Wars and Rumors of Wars, part three

Although I had not intended to write any more about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a recent statement by the patriarch of the heretical and schismatic Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, in full support of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing devastation and carnage taking place there, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s recent claim that “war is madness,” I think it advisable to write on this terrible subject again, stipulating that this is a terrible chastisement for us that is serving the ends of globalist nogoodniks very well.

The principal point that I have tried to make in Wars and Rumors of Rumors, parts one and two, is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine, whose leaders since 2014 have sought to curry favor with Western globalists and moral anarchists (see Ukraine’s Leaders Conspired With Democrats Against Trump to Prevent the Kind of War Happening Now Under Biden. The Bet Backfired Badly) who tried to sabotage Donald John Trump’s campaign in 2016 and did manage to sabotage his presidency and re-election in 2020, is unjustifiable from the standpoint of the Just War Theory.

1. There was no immediate threat to Russia of an imminent invasion by Ukrainian military forces.
2. Whatever military action Ukraine took within its own borders to retake the Donbas did not of its own pose a sufficient reason for a wholesale invasion of Ukraine by the forces of the Russian Federation and its mercenary associates (the Chechens, Syrians, et al.).
3. The level of force being used by the Russians is completely unjustifiable. No one has to support Volodymyr Zelensky, who is a show boater par excellence, to recognize that the deliberate, intentional killing of Ukrainian citizens is not justifiable. Indeed, such killing—and the massive destruction of cities and the country’s infrastructure—has not a matter of Ukrainian disinformation. While there has been such disinformation on both sides, to be sure, any Catholic whose heart is not filled with sorrow over the bombings of civilian residences, the ruthless killing of innocent children, the slaughter of whole families by remorseless Russian soldiers, and the displacement of over 2.5 million Ukrainian nations is not thinking clearly.
4. Ukrainian political officials and elite, to be sure, have sold their souls to the globalists in the Deep State of the Federal government in the United Stats of America, the European Union, the World Economic Forum, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and other such entities (see Ukraine, It Was All Written in the Rand Corp Plan). Doing so made gave Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin every excuse imaginable to launch his invasion of Ukraine as his real desire to subsume it into the Russian Federation or, at the very least, to partition in in a manner that would create something approximating a new “iron curtain” inside of Ukraine by keeping the disputed eastern sections of the country and making sure that a “friendly” regime is installed in Kyiv.

To wit, consider these qualifications under the Just War Theory that I have discussed many times on this site but have been summarized very succinctly on a Thomistic website:

• D. Qualifying Conditions – from the justification of self-defense and the theory of double-effect.
  1. Cannot intend intrinsically evil actions: Combatants must respect non-combatants.
     a. Combatants who cease to be such.
     i. Surrendering.
     ii. Wounded.
     b. A nation can never justly target civilians.
     i. Civilian casualties, while foreseeable, cannot be intended.
     ii. Measures must be taken to minimize civilian casualties.
  2. The violence inherent in war is the tolerated evil secondary effect, never directly intended; the primary good effect of peace must be directly intended.
  3. Proportionality: the good to be achieved outweighs the evil of war.
     a. One cannot war justly over a slight cause.
     (i. War is a last resort.)
     (ii. There must be a reasonable hope of success; one cannot engage in justified, but hopeless actions.)
     b. One may only use the minimal force necessary to achieve just ends. (Just War – Thomistic Philosophy Page.)

Anyone thinks that Vladimir Putin (a) cares about these principles or (b) has ordered his forces to observe them during the Russian Federation’s invasion of Ukraine is living in an alternative universe. Catholics have to stop living in imaginary worlds in which they place their own Catholic thoughts into the skulls of people who are not Catholics, do not think as Catholics, and who care nothing for the thought of their eternal salvation. Vladimir Putin is a killer who came to power in what amounted to coup (War brought Vladimir Putin to power in 1999) as the drunken snot Boris Yeltsin, the first President of the Russian Federation about the collapse of the Union of Socialist Republics on December 25, 1991, had run the Russian economy into the ground.

An article in The American Conservative made reference to the 1999 coup that brought Vladimir Putin to power in a discussion of the possible outcomes of the current Russian invasion of Ukraine:

In the opening days of Iraq War 2.0, a wiser not-yet-General David Petraeus famously asked, “Tell me how this ends.” Petraeus understood that how wars end is more important than why they started. So how does the current war in Ukraine end?

Now Petraeus, for his part, has said with a straight face about the Russians, “Everyone in the entire country [Ukraine] hates them and most of the adults are willing to take action against them, whether it’s to take up weapons or to be human shields.” While accurately describing the roots of his own failure in Iraq, Petraeus misses the point. America’s goal was to create a neocon version of democracy in the Middle East. Putin seeks something much simpler: a buffer territory between him and NATO. He does not care about hearts and minds. He only has to break things.

Propaganda riven with sympathy for the plucky defenders has dominated the early days of the Ukraine war. This purposefully created a false sense of Russian setbacks and a misunderstanding of Russian strategy. The Russians are executing a standard mechanized warfare maneuver in line with their goals, attacking south from Belarus to link up with forces attacking northward from Crimea. When they link up south of Kiev, Ukraine will be split into two. Kiev may be bypassed, or it may be destroyed, but that is secondary to the larger strategic maneuver. Another Russian thrust from east to west seeks to cut the nation into quarters so Ukrainian forces cannot reinforce one another.

Forget all the silliness about the Russians running out of gas; their supply lines are short (many Russian forces are within 70 miles of their own border), protected, and over decent roads. This is what is happening on the ground and Ukrainian forces are in no position to do anything but delay it. Watching war through a smartphone from a peaceful country may help you believe the Russian assault is going poorly, but that is at odds with the facts.

So, here is how this all ends.

The Best Case for Everyone is the Russians, perhaps under the guise of some humanitarian gesture, withdraw to the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine and some strategic points, things like bridges and airports. Ukraine is essentially divided into two semi-states, the western half nominally under Ukrainian control and the eastern half a Russian zone with a new Iron Curtain in place.

Putin settles back into his easy chair. His brush back pitch to the West dealt out a serious spanking, he holds some new territory as a prize, he can announce victory at home, and his now-bloodied troops are better positioned if he needs to ever push west again. NATO, meanwhile, can also claim some measure of victory, validating all the propaganda about the valiant Ukrainian people. The status quo of Europe resets and oil and gas keep flowing westward.

Putin made this strategy clear in his asks for a ceasefire: that Ukraine accept demilitarization, declare itself neutral, and drop its bid to join NATO. He does not really want the cities, and he does not want to occupy a hostile population. That is why he agreed to safe corridors westward for refugees and why he has held back sustained shelling and rocketing of Kiev, for now. Depopulation aids Putin in neutering eastern Ukraine and avoids later ethnic conflict between Ukrainian nationalists and the local Russian population.

The Next Best Case is NATO makes a secret agreement to keep Ukraine out of the alliance in return for Putin withdrawing in whole or in part (see above). This is very tricky diplomacy, as it cannot appear NATO appeased Putin and it cannot seem in the eyes of the world that Putin “lost.” The Russians would be very tempted to leak the secret agreement to show they had achieved their goal, and the resulting denials from NATO would seem shallow. This scenario is also unlikely, as it requires Russia to trade land for a promise from the West. Putin knows nothing short of a NATO strike can dislodge him from eastern Ukraine and thus has no incentive to leave.

A Very Bad Case would be a decision by Putin to occupy or destroy Ukraine, install a puppet government, and roll his army right to the Polish border as if it were 1975 all over again. Putin certainly is holding this out as a threat if Zelensky ignores Western pleas to cut a deal. Russian troops are positioning to assault the cities. Ask the people of Aleppo and Grozny if they think Putin would turn them loose.

The idea may prove tempting to Putin. He can claim full victory, be done forever with the Ukrainian problem, leave NATO looking emasculated, strike fear into the other former satellites, and leave Joe Biden out of a job in his self-proclaimed role as leader of the free world. Biden has overplayed his hand, not recognizing there is almost nothing he can do to affect the situation on the ground. Sanctions did not stop Putin from invading (Georgia, Crimea, Ukraine…) and sanctions are unlikely to cause Putin to retreat. Russia is now the world’s most sanctioned country, besting even North Korea and Iran.

While Biden talks tough, the U.S. oil self-ban affects only about 1 percent of Russian energy exports. Britain said it would only begin a multi-year phase-out of Russian oil by the end of the year. The E.U. will not sanction Russian energy at all. The famed alliance is split. The U.S. may make up the oil shortage by buying Venezuelan, Iranian, and Saudi oil. Remember when those were all their own foreign policy crises?

But the biggest problem for Biden is history (and voters) remembering him as the president who watched the rebuilding of the Iron Curtain. Unlike Obama’s cool reaction to Putin invading Crimea in 2014, Biden has vowed to “save” Ukraine as if he was fighting Corn Pop again.

By claiming in his State of the Union address that Putin had “shaken the very foundations of the free world,” Biden created the impression he is going to put a stop to something of that scale. Such predictions carry an incredible political risk, especially for a commander-in-chief who also promised a weary America it is not going to war. As NBC’s Chuck Todd put it, “I fear this is going to feel like a speech that didn’t age well.” Following the sad, embarrassing finale in Afghanistan, any ending in Ukraine that looks like a Putin win pretty much ends the effective portion of the Biden presidency.

That leaves only to consider The Horrible Case, where someone in NATO tries for a no-fly, or sets up a refugee protected zone, as was done in the former Yugoslavia. Zelensky knows partisans with rifles are only going to get him so far. He needs direct Western military intervention to survive. And a non-partisan 74 percent of Americans say NATO should impose a no-fly zone in Ukraine.

Consider the tinder in place, in addition to any simple false flag attacks Zelensky or other Ukrainian nationalists engineer out of desperation. CIA and U.S. Special Forces are likely on the ground already in Ukraine, parsing intel and advising. U.S. spy planes and drones are overhead. Imagine an incident where an American is taken prisoner by the Russians. Or maybe a border incident, real or imagined, with Poland to force NATO into the fight? Or a U.N. demand for some peacekeeping force to stop Putin’s war crimes. Maybe a “one-time surgical strike” for humanitarian reasons on a Russian column threatening another hospital?

Not actually on the menu is another Afghanistan-like (U.S. or Soviet version) insurgency. What Putin is doing is an old school war to grab territory, not changing allegiances among the Taliban. This time his supply routes are short, his troops fighting the modern battle they trained for, albeit outside Kiev and not in the Fulda Gap. Unlike Afghanistan, Ukraine has cities dependent on modern infrastructure, and cities are easily encircled, starved out, or just leveled.

Also not going to happen is some sort of regime change inside Russia. Putin has been in charge for 22 years and controls the media, the military, and the intelligence services. Those were the people who brought Putin to power in Russia’s last coup. There is no means to the end the West wishes for, and no clear evidence the people of Russia want such an outcome in the first place. After all, a million pink hats in Washington accomplished…very little. A few protests scattered across the vastness of Russia are exaggerated for a Western audience. And what could make life more interesting than one of the world’s largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons having no one firmly in charge?

Anything can happen, but Putin “losing” in Ukraine seems among the most unlikely of scenarios. (Tell Me How Ukraine Ends. Patrick Joseph Buchanan had a similar analysis in: Is There a Peace Deal Putin and Zelensky Can Accept?.)

The Russian military are as ruthless as Putin himself, and not even the presence of American-funded biological weapons facilities in Ukraine (Russia itself has plenty of such facilities), which admittedly should not be there and is but another example of how members of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” have used their own time in power in this country to exploit Ukraine’s hubristic leaders to goad their Russian neighbor over and over again (see This Deep State Veteran's Answer On Alleged Biolabs In Ukraine Is Cause For Concern and The Pentagon is lying about bio labs in Ukraine), is any kind of justification for the deliberate targeting of civilians and the sort of destruction that is taking place there. There are no “good guys” in this tragedy, only the innocent civilians of Ukraine, including the over 2.5 million of which who been exiled, much to the delight of the globalists who are trying to put pressure on both Poland and Hungry to “reform” according to globalist diktats or face possible coups in their own country (see Conservative EU countries facing pressure to turn woke).

Even though the discredited predictions of the QAnon idiocy, which had more than a few readers of this website convinced that Donald John Trump had a “master plan” to expose evil cabals in the world (yes, Donald Trump who was completely ignorant of the structure and complexity of the Executive Office of the President, who did not use any kind of foresight whatsoever in picking his Cabinet members, who was offended at the slightest criticism, who bought into the vaccination agenda and gave Anthony Fauci unlimited powers, and who is to this day still promoting the sodomite agenda--Trump Takes a Break from Everything Else to Share His Thoughts on ... 'Y.M.C.A.'—had “master plan” when he couldn’t even manage a master plan to run a competent campaign for re-election in 2020), has receded, there are “successor” theorists out there in cyberspace who, very sadly, have many Catholics convinced that Vladimir Putin, a mass murderer, is going to take down the New World Order and has invaded Ukraine to take out those biolabs mentioned just above.

Anyone who believes these conspiracies is to be pitied as they are projecting into the minds of their naturalist “heroes” thoughts and motives that they simply do not possess. How many times must I remind the readers of this site of this simple truth: Put Not Your Trust in Princes: In the Children of Men in Who There is No Salvation? Catholics should be admonished for wasting their good Catholic time on fantasies that have no basis in reality whatsoever. One has nothing to learn from such fantasies, which were wrong last year and are wrong this year and will be wrong next year and the year after that. This is Lent. Give up any fascination with those who claim to have “inside” information about what is “really” happening in the world. Abstain from an addiction to that which is false and cannot advance one’s salvation in the slightest as it is not focused on seeing all things exclusively through the eyes of the true Faith.

Russia’s entire invasion of Ukraine is yet another example of diabolical “false opposites” clashing with one another to distract the masses. Neither side stands for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King, which means we have no business “rooting” for either side, especially as Vladimir Putin’s mouthpieces continue to push the slogan that was used to round up hundreds upon hundreds of Catholic bishops and priests behind the Iron Curtain after World War II: denazification:

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations defended Moscow’s deadly war in Ukraine Tuesday and said it would only stop the violence once its "special military operations are achieved."

Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia echoed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification for illegally invading Ukraine nearly three weeks ago and claimed its neighbor to the south poses a threat to Moscow.  

"A negotiated cease-fire…will take place when conditions that were put forward by Russia will be implemented," Nebenzia told reporters. "Conditions are demilitarization of Ukraine, densification of Ukraine. No threat which comes from the territory to Russia. No joining NATO."

The Russian ambassador’s comments come as Russian forces continue to pummel the Ukrainian countryside and advance on the capital city of Kyiv.

Defense officials have repeatedly warned that Russia is attempting to encircle Kyiv to overthrow the democratically elected government and implement a "puppet regime."

Nebenzia condemned a draft resolution announced by France and Mexico Monday that would provide humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

Leaders from both nations said they will introduce the resolution to the United Nations General Assembly and sidestep the U.N. Security Council – a move that would elude Russia’s veto power.

It is unclear what will be included in the France-Mexico resolution, but it is expected to meet the 50% threshold needed to pass through the General Assembly.

Russia is expected to vote against the resolution, particularly if there is any language that condemns the deadly incursion into Ukraine following its rejection of a non-binding General Assembly resolution earlier this month that demanded Putin withdraw all forces. 

Nebenzia said Russia will introduce its own "humanitarian" resolution in the U.N. Security Council.

"We'll see whether the Security Council can or cannot fulfill its mission to adopt a resolution which will be one on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine," he told reporters Tuesday. 

The Russian ambassador said the resolution will include "clear humanitarian provision, like already negotiated cease-fire … respect to international humanitarian and human rights law, condemnation of attacks against civilians and civilian objects, safe and unhindered passage."

Nebenzia did not respond to questions by Fox News regarding war crimes committed by Russia. (Russia ambassador to UN says war in Ukraine will only stop once its 'special military operations are achieved.)

Although I have dealt with the denazification line before, I am going to do so again as it is beyond belief that any Catholic would fall for this slogan that has been used to arrest and imprison the likes of Aloysius Cardinal Stepinac, Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, and Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski in the past. A writer named Paul Kengor put the lie being used by Putin and his stooges in its proper historical perspective:

Among the most shocking claims by Vladimir Putin in justifying his Ukraine invasion is his assertion that he’s seeking a “de-Nazification of Ukraine.” His surreal assertion has angered and bewildered observers worldwide, with everyone knowing it has utterly no basis. Where in the world would Putin have come up with that whopper?

Two words: KGB and disinformation.

The answer is easy if you know the history and background of Putin. He was trained in the Soviet KGB, which long ago mastered the crass art of dezinformatsiya (disinformation) and agitprop — agitation and propaganda. In fact, this tactic long precedes the KGB. The Kremlin and Soviet Communist Party have done this since the 1930s, when Hitler first came to power. In turn, here in the United States, Communist Party USA did it as well. One of the reasons they’ve done it is that they’ve long known that the wider liberal left is easy prey to pick up these charges, seize them, push them, and help smear the accused.

I could demonstrate this at great length. Anyone who has read my books has seen it repeatedly. It has long been standard operating procedure for these propagandists. I’ll give just a few examples that happen to be at my fingertips because of past or current books I’m working on. First, an example from the Ukraine and wider Europe, and then an example from America.

In the Ukraine and Eastern Europe, the Soviets smeared every Catholic cardinal and bishop who resisted them as “Nazis,” “fascists,” and “Hitler sympathizers.” In the Ukraine, the victims included the likes of Bishop Vasyl Velychkovsky, Father Severian Baranyk, Father Zenobius Kovalyk, Cardinal Josyf Slipyj, Nicholas Charnetsky, Josyp Terelya, and many more. In Eastern Europe, it included high-profile clergy like Cardinal Josef Mindszenty in Hungary, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski in Poland, Cardinal Stepan Trochta and Cardinal Josef Beran in Czechoslovakia, Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac in Yugoslavia, and on and on. As high up as the Chair of St. Peter at the Vatican, it included popes from Pius XII to even John Paul II, who suffered under Nazi occupation in Poland and saw his beloved Jewish friends rounded up and murdered.

Among these vicious character assassinations, the Pope Pius XII smear worked magnificently. It was started by Stalin and the Kremlin with a June 3, 1945, Radio Moscow broadcast labeling Pius “Hitler’s Pope.” Communists everywhere, right on cue, grabbed the label and peddled it worldwide. Eventually, as these labels almost always do, it was picked up by liberals in the West, many of whom never knew the original misbegotten source of the smear. To this day, and probably forever, Pope Pius XII, who should be recognized as a saint, is instead known as “Hitler’s Pope.” The late pontiff will probably never shake this slander, given that far too many liberals have accepted it in shameless ignorance. It’s permanent.

Is this not ridiculous? Unjust? Terrible? Sure, but communists learned that it doesn’t matter how wild and reckless the smear is. They would wield it regardless, knowing that eventually it would get picked up.

As for America, consider as merely one example (again, at my fingertips) the experience and testimony of Bella Dodd. She was one of the leading ex-communists among American women in the 1950s and 1960s. She started working for the American Communist Party in the early 1930s and formally joined in 1943. When she was expelled, the Party labeled her a “fascist,” an “anti-Semite,” a “Nazi,” and more. Again, standard operating procedure. Dodd wasn’t surprised when this happened, because she had egregiously engaged in these vilifications herself when she was a communist.

Dodd explained in March 1953 U.S. Senate testimony how these smears worked, which is hauntingly similar to how progressives fling them today when looking to purge — or, in today’s parlance, cancel — people they disagree with or who stand in their way. She noted how communists not only called their enemies “Nazis” but also flung terms like “racist.”

“The Communists use the race situation in a very effective manner,” Dodd explained. “Since the Communists wants to create a sense of fear among people, and a sense of hatred, what they do is to indicate that the majority of the people are against them. They will say to the Puerto Ricans, ‘The white people are against you.’… They will say that to the Negro person…. In other words, they pit one racial group against another.” The communists divide. “They utilize this racial situation very effectively.”

They utilized it against Dodd. “For instance, when I was expelled,” Dodd told the Senate, “the expulsion read that I was anti-Negro, anti-Puerto Rican, anti-Semitic, anti-working class…. Suddenly I found myself smeared in the most violent kind of way.”

And in these slurs, communists could count on liberals to join in and pile on. “The Communist Party knew how to fight very effectively,” she recalled. “If anyone tried to attack the Communist movement, the Communist Party immediately went among the liberals, among its allies, and on various bases got the support and help of these people to smear and to isolate the person.” They would take the target and “build him up into a pro-fascist, anti-Negro, anti-Semitic, anti-this and that kind of personality…. Everything which the man has done is blown up so as to create of him a monster and a horror.”

From there, the misrepresentation and defamation would worm its way through the wider left-wing media and other progressives (from professors to Religious Left ministers), picked up by liberals inclined to favor the smear of the targeted person. “We had certain contacts with the newspaper world,” continued Dodd. “We would contact them and see to it that they would use the publicity to smear the person.”

And they would.

You think this stuff is new today? Not at all. The left has been doing this for a century.

So, Vladimir Putin knows what he’s doing. Will the smear work with Ukraine? It seems hard to imagine. After all, Putin’s big hurdle is that his adversary in the United States right now is a Democratic president. Democrats don’t like Putin, because they convinced themselves with their tin-foil-hat election conspiracy-mongering that he and his KGB pals sat in a smoke-filled room with Donald Trump and stole the 2016 election from their beloved Hillary. Thus, Putin is at a disadvantage this time peddling a smear that usually works with the progressive left.

Now, if Putin had called Donald Trump a Nazi, well, liberals would repeat that mantra through their media echo chamber. There would be no doubt about that one.

The irony in this is that the true Nazi behavior is entirely on Putin’s part. His justifications for invading Ukraine have been Hitlerian, as he pushes Big Lies about ethnic Russians being allegedly persecuted in this or that region of the Ukraine. Amazingly, he claimed they were being targeted for “genocide” by the Ukrainian government. This is exactly what the Fuhrer charged against countries like Czechoslovakia and Poland in the late 1930s.

In fact, when you saw the title of this article, you probably thought I was referring to just that. But no, the Hitler-like actions are being committed by a Russian authoritarian who simultaneously levels charges of “Nazi” behavior at the Ukraine and its (for the record) Jewish president, Zelensky. Go figure.

Will Putin’s “Nazi” charge stick? Eventually, yes, it probably will. It will take some time. It took the Pius XII charge decades, but it eventually stuck.

Do not be surprised. Putin won’t be. (Putin Plays the Nazi Card.)

Anyone who believes Putin’s propaganda is as foolish as anyone who believes in American propaganda about anything (the “safety” of vaccines, the “necessity” of various wars, the justifications for the displacement and slaughter of the American Indians, the Spanish-American War, World War I, the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, the Persian Gulf War, the Iraq War, and, among so many other matters, the use of raw terror in many of our wars, including the War between the States and World War II). This is not a “free country” as Big Tech works hand-in-glove with the administration of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., to censor critics, to monitor their communications and to deem them all as possible “insurrectionists” and purveyors of state-disapproved “disinformation.” Only the state, you see, can disseminate disinformation, and it does not make any difference if it comes from the Russian or the American state.

Vladimir Putin "doubled down," as they say today, in a stern address to the members of his government on Wednesday, March 16, 2022, by once again stating that he desired to "denazify" and "demilitarize" Ukraine, stating also that he wanted to "purify" or "detoxify" Russia those who opposed his "military action" and are thus aligned with Western interests in his mind. He said quite callously that he would "spit out" such people, many of of whom are already in prison because of their stance against the invasion of Ukraine by the military forces of the Russian Federation. Such talk of "purification" calls to mind the purges of Joseph Stalin, who remains a hero to many Russians because of what Putin referred to as the "Great Patriotic War" against the invasion of the Nazi forces with which Stalin was allied for nearly two years (August 24, 1939-June 22, 1941). Putin also addressed a rally on Thurdsay, March 17, 2022, reiterating his "denazification" line, and perhaps it should be noted that the rally was highlighted by a singer who sang a song entitled "Made in the U.S.S.R" that included a line with the following words: "Ukraine and Crimea, Belarus and Moldova, It's all my country" (see Putin appears at huge pro-war rally as Russian troops continue attack on Ukraine).

Furthermore, Vladimir Putin cannot stop the spread of sodomy worldwide by means of his invasion of Ukraine. One who wants to stop the spread of one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance should not be presiding over the wanton killing of innocent civilians by his troops in Ukraine nor be permiting the slaughter of the innocent preborn under cover of law in his own country. Willful murder is also one of the four sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance, and a man who has directed the Duma, the Russian Federation's national legislature, to pass laws making the criticism of the invasion of Ukraine that he ordered illegal could easily direct it to stop all surgical assassinations of the preborn at once. One should clean up one's own house before casting himself as a defender of morality, especially when one is notoriously unchaste in his own life and proud of it. 

The advance of moral evils will not be stopped militarily by the forces of the Russian Federation, and the embrace of those evils by Ukrainian leaders means that Ukraine will continue to suffer no matter the outcome of the war. The great French Monarch prophesied by many mystics will fight for the Christ the King. Vladimir Putin is fighting for Russian nationalism and his hatred of Ukraine and Ukrainians (see Russia state-run TV program advocates for public hangings in occupied Ukrainian cities).

It is Christ or chaos, good readers. Do not permit yourselves to get caught up in the emotions of the moment as those who fight not for Our King are fighting only for the adversary.

Patriarch Kirill, Putin’s Shill

This leads me to the principal focus of this brief commentary, namely, that the Russian Orthodox Church does not stand for the Social Reign of Christ the King as it stands for its subordination to the civil state, which its heretical hierarchs have done under czars and commissars and have done and continue to do during the era of Yeltsin, Putin, and the oligarchs.

As has been noted before on this site, the primacy of the civil state over the Church is one of the principal errors of Russia that originated with the heretical and schismatic Orthodox Church. Most of the patriarchs and bishops of this heretical religious body have served as shills for czars and commissars alike, and the current Russian Orthodox patriarch, Kirill, is serving his role as an absolute shill for the murderous thug named Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine that is taking such a devastating toll on its people and the infrastructure:

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, leader of Russia's dominant religious group, has sent his strongest signal yet justifying his country's invasion of Ukraine — describing the conflict as part of a struggle against sin and pressure from liberal foreigners to hold "gay parades" as the price of admission to their ranks.

Kirill, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, had already refrained from criticizing the Russian invasion – alienating many in the Ukrainian Orthodox churches who had previously stayed loyal to the Moscow patriarch during a schism in their country. Several of these former loyalists are now snubbing Kirill in their public prayers, with some demanding independence from the Moscow church even as their country's political independence is imperiled.

Kirill, in a sermon delivered March 6 before the start of Orthodox Lent, echoed Putin's unfounded claims that Ukraine was engaged in the "extermination" of Russian loyalists in Donbas, the breakaway eastern region of Ukraine held since 2014 by two Russian-backed separatist groups. Kirill focused virtually all of his talk about the war on Donbas — with no mention of Russia's widespread invasion and its bombardment of civilian targets.

Kirill on March 6 depicted the war in spiritual terms.

"We have entered into a struggle that has not a physical, but a metaphysical significance," he said.

He contended that some of the Donbas separatists were suffering for their "fundamental rejection of the so-called values that are offered today by those who claim world power."

He claimed that this unnamed world power is posing a "test for the loyalty" of countries by demanding they hold gay pride parades to join a global club of nations with its own ideas of freedom and "excess consumption."

But many Orthodox Christians in Ukraine have been appalled by Kirill's stance on the Ukraine war. The Moscow patriarch has for centuries claimed the ultimate loyalty of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, even though the latter retained ample autonomy. And many priests, monks and faithful had remained loyal to Kirill even with the formation of a more nationalist, Kyiv-based Orthodox Church of Ukraine, in 2018 and 2019.

The war is shattering that loyalty for some, however.

Numerous bishops in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church have authorized their priests not to commemorate Patriarch Kirill in their prayers during public worship services — a symbolically important statement in Orthodox tradition, which puts a premium on the faithful being in communion with their divinely ordained hierarchy.

Since the war began, as many as 15 dioceses of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine had authorized the omission of the patriarch's name, according to the Union of Orthodox Journalists, a news site with generally positive news about the Moscow-leaning church.

Fr. Mykola Danilevich, who has served as a spokesman for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, confirmed on his Telegram account that "many of our priests have stopped commemorating the Moscow Patriarch for worship services."

"And the reason is obvious," Danilech wrote March 1, before Kirill's most recent sermon. "The treacherous open invasion of Ukraine is a huge mistake of Russia. ... People did not hear from the patriarch a clear assessment of this war and his call to stop this madness."

Clergy in at least two dioceses — Lviv and Volodymyr-Volynskaare — are calling for independence from the Moscow church, according to their Facebook pages.

Many Ukrainian Orthodox are shocked that Kirill "condemned evil in the broadest terms but said nothing about the war let alone its initiation by Russia," said Catherine Wanner, a Pennsylvania State University professor of history, anthropology and religious studies.

"In the violence and the deaths and the terror that is engulfing Ukraine right now, I don't think anyone is worried about specific jurisdictions," said Wanner, whose studies focus on the region. "But this will be a sea change."

Fr. Cyril Hovorun, professor of ecclesiology, international relations and ecumenism at University College Stockholm, said Kirill's latest comments show him to be in a "golden cage."

He said Kirill helped "supply the ideology" that Putin has used to justify Russian hegemony over the region, and in return the church has received strong government support.

"Even if he (Kirill) understands what is going on in Ukraine with the war, even if he wants to speak up and name things by their proper name, he can't," said Hovorun, author of several books about Orthodoxy in Ukraine and beyond. "He is a completely unfree figure that needs to follow faithfully the official narrative."

Archbishop Daniel of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA said Patriarch Kirill's latest comments were "incomprehensible."

"Regardless of our beliefs and regardless of our stance on social and moral issues, you cannot use that as a propaganda tool to justify the Russian invasion and the slaughter of innocent people," he said.

Many Orthodox and other religious conservatives, including in Ukraine, share Kirill's stance on sexual ethics, said Fr. John Burgess, a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of Holy Rus': The Rebirth of Orthodoxy in the New Russia.

"But Ukrainians and Ukrainian Orthodox are under attack, are suffering, are afraid for the future for the nation," Burgess said. "None of that is reflected in the sermon. If rockets are falling Kharkiv and Kyiv, and the patriarch starts talking about gay parades, it seems like something is odd here."

Burgess said the practice of refusing to commemorate a patriarch in prayer has precedents. Some Russian Orthodox priests suffered persecution under communist rule for refusing commemorate a patriarch they deemed too compromising with the Bolshevik government.

The clerics currently distancing themselves from Kirill could be "risking their very future," Burgess said.

"If President Putin and the Russians truly prevail in Ukraine, what will happen to these bishops?" he said. "They'll be removed, or they'll have to go into the underground." (Patriarch Kirill Defends Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Stoking Orthodox Tensions.)

Vladimir Putin decided to invade Ukraine because he wants to end its existence as a sovereign state that is not controlled in some respect or another by his own diktats. Noting that such parades of sodomites should never take place anywhere at any time for any reason, Kirill’s reference to these parades is simply a distraction as it is morally impermissible to justify the direct, intentional killing of innocent civilians in order to stop other heinous moral evils from being promoted.

The Russian Orthodox sect was an instrument of Russian nationalism under the czars, the willing hacks of the commissars while profiting handsomely by its theft of Catholic churches all throughout the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, including in Ukraine, and is now an instrument for Vladimir Putin to call upon when needed to provide a “theological” justification for his plans to reconstitute the Soviet Union and/or Imperial Russia.

Kirill has got “skin” in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as he has long coveted Catholic churches there that he, Kirill, believes were improperly given back to Catholic Uniat rites. Here is a reminder about demands he made in 2011 and as late of 2016:

In an exclusive interview with Reuters, Russian Orthodox Metropolitan (Archbishop) Hilarion, urged the Vatican to show "some signs" of readiness to resolve a decades-long conflict between Orthodox and Catholics in Ukraine that has been blocking a meeting of the two world religious leaders.

The biggest bone of contention concerns the fate of many church properties that Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered confiscated from Eastern Rite Catholics, who worship in an Orthodox rite but owe their allegiance to Rome.

Stalin gave the property to the Russian Orthodox Church but after the fall of communism, the Eastern Rite Catholics took back more than 500 churches, mostly in Western Ukraine.

"Not very much was done or is being done in order to solve this problem," said Hilarion, who is head of the external relations department of the 165-million-member Russian Orthodox Church and one of the closest aides to Patriarch Kirill.

Hilarion said the dispute remained the major problem in Catholic-Orthodox relations and the main obstacle to a meeting.

"As soon as we have this understanding, we will be ready to begin preparations for such a meeting," he said. (Metropolitan Hilarion Urges Vatican to Resolve Dispute  with Ukrainian Catholics.)

Well, Kirill did meet up with Jorge Mario Bergoglio on February 12, 2016, in, of all places, the Communist prison island known as Cuba at a time when Raoul Castro was the country’s dictator, and the matter of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, which is a Uniat rite of the Catholic Church, was raised in what I termed at the time Jorge’s Most Outrageous Interview To Date:

Jean-Louis de la Vaisserie, AFP (France): The meeting with the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill and the signing of the joint declaration was greeted by the entire world as an historic step. But now today in the Ukraine, Greek Catholics feel betrayed. They speak of a political document that supports Russian politics. In the field, the war of words has reignited. Do you think you’ll be able to go to Moscow? Were you invited by the patriarch? Or, (will you) go to Crete to greet the Pan-Orthodox Council in the spring?

Pope Francis: I’ll begin with the end. I will be present…spiritually. And with a message. I would like to go greet them there at the pan-orthodox synod. They are brothers, but I must respect them. But, I know that they want to invite Catholic observers and this is a good bridge, but behind the Catholic observers I will be praying with my best wishes that the Orthodox move ahead because they are brothers and their bishops are bishops like us.

Then, Kirill, my brother. We kissed each other, embraced, and then a conversation for an hour (Fr Lombardi corrects)…two hours. Old age doesn’t come on its own. (laughs) Two hours where we spoke as brothers, sincerely and no one knows what was spoke about, only what we said at the end publicly about how we felt as we spoke. (The Most Outrageous Bergoglio Interview.)

Interjection Number Three:

Bergoglio treated Russian Orthodox “Patriarch” Kirill his “brother” as they issued a document that was In Direct Defiance of Catholic Truth. You can be sure that Jorge will be in Crete at the Pan-Orthodox Council meeting in a few months.

Back to Jorge’s longwinded answer:

Secondly, that statement, that declaration about Ukraine. When I read this, I was a little bit worried because it was Sviatoslav Schevchuk who said that the Ukrainian people, some Ukrainians, also many Ukrainians felt disappointed and betrayed. I know Sviatoslav very well. In Buenos Aires, we worked together for four years. When he was elected – at 42 years old, eh, good man – he was elected major archbishop, he came back to Buenos Aires to get his things. He came to me and he gave me an icon - little like this – of Our Lady of Tenderness. And he told me, ‘This has accompanied me my entire life. I want to leave it to you who accompanied me over the last four years. It’s one of the few things I had brought from Buenos Aires and I keep it on my desk. That is, he’s a man whom I respect and also familiarity. We use “tu” with each other (Editor’s note: “tu” is the informal way of addressing someone in Italian – they speak as friends) and so on.

So, for this it seemed strange to me and I remembered something I said here to you: to understand a piece of news, a statement, you need to seek the hermeneutic of everything.

But, when you said this, it was said in a statement from January 14th, last February, last Sunday…an interview made by brother…I don’t remember…a priest, a Ukrainian priest, in Ukraine it was conducted and it was published. That news, the interview is one page, two, a little bit more, give or take. That interview is on the last page, a little like this. I read the interview and I’ll say this: Schevchuk, in the dogmatic part declares himself to be a son of the Church and in communion with the bishop of Rome and the Church. He speaks of the Pope and his closeness of the Pope and of himself, his faith, and also of the Orthodox people there. The dogmatic part, there’s no difficulty. He’s Orthodox in the good sense of the word, that is in Catholic doctrine, no.

And then, as in an interview like this one, everyone has the right to say his things and this wasn’t done in the meeting, because the meeting, it was a good thing and we have to move forward. This, he didn’t do in the meeting, the encounter was a good thing and we must move forward. This, the second chapter, the personal ideas that a person has. For example, this, what I said about the bishops who move pedophile priests, the best thing they can do is resign. This isn’t a dogmatic thing, but this is what I think. So, he has his personal ideas. They’re for dialoguing and he has a right to have them.

Thirdly…ah, all of what he’s speaking about is in the document, that’s the issue. On the fact of the meeting: the Lord chose to move it ahead, the embrace and all is well. The document. It’s a debatable document and there’s also another addition. In Ukraine, it’s a moment of war, of suffering, with so many interpretations. I have named the Ukrainian people, asking for prayers, closeness, so many times both in the Angelus and in the Wednesday audience. There is this closeness. But the historical fact of a war, experienced as…I don’t know if…well, everyone has their own idea of this war, who started it, what to do and it’s evident that this is a historical issue, but also a personal, historical, existential issue of that country and it speaks of the suffering. And, there I insert this paragraph. You can understand the faithful, because Stanislav told me that so many faithful have written to me saying that they are deeply disappointed and betrayed by Rome. You can understand that a people in this situation would feel this, no? The final document but it is a jotting down of some things. Pardon, it’s debatable on this question of Ukraine. But there, it says to make the war stop, that they find agreements. Also, I personally said that the Minsk accords move forward and are not eliminated. “With the elbows what wasn’t written with the hands.” (Original phrase in Italian: “Con il gomito quello che non e scritto con le mani”)

The Church of Rome, the Pope has always said, ’Seek peace.’ I also received both presidents. Equality, no. And so for this when he says that he’s heard this from his people, I understand it. I understand it. But, that’s not the news. The news is everything.

If you read the entire interview, you’ll see that there are serious dogmatic things that remain, there’s a desire for unity, to move ahead in the ecumenical – and he’s an ecumenical man. There are a few opinions. He wrote to me when he found out about the trip, the encounter, but, as a brother, giving his opinion as a brother. I don’t mind the document how it is. I don’t dislike it in the sense that we need to respect the things that everyone has the freedom to think and in (the context of) this situation that is so difficult. From Rome, now the nuncio is on the border where they’re fighting, helping soldiers and the wounded. The Church of Rome has sent so much help there. It’s always peace, agreements. We must respect the Minsk accords and so on. This is the entirety. But, don’t get scared by that phrase. And this is a lesson that a piece of news must be interpreted with the hermeneutic of everything and not just a part. (The Most Outrageous Bergoglio Interview.)

Interjection Number Four:

As noted above, this subject will be explored in greater detail in a few days if the news cycle permits me to do so.

For the moment, however, Ukrainian Rite Catholics have every right to believe that they will be thrown under the bus and that their churches will give over to the heretical and schismatic Orthodox. Such a betrayal would actually be a good thing if the bishops of the Ukraine come to realize that the counterfeit church of conciliarism is a false religious sect. Uniat Rite bishops are true bishops, presuming that their respective episcopal lines have not been compromised, and could do much for Holy Mother Church in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

In essence, though, Jorge Mario Bergoglio said he considers Archbishop Sviatoslav Schevchuk a fuddy-duddy who is letting nationalistic sentiment get in the way of what he, Bergoglio, believes are the promptings of the "spirit." (As found in Jorge's Most Outrageous Interview to Date, part one.)

Yes, you see, just as Jorge Mario threw faithful long-suffering Catholics in Red China under the bus, he had done so to Ukrainian Rite Catholics several years previously before expressing a few regrets in 2019 about how his agreement had aggrieved those Catholics.

One had better believe that a Russian takeover of Ukraine would result in the seizing of Ukrainian Rite churches once again, evoking the specter of Joseph Stalin’s actions after World War II. You had better believe that Kirill has a lot to benefit from Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Pope Pius XII and His Rebukes of Russian Orthodox Persecution of Faithful Catholics

Unlike, the conciliar “popes,” including Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Pius XII spared no words when it came to praising Catholics, such as Saint Andrew Bobola, who sought the conversion of the Orthodox, which he, Pope Pius XII, did not treat as a true church because it is a heretical, schismatic sect that defects from the Catholic Faith in numerous ways.

Here is reminder of Pope Pius XII’s elegy in behalf of the work and martyrdom of Saint Andrew Bobola:

9. It is not surprising, then, that this athlete of Jesus Christ, adorned with these gifts of grace, should have achieved such notable progress in the apostolic field, and been able to gather rich fruits in the saving of souls. He was on fire to preserve, extend, and defend the Catholic faith. Thus, when serving as a teacher at Vilna, and later when living in other cities, he diligently taught the elements of Christian doctrine, and encouraged devotion to the Eucharist, and an ardent and filial-love of the Virgin Mother of God.

10. But afterwards, when he was raised to the dignity of the priesthood — in the same year and on the same day that Ignatius and Francis Xavier were inscribed at Rome in the calendar of the Saints — he chose before all else to spare no labor, in ministerial journeys and by sermons on holy things, in order that he might spread everywhere a Catholic faith which would not be ineffective, but productive of good works.

11. But the Catholic Church, particularly in the countries to the East, was facing an extremely grave crisis owing to the efforts of the schismatics, who were striving by every device to draw the faithful away from the unity of the Church into their own errors. Andrew went, therefore, into those regions on the instruction and command of his Superiors, and by public sermons and private instruction through their cities, towns, and villages, and most of all by the fervor of his exceptional holiness and the burning zeal of his apostolate, he freed the wavering faith of a multitude of Christians from beguiling falsehood, brought them back to sound principles, and joyfully invited all he could to return to the one fold of Jesus Christ. (Pope Pius XI, Invicti Athletae, May 16, 1957.)

How can anyone not grasp the clear contrast between the life and zeal for souls of Saint Andrew Bobola with the dismissal of Catholic doctrine by the conciliar “popes,” up to and including their lovingly warm embrace of the leaders of the Protestant sects and the Orthodox churches, embraces that mock the martyrdom of such Catholic heroes as Saints Josaphat Kuncewicz and Andrew Bobola without a thought of their every existence.

Pope Pius XII, however, sought to bring the memory of Saint Andrew Bobola to the forefront of Catholic minds at the height of the Cold War, which was characterized, of course, by the close cooperation of Orthodox leaders with Communist authorities in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and elsewhere throughout Eastern and Central Europe:

12. He did not merely restore and strengthen the faith of the Christians, languishing and on the verge of collapse, but roused them also to weep for their own sins, to settle their disputes, to heal their divisions, to restore true morality. It seemed that, like his Divine Master, wherever he passed by doing good, a new spring blossomed forth, bright with heavenly flowers and fruits of salvation. Consequently, as tradition has it, he received from all, even from the schismatics, the significant title of “hunter of souls.”

13. This tireless apostle of Jesus Christ had lived by faith, had spread the faith, and had defended the faith; so too, he did not hesitate to die for the faith of his fathers.

14. Notable among almost countless others was the unforgettable and savage onslaught on the Catholic religion which flared up in the 17th century in the Eastern countries. The Cossack forces then invaded those lands, and directed their furious attack on Catholics and their pastors, and on the heralds of the truth of the Gospel. Temples dedicated to the divine worship were utterly destroyed; monasteries were consumed by fire; priests and their flocks were everywhere put to the sword; everything was laid waste; all that was sacred was scattered to the winds.

15. Andrew Bobola could apply to himself that saying, “Nothing that is known to belong to God, do I consider outside my interests.”[6] He feared death and sufferings not at all. On fire with love for God and his neighbor, he entered the fray with all his resources, in order to draw back as many as he could from a foreswearing of the Catholic faith, and from the snares and errors of those who were separated from the Church, and in order to provide a valiant and rousing encouragement for the preservation of Christian teaching in all its integrity. (Pope Pius XI, Invicti Athletae, May 16, 1957.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio would recoil at the title of “hunter of souls,” wouldn’t he?

Jorge Mario Bergoglio would rather die fighting for the rights of heretics and schismatics than even to consider doing so for the Faith of our Fathers. Indeed, the conciliar revolutionaries have delighted in doing the same thing as the Lutherans, the Calvinist and the Anglicans had done in the Sixteenth Century and that the Cossacks did a century later: to destroy temples dedicated to the divine worship and by laying waste to the liturgy and traditions of the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church, which extend now to even changing the words of the Pater Noster and of the Gloria in Excelsis Deo prayers at the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service.

We return now to the denouement of Pope Pius XII’s pithy summary of the life and martyrdom of Saint Andrew Bobola:

16. But on May 16, 1657, on the feast of our Lord’s Ascension into heaven, he was seized near Janovia by the enemies of the Catholics. We do not think this filled him with fear, but rather with a heavenly joy. For We know that he had always prayed for martyrdom and had often recalled the words of the Divine Redeemer, “Blessed are you when men reproach you, and persecute you, and speaking falsely say all manner of evil against you, for my sake. Rejoice and exult, because your reward is great in heaven; for so did they persecute the prophets who were before you.”[7]

17. The mind shudders as it recalls all the tortures which the athlete of Jesus Christ endured with unconquerable fortitude and a faith resolute and unbroken. For, “beaten with rods, struck with blows, dragged by a rope behind a horse on a painful and blood-stained path, he was brought to Janovia to be delivered to the final torture.

18. “In that contest, the Polish Martyr rose to the heights of the noblest triumphs which the Church commemorates. Andrew was asked if he were a priest of the Latin rite, and he replied, ‘I am a Catholic priest; I was born in the Catholic faith; in that faith I wish to die. My faith is true; it leads to salvation. Do you rather repent; give place to sorrow for sin, else you will be unable, in your errors, to win salvation. By embracing my faith, you will acknowledge the true God, and will save your souls’.”[8]

19. At these words, those wicked men, utterly devoid of humanity, were roused to a fiendish barbarity, and reached such a degree of cruelty that they inflicted still more horrible sufferings on the soldier of Christ. Once again, “he was scourged, a crown like that of Jesus Christ was bound about his head, he was struck heavy blows and lay wounded by a scimitar. Next, his right eye was gouged out, strips of skin were torn off, his wounds were savagely scorched and rubbed with prickly bundles of straw. Nor was that enough: his ears, nose and lips were cut off, his tongue torn out by the root, and finally, a weapon plunged into his heart. And, at long last, the valiant athlete, three hours after midday, displaying a truly marvelous example of fortitude, was pierced by a sword and achieved the glory of martyrdom.”[9]

20. The victorious martyr, crimsoned in his own blood, has been received through his triumph into heaven, and on earth, the Church, when she beheld his resplendent holiness attested and confirmed by God Himself through truly remarkable miracles, proposed him for the devotion and imitation of the whole community of Christians. For in 1853, Our Predecessor of venerable memory, Pius IX, enrolled him among the Blessed in heaven, and in 1938, Our immediate Predecessor of immortal memory, Pius XI, solemnly placed him in the ranks of the Saints.

21. We have been pleased to sketch in brief outline, through this Encyclical Letter, the principal points in the life and holiness of Andrew Bobola, so that all sons of the Catholic Church throughout the world might not only admire, but also imitate with equal fidelity his sound religious teaching, his unwavering faith, his fortitude in defending the honor and glory of Christ even to martyrdom. Under your guidance and encouragement, Venerable Brothers, may all men contemplate his illustrious virtues, especially during these centenary celebrations. Let them understand that it is their duty to follow in his holy footsteps. (Pope Pius XII, Invicti Athletae, May 16, 1957.)

Saint Andrew Bobola’s holy martyrdom should inspire us anew to suffer whatever we must to remain firm in our conviction that we cannot maintain any ties at all to the counterfeit church of conciliarism, especially by repeating by repeating his stirring words prior to his martyrdom that Pope Pius XII had quoted in Invicti Athletae:

“I was born in the Catholic faith; in that faith I wish to die. My faith is true; it leads to salvation. Do you rather repent; give place to sorrow for sin, else you will be unable, in your errors, to win salvation. By embracing my faith, you will acknowledge the true God, and will save your souls’” (As found in: (Pope Pius XII, Invicti Athletae, May 16, 1957.)

Moreover, Pope Pius XII came to the defense of Ruthenian Rite Catholics when they were under attack by the Soviets and their Orthodox puppets in the very immediate aftermath of World War II in 1945.

His Holiness described the history of Russian persecution of Ruthenian Rite Catholics under the czars and then the commissars, starting by highlighting the martyrdom of Saint Josaphat Kuntzevitch:

47. The first of their number to come to our mind is the holy pontiff Josaphat Kuntzevitch, whose unconquerable fortitude we have briefly praised above. When he was murderously sought out by abandoned enemies of the Catholic name, he freely offered himself to the murderers, and gave himself as a victim to bring about as soon as possible the return of his dissident brethren. He was the outstanding martyr for Catholic faith and unity at that period, but not the only one; not a few both of the clergy and the laity received the same palm of victory after him; some were slain with the sword, some atrociously flogged to death, some drowned in the Dnieper, so passing from their triumph over death to heaven.

48. Not much later, in the middle of the seventeenth century, the Cossacks openly took up arms against Poland. Then the hatred of those who opposed religious unity became ever stronger and more violent; they were convinced that the introduction of this union was the cause of all the calamities and evils that had befallen them; they were determined therefore to use every way and means to cast it down and destroy it. There resulted almost innumerable wrongs to the Catholic Church of the Ruthenians; many churches were profaned, pillaged, demolished, and their furnishing and property destroyed. Not a few of the clergy and a great number of the faithful were severely flogged, terribly tortured, most cruelly done to death. Even the bishops themselves were despoiled of their goods, ejected from their sees and forced to flee. However, even amid the raging of this storm, their spirit did not fail; they did everything possible for the protection and safe-keeping of the flocks entrusted to them, and, more than that, in their dire straits they exerted every effort, by prayer and argument and labor, to bring the whole Russian Church with the tsar Alexis into the unity of the fold.

49. Besides all this a new and no less bitter persecution of Catholicism was begun a few years before the partition of Poland. At the time when the troops of the Russian emperor had invaded Poland many churches of the Ruthenian rite were taken away from the Catholics by force of arms; the priests who refused to abjure their faith were put in chains, insulted, scourged and cast into prison, where they suffered cruelly from hunger, thirst and cold.

50. Not inferior to these in constancy and fortitude were the clergy who, about the year 1839, suffered the loss of their goods and even of their liberty, rather than abandon their religious duties. Among these we wish to recall in a special way the well-known priest, Joseph Ancewski, who was kept in harsh confinement in the monastery of Suzdal for thirty-two years, attaining the reward of his singular steadfastness in 1877, when he died a most holy death. We recall also the one hundred and sixty priests, who for open profession of the Catholic faith were torn away from their families, which were left in wretchedness, were transported into the interior of Russia and imprisoned in monasteries, but could not be turned from their holy resolve by hunger or any other affliction.

51. Equally conspicuous for fortitude were the many, both clergy and laity, of the eparchy of Chelm, who with unconquerable courage resisted the persecutors of the Catholic faith. For example, when troops came to seize their church and hand it over to the schismatics, the inhabitants of Pratolin did not resist force by force, but, unarmed, put their crowded bodies in the way of their attackers like a living wall; some were wounded and savagely ill-treated, some suffered long imprisonment or were deported to the icy regions of Siberia, some, finally, were put to the sword and shed their blood for Christ. The cause of those who sealed their Catholic faith by death has been begun in their eparchy, and so there is hope that at length it may be permitted to number them among the blessed. These iniquitous crimes were not, however, perpetrated in only one place, but in many cities, towns and villages. First, all the churches of the Catholics were handed over to the followers of schism, all the clergy driven from their places and forced to leave unguarded the flock committed to them. Then the faithful, with no account taken of their own wishes, were enrolled in the dissident Church. However, although orphaned of their pastors and deprived of the offices and helps of their religion, they made supreme efforts to hold fast to their faith. Thus it was that later when members of the Society of Jesus secretly went to them, in disguise and at the peril of their lives, to instruct, to exhort and to comfort them, they welcomed them with the greatest joy and devotion.

52. But a wonderful and happy spectacle was to be seen in the Ruthenian districts in 1905, when liberty to profess any religion was to some extent granted. Innumerable Catholics came forth from their retreats into open day. They had no priests of their own Eastern rite, so they went in a body, singing their thanks and praise to God, with the standard of the cross carried on high and their sacred pictures publicly exposed for veneration, to the churches of the Latin rite, entry to which had previously been prohibited to them under severe penalties. There they begged the lawful ministers of the Church to open their doors to them, receive their profession of faith and enroll them again among the Catholics. In this way in a short time 200,000 faithful were duly received back into the Church.

53. However, even in more recent times the bishops and priests and their faithful flocks have needed fortitude and constancy of spirit to retain their Catholic faith, protect the Church and defend its sacred liberty. Among them we must recall here, with special honor, the metropolitan Andrew Szepticky. During the first European war, when Galicia was occupied by Russian armies, he was expelled from his see and deported to a monastery, where he was for a time at least kept in prison; he had no greater desire than to testify to his great veneration for the Apostolic See, and even, sustained by God’s grace, gladly to suffer martyrdom for his flock, for whose welfare he had already long spent his strength and solicitude.

54. We have now seen, from the brief historical relation of events in this letter, how many and how great were the benefits and blessings brought to the Ruthenian people by its union with the Catholic Church. This is not, indeed, to be wondered at; for if “it was God’s good pleasure to let all completeness dwell” in Christ,[14] no one can enjoy this completeness who is separated from the Church which “is his body.”[15] As our predecessor Pelagius II asserts, “whoever is not in the peace and unity of the Church will not be able to possess God.”[16] We have seen, too, that this beloved Ruthenian people has had to suffer great hardships, perils and vexations in defending to the best of its power its Catholic unity, but from these Divine Providence has freed it again and again and restored peace to it. (Pope Pius XII, Orientales Omnes Ecclesias, December 23, 1953.)

Good readers, there has been a steady Russian persecution of Catholics over the centuries. Do not be fooled by the appearance of a toleration of Catholicism that exists in some parts of the Russian Federation at this time, and do not forget the persecution by the Communists from which the Orthodox profited handsomely after World War II that was described and denounced by our last true pope thus far, Pope Pius XII:

55. But now, with the greatest fatherly anguish of heart, we see a new and terrible storm threatening this Church. The information which reaches us is scanty, but is sufficient to cause solicitude and fill us with anxiety. It is the anniversary of the day three hundred and fifty years ago, when this ancient community of Christians was happily united to the supreme pastor, the successor of St. Peter; but this same day has become for us “a day of tribulation and distress, a day of calamity and misery, a day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and whirlwinds.”[17]

56. For we have learnt with great grief that, in those territories which have recently been made over to the sway of Russia, our dear brethren and sons of the Ruthenian people are in dire straits in consequence of their fidelity to the Apostolic See; every means are being employed to take them away from the bosom of their mother, the Church, and to induce them, against their will and against their known religious duty, to enter the communion of the dissidents. Thus it is reported that the clergy of the Ruthenian rite have complained in a letter to the civil government that in the Western Ukraine, as it is called today, their Church has been placed in an extremely difficult position; all its bishops and many of its priests have been arrested; and at the same time it has been prohibited that anyone should take up the government of the same Ruthenian Church.

57. We are well aware that this harsh and severe treatment is speciously attributed to political reasons. But this is no new procedure used today for the first time; very often in the course of the centuries the enemies of the Church have hesitated to make public profession of their opposition to the Catholic faith and to attack it openly; they brought cunning and subtle allegations that Catholics were plotting against the State. In the very same way the Jews accused the Divine Redeemer himself before the Roman governor, saying “We have discovered that this man is subverting the loyalty of our people, forbids the payment of tribute to Caesar.”[18] But faces and events themselves plainly manifest, and show in its true light, what was and is the real cause of this savagery. For, as is well known, the patriarch Alexis, recently elected by the dissident bishops of Russia, openly exalts and preaches defection from the Catholic Church in a letter lately addressed to the Ruthenian Church, a letter which contributed not a little to the initiation of this persecution. (Pope Pius XII, Orientales Omnes Ecclesias, December 23, 1953.)

A Brief Interjection:

Please note that, entirely unlike the conciliar “popes,” Pope Pius XII courageously denounced the Russian Orthodox patriarch at the time, Alexis, for his efforts to encourage Ruthenian Rite Catholics to apostatize to the heretical and schismatic Russian Orthodox sect as the price of being “saved” from Joseph Stalin’s own “denazification” efforts. It is important to know true history as Our Lady, who loves Russia and its people, did not appear in the Cova da Iria in Fatima to reaffirm Russia in its errors but to ask us all to pray her Most Holy Rosary for the conversion of Russia and its proper collegial consecration to her Immaculate Heart by a pope together with all of the world’s bishops. Error is never the foundation of anything but discord and violence.

Pope Pius XII went on to note in  Orientales Omnes Ecclesias:

58. These griefs cut us the more deeply because while the cruel war was yet raging almost all the nations of the world, through a gathering of their representatives, solemnly proclaimed among other things that no persecution of religion must ever be undertaken. This had given us hope that peace and true liberty would be granted everywhere to the Catholic Church, the more so since the Church has always taught, and teaches, that obedience to the ordinances of the lawfully established civil power, within the sphere and bounds of its authority, is a duty of conscience. But, unfortunately, the events we have mentioned have grievously and bitterly weakened, have almost destroyed, our hope and confidence so far as the lands of the Ruthenians are concerned.

59. Amid these heavy calamities, since human help is seen to be of no avail, nothing remains, venerable brethren, but earnestly to implore the most merciful God, who “will do justice to the needy and will avenge the poor,”[19] that of his loving kindness he would himself calm this terrible storm and at length bring it to an end. We again and again exhort you and the flock committed to you to join with us by humble prayer and works of penance in imploring him by whose heavenly light the minds of men are illumined, by whose heavenly command their wills are directed, to spare his people and not to give up his heritage to reproach,[20] and speedily to free the Church of the Ruthenians from this hurtful crisis.

60. In this sad and anxious state of affairs our fatherly heart goes out especially to those who are so harshly and bitterly oppressed by it, and first of all to you, venerable brothers, the bishops of the Ruthenian people. Great as are the trials which afflict you, you are more burdened with anxiety for the safety of your flocks than for the injuries and sufferings inflicted upon yourselves, in accordance with the words: “the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep.”[21] The present is dark and the future uncertain and full of cares, but do not lose heart. Rather so display yourselves, presenting “such a spectacle . . . to the whole creation, men and angels alike,”[22] that all the faithful of Christ may see in your endurance and courage a shining example. Courageously, and steadfastly enduring this attack of your enemies, and afire with a divine love for the Church, you become “the good odor of Christ unto God, in them that are saved and in them that perish.”[23] In bonds as you are, and separated from your sons, it is not in your power to give them instruction in our holy religion, but your very bonds more fully and profoundly proclaim and preach Christ.

61. As a father we next address you, our beloved sons who have received the seal of the priesthood, and must therefore follow more closely in the footsteps of Christ, “who suffered for us,”[24] and still more than others must bear the brunt of battle. We are deeply moved by your distress, but rejoice that we can say to the greater number of you, borrowing the words of the Divine Redeemer: “I know of all thy doings, thy faith, thy love, thy generosity, thy endurance, how in these last days thou art more active than at first.”[25] We exhort you to continue steadfastly and inflexibly to stand firm in your faith in these lamentable times; continue to uphold the weak and support the wavering. So far as there is need, warn the faithful of Christ entrusted to you that it is absolutely unlawful, even merely exteriorly or verbally, to deny or abandon Christ and His Church; expose the cunning wiles of those who promise men earthly advantages and greater happiness in this life, but destroy their souls. Show yourselves “as the ministers of God, in much patience, in tribulation, in necessities, in distresses . . . in chastity, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in sweetness, in the Holy Ghost, in charity unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God; by the armor of justice on the right hand and on the left.” [26] (Pope Pius XII, Orientales Omnes Ecclesias, December 23, 1953.)

It is thus remarkable that anyone—and I mean anyone—could fall for the Russian-inspired propaganda being spread by “Archbishop” Carlo Maria Vigano and so many other traditionally-minded Catholics that Russia is going to serve as a “Third Rome.”

What is this nonsense?

Catholics have suffering at the hands of Russian heretics and their superiors in whatever form of government has prevailed in Russia over the past millennium.

Take Russia at its word?

Consider the experience of Pope Saint Pius X in 1914 as he read the riot act to the Russian Ambassador to the Holy See about treatment of Catholics in Imperial Russia:

"There was no shade of weakness in him", Cardinal Merry del Val wrote, "He had the inflexible firmness of a ruler convinced of the responsibilities his high office imposed on him, and he was determined to fulfill them, cost what it might."

The Russian ambassador to the Vatican once discovered the firmness of the Pope. Shortly before his death [in 1914], Pius X granted this ambassador an audience. But he received him sternly, without a trace of a smile on his face. Full of majesty, he turned to his visitor. "I cannot accept good wishes from the representative of a power that fails to keep the promises it makes. Until now Russia has not kept a single one of the promises she made to the Catholics of Russia."

The ambassador had not expected such a greeting, and he was frightened. "Holy Father," he stammered, "this is not true!"

The Holy Father rose from his throne and, with a gesture that betrayed deep indignation, cried, "I will repeat what I have said: not a single promise has been kept! And you dare to say that I lie, Mr. Ambassador! I must ask you to leave this room!"

As pale as death, the ambassador stumbled out the door.

So with firmness and mercy, Pope Saint Pius X carried on his work--a worthy successor to Peter, of him it was said, "Upon this rock I will build my church." (Father Walter Diethelm, Saint Pius X: The Farm Boy Who Became Pope, published originally by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, Inc., in 1956, republished by Ignatius Press in 1994.)

Why are many of you so willing to believe the Russians today just because the leaders of the West and their dupes in Ukraine are themselves without credibility?

Can it not be that both are equally without credibility before God and men?

Why live in Manichean world where one side must be “good” because the other side is “bad”?

Why fall for the trap of false opposites?

Russia is the seat of the errors of Modernity that gave birth to the anti-Incarnational lies of Judeo-Masonry, Protestantism and, in due course, Communism:

Remember these words of Saint Anthony Mary Claret in this regard:

On Christmas Day God infused into me the love of persecution and calumnies. . . . I dreamed I was imprisoned for a crime of which I was innocent. . . . To one who would have defended me, as St. Peter wished to defend Our Savior, I said: 'Shall I not drink the chalice my Father has given me?'

"On January 6, 1859, Our Lord made known to me that I am like the earth . . . which is trampled upon, yet doesn't speak. I, too, must be trodden underfoot and say nothing. The earth suffers cultivation. I must suffer mortification. Finally, to produce anything, the earth needs water; I, for the performance of good works, divine grace."

How consoling it must have been to hear Jesus promise him divine love, while tenderly addressing him as: "My little Anthony"--on April 27, 1859! And how he strove, ever harder, to obey his Redeemer's injunction, given at 4:25 a.m., on September 4, of that same year: "You have to teach your missionaries mortification, Anthony," to which, a few moments later, Our Lady added, "Thus will you reap fruit in souls, Anthony!"

And, now conditioned to receive supernatural messages in precise words and audible tones, and when they were precepts, to obey perfectly, he was ready for the most glorious promise and the most portentous revelation of all. "At 7:30 on the morning of September 23, Our Lord told me: 'You will fly across the earth . . . to preach of the immense chastisements soon to come to pass.' And He gave me to understand those words of the Apocalypse: 'And I behold and heard the voice of one eagle flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a a loud voice: Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants of the earth; by reason of the rest of the voices of the three angels who are yet to sound the trumpet.' this meant that the three great judgments of God that are going to fall upon the world are: 1) Protestantism and Communism; 2) the four archdemons who will, in a truly frightful manner, incite all to the love of pleasure, money, reason and independence of will; 3) the great wars with their horrible consequences."

Can we read this prophecy, set down for us a century ago, just when our world was entering upon the "golden age" of industry and commerce, of the scientific achievement that our grandfathers were assured was destined to create a life so good for all peoples that war would be banished forever, and doubt from whence it came? And do we dare to trace it from the Protestant Reformation to the curse of Communism; from the conquest of materialism to the deification of poor weak human reason and self-determination into "the great wars and their horrible consequences"! Upon the clean tablet of Anthony Claret's selfless spirit Our Lord engraved the warning His servant was to spell out for us" the incredible but inevitable graph of the "progress" of one century--our century! (Franchon Royer, The Life of St. Anthony Mary Claret, published originally in 1957 by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, 1985, pp. 211-213.) 

Behold the great wars with horrible consequences that have befallen men and their nations, including the one taking place in Ukraine at this time, in the past one hundred sixty-three years.

Concluding Remarks

As for Ukraine, it is suffering because of its own embrace of Western errors, especially its embrace of the surgical assassination of the innocent preborn and of providing special “rights” to those engaged in the sins of Sodom and all its related perverse vices, which keep mutating by the day, it seems, to say nothing how Ukraine is but a shell of its former self spiritually thanks to seventy years of atheistic Communist totalitarianism and thirty years of embracing the anti-Incarnational errors of Judeo-Masonry. We can only imagine what a terrible fate awaits us here in the United States of America for all the lies its leaders have told and all the grievous sins its laws have promoted in the name of human “rights” and “freedom.”

No nation, including Ukraine, which has been governed by its own oligarchs and or Western dupes/plants since 2004 (see Was Ukraine betrayed by its elites?), can know true peace unless men resolve to repent for their sins and cease their promotion under cover of the civil. Nations whose laws permit the slaughter of innocent babies and that promote perversity will always be at risk of those, such as Putin's Russia, who have no more regard for the lives of those who live in other nations than they have for the lives of the innocent preborn. The shedding of innocent blood under the cover of the civil law has consequences for all men and all nations, and this is one of the proximate reasons why there is much crime and violence in the United States of America and so many ruthless killers such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in the world.

Have I told you lately that it’s Christ or chaos, Catholicism, or the abyss?

Today is Wednesday in the Second Week of Lent, and Dom Prosper Gueranger’s reflection on the readings appointed for Holy Mass today is perfectly fitted for the sinful circumstances of our time wherein men who are in open violence against God and His Divine Laws think nothing of being in open violence against each other:

This petition, which Mardochai presented to God in favour of a whole nation that was doomed to destruction, represents the prayers which the Saints of the Old Testament offered for the salvation of the world. The human race was, to a great extent, in the power of satan, who is figured by Aman. The almighty King had given sentence against mankind: “Ye shall die the death.” Who was there, that could induce him to revoke the sentence? Esther made intercession with Assuerus, her lord; and she was heard. Mary presented herself before the throne of fhe Eternal God: and it is she that, by her Divine Son, crushes the head of the serpent, who was to have tormented us for ever. The sentence, then, is to be annulled; all shall live that wish to live.

Today, we have the Church praying for her children, who are in the state of sin. She trembles at seeing them in danger of being eternally lost. She intercedes for them, and she uses Mardochai’s prayer. She humbly reminds her Divine Spouse, that He has redeemed them out of Egypt; and, by Baptism, has made them his members, His inheritance. She beseeches Him to change their mourning into joy, even into the great Easter joy. She says to him: Oh! shut not the mouths of them that sing to thee! It is true, these poor sinners have, in past times, offended their God by word, as well as by deed and thought; but now they speak not but words of humble prayers for mercy; and, when they shall have been pardoned, how fervently will they sing to their divine deliverer, and bless him in canticles of grateful love!

This is He that gave his own life in order to appease the anger of the Almighty King, and redeem his people from death. It is Jesus, the Son of the new Esther, and the Son of God, who comes forward to humble the pride of Aman, at th every time that this perfidious enemy of ours is making sure of his victory. He goes up to Jerusalem, for it is there that the great battle is to be fought. He foretells his Disciples all that is to happen. He will be delivered up to the chief priests, who will condemn him to death, and hand him over to the Roman Governor and soldiers. He will be mocked, scourged, and crucified; but he will rise again on the third day. The Apostles heard this prophecy, for the Gospel says that Jesus took the twelve apart in order to tell them these things. Judas, consequently, was present; so were Peter, James, and John, the three that had witnessed the Transfiguration of their Master on Thabor, and had a clearer knowledge of his Divinity. And yet, all abandoned him. Judas betrayed him, Peter denied him, and the whole flock fled away in fear when the Shepherd was in the power of his enemies. Not one of them recollected how he had said that, on the third day, he would rise again; unless it were Judas, who was perhaps encouraged to commit his crime by the reflection that Jesus would soon triumph over his enemies and be again free. The rest could see no further than the scandal of the Cross; that put an end to all their Faith, and they deserted their Master. What a lesson for all future generations of Christians! How very few there are who look upon the Cross, either for themselves or for others, as the sign of God’s special love!

We are men of little faith; we cannot understand the trials God sends to our brethren, and we are often tempted to believe that he has forsaken them, because he sends them the cross. We are men of little love, too; worldly tribulations seems an evil to us, and we think ourselves hardly dealt with, at the very time that our God is showing us the greatest mercy. We are like the mother of the sons of Zebedee: we would hold a high and conspicuous place near the Son of God, forgetting that we must first merit it by drinking of the chalice that he drank, that is, the chalice of Suffering. We forget too that saying of the Apostle: That we may be glorified with Jesus, we must suffer with him! He, the just by excellence, entered not into his rest by honors and pleasures—the sinner cannot follow him, save by treading the path of penance.

The enemy wonders within himself how a frail body, that is but clay, can bear and suffer pain so long, and sharp as this. He, by cunning craft, contrives a plot, whereby to sift this Jesus, and see if he perchance be God in human form. But, rebuked and foiled, he flees away with shame. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Wednesday in the Second Week of Lent.)

Yes, we are men of little faith as we permit ourselves to be agitated by wars and rumors of wars:

And Jesus being come out of the temple, went away. And his disciples came to shew him the buildings of the temple. [2] And he answering, said to them: Do you see all these things? Amen I say to you there shall not be left here a stone upon a stone that shall not be destroyed. [3] And when he was sitting on mount Olivet, the disciples came to him privately, saying: Tell us when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the consummation of the world? [4] And Jesus answering, said to them: Take heed that no man seduce you: [5] For many will come in my name saying, I am Christ: and they will seduce many.

[6] And you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that ye be not troubled. For these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. [7] For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in places: [8] Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows. [9] Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall put you to death: and you shall be hated by all nations for my name's sake. [10] And then shall many be scandalized: and shall betray one another: and shall hate one another.

[11] And many false prophets shall rise, and shall seduce many. [12] And because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold. [13] But he that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved. [14] And this gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in the whole world, for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come. [15] When therefore you shall see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place: he that readeth let him understand.

[16] Then they that are in Judea, let them flee to the mountains: [17] And he that is on the housetop, let him not come down to take any thing out of his house: [18] And he that is in the field, let him not go back to take his coat. [19] And woe to them that are with child, and that give suck in those days. [20] But pray that your flight be not in the winter, or on the sabbath.

[21] For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. [22] And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. [23] Then if any man shall say to you: Lo here is Christ, or there, do not believe him. [24] For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. [25] Behold I have told it to you, beforehand.

[26] If therefore they shall say to you: Behold he is in the desert, go ye not out: Behold he is in the closets, believe it not. [27] For as lightning cometh out of the east, and appeareth even into the west: so shall the coming of the Son of man be. [28] Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together. [29] And immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun shall be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven shall be moved: [30] And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all tribes of the earth mourn: and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with much power and majesty. (Matthew 24: 1-30.)

This is the holy season of Lent. While we are to work vigilantly to root out sin from our lives every day of the year by cooperating with the graces won for us by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ during the events of His Sacred Passion and Death as He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, the season of Lent gives us the opportunity to intensify our penances as we reflect on all that Our Lord suffered to redeem us and how our sins caused Him—and His Most Blessed Mother who suffered in perfect compassion with Him—to suffer for our redemption.

We must pray the Rosary with fervor and confidence, remembering that well-prayed Rosary pleases Our Lord, Christ the King, and will bring down blessings upon blessings upon us now, and at the hour of our death.

No matter the events of the world, Our Lady is our life, our sweetness, and our hope, and, as Saint Louis de Montfort taught, no one who is devoted to Our Lady, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, will be lost.

This must be our consolation now as we use the graces sent to us by Our Lady to fight the forces that are far more dangerous than those of any military, the forces that seek our eternal ruin. We need Our Lady’s help to preserve until the end. Thus, let us rush into loving arms as we no earthly matter disturb our peace of being her spiritual children to whom she gave birth in such pain as she stood so valiantly beneath the Cross of her Divine Son, Our Redeemer, Christ the King of all men and all nations.

We must not be agitated by the side shows of naturalism or conciliarism. We must serve as champions of Christ the King through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, especially by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits, making sure to include in our intentions the restoration of a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter and for the rising up of the great monarch who will do battle with Antichrist himself as he fulfills the duty of a Coronation Rite that has no parallel in democratic republics that have descend into the abyss because they have rejected Our Divine King and continue to choose Barabbas in His place.

We must remember that we have no permanent dwelling here in this mortal vale of tears. We are meant to suffer the chastisements of these times in which it has been within the Providence of God to place us so that we can work out our salvation in fear and in trembling as the consecrated slaves of His Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. We have not been left as orphans in this time of apostasy and betrayal and in this time of the triumph, albeit temporary, of the combined forces of Antichrist in the world as Our Lord Himself has sent His Most Blessed Mother to us to clothe us with the shield of Brown Scapular of Mount Carmel and to provide us with the weapon against all the enemies of our own salvation and of truth in the world,  her Most Holy Rosary.

Our Lady has told us in the end her Immaculate Heart will triumph, which should give us great encouragement in these troubling times as her Divine Son, Christ the King, has chosen us, unworthy though we are, to be the imperfect instruments by which we can make a bit of reparation for our sins and those of the whole world and to plant a few seeds for the restorations of all things in Him, Our Divine Redeemer and King.

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us. 

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us. 

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, pray for us.

Appendix A

Various Ways in Which the Orthodox Defect From the Deposit of Faith Entrusted to the Catholic Church

1. Denial of Papal Primacy.

2. Denial of Papal Infallibility.

3. A rejection of the doctrine of Original Sin as defined dogmatically by the Catholic Church. The ambiguous doctrine of the Orthodox was noted by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei, August 28, 1794, when discussing the Greek rejection of Limbo that is, of course, shared by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and his protege, William "Cardinal" Levada, whose "International Theological Commission" issued The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized on April 19, 2007:

Very few Greek Fathers dealt with the destiny of infants who die without Baptism because there was no controversy about this issue in the East. Furthermore, they had a different view of the present condition of humanity. For the Greek Fathers, as the consequence of Adam's sin, human beings inherited corruption, possibility, and mortality, from which they could be restored by a process of deification made possible through the redemptive work of Christ. The idea of an inheritance of sin or guilt - common in Western tradition - was foreign to this perspective, since in their view sin could only be a free, personal act. (International Theological Commission, The Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized, April 19, 2007.)

Droleskey interection: This is what the Orthodox still believe, which makes them fit "partners" for "ecumenical dialogue" with Bergoglio and Ratzinger/Benedict before him, who told us in his own murky way that he is of one mind with them on the matter of Original Sin, which he called in 1995 an "imprecise" term (!).]

Here is a statement on Original Sin from the Orthodox Church in America:

With regard to original sin, the difference between Orthodox Christianity and the West may be outlined as follows:

In the Orthodox Faith, the term "original sin" refers to the "first" sin of Adam and Eve. As a result of this sin, humanity bears the "consequences" of sin, the chief of which is death. Here the word "original" may be seen as synonymous with "first." Hence, the "original sin" refers to the "first sin" in much the same way as "original chair" refers to the "first chair."

In the West, humanity likewise bears the "consequences" of the "original sin" of Adam and Eve. However, the West also understands that humanity is likewise "guilty" of the sin of Adam and Eve. The term "Original Sin" here refers to the condition into which humanity is born, a condition in which guilt as well as consequence is involved.

In the Orthodox Christian understanding, while humanity does bear the consequences of the original, or first, sin, humanity does not bear the personal guilt associated with this sin. Adam and Eve are guilty of their willful action; we bear the consequences, chief of which is death.

One might look at all of this in a completely different light. Imagine, if you will, that one of your close relatives was a mass murderer. He committed many serious crimes for which he was found guilty ­ and perhaps even admitted his guilt publicly. You, as his or her son or brother or cousin, may very well bear the consequences of his action -­ people may shy away from you or say, "Watch out for him -­ he comes from a family of mass murderers." Your name may be tainted, or you may face some other forms of discrimination as a consequence of your relative’s sin. You, however, are not personally guilty of his or her sin.

There are some within Orthodoxy who approach a westernized view of sin, primarily after the 17th and 18th centuries due to a variety of westernizing influences particularly in Ukraine and Russia after the time of Peter Mohyla. These influences have from time to time colored explanations of the Orthodox Faith which are in many respects lacking. (Orthodox Church in America, Questions and Answers on Original Sin) 

Another interjection: This is not Catholic doctrine. This matter cannot be "bridged" by concerts of music composed by Russians.

4. A denial of the Filioque, that God the Holy Ghost proceeds from both the Father and the Son.

5. A denial of the doctrine of Purgatory as defined by the authority of the Catholic Church.

6. A denial of the doctrine of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception as defined by the authority of the Catholic Church.

7. A denial of the doctrine of Our Lady's Assumption body and soul into Heaven as defined by the authority of the Catholic Church.

8. A denial of the doctrine of the indissolubility of a sacramentally valid, ratified and consummated marriage; the Orthodox hold that a person can marry up to three times following two divorces. Here is the Orthodox "consensus" (as there is no ultimate ecclesiastical authority within Orthodoxy to decide doctrinal matters) on the issue:

Marriage is one of the sacraments of the Orthodox Church. Orthodox Christians who marry must marry in the Church in order to be in sacramental communion with the Church. According to the Church canons, an Orthodox who marries outside the Church may not receive Holy Communion and may not serve as a sponsor, i.e. a Godparent at a Baptism, or as a sponsor at a Wedding. Certain marriages are prohibited by canon law, such as a marriage between first and second cousins, or between a Godparent and a Godchild. The first marriage of a man and a woman is honored by the Church with a richly symbolic service that eloquently speaks to everyone regarding the married state. The form of the service calls upon God to unite the couple through the prayer of the priest or bishop officiating.

The church will permit up to, but not more than, three marriages for any Orthodox Christian. If both partners are entering a second or third marriage, another form of the marriage ceremony is conducted, much more subdued and penitential in character. Marriages end either through the death of one of the partners or through ecclesiastical recognition of divorce. The Church grants "ecclesiastical divorces" on the basis of the exception given by Christ to his general prohibition of the practice. The Church has frequently deplored the rise of divorce and generally sees divorce as a tragic failure. Yet, the Orthodox Church also recognizes that sometimes the spiritual well-being of Christians caught in a broken and essentially nonexistent marriage justifies a divorce, with the right of one or both of the partners to remarry. Each parish priest is required to do all he can to help couples resolve their differences. If they cannot, and they obtain a civil divorce, they may apply for an ecclesiastical divorce in some jurisdictions of the Orthodox Church. In others, the judgment is left to the parish priest when and if a civilly divorced person seeks to remarry.

Those Orthodox jurisdictions which issue ecclesiastical divorces require a thorough evaluation of the situation, and the appearance of the civilly divorced couple before a local ecclesiastical court, where another investigation is made. Only after an ecclesiastical divorce is issued by the presiding bishop can they apply for an ecclesiastical license to remarry.

Though the Church would prefer that all Orthodox Christians would marry Orthodox Christians, it does not insist on it in practice. Out of its concern for the spiritual welfare of members who wish to marry a non-Orthodox Christian, the Church will conduct a "mixed marriage." For this purpose, a "non-Orthodox Christian" is a member of the Roman Catholic Church, or one of the many Protestant Churches which believe in and baptize in the name of the Holy Trinity. This means that such mixed marriages may be performed in the Orthodox Church. However, the Orthodox Church does not perform marriages between Orthodox Christians and persons belonging to other religions, such as Islam , Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, or any sectarian and cult group, such as Christian Science, Mormonism, or the followers of Rev. Moon. (The Stand of the Orthodox Church on Controversial Issues.)

9. A denial of the absolute prohibition against the use of any form of contraception whatsoever. This is from the website of the Greek Orthodox Church in America:

General agreement exists among Orthodox writers on the following two points:

1. Since at least one of the purposes of marriage is the birth of children, a couple acts immorally when it consistently uses contraceptive methods to avoid the birth of any children, if there are not extenuating circumstances;
2. contraception is also immoral when used to encourage the practice of fornication and adultery.

Less agreement exists among Eastern Orthodox authors on the issue of contraception within marriage for the spacing of children or for the limitation of the number of children. Some authors take a negative view and count any use of contraceptive methods within or outside of marriage as immoral (Papacostas, pp. 13-18; Gabriel Dionysiatou). These authors tend to emphasize as the primary and almost exclusive purpose of marriage the birth of children and their upbringing. They tend to consider any other exercise of the sexual function as the submission of this holy act to unworthy purposes, i.e., pleasure-seeking, passion, and bodily gratification, which are held to be inappropriate for the Christian growing in spiritual perfection. These teachers hold that the only alternative is sexual abstinence in marriage, which, though difficult, is both desirable and possible through the aid of the grace of God. It must be noted also that, for these writers, abortion and contraception are closely tied together, and often little or no distinction is made between the two. Further, it is hard to discern in their writings any difference in judgment between those who use contraceptive methods so as to have no children and those who use them to space and limit the number of children.

Other Orthodox writers have challenged this view by seriously questioning the Orthodoxy of the exclusive and all-controlling role of the procreative purpose of marriage (Zaphiris; Constantelos, 1975). Some note the inconsistency of the advocacy of sexual continence in marriage with the scriptural teaching that one of the purposes of marriage is to permit the ethical fulfillment of sexual drives, so as to avoid fornication and adultery (1 Cor. 7:1-7). Most authors, however, emphasize the sacramental nature of marriage and its place within the framework of Christian anthropology, seeing the sexual relationship of husband and wife as one aspect of the mutual growth of the couple in love and unity. This approach readily adapts itself to an ethical position that would not only permit but also enjoin sexual relationships of husband and wife for their own sake as expressions of mutual love. Such a view clearly would support the use of contraceptive practices for the purpose of spacing and limiting children so as to permit greater freedom of the couple in the expression of their mutual love. (For the Health of Body and Soul: An Eastern Orthodox Introduction to Bioethics.)

Droleskey Afterword to Appendix A:

Such heretical beliefs are not the foundation of any kind of true reconciliation between the Orthodox and the Catholic Church, admitting that the counterfeit church of conciliarism can indeed "live" with these differences in the name of a false notion of "unity" and "love."

Appendix B

Pope Leo XIII’s Exhortation to the Orthodox to Return to the Catholic Faith

(With Commentary Extracted from an Earlier Article on this site)

First of all, then, We cast an affectionate look upon the East, from whence in the beginning came forth the salvation of the world.  Yes, and the yearning desire of Our heart bids us conceive and hope that the day is not far distant when the Eastern Churches, so illustrious in their ancient faith and glorious past, will return to the fold they have abandoned.  We hope it all the more, that the distance separating them from Us is not so great: nay, with some few exceptions, we agree so entirely on other heads that, in defense of the Catholic Faith, we often have recourse to reasons and testimony borrowed from the teaching, the Rites, and Customs of the East.

The Principal subject of contention is the Primacy of the Roman Pontiff.  But let them look back to the early years of their existence, let them consider the sentiments entertained by their forefathers, and examine what the oldest Traditions testify, and it will, indeed, become evident to them that Christ's Divine Utterance, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, has undoubtedly been realized in the Roman Pontiffs.  Many of these latter in the first gates of the Church were chosen from the East, and foremost among them Anacletus, Evaristus, Anicetus, Eleutherius, Zosimus, and Agatho; and of these a great number, after Governing the Church in Wisdom and Sanctity, Consecrated their Ministry with the shedding of their blood.  The time, the reasons, the promoters of the unfortunate division, are well known.  Before the day when man separated what God had joined together, the name of the Apostolic See was held in Reverence by all the nations of the Christian world: and the East, like the West, agreed without hesitation in its obedience to the Pontiff of Rome, as the Legitimate Successor of St. Peter, and, therefore, the Vicar of Christ here on earth.

And, accordingly, if we refer to the beginning of the dissension, we shall see that Photius himself was careful to send his advocates to Rome on the matters that concerned him; and Pope Nicholas I sent his Legates to Constantinople from the Eternal City, without the slightest opposition, "in order to examine the case of Ignatius the Patriarch with all diligence, and to bring back to the Apostolic See a full and accurate report"; so that the history of the whole negotiation is a manifest Confirmation of the Primacy of the Roman See with which the dissension then began.  Finally, in two great Councils, the second of Lyons and that of Florence, Latins and Greeks, as is notorious, easily agreed, and all unanimously proclaimed as Dogma the Supreme Power of the Roman Pontiffs.

We have recalled those things intentionally, for they constitute an invitation to peace and reconciliation; and with all the more reason that in Our own days it would seem as if there were a more conciliatory spirit towards Catholics on the part of the Eastern Churches, and even some degree of kindly feeling.  To mention an instance, those sentiments were lately made manifest when some of Our faithful travelled to the East on a Holy Enterprise, and received so many proofs of courtesy and good-will.

Therefore, Our mouth is open to you, to you all of Greek or other Oriental Rites who are separated from the Catholic Church, We earnestly desire that each and every one of you should meditate upon the words, so full of gravity and love, addressed by Bessarion to your forefathers: "What answer shall we give to God when He comes to ask why we have separated from our Brethren: to Him Who, to unite us and bring us into One Fold, came down from Heaven, was Incarnate, and was Crucified?  What will our defense be in the  eyes of posterity?  Oh, my Venerable Fathers, we must not suffer this to be, we must not entertain this thought, we must not thus so ill provide for ourselves and for our Brethren."

Weigh carefully in your minds and before God the nature of Our request.  It is not for any human motive, but impelled by Divine Charity and a desire for the salvation of all, that We advise the reconciliation and union with the Church of Rome; and We mean a perfect and complete union, such as could not subsist in any way if nothing else was brought about but a certain kind of agreement in the Tenets of Belief and an intercourse of Fraternal love.  The True Union between Christians is that which Jesus Christ, the Author of the Church, instituted and desired, and which consists in a Unity of Faith and Unity of Government.

Nor is there any reason for you to fear on that account that We or any of Our Successors will ever diminish your rights, the privileges of your Patriarchs, or the established Ritual of any one of your Churches.  It has been and always will be the intent and Tradition of the Apostolic See, to make a large allowance, in all that is right and good, for the primitive Traditions and special customs of every nation.  On the contrary, if you re-establish Union with Us, you will see how, by God's bounty, the glory and dignity of your Churches will be remarkably increased. 

May God, then, in His goodness, hear the Prayer that you yourselves address to Him: "Make the schisms of the Churches cease," and "Assemble those who are dispersed, bring back those who err, and unite them to Thy Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church."  May you thus return to that one Holy Faith which has been handed down both to Us and to you from time immemorial; which your forefathers preserved untainted, and which was enhanced by the rival splendor of the Virtues, the great genius, and the sublime learning of St. Athanasius and St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzum and St. John Chrysostom, the two Saints who bore the name of Cyril, and so many other great men whose glory belongs as a common inheritance to the East and to the West. (Pope Leo XIII, Praeclara Gratulationis Publicae, June 29, 1894. See also the excellent discussion of the the history of what led up to the Greek Schism that is contained in Fathers Francisco and Dominic Radecki's Tumultuous Times.) 

The conciliar “popes” have given Catholics and non-Catholics alike a distorted view of history and they have made it appear as though the new ecclesiology's concept of the "church as communion" has replaced the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church that there is no "Christian Church" outside of her. She is the one and sole embodiment of Christianity. The schismatic and heretical sects of Orthodoxy may have true sacraments because they possess true apostolic succession and have liturgical rites that that were used, at least for the most part, long before the Greek Schism of 1054. They do not have the Catholic Faith. Only those who adhere to the totality of the Deposit of Faith and are in full communion with a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter possess the Catholic Faith:

Agreement and union of minds is the necessary foundation of this perfect concord amongst men, from which concurrence of wills and similarity of action are the natural results. Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful - "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" (Eph. iv., 5). That is, as there is one Lord and one baptism, so should all Christians, without exception, have but one faith. And so the Apostle St. Paul not merely begs, but entreats and implores Christians to be all of the same mind, and to avoid difference of opinions: "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no schisms amongst you, and that you be perfect in the same mind and in the same judgment" (I Cor. i., 10). Such passages certainly need no interpreter; they speak clearly enough for themselves. Besides, all who profess Christianity allow that there can be but one faith. It is of the greatest importance and indeed of absolute necessity, as to which many are deceived, that the nature and character of this unity should be recognized. And, as We have already stated, this is not to be ascertained by conjecture, but by the certain knowledge of what was done; that is by seeking for and ascertaining what kind of unity in faith has been commanded by Jesus Christ. (Pope Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, June 29, 1896.)

Neither Ratzinger nor Bergoglio believe that "believers" have to agree on everything taught by the Catholic Church. It is enough for there to be that nebulous "Christian Christianity" referred to by Bergoglio nearly three years ago now.

The Orthodox hold a particular appeal to Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio as "Greek theology" is said to go back to "original sources" without the supposed distorted "filter" of the Scholasticism of Saint Thomas Aquinas that the two-headed "pope" monster contends has corrupted both the meaning of Sacred Scripture and the writing of the early Church Fathers, which is why it is important, Bergoglio believes, to “uncage” God the Holy Ghost so that He can “restore” what is said to be a primitive form of Christianity without the “accoutrements” of “complex dogmas” and “ossified, formulaic” liturgies.