v. Wade is Gone, Baby-Killing Will Continue, part two|, and Roe v. Wade is Gone, Baby-Killing Will Continue, part three).

We would never be arguing about the inarguable (the inviolability of innocent human life, the fact that there are only two genders, that the sin of Sodom and its related vices are abhorrent and can never enjoy the favor of the civil law nor be celebrated within civil society, etc.) in a country that recognizes the Sovereignty of Christ the King and that acknowledges the authority of the Catholic Church to interpose herself with the civil authorities in all that pertains to the good of souls after exhausting her Indirect Powers of teaching, preaching, exhortation, and admonition to warn such authorities of the consequences for defying the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

A summary of the civil state’s duty to pursue the common temporal good in light of man’s Last End—the possession of the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity in Heaven) was provided to us by Pope Saint Pius X in 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.” 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.  (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1905.)

These passages summarize the correct relationship between Holy Mother Church and the civil state, and they note the Holy Father’s bitterness at seeing the trust that Pope Leo XIII had placed in the French anti-clericalists shattered shortly after he, Pope Saint Pius X, had ascended to the Throne of Saint Peter. Pope Saint Pius X manfully articulated right principles while at the same time enumerating the specific ways in which the leaders of the French Third Republic were attempting to subjecting everything about the life of the Church in France to their own arbitrary dictates.

Alas, we are consigned to arguing about the inarguable and of having mere mortals send other mere mortals to jail for seeking to defend innocent human life as long as nations remain not only indifferent to the religion but, as a consequence, become hostile to those who merely seek to defend the Natural Law without even mentioning the Divine Law. Those seeking to oppose evil on merely natural grounds will forever be straitjacketed into endless confrontations with those who believe that falsehood trumps truth and that sentimentality trumps reason.

Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929, explained that:

The more closely the temporal power of a nation aligns itself with the spiritual, and the more it fosters and promotes the latter, by so much the more it contributes to the conservation of the commonwealth. For it is the aim of the ecclesiastical authority by the use of spiritual means, to form good Christians in accordance with its own particular end and object; and in doing this it helps at the same time to form good citizens, and prepares them to meet their obligations as members of a civil society. This follows of necessity because in the City of God, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, a good citizen and an upright man are absolutely one and the same thing. How grave therefore is the error of those who separate things so closely united, and who think that they can produce good citizens by ways and methods other than those which make for the formation of good Christians. For, let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity. (Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.) 

Governments that are “religiously neutral,” however, must end up awash in a sewer of evil as men, especially today given the paucity of a superabundance of Sanctifying and Actual Grace caused by the sacramentally barren liturgical rites of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, govern themselves and their nations by means of sentimentality or raw majoritarian impulses. Such governmental systems must place jurists who might know better into making one legal argument after another, no matter how constitutionally or statutorily sound, on a purely naturalistic basis, thus placing into straitjackets from which it is impossible to extricate themselves. One cannot fight naturalism/secularism/humanism with naturalism/secularism/humanism. One can only fight naturalism/secularism/humanism with Catholicism, Nothing.

While we pray for the conversion of all those who solicit, perform, cooperate in, or support the chemical and/or surgical execution of the innocent preborn, we also have a duty to remind those in public life who enable these executions of the very direct words written by Pope Pius XI about their fate when they stand before the Avenger of innocent blood when they die:

Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.)

It is no act of “violence” upon anyone to call abortion by its proper name: homicide in the particular and genocide in the universal sense.

The religious indifferentist institutions of Modernity’s anti-Incarnational state have devolved to the point where truth is falsehood, falsehood is truth, criminal activity is virtuous, and that which is virtuous is considered to a “violent” threat to the civil order.

Pope Leo XIII, writing in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, explained that men and their societies who reject Christ the King and His true Church must wind up being bereft of any sense of true justice in a situation where public life itself is stained by crime:

God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.

So great is this struggle of the passions and so serious the dangers involved, that we must either anticipate ultimate ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is of course both right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible way: but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation of the nations must be looked for higher. A power greater than human must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken in them the sense of duty, and make them better. This is the power which once before saved the world from destruction when groaning under much more terrible evils. Once remove all impediments and allow the Christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away; mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realise that they must observe justice and charity, the latter self-restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved. Domestic life will be firmly established (by the salutary fear of God as the Lawgiver. In the same way the precepts of the natural law, which dictates respect for lawful authority and obedience to the laws, will exercise their influence over the people. Seditions and conspiracies will cease. Wherever Christianity rules over all without let or hindrance there the order established by Divine Providence is preserved, and both security and prosperity are the happy result. The common welfare, then, urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to this His own rightful possession. All elements of the national life must be made to drink in the Life which proceedeth from Him- legislation, political institutions, education, marriage and family life, capital and labour. Everyone must see that the very growth of civilisation which is so ardently desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows not so much by material wealth and prosperity, as by the spiritual qualities of morality and virtue. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

There is no naturalistic, electoral, political, or legal way out of the mess in which we find ourselves. We are witnessing the manifestation of the perfection of the inherent degeneracy of the founding principles, a degeneration that includes social decadence and nihilism.

We must stand firm on behalf of our Catholic Faith at all times and in all situations as we recall the following words from Pope Pius XII’s Christmas Message to the world’s Catholics on December 24, 1943:

The path of humanity in the present confusion of ideas has been a path without God, indeed against God; without Christ, indeed against Christ. With this we do not want or intend to offend the wanderers; they are and remain our brothers.

However, it is appropriate that Christianity also considers that part of the responsibility, which falls to her in today's trials. Or haven't many Christians also made concessions to those false ideas and directions of life, so often disapproved by the magisterium of the Church?

Every lukewarmness and every rash bargaining with human respect in the profession of faith and its maxims; every pusillanimity and vacillation between good and evil in the practice of the Christian life, in the education of children and in governing the family; any hidden or manifest sin; all of this, and what more could be added, was and is a mournful contribution to the disaster which today is ravaging the world. And who would ever have the right to consider himself innocent of any fault? Reflection on yourselves and your works and the humble acknowledgment of this moral responsibility will make you perceive and feel in the depths of your soul how dutiful and holy a prayer and an action that appeases and implores the mercy of God and help to save the brothers; giving that honor back to God. (Pope Pius XII, Christmas Radio Message to the Peoples of the Whole World, December 24, 1943.)

We must make reparation for our own sins, which have worsened the state of the world-at-large and that of the Church Militant on earth far, far more than we might be willing to understand or to accept, which is why it is necessary for us to offer up all our works, prayers, and sufferings to the Throne of the Most Blessed Trinity by surrendering ourselves freely as the consecrated slaves of the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity made Man, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

We may not live long enough to see a happy resolution to the problems that afflict the world because of the sins of men who are either contemptuous of the laws of God or reject them outright. However, it is our duty to pray ceaselessly for the conversion of all men to the true Faith and to exhort them according to time and circumstances of our dealings with others to develop a profound love for Our Lady, the Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, and a total consecration to her Divine Son through her Immaculate Heart.

Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary is the key to getting us out of the mess that the world is in now, something that Pope Pius XII noted in Ingruentiam Mallorum, September 15, 1951:

We do not hesitate to affirm again publicly that We put great confidence in the Holy Rosary for the healing of evils which afflict our times. Not with force, not with arms, not with human power, but with Divine help obtained through the means of this prayer, strong like David with his sling, the Church undaunted shall be able to confront the infernal enemy, repeating to him the words of the young shepherd: “Thou comest to me with a sword, and a spear, and with a shield; but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of armies . . . and all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for this is his battle, and he will deliver you into our hands” (I Kings 17, 45-47)

16. For this reason, We earnestly desire, Venerable Brethren, that all the faithful, following your example and your exhortation should respond solicitously to Our paternal exhortation, uniting their hearts and their voices with the same ardor of charity. If the evils and the assaults of the wicked increase, so likewise must the piety of all good people increase and become ever more vigorous. Let them strive to obtain from our most loving Mother, especially through this form of prayer, that better times may quickly return for the Church and society.

17. May the very powerful Mother of God, moved by the prayers of so many of her sons, obtain from her only Son — let us all beseech her — that those who have miserably wandered from the path of truth and virtue may, with new fervor, find it again; that hatred and rivalry, which are the sources of discord and every kind of mishap, may be put aside, and that a true, just, and genuine peace may shine again upon individuals, families, peoples, and nations. And, finally, may she obtain that, after the rights of the Church have been secured in accord with justice, its beneficent influence may penetrate without obstacle the hearts of men, the social classes, and the avenues of public life so as to join people among themselves in brotherhood and lead them to that prosperity which regulates, preserves, and coordinates the rights and duties of all without harming anyone and which daily makes for greater and greater mutual friendship and collaboration. (Pope Pius XII noted in Ingruentiam Mallorum, September 15, 1951.)

We must trust in Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary and pray that our fidelity will bear good fruit for ourselves and for the whole world as we await the day when the Triumph of her Immaculate Heart will made manifest and as her Divine Son, Christ the King, takes His rightful place among men and their nations once again after a true pope has taken his place on the Throne of Saint Peter.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Rosary, 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.

Appendix 

On the Feast of Saint John Eudes

Today, August 19, 2023, is the one hundred sixth anniversary of Our Lady's fourth apparition to Jacinta and Francisco Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos. This particular apparition was delayed for six days because the children were being held by the Mayor of Ourem, Portugal, who tried to intimiate them into recanting their testimony about what they had seen and heard on the thirteenth of each of the preceding three months.

As is well known, Jacinta and Francisco Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos were spirited away by the atheistic Mayor of Ourem, Portugal Artur de Oliveira Santos, the founding president of the local Masonic lodge, on August 13, 1917, in order to intimidate them into denouncing the apparitions of the "beautiful Lady"in the Cova da Iria in Fatima. The three children were thrown into jail, where they prayed Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary at around noontime on August 13, the time that Our Lady was scheduled to appear to them in the Cova da Iria. The Mayor of Ourem then took the children to his own home, where he threatened to boil them alive in oil. His threats were to no avail. He had to give up when the children preferred to face death rather than to renounce their beautiful Lady, who had shown them a vision of Hell a month before and had asked them to promote devotion to Her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Artur de Oliveira Santos had the sense to give up when he knew that he could not get anywhere with Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia, whose own parents had their doubts about the Heavenly visions they claimed to have seen in the Cova da Iria. Although Artur Santos released the three children on the Feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1918, he refused to believe in Our Lady of Fatima even after the Miracle of the Sun, working to thwart a procession to the Cova da Iria on May 13, 1920, and involved in the plot that resulted in the roof of the chapel in the Cova being blown off on March 6, 1921 (the date of my own late mother's birth in Kansas City, Missouri), as two bombs near the holm oak tree atop which stood Our Lady during her visits failed to explode.(See The 1921 Bombing of the Shrine of Fatima by the Freemasons.) The Mayor of Ourem, a bitter atheist, hated the Mother of God and wanted to do everything in his power to stop belief in the Fatima Message.

It is no accident, therefore, that Our Lady chose to appear to the three shepherd children on August 19, 1917, after they had been freed as each of the dates she appeared had a connection with the liturgical feast of the day. Specifically, August 19 was the feast of Blessed John Eudes, who would be canonized by Pope Pius XI on May 31, 1925, a date that Pope Pius XII would designate in 1954 for the Feast of the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our Lady's delayed apparition to Jacinta, Francisco and Lucia on the feast of Blessed John Eudes, therefore, is highly significant as he helped to propagate devotion to Our Lady's Most Pure Heart, which he taught was inseparable from the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

Saint John Eudes, whose feast is celebrated today, Saturday, August 19, 2023, helped to establish formal devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus some thirty years before the revelations that Our Lord gave to Sister Margaret Mary Alacoque. He also promoted devotion to the Holy Heart of Mary. His own priestly heart was such that he stressed the importance of priests to have the very Hearts of Jesus and Mary in the confessional, exhorting sinners to amend their lives, to be sure, but doing so with an understanding of the frailties of fallen human nature and the manner in which Our Lord wants His Mercy to be extended to the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross. Saint John Eudes will help us to trust in the tender Mercies of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary during these times of apostasy and betrayal, especially as we pray the Holy Rosary to which he was so personally devoted.

The readings for Matins in yesterday's Divine Office taught us about the remarkable life of this great apostle of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Most Pure Heart of Mary:

John was born in the year 1601, of pious and respectable parents, at a village commonly known as Ri, in the diocese of Seez. While still a boy, when he was fed with the bread of Angels, he cheerfully made a vow of perpetual chastity. Having been received at the College of Caen, directed by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, he was conspicuous for a remarkable piety; and, committing himself to the protection of the Virgin Mary, when still a youth he signed with his own blood, the special covenant he had entered into with her. Having completed his courses of letters and of philosophy with great distinction, and having spurned opportunities of marriage which had been arranged for him, he enrolled himself with the Congregation of the Oratory de Bérulle, and was ordained priest at Paris. He was on fire with a marvellous love towards his neighbour: for he took the most constant pains in caring for both the souls and bodies of those smitten with the Asiatic plague, in many different places. He was made Rector of the Oratorian house at Caen, but since he had been thinking for a long time of educating suitable young men for the ministry of the Church, earnestly asking for the divine assistance, with a brave spirit he most regretfully departed from the associates with whom he had lived for twenty years.

Accordingly, associating five priests with himself, in the year 1643, on the feastday of the Annunciation of the blessed Virgin Mary, he founded a Congregation of Priests, to whom he gave the most holy names of Jesus and Mary, and opened the first seminary at Caen; and a great many others followed immediately in Normandy and Brittany, also founded by him. For the recalling of sinful women to a Christian life, he founded the Order of Our Lady of Charity; of which most noble tree, the Congregation of the Good Shepherd of Angers is a branch. Furthermore, he founded the Society of the Admirable Heart of the Mother of God, and other charitable institutions. He was the author of many excellent treatises, and laboured as an Apostolic Missionary to the very end of his life, preaching the Gospel in very many villages, towns, and cities, and even in the royal court.

His matchless zeal was very conspicuous in promoting the salutary devotion towards the most sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, whose liturgical worship he was the first of all to devise, although not without some divine inspiration. He is therefore held to be the father, the teacher, and the apostle of that worship. Courageously withstanding the doctrines of the Jansenists, he preserved unalterable obedience towards the Chair of Peter, and he constantly prayed to God, both for his enemies as well as for his brethren. Broken by so many labours, rather than by years, desiring to be freed and to be with Christ, on the 19th day of August, 1680, frequently repeating the sweet names of Jesus and Mary, he died in peace. As he became illustrious by many miracles, Pope Pius X added him to the list of the Blessed, and as he still shone forth with new signs and wonders, Pope Pius XI, in the holy year and on the day of Pentecost, placed him among the Saints, and extended his Office and Mass to the universal Church. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint John Eudes.)

Perhaps we can, in honor of Saint John Eudes and his deep connection to Our Lady, recite this salutation of his to Our Lady, who is meant to reign as the Queen of all men and all nations here on earth:

Hail Mary! Daughter of God the Father.

Hail Mary! Mother of God the Son.

Hail Mary! Spouse of God the Holy Ghost.

Hail Mary! Temple of the Most Blessed Trinity.

Hail Mary! Pure Lily of the Effulgent Trinity. God.

Hail Mary!! Celestial Rose of the ineffable Love of God.

Hail Mary! Virgin pure and humble, of whom the King of Heaven willed to be born and with thy milk to be nourished.

Hail Mary! Virgin of Virgins.

Hail Mary! Queen of Martyrs, whose soul a sword transfixed.

Hail Mary! Lady most blessed: Unto whom all power in Heaven and earth is given.

Hail Mary! My Queen and my Mother! My Life, my sweetness and my Hope.

Hail Mary! Mother most Amiable.

Hail Mary! Mother most Admirable.

Hail Mary! Mother of Divine Love.

Hail Mary! IMMACULATE! Conceived without sin!

Hail Mary Full of Grace. The Lord is with Thee! Blessed art Thou amongst Women and Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus!

Blessed be thy Spouse, St. Joseph.

Blessed be thy Father, St. Joachim.

Blessed be thy Mother, St. Anne.

Blessed be thy Guardian, St. John.

Blessed be thy Holy Angel, St. Gabriel.

Glory be to God the Father, who chose thee.

Glory be to God the Son, who loved thee.

Glory be to God the Holy Ghost, who espoused thee.

O Glorious Virgin Mary, may all men love and praise thee.

Holy Mary, Mother of God! Pray for us and bless us, now, and at death in the Name of Jesus, thy Divine Son.