"To Resist is a Duty, To Obey a Crime"

As noted in my three-part series on the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of Thomas E. Dobbs. Mississippi State Health Officer v. Jackson Women’s Organization, June 24, 2022 (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, BabyRoe v. Wade is Gone, Baby-Killing Will Continue, part threeh-Killing Will Continue, part three), the execution of the innocent preborn, both by chemical and surgical means, continues despite the Supreme Court’s overturning of its Monday, January 22, 1973, abominable 7-2 decision in the case of Roe v. Wade. While it is true that most, although not all, surgical killings of the preborn have been stopped in states such as Texas, it is also true that so-called “exceptions” to the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment exist throughout the “red states” in the United States of America and that the killing of children by chemical means (contraceptive pills and devices and, of course, the human pesticide itself, mifepristone, which is itself the subject of litigation at this time and will be the subject of another commentary in the near future).

The unrestricted surgical execution of the innocent preborn up until and, in some instances, remains completely legal in each of the so-called “blue” states, and it is there that a number of courageous people, including those who are not Catholic, are knowingly risking jail time for entering into killing centers and seeking to counsel women not to kill their babies, presenting each with a red rose while doing so.

Participants in what is called the “red rose rescue” are careful not to block the entrances into abortuaries themselves in violation of the immoral and unjust “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act” (FACE) that has been used as a bludgeon by the administrations of William Jefferson Blythe Clinton/Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., Barack Hussein Obama-Barry Soetoro/Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr./Kamala Harris to intimidate and harass pro-life Americans, up to and including the siege of Mark Houck’s home when he was arrested for “interfering” with a abortuary escort who was shouting obscenities at his son (see Fear Not Those Who Can Destroy the Body, Fear Not the Likes of Merrick Garland).

Although the current administration’s crackdowns on its political opponents has taken its pro-baby-killing rhetoric into the realm of rank Soviet-style paramilitary intimidation, I am here to remind the very limited readership that the path to Merrick Garland’s use of naked aggression against a man with no criminal record for an action to protect his own son that not even the “woke” District Attorney of Philadelphia County believed was prosecutable began on January 20, 1993, when William Jefferson Blythe Clinton was inaugurated as the forty-second president of the United States of America. It was at his behest that Congress, then firmly in the control of his band of leftists, passed the so-called Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act
(FACE) on May 12, 1994, by a roll-call vote of 69 to 30 (one senator did not vote). Seventeen Republican senators voted in favor of this monstrous act, including a supposedly “pro-life” senator from the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Addison Mitchell McConnell. Ever hear of him? Well, I think that this is one of many reasons that the country club Republican who did, to his credit, keep Merrick Garland off of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in 2016 and who did get former President Donald John Trump’s Supreme Court nominees confirmed (not that this has meant very much insofar as stopping Biden’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers who are employed by facilities receiving Federal funding—see Supreme Court Declines to Review Vaccine Mandate Case for Health-Care Workers). The Old Crow from Kentucky never spoke out in defense of Mark Houck of Chet Gallagher. Neither will has the flip-flopping, flimflam, preeningly self-righteous Willard Mitt Romney (R-Utah by way of Michigan and Massachusetts) or Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-South Dakota).

FACE was designed to shut down Operation Rescue and to give the United States Department of Justice, then headed by Attorney General Janet Reno, a pro-abortion, pro-perversity Catholic, of course, a wedge by which its Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) could use to intimidate to shut down pro-life activities outside of America’s killing centers. Reno organized the Violence Against Abortion Providers Conspiracy (VAAPCON) Task Force under the authority of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to intimidate pro-life Americans, including a woman in Toledo, Ohio, who was visited by FBI agents after she had written to a baby-killer to tell her that she was praying for her conversion, an act that was deemed by the agents to have constituted a "violent threat" against the baby-killer (see FBI's VAAPCON Spies on Pro-Lifers for more information about the Clinton-Reno war against pro-lifers).

The participants in the Red Rose Rescue, however, enter freely into the killing mills and then try to persuade all who are involved in the killing of children to stop shedding the blood of the innocent, thus subjecting themselves to state level charges of criminal “trespass” but to the provisions of the FACE Act.

A report found from two months ago in the National Catholic Register focused on the “trial” of several Red Rose rescuers who had been arrested at a killing center in Manhasset on the north shore of Long Island in 2022. The trial, which was presided over by Judge Karen Moroney of New York State Supreme Court (which, despite its name, is the State of New York’s trial court for cases involving state law; the State of New York Court of Appeals is the state’s highest court) in the seat of Nassau County, Mineola, New York, resulted in the “convictions” of three people, the Reverend Fidelis Mocinski, a presbyter of the conciliar-based Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, Mrs. Laura Gies, and Mr. John Hinshaw.whose direct testimony and cross-examination summarized what happens in the abortuaries, namely, the killing of human beings, with great eloquence:

The final pro-life witness was John Hinshaw, a father and grandfather from Long Island.

When asked by defense counsel about his education, John explained that he had a bachelor’s degree in psychology from St. John’s University. He also told the jury that his education enabled him to work as a case manager and counselor assisting patients at a mental health facility and at a separate mental health clinic.

When asked about the purpose of his involvement with a Red Rose Rescue, John replied, “To save lives.”

Hinshaw in his testimony said he was present that day “at an abortion mill,” and that he strongly objected to the characterization of this place being called a “medical facility.”

John told the jury about how he entered the abortion mill freely — there were no signs saying “do not enter.” No one asked him at the door why he was there, and he went in and just sat down.

Defense counsel asked, “Did you leave the abortion mill?”

“When asked by the police if I was going to leave,” Hinshaw related, “I asked them, ‘Are you going to do your job and protect innocent life?’ They said ‘No,’ so I said I’d stay to do their job — a job I was trained to do.”

Despite incessant objections, this rescuer detailed his professional training:

As a mental health counselor I did similar work. If someone was threatening suicide, I had an obligation to stay with them. On April 24, I felt I couldn’t leave the endangered children, I must stay. I am a father of six and a grandfather of two. I could not leave them [the unborn] there alone with the instruments being used to hurt them.

When asked by Forcina about sidewalk counseling, John shared that this work was about “someone being at the abortuary doors to offer information to women who are not told by the abortion mill about any other plans than abortion.”

Hinshaw noted that he had been doing this work since 1975.

Defense counsel asked, “What do pro-abortion people say to you when you want to offer help to unborn babies?”

John responded, “They try to silence us all the time.”

Just then the prosecutor objected, and like clockwork the judge replied, “Sustained and stricken.”

Hinshaw sighed and retorted to the jury, “They silence us more now than in other times.”

Cross-Examination of Hinshaw

At cross-examination, the prosecutor wanted to know “the plans.”

“The plan was to go and give help and save lives,” John said plainly.

“So you ‘sidewalk counsel’ behind closed doors?”

“The doors were wide open. We get as close as we can. It’s the very last chance. I walked in with police. And I talked to the women.”

“But you weren't supposed to be there, right?”

“‘Not supposed to?’ We were ‘supposed’ to be there to save lives.”

“But you didn't leave?”

“This is what I said. I said, ‘If there are no more abortions, I’d leave.’ There was no obstruction. I sat there for a long time.”

“Yet the police said to leave?”

“I asked them if they’d fulfill their obligations to do their job and protect innocent lives.”

“So you didn't leave when they told you to? Give a simple answer.”

“I didn’t leave. I couldn’t. That’s my simple answer. I knelt down. I wasn’t obstructing.”

The Trial Ends

When all of the questioning ended, the defense rested their case and the jury was dismissed.

We now know that, in spite of the powerful beautiful witness to the sanctity of life and God’s plan for humanity, the prosecutor in this case convinced the jury that the only issue involved was trespassing. Terms such as “abortion center,” “sidewalk counselor” and “saving lives” were not permitted. Terms like “medical center,” “protestors,” and “people interfering with medical procedures” ruled the day.

Yet hope and prayers remain that some pro-life truths, along with the sincerity and holiness of these four courageous people, planted a seed in the jurors’ minds. (Red Roses Mean Love: Jury Convicts Priest and Two Others for New York ‘Red Rose Rescue’.)

Acting on behalf of the State of New York, Judge Karen Moroney did not want the jurors to hear anything about “abortion centers” or “sidewalk counselors” or “saving lives” any more than had a whole variety of pro-aborts attending a presentation of Dr. Bernard Nathanson’s The Silent Scream at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, on Tuesday, March 26, 1985. The pro-aborts were entirely unmoved, and one of them said “We don’t care” when a thirty-year-old pro-life activist and teacher at an independent Catholic high school (Christ the King Regional High School) in Middle Village, Queens, kept asking the question, “Is this human life. Is this human life” The “we don’t care” answer of thirty-eight years, one month ago is precisely the same sentiment that was inherent in Judge Karen Moroney’s refusal to permit any mention of “saving lives” in the recent Red Rose Rescue “trespass” case in her courtroom.

Oh, by the way, the name of that then thirty-year-old pro-life activist who was then a religion teacher at Christ the King Reginal High School in Middle Village, Queens, New York, is John Hinshaw. Yes, the same John Hinshaw who was tried, convicted and was sentenced to serving one month at Nassau County Jail in East Meadow, New York, and to two years’ probation. A report on something called Facebook was sent to me by one who was in attendance at the sentencing:

The sky seemed to match the attitude that was in the courthouse, one that was somber, dark and dreary. John Hinshaw and some supporters waited outside the courtroom until around 11am to hear what the sentencing would be.

This morning the sentencing hearing for the Manhasset Rescue was scheduled. Besides John Hinshaw, both Father Fidelis and Laura Gies were the other rescuers to be sentenced today. Matthew's charges were dropped during the trial.

Everyone (including the pro-life lawyer) expected that the sentencing would be postponed since Father Fidelis and Laura are still in Michigan at Oakland County Jail serving time for the Southfield Rescue.

However, the judge decided to sentence John anyway.

The prosecutors recommended one month in jail with two years probation which the judge hastily granted. John's wife broke out in tears as the sentencing was read and John bravely stepped forward to give his final statement:

"The only crime that was committed was the crime committed in this court, when you brought in the man that butchers children since 1977."

This was in reference to the abortionist who took the stand during the trial and pridefully bragged about how he had been in the butchering business since 1977.

However, the judge coldly cut John off and didn't let him continue to speak. She tried to insist that this case was only about trespassing, trying to cover the truth in darkness. This case, as well as all the cases that Red Rose Rescue has, is about abortion. Specifically, the case is about employing legal efforts to try and stop the evil and injustice of this senseless killing, as well as witnessing to the innocence and supreme value of every human life, particularly the abandoned preborn babies.

John was put in handcuffs and taken away while his wife watched with a tearful visage.

"Today John Hinshaw bravely continues to rescue babies, but in a new way," said Will Goodman, "...a way of sacrificial love prepared to enter into a much deeper solidarity with the most outcast members of our society-- the little ones in the womb."

Please pray for John Hinshaw and his wife, Brenda Kelly Hinshaw, and their children and grandchildren during this time of persecution., and we can and must pray for those on the front lines to save babies and, much more importantly, to save the immortal souls of their mothers while at the same praying that all the interrelated offenses against the Sovereignty of God over the fecundity and sanctity of Holy Matrimony (“family planning” of any kind, the promotion of the sin of Sodom and its related vices, including the mutilation of one’s body in the futile effort to do the ontologically impossible, that is, to change one’ gender) and the offenses against His Sovereignty over all innocent human life from conception death (“brain death”/vivisection of living human beings for their vital bodily organs, the starvation and dehydration of “brain damaged” human beings, “palliative care”/hospice, euthanasia, suicide, assisted suicide, physician-assisted suicide—each of which is discussed in Life, Death, and Truth: Under Attack by Medicine and Law) will cease sooner than later within the Providence of God.

I should add also that those involved in the Red Rose Rescue movemen should put aside whatever "ecumenical considerations" may exist and start distributing truly blessed Miraculous Medals, Green Scapulars, and Rosaries (along with a booklet instructing one how to pray the Rosary). Truth on the natural level has been rejected because supernatural truth has been attack in a particulary open manner since 1517. One and all must come to understand that, as important as defending natural truth is, one must first defend truth in the supernatural order as it is Christ or chaos, Catholicism or the abyss. There is no place for false ecumenism in any of our work as we must keep things Catholic all the time and seek to exhort all who join with us in important life-saving endeavors to understand that the only place to find Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is in the Catholic Church, which is not the same thing, of course, as the countefeit church of conciliarism that has been its "official reconcilation" with the anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity, as it is to she alone that He has entrusted His teaching to taught infallibly preservered inviolatedly until He comes again to judge the living and the dead on the Last Day at the General Judgment.

As I have written on this site ad infinitum, ad nauseam, we are living in a world that has been turned upside down by the Protestant Revolution’s overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the consequent rise of a veritable welter of Judeo-Masonic ideologies/ “philosophies”/movements ever since.

This is what must happen when men and their nations reject the sweet yoke of Christ the King and make war upon His Holy Name and those who seek to defend Him Our Divine Lawgiver and Judge. Decadence and violence are the ultimate outcomes of pluralistic nations found on false, naturalistic premises that praise the “sovereignty of the people” while refusing to recognize the Sovereignty of the King of Kings over men and their nations.

We cannot expect true justice to be done by those who are not only personally unjust but who are hypocrites of the highest order, something that is especially true in the State of New York, where George Soros-inspired “bail reform” laws permit violent, recidivist criminals to put back pout on streets immediately after being arraigned on charges of violent assault to commit even more crimes knowing full well that favorably inclined prosecutors will never hold them to account for their crimes against God and the just laws of men.

What we are witnessing at present as groups of rioters, many of whom are well-armed and part of the notorious “Antifa” terrorist group while others have joined in the mayhem simply to promote mayhem, to destroy property, attack police officers, innocent bystanders and store owners while stealing whatever they can from “high end” stores owned by companies that have long promoted
a “progressive” agenda while those who seek to defend innocent human on the front lines are persecuted for doing their duty before the God is but the logical result of Modernity’s rejection of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of the Holy Ghost and a concomitant rejection of His true Church as the one and only foundation of order within the soul and thus within society.

In the meantime, of course, Soros stooges such as New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg continue to let thieves and muggers go about their criminal ways in the name of “social justice” that is based in nothing other than an abject violation of each of the Ten Commandments:

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said during his campaign that racial equity needed to be a priority and that he didn't believe thievery should be prosecuted since it was a "crime of poverty."

During the May 2021 meeting, Bragg articulated his intention to focus on racial equity instead of prosecuting theft.

"I grew up with friends disappearing over charges like that (theft) and even if there is an alternative [to incarceration, such as diversion programs, there is a] consequence of disruption for the family. We need to asking, 'Does something make us safer?' And prosecuting a young person, even if it doesn't end in incarceration [such as in diversion programs], in my view does not make us safer," he said. "I think we need to move away from what I would call a crime of poverty."

Bragg was speaking to a group from Young New Yorkers in May 2021. The organization "applies a racial justice framework to… all levels of operations" as it diverts individuals facing charges under the age of 25 from the criminal justice system.

Bragg said his overall intention was to "Shrin[k] the footprint" of the criminal justice system.

A campaign webpage, which has since been scrubbed, said Bragg believed crimes that disproportionately incarcerate Black people are "morally indefensible" to enforce.

"These cases do not belong in criminal court. The punishments are disproportionately harsh, and fall disproportionately on the backs of people of color. This makes them morally indefensible," Bragg stated on his website. "This is why I will not prosecute most petty offenses through the traditional criminal court system… I will either dismiss these charges outright or offer the accused person the opportunity to complete a program without ever setting foot in a courtroom."

"In Manhattan, every single step in the way a case is processed from what someone is charged with, to the plea they are offered, to the sentence they are given, is rife with racial disparities," Bragg said during the 2021 meeting.

The New York City Police Department released data showing New York City's Five Boroughs being overrun with a handful of thieves who were arrested over 6,000 times, and released back into the streets.

During the meeting, Bragg also promised he would create a fracture between the New York City Police Department and the Manhattan DA when he was elected.

"For too long the DA's office has been an adjunct of the NYPD, reflexively processing what they do," he said. Bragg added that prosecution should have its own approach and shouldn't "reflexively" process arrests made by the NYPD.

The statements reflect those from his chief prosecutor, Meg Reiss, who was brought in to Bragg's office. Reiss has advocated to include a critical race theory framework into prosecution years before joining the Manhattan DA.

Reiss previously bragged about letting violent felons out on the streets, including a murderer, Fox News Digital reported.

Before joining Bragg's office, Reiss created the Institute for Innovation on Prosecution which suggested prosecutors should intentionally undermine the charges police officers bring forward.

The institute said prosecutors must focus on "acknowledging our nation’s shameful history of slavery and racism which continues to cloud the criminal justice system."

Bragg's chief prosecutor has argued for critical race theory ideology to be integrated into the criminal justice system as part of a "new paradigm of prosecution," while claiming violent criminals are not necessarily "bad dudes."

"So one of the first things [to] do is change the language: ‘the bad dude.’ What does that mean? What are the circumstances of that person coming into the criminal justice system in the first place? And what is the background to that person?" she said in a 2017 interview unearthed by Fox News Digital.

Reiss has also harshly criticized "jury pools" for giving officers "the benefit of the doubt" during trials into misconduct allegations.

Bragg's office has been in the spotlight as it leads the hush money probe and indictment of former President Donald Trump on 34 Class E felony charges, which could amount to over 100 years in prison if he is convicted of all charges.

Trump's indictment marked the first time a U.S. president, former or current, had ever been charged with a crime. Trump has accused Bragg, a Democrat, of political bias against him. (Alvin Bragg promises not to prosecute theft to establish 'racial equity' balance: 'Crime of poverty'.)

The mom of a slain Army veteran slammed Democrats for “marching to the same drumbeat” of “Trump and guns” while ignoring crime victims Tuesday — a day after her fiery testimony before lawmakers about Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s soft-on-crime tactics.

Madeline Brame, whose son, Hason Correa, was beaten to death in Harlem in 2018, recounted her emotional testimony Monday at the House Judiciary Committee’s field hearing in Manhattan, where Rep. Dan Goldman (D-Manhattan) referred to the hearing as “a charade.”

“They all march to the same drumbeat – Trump, Trump, Trump, guns, guns, guns — completely ignoring the testimony of the victims sitting right in front of them, the crime that’s happening here in New York and the district attorney refusing to prosecute crime,” Brame railed to The Post Tuesday.

Brame and Goldman got into a heated back and forth as the Dem claimed the Republican-led hearing was just a ruse to distract from Bragg’s criminal case against former President Donald Trump.

He and other Democrats also painted the eight committee witnesses, including Brame and other victims of crime, as political pawns in the GOP’s effort to discredit Bragg.

“I wasn’t having that,” Brame said Tuesday. “That’s why I responded the way I did. He insulted us. He insulted me. He insulted my son. It was spontaneous because I got tired of hearing it at that point.”

Goldman, who represents Lower Manhattan and brownstone Brooklyn, was the last of several Democratic lawmakers at the hearing who called the GOP-led proceedings payback for Bragg’s unprecedented indictment of Trump, 76.

“I couldn’t take it anymore,” Brame said Tuesday. “Dan Goldman was the last one of their lineup of speakers, and I just couldn’t take it anymore because he got a little belligerent. You know, he had the hands going and pointing and all that and he was saying that were being used as props.

“He even called me out by name,” she said. “He said, ‘Sorry about what happened to your son but this is nothing but a charade.’ And that’s when I stopped it.”

Brame’s son was jumped by four siblings outside a Harlem apartment building in 2018.

The case languished in court until Bragg took office last year and closed out the cases — with two brothers getting life sentences, another a seven-year term and their sister released after serving 14 months at Rikers Island.

Brame said she was grateful to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) who chaired the Manhattan hearing.

“Jim Jordan, he put himself out there and he did something extraordinary,” she said. “He gave victims of New York a platform and a seat at the table, something we have been fighting for with the Democratic leadership here for three or four years.

“They have completely ignored us,” she added. “Ostracized. Shunned.”

“You’ve got a panel of seven victims — real-life people telling you this is really happening here. And they were completely ignoring it.”

She credited Jordan with addressing the Democrats’ claim right off the bat at the hearing.

“Jordan, he went around the table and asked each one of us, did we feel like we were being used?” she said. “And my answer was, ‘I’m a willing participant.’” (Murder victim's mom slams Democrats after Judiciary hearing: It's all 'Trump and guns'.)

George Soros-backed and financed district attorneys have indemnified the guilty, persecuted and, in some cases actually prosecuted innocent victims of crime who tried to defend themselves (see Judge dismisses murder charge against bodega clerk who claimed self-defense in fatal stabbing, Texas Gov. Abbott vows to pardon US Army sergeant Daniel Perry, and Missouri governor pardons St. Louis couple Mark, Patricia McCloskey after guilty pleas in gun-waving incident), and have criminalized political differences, and a Nassau County, New York, prosecutor who prosecuted the Long Island Red Rose Rescue case wanted the people she helped to convict placed in jail before their sentencing on Monday, April 17, 2023, the Feast of Pope Saint Anicetus:

The prosecuting attorney then asked for the “convicted” to be remanded to jail pending the sentencing hearing.

Judge Maroney asked the defense attorneys to respond.

Defense attorney Elio Forcina, speaking for his client Laura Gies, explained that she is a grandmother and a peaceful person who has never missed a court hearing.

“These are not criminals,” he stated. “They are part of a cause, members of the prolife movement. They respect the court and their country, and it’s entirely absurd to say they pose a ‘flight risk.’ There is no proof of that at all.”

On behalf of Hinshaw and Father Fidelis, attorney Joseph Soffey noted that the defendants had appeared for all court hearings. He also pointed out that John had six children and lived within the court’s jurisdiction, while Father Fidelis is a Franciscan friar who serves the poor in New York City.

“Flight risk is not a possibility to seriously consider with these good men,” Soffey explained.

Judge Moroney noted that the rescuers attended each hearing and trial day in a timely manner and that there were no outstanding warrants. She denied the hopes of the prosecution that the rescuers be taken away in chains. (Red Roses Mean Love: Jury Convicts Priest and Two Others for New York ‘Red Rose Rescue’.)

Judge Moroney rejected the prosecutor’s request, but she did sentence John Hinshaw to a month in jail and two years’ probation while violent felons less than twenty-five miles to her east are given “get out of jail free” passes from Alvin Bragg and New York State’s “bail reform.”

Human law that contradicts the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law has no binding validity whatsoever, and Pope Leo XIII reminded us in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890, that to resist such laws is our duty but to obey is a crime:

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.)

Pope Pius XII explained the necessity of resisting unjust laws throughout the course of his nineteen-year pontificate. Here are but two examples:

Everybody knows that the Catholic Church does not act through worldly motives, and that she accepts any and every form of civil government provided it not be inconsistent with divine and human rights. But when it does contradict these rights, Bishops and the faithful themselves are bound, by their own conscience to resist unjust laws. (Pope Pius XII, Allocution on the Cardinal Mindszenty Arrest, as found at: New York Times, February 15, 1949.)

26. We earnestly exhort “in the heart of Christ” (Phil. 1. 8) those faithful of whom We have mournfully written above to come back to the path of repentance and salvation. Let them remember that, when it is necessary, one must render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and with greater reason, one must render to God what is God’s (Cf. Luke 20. 25). When men demand things contrary to the Divine Will, then it is necessary to put into practice the maxim of St. Peter: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5. 29). Let them also remember that it is impossible to serve two masters, if these order things opposed to one another (Cf. Matt. 6. 24). Also at times it is impossible to please both Jesus Christ and men (Cf. Gal. 1. 10). But if it sometimes happens that he who wishes to remain faithful to the Divine Redeemer even unto death must suffer great harm, let him bear it with a strong and serene soul.

27. On the other hand, We wish to congratulate repeatedly those who, suffering severe difficulties, have been outstanding in their loyalty to God and to the Catholic Church, and so have been “counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus” (Acts 5. 41). With a paternal heart We encourage them to continue brave and intrepid along the road they have taken, keeping in mind the words of Jesus Christ: “And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather be afraid of him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell . . . But as for you, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Therefore do not be afraid . . . Therefore everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I in turn will disown him before my Father in heaven” (Matt. 10. 28, 30-33). (Pope Pius XII, Ad Sinarum Gentes, October 7, 1954.)

Pope Pius XII also explained that nations not built upon the firm foundation of the Catholic Faith must wind up as places of injustice and iniquity:

4. If we weigh carefully the causes of today’s crises and those that are ahead, we shall soon find that human plans, human resources, and human endeavors are futile and will fail when Almighty God — He who enlightens, commands, and forbids; He who is the source and guarantor of justice, the fountainhead of truth, the basis of all laws — is esteemed but little, denied His proper place, or even completely disregarded. If a house is not built on a solid and sure foundation, it tumbles down; if a mind is not enlightened by the divine light, it strays more or less from the whole truth; if citizens, peoples, and nations are not animated by brotherly love, strife is born, waxes strong, and reaches full growth.

5. It is Christianity, above all others, which teaches the full truth, real justice, and that divine charity which drives away hatred, ill will, and enmity. Christianity has been given charge of these virtues by the Divine Redeemer, who is the way, the truth, and the life,[2] and she must do all in her power to put them to use. Anyone, therefore, who knowingly ignores Christianity — the Catholic Church — or tries to hinder, demean, or undo her, either weakens thereby the very bases of society, or tries to replace them with props not strong enough to support the edifice of human worth, freedom, and well-being.

6. There must, then, be a return to Christian principles if we are to establish a society that is strong, just, and equitable. It is a harmful and reckless policy to do battle with Christianity, for God guarantees, and history testifies, that she shall exist forever. Everyone should realize that a nation cannot be well organized or well ordered without religion. (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

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

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.

Speaking about the decadence in the supposedly “free” West in his famous commencement address on June 6, 1978, at Harvard University, “A World Split Apart,” the Nobel Laureate Russian nationalist and Soviet dissident, Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, observed that what passes for “civilization” in the West hangs by slender threads:

But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just mentioned are extremely saddening.

A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human beings in the West while in the East they are becoming firmer and stronger -- 60 years for our people and 30 years for the people of Eastern Europe. During that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. Life's complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting characters than those generally [produced] by standardized Western well-being.

Therefore, if our society were to be transformed into yours, it would mean an improvement in certain aspects, but also a change for the worse on some particularly significant scores. It is true, no doubt, that a society cannot remain in an abyss of lawlessness, as is the case in our country. But it is also demeaning for it to elect such mechanical legalistic smoothness as you have. After the suffering of many years of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music.

There are meaningful warnings which history gives a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, the decadence of art, or a lack of great statesmen. There are open and evident warnings, too. The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system quite unstable and unhealthy.

But the fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their offensive; you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about? (Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart, June 8, 1978, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts .)

The Nobel Laureate gave this address nearly eleven months after riots had broken out in the Borough of Brooklyn in the City of New York, New York, when the inept utility company, Consolidated Edison, suffered an outage at a power plant in Astoria in the Borough of Queens on Wednesday, July 13, 1977. Solzhenitsyn was saying in his address, in effect, that Americans are in trouble if the only thing keeping the masses from rioting and looting is Consolidated Edison, known colloquially in New York and environs as “Con Ed.”

Neither liberalism (or its variants) nor socialism and its variants are the foundation of social order. Catholicism, though not a guarantor of order given the vagaries of fallen human nature, is alone the only means that can provide men and their nations with the foundation for a just social order, a truth that Solzhenitsyn, whose Russian Orthodoxy caused him to loathe Catholicism, failed to understand or accept.

Human nature is wounded, although not entirely corrupted, by Original Sin, leaving the souls of the unbaptized in the grip of the devil and the souls of the baptized with its vestigial after-effects: a darkened intellect, weakened will and the overthrow of the rational, higher faculties in favor of the lower sensual appetites. The Actual Sins of men incline them to sin more and more and to blind them to anything other than what pleases them and their immediate self-interests, no matter how distorted or perverted those self-interests are in the objective order of things.

Men who do not seek to reform their lives by confessing their sins to a true priest in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance and then cooperating with the ineffable graces of the Divine Redeemer’s Most Precious Blood that flow into their souls once a priest utters the words of Absolution or, worse yet, do not even realize that there is any need to so will descend to barbarism over the course of time. There is no turning back the tide of the new barbarians who have been let loose as a direct and inevitable consequence of the fatally flawed belief that men can establish social order without reforming their lives in cooperation with the graces won for them by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday and without a due submission in all that pertains to Holy Mother Church in all that pertains to the good of souls, upon which the entirety of social order depends.

Pope Pius XI explained in his first encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, that men no longer acted as brothers to other men, but “as strangers, and even enemies,” that should resonate with us at all times:

Men today do not act as Christians, as brothers, but as strangers, and even enemies. The sense of man's personal dignity and of the value of human life has been lost in the brutal domination begotten of might and mere superiority in numbers. Many are intent on exploiting their neighbors solely for the purpose of enjoying more fully and on a larger scale the goods of this world. But they err grievously who have turned to the acquisition of material and temporal possessions and are forgetful of eternal and spiritual things, to the possession of which Jesus, Our Redeemer, by means of the Church, His living interpreter, calls mankind.

22. It is in the very nature of material objects that an inordinate desire for them becomes the root of every evil, of every discord, and in particular, of a lowering of the moral sense. On the one hand, things which are naturally base and vile can never give rise to noble aspirations in the human heart which was created by and for God alone and is restless until it finds repose in Him. On the other hand, material goods (and in this they differ greatly from those of the spirit which the more of them we possess the more remain to be acquired) the more they are divided among men the less each one has and, by consequence, what one man has another cannot possibly possess unless it be forcibly taken away from the first. Such being the case, worldly possessions can never satisfy all in equal manner nor give rise to a spirit of universal contentment, but must become perforce a source of division among men and of vexation of spirit, as even the Wise Man Solomon experienced: "Vanity of vanities, and vexation of spirit." (Ecclesiastes i, 2, 14). . . .

There is over and above the absence of peace and the evils attendant on this absence, another deeper and more profound cause for present-day conditions. This cause was even beginning to show its head before the War and the terrible calamities consequent on that cataclysm should have proven a remedy for them if mankind had only taken the trouble to understand the real meaning of those terrible events. In the Holy Scriptures we read: "They that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed." (Isaias i, 28) No less well known are the words of the Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ, Who said: "Without me you can do nothing" (John xv, 5) and again, "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." (Luke xi, 23)

28. These words of the Holy Bible have been fulfilled and are now at this very moment being fulfilled before our very eyes. Because men have forsaken God and Jesus Christ, they have sunk to the depths of evil. They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. It was a quite general desire that both our laws and our governments should exist without recognizing God or Jesus Christ, on the theory that all authority comes from men, not from God. Because of such an assumption, these theorists fell very short of being able to bestow upon law not only those sanctions which it must possess but also that secure basis for the supreme criterion of justice which even a pagan philosopher like Cicero saw clearly could not be derived except from the divine law. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Paragraph number twenty-eight above says it all:

They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Yet is that even believing Catholics, especially many younger Catholics who know nothing of American political history, permit themselves to be distracted by the bread and circuses and the dog and pony shows of naturalism in the belief that they can change a process that is corrupt to its core because it is based on the anti-Incarnational sin of religious indifferentism, which itself has led to the triumph of practical atheism as the lowest common social denominator.

Catholicism is the one and only foundation for all legitimate social order.

Pope Pius XI made the same point in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:

Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.

It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

In other words, Catholicism is the sole source of human sanctification and the legitimate teacher of men, and thus possesses the sole ability to provide the foundation for a social order that can be as just as possible in a world filled with fallen men, a point that Pope Pius XI reiterated in his encyclical letter commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the issuance of Rerum Novarum, Quadregesimo Anno, May 15, 1931:

127. Yet, if we look into the matter more carefully and more thoroughly, we shall clearly perceive that, preceding this ardently desired social restoration, there must be a renewal of the Christian spirit, from which so many immersed in economic life have, far and wide, unhappily fallen away, lest all our efforts be wasted and our house be built not on a rock but on shifting sand.[62]

128. And so, Venerable Brethren and Beloved Sons, having surveyed the present economic system, We have found it laboring under the gravest of evils. We have also summoned Communism and Socialism again to judgment and have found all their forms, even the most modified, to wander far from the precepts of the Gospel.

129. "Wherefore," to use the words of Our Predecessor, "if human society is to be healed, only a return to Christian life and institutions will heal it."[63] For this alone can provide effective remedy for that excessive care for passing things that is the origin of all vices; and this alone can draw away men's eyes, fascinated by and wholly fixed on the changing things of the world, and raise them toward Heaven. Who would deny that human society is in most urgent need of this cure now?

130. Minds of all, it is true, are affected almost solely by temporal upheavals, disasters, and calamities. But if we examine things critically with Christian eyes, as we should, what are all these compared with the loss of souls? Yet it is not rash by any means to say that the whole scheme of social and economic life is now such as to put in the way of vast numbers of mankind most serious obstacles which prevent them from caring for the one thing necessary; namely, their eternal salvation. (Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931.)

Most men today, however, are more concerned about the acquisition or possible loss of wealth once attained than they are about their immortal souls as they have “excessive care passing things that” are “the origin of all vices.” Only the true Faith can draw “men’s eyes, fascinated by and wholly fixated on the changing things of the world, and raise them toward Heaven.”

As I noted in my thirty plus year career as a college professor of political science and have continued to note in my writing and speaking, the “people” have no authority to permit anything that is proscribed by the Divine Positive Law and/or the Natural Law. No one, whether acting individually or collectively with others in the institutions of civil governance, is morally free to contravene the binding precepts of any of the Ten Commandments, including the Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Commandments.

Truth exists, either in the nature of things or as it has been revealed positively by the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity, through His true Church, the Catholic Church. Truth does not depend human acceptance for its binding force or validity, and truth in the supernatural realm and/or in the realm of the natural moral law is no more “imposed” upon anyone than are physical laws such as the “law of gravity.” One who attempts to defy the law of gravity will suffer the consequences for doing so, and those who defy the Divine and Natural Laws suffer consequences both in this life and, if they die having not repented of their sins and confessed them to a true priest in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, for all eternity in hell.

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

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 once again 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:

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.

No one has the moral right to “choose” to kill another human being.

A mother can never dispose of the fruit of her womb as she desires. She has an obligation before God to provide the love that is the child’s due. True justice is, after all, giving to each that which his is due.

There are no “decisions” to be made about a child, only selfless, unconditional love to be offered.

There are no “difficult choices” to be made, only a firm reliance upon Our Lady’s graces to provide all the supernatural and natural helps necessary to fulfill one’s maternal duties with the distinction of a saint and imitation of the Queen of All Saints, Our Lady herself.

Our first pope, Saint Peter, explained that we are not to use our liberty as a cloak for malice, and the direct, intentional killing of any innocent human being is act of malice:

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, to refrain yourselves from carnal desires which war against the soul, [12] Having your conversation good among the Gentiles: that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by the good works, which they shall behold in you, glorify God in the day of visitation. [13] Be ye subject therefore to every human creature for God's sake: whether it be to the king as excelling; [14] Or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of the good: [15] For so is the will of God, that by doing well you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:

[16] As free, and not as making liberty a cloak for malice, but as the servants of God. [17] Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king. [18] Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. [19] For this is thankworthy, if for conscience towards God, a man endure sorrows, suffering wrongfully. [20] For what glory is it, if committing sin, and being buffeted for it, you endure? But if doing well you suffer patiently; this is thankworthy before God.

[21] For unto this are you called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example that you should follow his steps. [22] Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth. [23] Who, when he was reviled, did not revile: when he suffered, he threatened not: but delivered himself to him that judged him unjustly. [24] Who his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree: that we, being dead to sins, should live to justice: by whose stripes you were healed. [25] For you were as sheep going astray; but you are now converted to the shepherd and bishop of your souls. (1 Peter 2: 11-25.)

There is nothing complex about “Thou shalt not kill.”

Concluding Remarks

Once again, it is important to note that God the Holy Ghost saw fit to instruct us in Sacred Scripture, including in the passage from the Book of Proverbs that was quoted at the beginning of this commentary:

[34] Justice exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable. (Proverbs 14: 34.)

Christ the King will not be mocked. He will suffer the sins of men so that they and their nations might be brought to repentance. He is not, however, indifferent that which Him to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross, sin, and that wounds the Church Militant on earth and impedes the pursuit of the true common temporal good of men and their nations.

Perhaps it would be good once again to consider the following words from Pope Pius XII’s encyclical letter on the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus in order to contrast the spirit of hatred that motivates the leaders of this passing world with the tender mercies of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, Who was made manifest to the Gentile Kings on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, that is still observed as octave in those chapels that adhere to the General Roman Calendar of 1954.

Pope Pius XII emphasized that devotion to the Most Sacred Heart is not “burdensome” and is at the heart of fighting for Christ the King and His rights in the midst of a world that is cold and hostile to Him:

8. The Church has always valued, and still does, the devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus so highly that she provides for the spread of it among Christian peoples everywhere and by every means. At the same time she uses every effort to protect it against the charges of so-called “naturalism” and “sentimentalism.” In spite of this it is much to be regretted that, both in the past and in our own times, this most noble devotion does not find a place of honor and esteem among certain Christians and even occasionally not among those who profess themselves moved by zeal for the Catholic religion and the attainment of holiness.

9. “If you but knew the gift of God.”[7] With these words, venerable brethren, We who in the secret designs of God have been elected as the guardians and stewards of the sacred treasures of faith and piety which the divine Redeemer has entrusted to His Church, prompted by Our sense of duty, admonish them all.

10. For even though the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus has triumphed so to speak, over the errors and the neglect of men, and has penetrated entirely His Mystical Body; still there are some of Our children who, led astray by prejudices, sometimes go so far as to consider this devotion ill-adapted, not to say detrimental, to the more pressing spiritual needs of the Church and humanity in this present age. There are some who, confusing and confounding the primary nature of this devotion with various individual forms of piety which the Church approves and encourages but does not command, regard this as a kind of additional practice which each one may take up or not according to his own inclination.

11. There are others who reckon this same devotion burdensome and of little or no use to men who are fighting in the army of the divine King and who are inspired mainly by the thought of laboring with their own strength, their own resources and expenditures of their own time, to defend Catholic truth, to teach and spread it, to instill Christian social teachings, to promote those acts of religion and those undertakings which they consider much more necessary today. (Pope Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas, May 15, 1956.)

A Brief Comment:

Paragraph 11, above, summarizes the beliefs of so many Catholics who permit themselves to be drawn into the agitation of the conflicts between the false opposites of the naturalist “left” and “right” that are simply manifestations of the anti-Incarnational Judeo-Masonic spirit of Modernity and can never be in the service of promoting a genuine social order.

Pope Pius XII went on to explain the attitude of those who consider devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus to be suited only for women and not for “educated men” even though it is a strong antidote to the sophistries of Modernity:

12. Again, there are those who so far from considering this devotion a strong support for the right ordering and renewal of Christian morals both in the individual’s private life and in the home circle, see it rather a type of piety nourished not by the soul and mind but by the senses and consequently more suited to the use of women, since it seems to them something not quite suitable for educated men.

13. Moreover there are those who consider a devotion of this kind as primarily demanding penance, expiation and the other virtues which they call “passive,” meaning thereby that they produce no external results. Hence they do not think it suitable to re-enkindle the spirit of piety in modern times. Rather, this should aim at open and vigorous action, at the triumph of the Catholic faith, at a strong defense of Christian morals. Christian morality today, as everyone knows, is easily contaminated by the sophistries of those who are indifferent to any form of religion, and who, discarding all distinctions between truth and falsehood, whether in thought or in practice, accept even the most ignoble corruptions of materialistic atheism, or as they call it, secularism.

14. Who does not see, venerable brethren, that opinions of this kind are in entire disagreement with the teachings which Our predecessors officially proclaimed from this seat of truth when approving the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.? Who would be so bold as to call that devotion useless and inappropriate to our age which Our predecessor of immortal memory, Leo XIII, declared to be “the most acceptable form of piety?” He had no doubt that in it there was a powerful remedy for the healing of those very evils which today also, and beyond question in a wider and more serious way, bring distress and disquiet to individuals and to the whole human race. “This devotion,” he said, “which We recommend to all, will be profitable to all.” And he added this counsel and encouragement with reference to the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: “. . .hence those forces of evil which have now for so long a time been taking root and which so fiercely compel us to seek help from Him by Whose strength alone they can be driven away. Who can He be but Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God? ‘For there is no other name under heaven given to men whereby we must be saved.’[8] We must have recourse to Him Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”[9]

15. No less to be approved, no less suitable for the fostering of Christian piety was this devotion declared to be by Our predecessor of happy memory, Pius XI. In an encyclical letter he wrote: “Is not a summary of all our religion and, moreover, a guide to a more perfect life contained in this one devotion? Indeed, it more easily leads our minds to know Christ the Lord intimately and more effectively turns our hearts to love Him more ardently and to imitate Him more perfectly.”[10]

16. To Us, no less than to Our predecessors, these capital truths are clear and certain. When We took up Our office of Supreme Pontiff and saw, in full accord with Our prayers and desires, that the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus had increased and was actually, so to speak, making triumphal progress among Christian peoples, We rejoiced that from it were flowing through the whole Church innumerable and salutary results. This We were pleased to point out in Our first encyclical letter.[11]

17. Through the years of Our pontificate — years filled not only with bitter hardships but also with ineffable consolations these effects have not diminished in number or power or beauty, but on the contrary have increased. Indeed, happily there has begun a variety of projects which are conducive to a rekindling of this devotion. We refer to the formation of cultural associations for the advancement of religion and of charitable works; publications setting forth the true historical, ascetical and mystical doctrine concerning this entire subject; pious works of atonement; and in particular those manifestations of most ardent piety which the Apostleship of Prayer has brought about, under whose auspices and direction local gatherings — families, colleges, institutions — and sometimes nations have been consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. To all these We have offered paternal congratulations on many occasions, whether in letters written on the subject, in personal addresses, or even in messages delivered over the radio.[12]

18. Therefore when We perceive so fruitful an abundance of healing waters, that is, heavenly gifts of divine love, issuing from the Sacred Heart of our Redeemer, spreading among countless children of the Catholic Church by the inspiration and action of the divine Spirit; We can only exhort you, venerable brethren, with fatherly affection to join Us in giving tribute of praise and heartfelt thanks to God, the Giver of all good gifts. We make Our own these words of the Apostle of the Gentiles: “Now to Him Who is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand, according to the power that worketh in us, to Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations world without end. Amen.”[13]

19. But after We have paid Our debt of thanks to the Eternal God, We wish to urge on you and on all Our beloved children of the Church a more earnest consideration of those principles which take their origin from Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers and theologians and on which, as on solid foundations, the worship of the Sacred Heart of Jesus rests. We are absolutely convinced that not until we have made a profound study of the primary and loftier nature of this devotion with the aid of the light of the divinely revealed truth, can we rightly and fully appreciate its incomparable excellence and the inexhaustible abundance of its heavenly favors. Likewise by devout meditation and contemplation of the innumerable benefits produced from it, we will be able to celebrate worthily the completion of the first hundred years since the observance of the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus was extended to the Universal Church. (Pope Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas, May 15, 1956.)

Our last true Holy Father thus far explained the spirit of the hatred of God that was at work in the world sixty-six years ago and can be said to be at the foundation of modern politics as nihilists of the “left” and the “right” eschew the life-giving waters of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the truths of the Holy Faith that can and do lift the minds and hearts of men to the things that eternal, in the light of which all things earthy must be judged:

117. And there is more. For if We experience bitter sorrow at the feeble loyalty of the good in whose souls, tricked by a deceptive desire for earthly possessions, the fire of divine charity grows cool and gradually dies out, much more is Our heart deeply grieved by the machinations of evil men who, as if instigated by Satan himself, are now more than ever zealous in their open and implacable hatred against God, against the Church and above all against him who on earth represents the Person of the divine Redeemer and exhibits His love towards men, in accordance with that well-known saying of the Doctor of Milan: “For (Peter) is being questioned about that which is uncertain, though the Lord is not uncertain; He is questioning not that He may learn, but that He may teach the one whom, at His ascent into Heaven, He was leaving to us as ‘the representative of His love.'”[116]

118. But, in truth, hatred of God and of those who lawfully act in His place is the greatest kind of sin that can be committed by man created in the image and likeness of God and destined to enjoy His perfect and enduring friendship for ever in heaven. Man, by hatred of God more than by anything else, is cut off from the Highest Good and is driven to cast aside from himself and from those near to him whatever has its origin in God, whatever is united with God, whatever leads to the enjoyment of God, that is, truth, virtue, peace and justice.[117]

119. Since then, alas, one can see that the number of those whose boast is that they are God’s enemies is in some places increasing, that the false slogans of materialism are being spread by act and argument, and unbridled license for unlawful desires is everywhere being praised, is it remarkable that love, which is the supreme law of the Christian religion, the surest foundation of true and perfect justice and the chief source of peace and innocent pleasures, loses its warmth in the souls of many? For as our Savior warned us: “Because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold.”[118]

120. When so many evils meet Our gaze — such as cause sharp conflict among individuals, families, nations and the whole world, particularly today more than at any other time — where are We to seek a remedy, venerable brethren? Can a form of devotion surpassing that to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus be found, which corresponds better to the essential character of the Catholic faith, which is more capable of assisting the present-day needs of the Church and the human race? What religious practice is more excellent, more attractive, more salutary than this, since the devotion in question is entirely directed towards the love of God itself? [119] (Pope Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas, May 15, 1956.)

Pope Pius XII was referring to the false slogans of materialism being spread by Communists sixty-seven years ago, but we know only too well that Communist apologists, if not actual Communists, hold the levers of global power today, including here in the United States of America, where many “respected” opinion-makers believe that the time has come for a formal censorship of any speech that is opposed to “democracy,” meaning opposition to the statist/globalist program for the New World Order. The charity of men hath indeed grown cold because of men’s hatred of God, and it is an easy thing to hate His rational creatures if one hates the very Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Hence the reason for so much violent crime today and its indemnification by prosecutors who care not for the protection of innocent life but do everything imaginable to defend and excuse the guilty so that they can kill and maraud again and again.

Linking devotion to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus with devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pope Pius XII explained that a rekindling of a love for God in the hearts of men would lead to the reconstruction of a just social order on the right principles of the true Faith:

123. Finally, moved by an earnest desire to set strong bulwarks against the wicked designs of those who hate God and the Church and, at the same time, to lead men back again, in their private and public life, to a love of God and their neighbor, We do not hesitate to declare that devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the most effective school of the love of God; the love of God, We say, which must be the foundation on which to build the kingdom of God in the hearts of individuals, families, and nations, as that same predecessor of pious memory wisely reminds us: “The reign of Jesus Christ takes its strength and form from divine love: to love with holiness and order is its foundation and its perfection. From it these must flow: to perform duties without blame; to take away nothing of another’s right; to guide the lower human affairs by heavenly principles; to give the love of God precedence over all other creatures.”[124]

124. In order that favors in greater abundance may flow on all Christians, nay, on the whole human race, from the devotion to the most Sacred Heart of Jesus, let the faithful see to it that to this devotion the Immaculate Heart of the Mother of God is closely joined. For, by God’s Will, in carrying out the work of human Redemption the Blessed Virgin Mary was inseparably linked with Christ in such a manner that our salvation sprang from the love and the sufferings of Jesus Christ to which the love and sorrows of His Mother were intimately united. It is, then, entirely fitting that the Christian people — who received the divine life from Christ through Mary — after they have paid their debt of honor to the Sacred Heart of Jesus should also offer to the most loving Heart of their heavenly Mother the corresponding acts of piety affection, gratitude and expiation. Entirely in keeping with this most sweet and wise disposition of divine Providence is the memorable act of consecration by which We Ourselves solemnly dedicated Holy Church and the whole world to the spotless Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[125] (Pope Pius XII, Haurietis Aquas, May 15, 1956.)

No, it is only by adherence to our Catholic Faith as we prostrate ourselves before Our Eucharistic King and pledge ourselves to Him through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary to His own Most Sacred Heart that we can find a remedy in the souls of individual men to help them overcome the conflicts and agitations of the moment and thus rise to the heights of personal sanctity.

This world in which we live is passing away. The triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will be made manifest ‘ere long. We must be focused on the sanctification and salvation of our own immortal souls as we keep our First Friday devotions with fervor and pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary every day, including on each First Saturday for the intentions specified by the Mother of God in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, and to Sister Lucia dos Santos in Tuy, Spain.

Why do we fear anything that happens to us?

No, we must not fear the caesars of the moment, and we must not fear the lords of Modernism in the counterfeit church of conciliarism who do not believe that it is opportune to spit and revile the images of false religions, each of which they praise as worthy in and of themselves because to do otherwise would be to offend he sensibilities of their adherents, and who have embraced the statism of their counterparts in the world of Modernity with exceptional enthusiasm and zeal (see Not Exactly from the Excommunication Scene in Becket, Jorge "Claps Back" at Salvatore Cordileone and Stands Up for Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi and Her Pro-Abort Ilk, Georgie "The Chin" Bergoglio Strikes Again on Behalf of the Pro-Aborts, Bergoglio the Red Surrenders Faithful Catholics to Their Persecutors, Neville Bergoglio's Appeasement of the Chicom Monsters, Doubly Betrayed by Jorge and His False Church, Red China’s Burgeoning Hegemony Over the West and the Conciliar Vatican, Jorge Mario Bergoglio Would Have Urged Catholics to "Dialogue" with Diocletian, part one, Jorge Mario Bergoglio Would Have Urged Catholics to "Dialogue" with Diocletian, part two, Jorge Mario Bergoglio Would Have Urged Catholics to "Dialogue" With Diocletian, part three, Jorge Mario Bergoglio Would Have Urged Catholics to "Dialogue" with Diocletian, part four, and Believing Catholics Pose No Threat to a Just Social Order).

Indeed, we have nothing to fear at all save dying in a state of Mortal Sin, a state of final impenitence.

It is enough for us, however, to think first, last and always about eternity, accepting whatever kind of suffering God has ordained for us with love, joy, serenity and total gratitude to Him for His generous in helping us erring sinners to make reparation for our sins and thus better save our souls despite our own best efforts, mine included, to go to Hell for all eternity. May it please Christ the King to permit us to suffer the loss of our very lives for Him and for His Holy Church. We must have no fear. We must live in peace in these times that God has chosen for us to live and in which we must serve Him as His consecrated slaves through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother.

Devotion to Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary will help us to be better prepared for eternity and to bear with the crosses of the present time.

Yes, my friends, it is the Rosary that is, after Holy Mass and Eucharistic piety, the chief means by which the evils of the present day will be retarded, and the seeds planted for the Triumph of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Pope Leo XIII, writing in Laetitiae Sanctae, September 8, 1893, noted:

The third evil for which a remedy is needed is one which is chiefly characteristic of the times in which we live. Men in former ages, although they loved the world, and loved it far too well, did not usually aggravate their sinful attachment to the things of earth by a contempt of the things of heaven. Even the right-thinking portion of the pagan world recognized that this life was not a home but a dwelling-place, not our destination, but a stage in the journey. But men of our day, albeit they have had the advantages of Christian instruction, pursue the false goods of this world in such wise that the thought of their true Fatherland of enduring happiness is not only set aside, but, to their shame be it said, banished and entirely erased from their memory, notwithstanding the warning of St. Paul, "We have not here a lasting city, but we seek one which is to come" (Heb. xiii., 4).

When We seek out the causes of this forgetfulness, We are met in the first place by the fact that many allow themselves to believe that the thought of a future life goes in some way to sap the love of our country, and thus militates against the prosperity of the commonwealth. No illusion could be more foolish or hateful. Our future hope is not of a kind which so monopolizes the minds of men as to withdraw their attention from the interests of this life. Christ commands us, it is true, to seek the Kingdom of God, and in the first place, but not in such a manner as to neglect all things else. For, the use of the goods of the present life, and the righteous enjoyment which they furnish, may serve both to strengthen virtue and to reward it. The splendor and beauty of our earthly habitation, by which human society is ennobled, may mirror the splendor and beauty of our dwelling which is above. Therein we see nothing that is not worthy of the reason of man and of the wisdom of God. For the same God who is the Author of Nature is the Author of Grace, and He willed not that one should collide or conflict with the other, but that they should act in friendly alliance, so that under the leadership of both we may the more easily arrive at that immortal happiness for which we mortal men were created.

But men of carnal mind, who love nothing but themselves, allow their thoughts to grovel upon things of earth until they are unable to lift them to that which is higher. For, far from using the goods of time as a help towards securing those which are eternal, they lose sight altogether of the world which is to come, and sink to the lowest depths of degradation. We may doubt if God could inflict upon man a more terrible punishment than to allow him to waste his whole life in the pursuit of earthly pleasures, and in forgetfulness of the happiness which alone lasts for ever.

It is from this danger that they will be happily rescued, who, in the pious practice of the Rosary, are wont, by frequent and fervent prayer, to keep before their minds the glorious mysteries. These mysteries are the means by which in the soul of a Christian a most clear light is shed upon the good things, hidden to sense, but visible to faith, "which God has prepared for those who love Him." From them we learn that death is not an annihilation which ends all things, but merely a migration and passage from life to life. By them we are taught that the path to Heaven lies open to all men, and as we behold Christ ascending thither, we recall the sweet words of His promise, "I go to prepare a place for you." By them we are reminded that a time will come when "God will wipe away every tear from our eyes," and that "neither mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow, shall be any more," and that "We shall be always with the Lord," and "like to the Lord, for we shall see Him as He is," and "drink of the torrent of His delight," as "fellow-citizens of the saints," in the blessed companionship of our glorious Queen and Mother. Dwelling upon such a prospect, our hearts are kindled with desire, and we exclaim, in the words of a great saint, "How vile grows the earth when I look up to heaven!" Then, too, shall we feel the solace of the assurance "that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor. iv., 17).

Here alone we discover the true relation between time and eternity, between our life on earth and our life in heaven; and it is thus alone that are formed strong and noble characters. When such characters can be counted in large numbers, the dignity and well-being of society are assured. All that is beautiful, good, and true will flourish in the measure of its conformity to Him who is of all beauty, goodness, and truth the first Principle and the Eternal Source. (Pope Leo XIII, Laetitiae Sanctae, September 8, 1893.)

I will never tire of reminding the readers of this site that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order.

I will never tire of opposing the lies of naturalism and of documenting the various ways in which the naturalists of the false opposites of the "right" and of the "left" agree on the same basic anti-Incarnational and semi-Pelagian principles upon which the Modern state is based and with which conciliar revolutionaries have made their "official reconciliation" and even help to propagate by means of the "new evangelization."

And I will never tire of reminding readers of this site that we must, as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, use the shield of the Brown Scapular and the weapon of the Most Holy Rosary to combat the forces of the world, the flesh and the devil in our own lives so that we might be able to plant a few seeds for the glorious day when all men and all women everywhere will exclaim:

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

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