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The West Was Made Great By The Catholic Faith, Nothing Else
Although the individuals who crafted the speech that President Donald John Trump delivered in Krasinski Square in Warsaw, Poland, on Thursday, July 6, 2017, certainly touched upon many important themes, including the rise of all-powerful bureaucracies that do treat citizens win contempt and crush legitimate national sovereignty, the text that they produced for the president was a celebration of Judeo-Masonic naturalism and its Pelagian belief that human beings can will a better future for themselves.
For example, it was near the end of the speech that President Trump read the following two paragraphs:
Finally, on both sides of the Atlantic, our citizens are confronted by yet another danger -- one firmly within our control. This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles: the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people. The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies.
Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty. We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. (Applause.) If left unchecked, these forces will undermine our courage, sap our spirit, and weaken our will to defend ourselves and our societies. (Remarks of the President to the Polish People)
No, the West did not become great “because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destines.” The rise of the monster civil state of Modernity was made inevitable precisely because of Martin Luther’s revolution against the Divine Plan that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself instituted to effect man’s return to Him through His Catholic Church. The creep of government bureaucracy to the point of a “soft” totalitarianism was made possible by the very fact that the Protestant Revolution’s overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King plunged fallen men and their nations into the pursuit of materialistic dreams and nationalistic destinies.
The West was not made great by the pursuit of “dreams” and “destinies.” It was made great by the blood of Catholic martyrs on the soil of Europe who sought to plant the seeds of barbaric and pagan peoples to the true Faith, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.
The blood of Catholic martyrs that was shed in the first three hundred years in the history of Holy Mother Church resulted in the rise of Christendom, that is, a world where human beings, although never perfectly and not without conflicts and scandals, sought to pursue the common temporal good in light of their Last End, namely, the possession of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity in Heaven. This is a point made repeatedly in hundreds upon hundreds of articles on this website and, of course, in Conversion in Reverse: How the Ethos of Americanism Converted Catholics and Contributed to the Rise of Conciliarism.
Very tellingly, my few but nevertheless very good readers, although those who wrote President Donald John Trump’s speech inserted references to “faith,” “God,” and “tradition” into its text, there was not one single mention of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Not one. No, not a single mention of Christ the King. Please, do not get excited about speeches that attempt to appeal to all religions by omitting the Holy Name of Jesus that was on the lips of the martyrs and proclaimed by all those who evangelized Europe during the building of Christendom.
The true history of Western civilization was summarized by Pope Leo XIII in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:
There was once a time when States were governed by the philosophy of the Gospel. Then it was that the power and divine virtue of Christian wisdom had diffused itself throughout the laws, institutions, and morals of the people, permeating all ranks and relations of civil society. Then, too, the religion instituted by Jesus Christ, established firmly in befitting dignity, flourished everywhere, by the favor of princes and the legitimate protection of magistrates; and Church and State were happily united in concord and friendly interchange of good offices. The State, constituted in this wise, bore fruits important beyond all expectation, whose remembrance is still, and always will be, in renown, witnessed to as they are by countless proofs which can never be blotted out or ever obscured by any craft of any enemies. Christian Europe has subdued barbarous nations, and changed them from a savage to a civilized condition, from superstition to true worship. It victoriously rolled back the tide of Mohammedan conquest; retained the headship of civilization; stood forth in the front rank as the leader and teacher of all, in every branch of national culture; bestowed on the world the gift of true and many-sided liberty; and most wisely founded very numerous institutions for the solace of human suffering. And if we inquire how it was able to bring about so altered a condition of things, the answer is -- beyond all question, in large measure, through religion, under whose auspices so many great undertakings were set on foot, through whose aid they were brought to completion.
A similar state of things would certainly have continued had the agreement of the two powers been lasting. More important results even might have been justly looked for, had obedience waited upon the authority, teaching, and counsels of the Church, and had this submission been specially marked by greater and more unswerving loyalty. For that should be regarded in the light of an ever-changeless law which Ivo of Chartres wrote to Pope Paschal II: "When kingdom and priesthood are at one, in complete accord, the world is well ruled, and the Church flourishes, and brings forth abundant fruit. But when they are at variance, not only smaller interests prosper not, but even things of greatest moment fall into deplorable decay."
But that harmful and deplorable passion for innovation which was aroused in the sixteenth century threw first of all into confusion the Christian religion, and next, by natural sequence, invaded the pecincts of philosophy, whence it spread amongst all classes of society. From this source, as from a fountain-head, burst forth all those later tenets of unbridled license which, in the midst of the terrible upheavals of the last century, were wildly conceived and boldly proclaimed as the principles and foundation of that new conception of law which was not merely previously unknown, but was at variance on many points with not only the Christian, but even the natural law. (Pope Leo the Great, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)
Neither Donald John Trump nor those who wrote the words he spoke three days ago in Poland understand that the rise of the monster civil state of Modernity was made inevitable as soon as the princes of various German states decided to support Martin Luther's revolution against the Divine Plan that Christ the King instituted to effect man's return to Him through His Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order. These princes cared nothing for Luther's theology. They, encouraged by their Jewish bankers and patrons, simply wanted to be "liberated" from having to govern according to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law as they have been entrusted by Christ the King to His true Church for their eternal safekeeping and eternal safekeeping. In other words, the German princes who supported Luther after he had posted his ninety-five theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, five hundred ninety-four years ago today, that is, on October 31, 1517, wanted to govern according the manner of Niccolo Machiavelli's amorality (the ends justify the means), not according the Mind of Christ the King as He has discharged It in His Catholic Church.
Despotism was the immediate result of Luther's desire to overthrow the Social Reign of Christ the King that required civil rulers to pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End and as they recognized that the Catholic Church had the authority From the King of Kings Himself to interpose herself with them if they proposed to do things or had in fact done things contrary to the good of souls after she had exhausted her Indirect Power of teaching, preaching and exhortation. Although there were abuses of monarchical authority during the period of Christendom in the Middle Ages, even the worst, most self-seeking civil potentates understood that Holy Mother Church possessed the authority to check their abuses of power, which is why some of the more pernicious ones among them made war directly upon her popes and bishops. The true "checking and balancing" power of the Catholic Church was removed by the Protestant Revolution, resulting in the rise of absolute despots such as King Henry VIII in England, who presaged the rise of the monster civil state of Modernity.
As has been noted on this site many times, including thirteen months ago in The Real "Brexit" Occurred In 1534, it is arguably the case that there would have been no reason for the American Revolution if England had remained Catholic as the colonies settled by Englishmen would have been expressions of the Social Reign of Christ the King. A just English king would not have permitted the sorts of abuses that caused the American colonists to rebel, although it should be noted that the total of the various taxes, duties, imposts and other revenue-raising measures imposed by the English upon them after 1763, following the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in Europe and its American cousin, the French and Indian Wars, added up to but a mere seven percent of annual per capita income. We are, just perhaps, mind you, paying a bit more than that today, I do believe.
Trump and his team of speechwriters, no matter how well-intentioned they may be, simply do not understand that no human effort to retard the growth of the civil state is possible once the sure foundations of the Social Reign of Christ the King are removed. It is the overthrow of those foundations that has caused men to believe in one lie of naturalism after another as they became convinced that they could do "whatever they set their minds to doing" in order to make a "better world," which is of the essence of the belief of the human self-redemption of semi-Pelagianism (the belief that individuals can "stir up graces within themselves" without any intervention on the part of God). Such beliefs, no matter how well intentioned, must result over the course of time in the triumph of the power of the civil state and the death of the myth that is "democracy" as defined the sons and daughters of the so-called "enlightenment."
Writing in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, explained that we have an obligation to proclaim the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the more that it is denied in the halls of civil parliaments and assemblies:
Moreover, the annual and universal celebration of the feast of the Kingship of Christ will draw attention to the evils which anticlericalism has brought upon society in drawing men away from Christ, and will also do much to remedy them. While nations insult the beloved name of our Redeemer by suppressing all mention of it in their conferences and parliaments, we must all the more loudly proclaim his kingly dignity and power, all the more universally affirm his rights. (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.)
President Trump did not do this in an historically Catholic country, Poland, but he did talk about the suffering of the Jews in Poland. Interesting.
Moreover, President Trump’s references to “faith” and to “God” made it appear once again that some kind of belief in a generic “God” and some kind of nebulous “faith” is what built Western civilization and can be recovered as the means for its renewal. This is simply not so:
Take care, Venerable Brethren, that above all, faith in God, the first and irreplaceable foundation of all religion, be preserved in Germany pure and unstained. The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God.
Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community -- however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things -- whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.
Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your influence on the Faithful, that they refuse to yield to this aberration. Our God is the Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, one in the Trinity of Persons, tri-personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all existence. Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the history of the world, who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival God by His side. (Pope Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937.)
Pope Pius XI went on to explain that the reform societies is premised upon the reform of the lives of men by means of Sanctifying Grace:
And today we again repeat with all the insistency We can command: it is not enough to be a member of the Church of Christ, one needs to be a living member, in spirit and in truth, i.e., living in the state of grace and in the presence of God, either in innocence or in sincere repentance. If the Apostle of the nations, the vase of election, chastised his body and brought it into subjection: lest perhaps, when he had preached to others, he himself should become a castaway (1 Cor. ix. 27), could anybody responsible for the extension of the Kingdom of God claim any other method but personal sanctification? Only thus can we show to the present generation, and to the critics of the Church that "the salt of the earth," the leaven of Christianity has not decayed, but is ready to give the men of today -- prisoners of doubt and error, victims of indifference, tired of their Faith and straying from God -- the spiritual renewal they so much need. A Christianity which keeps a grip on itself, refuses every compromise with the world, takes the commands of God and the Church seriously, preserves its love of God and of men in all its freshness, such a Christianity can be, and will be, a model and a guide to a world which is sick to death and clamors for directions, unless it be condemned to a catastrophe that would baffle the imagination.
20. Every true and lasting reform has ultimately sprung from the sanctity of men who were driven by the love of God and of men. Generous, ready to stand to attention to any call from God, yet confident in themselves because confident in their vocation, they grew to the size of beacons and reformers. On the other hand, any reformatory zeal, which instead of springing from personal purity, flashes out of passion, has produced unrest instead of light, destruction instead of construction, and more than once set up evils worse than those it was out to remedy. No doubt "the Spirit breatheth where he will" (John iii. 8): "of stones He is able to raise men to prepare the way to his designs" (Matt. iii. 9). He chooses the instruments of His will according to His own plans, not those of men. But the Founder of the Church, who breathed her into existence at Pentecost, cannot disown the foundations as He laid them. Whoever is moved by the spirit of God, spontaneously adopts both outwardly and inwardly, the true attitude toward the Church, this sacred fruit from the tree of the cross, this gift from the Spirit of God, bestowed on Pentecost day to an erratic world. (Pope Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937.)
In other words, order in the world is premised upon order in the souls of men, who need Sanctifying Grace to overcome their sins and to make reparation for them while seeking to pursue the heights of personal sanctification. Catholic sanctity built and maintained Western civilization for nearly a thousand years, not the pursuit of “dreams” and “destinies” according to the dictates of Judeo-Masonic religious indifferentism.
Catholicism teaches us, therefore, that no number of Judeo-Masonic speeches, including those expressing a commendable commitment to defend national borders and the inviolability of innocent human life, can stop the inevitable rise of the monster state, which must be swallowed up in its own turn by the ultimate triumph of Judeo-Masonry, namely, One World Governance, wherein the elected officials of nation-states become mere instruments to carry out the budgetary decisions made by unelected caesars and caesarettes in order to protect the banking and financial establishment's control over individual lives. Individual citizens in such a perverse scheme become the slaves of these institutions of global governance, being reduced to a cruel slavery by means of usury and other unjust practices that humans never faced in the era of Christendom. Remember, the serfs in the feudal system were permitted to keep a certain amount of what they grew for their lords and vassals. The civil state today has such complete control of individual lives today that those who farm the land to feed their families find themselves being highly regulated by the civil state, whose minions are eager to do the bidding of Big Agribusinsses and the various genetic companies that have altered seeds so as to experiment on crops and thus on us all.
Antichrist's One World Governance is here. The Constitution is as much a plaything of those who hold power at any particular time as the interpretation of the Bible is in the hands of Protestants. Without the Catholic Church, of course, there is no sure, infallible guidance to men on matters of Faith and Morals. All must indeed fall apart in the souls of men and their nations as a result.
All well-intentioned efforts such to retard statism at home and globalism around the world will fail, especially at a time when the conciliar “popes” themselves have endorsed the utopian, unnatural, ahistorical folly of global governance.
Consider for example, what the Antipope Emeritus, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, wrote in Caritatis in Veritate, June 29, 2009:
In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. One also senses the urgent need to find innovative ways of implementing the principle of the responsibility to protect and of giving poorer nations an effective voice in shared decision-making. This seems necessary in order to arrive at a political, juridical and economic order which can increase and give direction to international cooperation for the development of all peoples in solidarity. To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority, as my predecessor Blessed John XXIII indicated some years ago. Such an authority would need to be regulated by law, to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity, to seek to establish the common good, and to make a commitment to securing authentic integral human development inspired by the values of charity in truth. Furthermore, such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for right. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the coordinated measures adopted in various international forums. Without this, despite the great progress accomplished in various sectors, international law would risk being conditioned by the balance of power among the strongest nations. The integral development of peoples and international cooperation require the establishment of a greater degree of international ordering, marked by subsidiarity, for the management of globalization. They also require the construction of a social order that at last conforms to the moral order, to the interconnection between moral and social spheres, and to the link between politics and the economic and civil spheres, as envisaged by the Charter of the United Nations. (Caritas in veritate, June 29, 2009; see also Vatican document calls for global authority to regulate markets and Not Exactly Black And White.)
As is well-known, Ratzinger/Benedict’s successor, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, is even more supportive of the monster civil state of Modernity and gladly serves as an errand boy in white for George Soros and all of his statist, “open borders,” one world governance agenda:
First of all, I would like to congratulate you for your effort in replicating on a national level the work being developed in the World Meetings of Popular Movements. By way of this letter, I want to encourage and strengthen each one of you, your organizations, and all who strive with you for “Land, Work and Housing,” the three T’s in Spanish: Tierra, Trabajo y Techo. I congratulate you for all that you are doing.
I would like to thank the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, its chairman Bishop David Talley, and the host Bishops Stephen Blaire, Armando Ochoa and Jaime Soto, for the wholehearted support they have offered to this meeting. Thank you, Cardinal Peter Turkson, for your continued support of popular movements from the new Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development. It makes me very happy to see you working together towards social justice! How I wish that such constructive energy would spread to all dioceses, because it builds bridges between peoples and individuals. These are bridges that can overcome the walls of exclusion, indifference, racism, and intolerance.
I would also like to highlight the work done by the PICO National Network and the organizations promoting this meeting. I learned that PICO stands for “People Improving Communities through Organizing”. What a great synthesis of the mission of popular movements: to work locally, side by side with your neighbors, organizing among yourselves, to make your communities thrive. (Jorge Says That Mohmmedan Terrorism Does Not Exist.)
People Improving Communities through Organization (PICO), it should be understood, is an Soros-funded Alinsky-style organization whose mission is to coordinate efforts of supposedly "religious" leftists, including conciliarists, to organize in behalf of moral evils, globalism and statism. Its "organizing" efforts have been felt in Ferguson, Missouri, and they are being felt at this time in supposedly "spontaneous" demonstrations against efforts by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to round up and detain illegal immigrants and even at the “G-20” meeting in Hamburg, Germany, that has now adjourned.
The lords of Modernity and the lords of Modernism are thus as one in denying the Sovereignty of Christ the King, which is the only means to protect the sovereignty of individual nations. The Prophet Isaias has told us so himself:
[12] For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee, shall perish: and the Gentiles shall be wasted with desolation. (Isaias 60: 12.)
Yes, nations must perish when they do not recognize and submit in a spirit of docility to the Social Reign of Christ the King.
Pope Saint Pius X, writing in Singulari Quadam, September 24, 1912, explained that Catholics have an obligation to scrutinize everything in public life according to the teaching of Holy Mother Church. Although His Holiness was writing at the time specifically about labor organizations, his exhortation, as he made clear in his encyclical letter, applies to the entirety of the social order:
Accordingly, We first of all declare that all Catholics have a sacred and inviolable duty, both in private and public life, to obey and firmly adhere to and fearlessly profess the principles of Christian truth enunciated by the teaching office of the Catholic Church. In particular We mean those principles which Our Predecessor has most wisely laid down in the encyclical letter "Rerum Novarum." We know that the Bishops of Prussia followed these most faithfully in their deliberations at the Fulda Congress of 1900. You yourselves have summarized the fundamental ideas of these principles in your communications regarding this question.
These are fundamental principles: No matter what the Christian does, even in the realm of temporal goods, he cannot ignore the supernatural good. Rather, according to the dictates of Christian philosophy, he must order all things to the ultimate end, namely, the Highest Good. All his actions, insofar as they are morally either good or bad (that is to say, whether they agree or disagree with the natural and divine law), are subject to the judgment and judicial office of the Church. All who glory in the name of Christian, either individually or collectively, if they wish to remain true to their vocation, may not foster enmities and dissensions between the classes of civil society. On the contrary, they must promote mutual concord and charity. The social question and its associated controversies, such as the nature and duration of labor, the wages to be paid, and workingmen's strikes, are not simply economic in character. Therefore they cannot be numbered among those which can be settled apart from ecclesiastical authority. "The precise opposite is the truth. It is first of all moral and religious, and for that reason its solution is to be expected mainly from the moral law and the pronouncements of religion."(Pope Saint Pius X, Singulari Quadam, September 24, 1912.)
The current president, of course, is trying to restore limited government and national sovereignty in spite of the truths enunciated so clearly by our true popes. A limited civil government that respects the integrity of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law is only possible in the properly ordered Catholic state, where citizens would be possessed of the sensus Catholicus and would not look to "government" for the "solutions" to problems that have their remote cause in Original Sin and their proximate causes in our own Actual Sins. Individual issues that arise would be examined by Catholics in light of First and Last Things as they made honest efforts to apply the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law in the concrete circumstances in which they find themselves. Catholics can disagree about the application of principles. They are not free to disagree about the fact that the Faith governs all of our actions, both personal and social, at all times.
This puts the lie to Trump’s contention that it is a virtue for nations such as the United States of America to “debate” and “challenge” everything, which he believes is the basis for defending innocent human life that has come under attack precisely because everything about the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law has been debated and challenged since the time of Martin Luther, a phenomenon that has been celebrated as part of the very fabric of the American founding itself:
We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success. We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives. And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves. (Applause.)
And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom. That is who we are. Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization. (Remarks of the President to the Polish People)
The president read the words that were written for him by speechwriters who simply do not understand that it is because of various elements of the Renaissance that gave rebirth to the moral relativism of the Sophists. And it was the moral relativism of the neo-Sophists of the Renaissance that paved the way for the theological relativism of the Protestant Revolution, which served as an unintentional precursor for the triumph of Judeo-Masonic naturalism and statism. Trump thus celebrated what the American penchant for “debating” and “challenging” everything that has undermined the right to life that he wants to protect. We are thus in a world where human beings spend a good deal of their lives arguing about that which is beyond the ability of humans to decide. (See Arguing About Who Decides That Which Is Beyond Humans To Decide, part one, Arguing About Who Decides That Which Is Beyond Humans To Decide, part two, Arguing About Who Decides That Which Is Beyond Humans To Decide, part three, and Arguing Who Decides That Which is Beyond Humans To Decide, part four).
I well understand how some Catholics might be prone to put aside a belief that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order to give Trump credit for defending “value” at a time when Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a confederate in the army of statists such George Soros and Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., believes that it is necessary to base moral judgments on what people actually do rather than what they should do according to the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law. Bergoglio's emphases on the "environment," "open borders" and matters of "economic justice" (read: Marxism) have resulted in "conservative" Catholics passionately defending the president for opposing what the "heretical pope" supports, thus rendering fealty to a secular leader rather than to the man they accept as a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter.
Every single bit of this is designed to make it appear that men who are ignorant of First and Last Things such as the president are defenders of truth as the office of the papacy comes to be viewed with more and more contempt and disgust by "conservative" and "traditionally-minded" Catholics.
Pope Leo XIII explained in Humanum Genus, April 20, 1888, that the very process of debating and challenging “everything” that was extolled by President Trump three days ago is of the essence of Freemasonry:
But the naturalists go much further; for, having, in the highest things, entered upon a wholly erroneous course, they are carried headlong to extremes, either by reason of the weakness of human nature, or because God inflicts upon them the just punishment of their pride. Hence it happens that they no longer consider as certain and permanent those things which are fully understood by the natural light of reason, such as certainly are -- the existence of God, the immaterial nature of the human soul, and its immortality. The sect of the Freemasons, by a similar course of error, is exposed to these same dangers; for, although in a general way they may profess the existence of God, they themselves are witnesses that they do not all maintain this truth with the full assent of the mind or with a firm conviction. Neither do they conceal that this question about God is the greatest source and cause of discords among them; in fact, it is certain that a considerable contention about this same subject has existed among them very lately. But, indeed, the sect allows great liberty to its votaries, so that to each side is given the right to defend its own opinion, either that there is a God, or that there is none; and those who obstinately contend that there is no God are as easily initiated as those who contend that God exists, though, like the pantheists, they have false notions concerning Him: all which is nothing else than taking away the reality, while retaining some absurd representation of the divine nature.
When this greatest fundamental truth has been overturned or weakened, it follows that those truths, also, which are known by the teaching of nature must begin to fall -- namely, that all things were made by the free will of God the Creator; that the world is governed by Providence; that souls do not die; that to this life of men upon the earth there will succeed another and an everlasting life.
When these truths are done away with, which are as the principles of nature and important for knowledge and for practical use, it is easy to see what will become of both public and private morality. We say nothing of those more heavenly virtues, which no one can exercise or even acquire without a special gift and grace of God; of which necessarily no trace can be found in those who reject as unknown the redemption of mankind, the grace of God, the sacraments, and the happiness to be obtained in heaven. We speak now of the duties which have their origin in natural probity. That God is the Creator of the world and its provident Ruler; that the eternal law commands the natural order to be maintained, and forbids that it be disturbed; that the last end of men is a destiny far above human things and beyond this sojourning upon the earth: these are the sources and these the principles of all justice and morality.
If these be taken away, as the naturalists and Freemasons desire, there will immediately be no knowledge as to what constitutes justice and injustice, or upon what principle morality is founded. And, in truth, the teaching of morality which alone finds favor with the sect of Freemasons, and in which they contend that youth should be instructed, is that which they call "civil," and "independent," and "free," namely, that which does not contain any religious belief. But, how insufficient such teaching is, how wanting in soundness, and how easily moved by every impulse of passion, is sufficiently proved by its sad fruits, which have already begun to appear. For, wherever, by removing Christian education, this teaching has begun more completely to rule, there goodness and integrity of morals have begun quickly to perish, monstrous and shameful opinions have grown up, and the audacity of evil deeds has risen to a high degree. All this is commonly complained of and deplored; and not a few of those who by no means wish to do so are compelled by abundant evidence to give not infrequently the same testimony. (Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884.)
Yes, there is no “knowledge” of what constitutes justice and injustice in a land that gives full rein to blasphemy and sacrilege, a land where even the adversary himself has “rights” as it is considered to be something akin to a “hate” crime to mention the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, which has been banned by United States Department of Defense and its military services from being invoked outside of chaplaincy use.
How can we expect there to be any concept of justice even on the natural level when their nations promote public worship of the devil while mocking Christ the King?
How can we expect there to be any concept of justice even on the natural level when the civil law sanctions the killing of the innocent preborn and the vivisection of anyone after birth under the aegis of the medical industry’s manufactured, profit-making myth called “brain death”?
How can we expect there to be any concept of justice even on the natural level when so many people are unjust in their own personal dealings, when relativism and positivism have become the accepted norms of social conduct?
Pope Leo XIII made it abundantly clear in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890, that those who search for merely "natural' solutions to the problems of man search in vain:
The Church, it is certain, at no time and in no particular circumstance is deserted by God; hence, there is no reason why she should be alarmed at the wickedness of men; but in the case of nations falling away from Christian virtue there is not a like ground of assurance, "for sin maketh nations miserable." If every bygone age has experienced the force of this truth, wherefore should not our own? There are, in truth, very many signs which proclaim that just punishments are already menacing, and the condition of modern States tends to confirm this belief, since we perceive many of them in sad plight from intestine disorders, and not one entirely exempt. But, should those leagued together in wickedness hurry onward in the road they have boldly chosen, should they increase in influence and power in proportion as they make headway in their evil purposes and crafty schemes, there will be ground to fear lest the very foundations nature has laid for States to rest upon be utterly destroyed. Nor can such misgivings be removed by any mere human effort, especially as a vast number of men, having rejected the Christian faith, are on that account justly incurring the penalty of their pride, since blinded by their passions they search in vain for truth, laying hold on the false for the true, and thinking themselves wise when they call "evil good, and good evil," and "put darkness in the place of light, and light in the place of darkness." It is therefore necessary that God come to the rescue, and that, mindful of His mercy, He turn an eye of compassion on human society. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)
We do not organize nations around the false principles of naturalism. We do not restore "order" in nations by the false principles of naturalism. Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. All Falls Apart Absent Christ the King.
To wit, a Catholic possessed of the sensus Catholicus would have an understanding of the following basic truths, thereby eliminating most of the "issues" that are raised in the course of elections by naturalists who want to "solve" problems caused by the overthrow of Christendom:
- The civil state has an obligation to recognize the true Church and to accord her the favor and the protection of the laws.
- There are limits that have been revealed positively by God and that exist in the nature of things (the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law) that bind the consciences of all men in all circumstances in all places at all times.
- No one, whether acting individually or collectively with others in the institutions of civil governance, may defy the laws of God as they have been entrusted to the infallible teaching authority of the Catholic Church.
- The Catholic Church possesses the Divine right to interpose herself with the civil authorities as last resort when the good of souls demands her motherly intervention following the exhausting of her Indirect Power of teaching, preaching and exhortation.
- Each man on the the face of the earth has a solemn obligation to submit himself to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church on all that pertains to the good of souls, accepting humbly and in a spirit of docility the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has revealed to us exclusively through the Catholic Church.
- Social order depends upon order within the state of the individual souls of men.
- Order within the individual souls of men depend upon their having belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace thus being equipped to see the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith and to act according to the Mind of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He has discharged It exclusively in the Catholic Church.
- All of the problems of the world, bar none, are caused by Original Sin and the Actual Sins of men.
- The only way to "reform" societies is for men to reform their souls in cooperation with Sanctifying Grace.
- The family is the basic unit of society and as such its members (father, mother, children) have an obligation to perform the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy for each other and to provide, as far as is humanly possible, for the spiritual and temporal care of close relatives (grandparents, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, cousins) when they are unable to do so.
- The virtues are to be cultivated within the family unit as worldliness is eschewed and as parents and children live here on this earth in light of their Last End, the possession of the Beatific Vision of Father, Son and Holy Ghost in Heaven for all eternity.
- Each home should be enthroned to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary as each member within it is totally consecrated to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through that same Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.
- As far as is humanly possible in this era of apostasy and betrayal when the availability of true offerings of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass have been limited to a relative handful of locations, families must endeavor to assist at Holy Mass on a daily basis and to spend time as a family, at least on a weekly basis, before Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament. This is an antidote to worldliness and to naturalism.
- Each family must pray at least one set of mysteries of Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary every day.
- Each family must read about the lives of the saints, preferably in conjunction with the Mass of the day.
- Each family must be content to live in accord with the Virtue of Modesty, dressing and speaking as befits redeemed creatures, careful to avoid any degree of participation in cultural fashions or activities contrary to the good of our souls or those of others.
- Parents must welcome as many children as God sees fit to send them, refusing to do anything to prevent the conception of children or to conceive children by artificial means if God has seen fit not to bestow upon them any (or with a particular number of) children.
- Husbands and wives must understand that a Sacramentally valid, ratified and consummated marriage is indissoluble, and that there is no problem within the family that is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer during His Passion and Death and that caused those Seven Swords of Sorrow to be thrust through and through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother.
- Similarly, children must be taught there there is no cross (rejection by friends, a failing grade in a class, ridicule, ostracism, sickness, the death of a parent or other close relative, financial setbacks) that is the equal of what our sins caused Our Lord to suffer as He redeemed us, understanding as well that each cross we are asked to bear has been fashioned for us by the very hand of God Himself for all eternity for His greater honor and glory and for our sanctification and salvation.
- Families, in conjunction with Our Lady's Fatima Message, must seek to make reparation for their own sins and those of the whole world, seeking to live in joy as they embrace voluntarily more and more penances to help convert sinners in this life and to come to the aid of the Poor, Suffering Souls in Purgatory.
- It is essential for families to get themselves to the Sacred Tribunal of Penance on a weekly basis.
- Families must not immerse themselves in the consumer mentality that is abroad in our land, being content with a sufficiency of the means of this world and making certain to give back unto God the first fruits of whatever material benefits He has bestowed upon them.
- Parents must understand that they are the principal educators of their children, cooperating with their legitimate pastors and legitimate, truly Catholic schools to help them to be educated in all things, sacred and profane, in light of the Holy Faith.
- Those in the civil government must understand that their first obligation is to foster those conditions within their jurisdictions that will be conducive for the sanctification and salvation of the souls of their fellow citizens, seeking to root out those things that are grievously sinful and thus pose a grave, if not fatal, threat to souls and to the commonwealth.
- The civil government must pursue the common temporal good in light of man's Last End, doing nothing to interfere with the sanctification and salvation of its citizens.
We need a King, we need THE King, Christ the King, to lead us out of the darkness of the forests of naturalism so that we will be able to see the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith and will not be in histrionics every four or eight years as this or that "worst ever" boogeyman and his "hold your nose" opponent view for power in our Judeo-Masonic system of falsehoods that continues to degenerate right before our very eyes. There is no other solution. None.
Pope Leo XIII, writing in Annum Sacram, May 25, 1899, explained that Our King is indeed King of all men and nations even if they do not understand or accept his His Kinship over them:
This world-wide and solemn testimony of allegiance and piety is especially appropriate to Jesus Christ, who is the Head and Supreme Lord of the race. His empire extends not only over Catholic nations and those who, having been duly washed in the waters of holy baptism, belong of right to the Church, although erroneous opinions keep them astray, or dissent from her teaching cuts them off from her care; it comprises also all those who are deprived of the Christian faith, so that the whole human race is most truly under the power of Jesus Christ. For He who is the Only-begotten Son of God the Father, having the same substance with Him and being the brightness of His glory and the figure of His substance (Hebrews i., 3) necessarily has everything in common with the Father, and therefore sovereign power over all things. This is why the Son of God thus speaks of Himself through the Prophet: "But I am appointed king by him over Sion, his holy mountain. . . The Lord said to me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession" (Psalm, ii.). By these words He declares that He has power from God over the whole Church, which is signified by Mount Sion, and also over the rest of the world to its uttermost ends. On what foundation this sovereign power rests is made sufficiently plain by the words, "Thou art My Son." For by the very fact that He is the Son of the King of all, He is also the heir of all His Father's power: hence the words - "I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance," which are similar to those used by Paul the Apostle, "whom he hath appointed heir of all things" (Hebrews i., 2).
But we should now give most special consideration to the declarations made by Jesus Christ, not through the Apostles or the Prophets but by His own words. To the Roman Governor who asked Him, "Art thou a king then?" He answered unhesitatingly, "Thou sayest that I am a king" John xviii. 37).And the greatness of this power and the boundlessness of His kingdom is still more clearly declared in these words to the Apostles: "All power is given to me in heaven and on earth" (Matthew xxviii., 18). If then all power has been given to Christ it follows of necessity that His empire must be supreme, absolute and independent of the will of any other, so that none is either equal or like unto it: and since it has been given in heaven and on earth it ought to have heaven and earth obedient to it. And verily he has acted on this extraordinary and peculiar right when He commanded His Apostles to preach His doctrine over the earth, to gather all men together into the one body of the Church by the baptism of salvation, and to bind them by laws, which no one could reject without risking his eternal salvation.
How it comes about that infidels themselves are subject to the power and dominion of Jesus Christ is clearly shown by St. Thomas, who gives us the reason and its explanation. For having put the question whether His judicial power extends to all men, and having stated that judicial authority flows naturally from royal authority, he concludes decisively as follows: "All things are subject to Christ as far as His power is concerned, although they are not all subject to Him in the exercise of that power" (3a., p., q. 59, a. 4). This sovereign power of Christ over men is exercised by truth, justice, and above all, by charity.
To this twofold ground of His power and domination He graciously allows us, if we think fit, to add voluntary consecration. Jesus Christ, our God and our Redeemer, is rich in the fullest and perfect possession of all things: we, on the other hand, are so poor and needy that we have nothing of our own to offer Him as a gift. But yet, in His infinite goodness and love, He in no way objects to our giving and consecrating to Him what is already His, as if it were really our own; nay, far from refusing such an offering, He positively desires it and asks for it: "My son, give me thy heart." We are, therefore, able to be pleasing to Him by the good will and the affection of our soul. For by consecrating ourselves to Him we not only declare our open and free acknowledgment and acceptance of His authority over us, but we also testify that if what we offer as a gift were really our own, we would still offer it with our whole heart. We also beg of Him that He would vouchsafe to receive it from us, though clearly His own. Such is the efficacy of the act of which We speak, such is the meaning underlying Our words.
And since there is in the Sacred Heart a symbol and a sensible image of the infinite love of Jesus Christ which moves us to love one another, therefore is it fit and proper that we should consecrate ourselves to His most Sacred Heart - an act which is nothing else than an offering and a binding of oneself to Jesus Christ, seeing that whatever honor, veneration and love is given to this divine Heart is really and truly given to Christ Himself. (Pope Leo XIII, Annum Sacrum, May 25, 1899.)
Pope Pius XI, writing in Quas Primas, December 11, 1925, put the matter this way:
The faithful, moreover, by meditating upon these truths, will gain much strength and courage, enabling them to form their lives after the true Christian ideal. If to Christ our Lord is given all power in heaven and on earth; if all men, purchased by his precious blood, are by a new right subjected to his dominion; if this power embraces all men, it must be clear that not one of our faculties is exempt from his empire. He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts, which should spurn natural desires and love God above all things, and cleave to him alone. He must reign in our bodies and in our members, which should serve as instruments for the interior sanctification of our souls, or to use the words of the Apostle Paul, as instruments of justice unto God. If all these truths are presented to the faithful for their consideration, they will prove a powerful incentive to perfection. It is Our fervent desire, Venerable Brethren, that those who are without the fold may seek after and accept the sweet yoke of Christ, and that we, who by the mercy of God are of the household of the faith, may bear that yoke, not as a burden but with joy, with love, with devotion; that having lived our lives in accordance with the laws of God's kingdom, we may receive full measure of good fruit, and counted by Christ good and faithful servants, we may be rendered partakers of eternal bliss and glory with him in his heavenly kingdom. (Pope Pius XI, Quas Primas, December 11, 1925.)
Christ the King must reign in our minds, not naturalism of the "left" or naturalism of the "right."
These words of Pope Leo XIII, contained in Sapientiae Christianae and quoted above, and the ones that follow from Pope Pius XI’s Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, should give us cause before we continue to rush into the insanity of listening the naturalist babblers babble on and on about "issues" that they do not understand clearly or fully because they believe in one naturalist falsehood after another:
Nor can such misgivings be removed by any mere human effort, especially as a vast number of men, having rejected the Christian faith, are on that account justly incurring the penalty of their pride, since blinded by their passions they search in vain for truth, laying hold on the false for the true, and thinking themselves wise when they call "evil good, and good evil," and "put darkness in the place of light, and light in the place of darkness." It is therefore necessary that God come to the rescue, and that, mindful of His mercy, He turn an eye of compassion on human society. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)
There is over and above the absence of peace and the evils attendant on this absence, another deeper and more profound cause for present-day conditions. This cause was even beginning to show its head before the War and the terrible calamities consequent on that cataclysm should have proven a remedy for them if mankind had only taken the trouble to understand the real meaning of those terrible events. In the Holy Scriptures we read: "They that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed." (Isaias i, 28) No less well known are the words of the Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ, Who said: "Without me you can do nothing" (John xv, 5) and again, "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." (Luke xi, 23)
28. These words of the Holy Bible have been fulfilled and are now at this very moment being fulfilled before our very eyes. Because men have forsaken God and Jesus Christ, they have sunk to the depths of evil. They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. It was a quite general desire that both our laws and our governments should exist without recognizing God or Jesus Christ, on the theory that all authority comes from men, not from God. Because of such an assumption, these theorists fell very short of being able to bestow upon law not only those sanctions which it must possess but also that secure basis for the supreme criterion of justice which even a pagan philosopher like Cicero saw clearly could not be derived except from the divine law.
Authority itself lost its hold upon mankind, for it had lost that sound and unquestionable justification for its right to command on the one hand and to be obeyed on the other. Society, quite logically and inevitably, was shaken to its very depths and even threatened with destruction, since there was left to it no longer a stable foundation, everything having been reduced to a series of conflicts, to the domination of the majority, or to the supremacy of special interests.
29. Again, legislation was passed which did not recognize that either God or Jesus Christ had any rights over marriage -- an erroneous view which debased matrimony to the level of a mere civil contract, despite the fact that Jesus Himself had called it a "great sacrament" (Ephesians v, 32) and had made it the holy and sanctifying symbol of that indissoluble union which binds Him to His Church. The high ideals and pure sentiments with which the Church has always surrounded the idea of the family, the germ of all social life, these were lowered, were unappreciated, or became confused in the minds of many. As a consequence, the correct ideals of family government, and with them those of family peace, were destroyed; the stability and unity of the family itself were menaced and undermined, and, worst of all, the very sanctuary of the home was more and more frequently profaned by acts of sinful lust and soul-destroying egotism -- all of which could not but result in poisoning and drying up the very sources of domestic and social life.
30. Added to all this, God and Jesus Christ, as well as His doctrines, were banished from the school. As a sad but inevitable consequence, the school became not only secular and non-religious but openly atheistical and anti-religious. In such circumstances it was easy to persuade poor ignorant children that neither God nor religion are of any importance as far as their daily lives are concerned. God's name, moreover, was scarcely ever mentioned in such schools unless it were perchance to blaspheme Him or to ridicule His Church. Thus, the school forcibly deprived of the right to teach anything about God or His law could not but fail in its efforts to really educate, that is, to lead children to the practice of virtue, for the school lacked the fundamental principles which underlie the possession of a knowledge of God and the means necessary to strengthen the will in its efforts toward good and in its avoidance of sin. Gone, too, was all possibility of ever laying a solid groundwork for peace, order, and prosperity, either in the family or in social relations. Thus the principles based on the spiritualistic philosophy of Christianity having been obscured or destroyed in the minds of many, a triumphant materialism served to prepare mankind for the propaganda of anarchy and of social hatred which was let loose on such a great scale. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)
It was noted at the beginning of this commentary that Western civilization sprung from the seedbed of the blood of millions of Catholic martyrs. What an irony it is that the very “values” of “debating” and “challenging” everything that were celebrated by President Donald John Trump as the foundation of American political and social praxis were purchased at the cost of the shedding the blood of thousands upon thousands of Catholics in England and Ireland who remained faithful to the true Faith after King Henry VIII had “liberated” his kingdom from the true Church that was founded by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.
Fittingly, today, July 9, 2017, the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, is a day on which the martyrdoms of Saint John Fisher on June 22, 1535, and of Saint Thomas More on July 9, 1535, are commemorated liturgically in England and Wales according to the General Roman Calendar of 1954. (Other feasts commemorated in various parts of the world according to the same calendar are those of Saint Maria Goretti, the Martyrs of Gorkhum, whose feast is commemorated in the Dominican Rite, and Saint Veronica Giuliani.)
Saint John Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, was the only English bishop out of approximately one hundred who did not knuckle under to the Act of Supremacy that Parliament had passed in 1534 at the behest of King Henry VIII. He stood fast in the Catholic Faith. So must we, which is why we can draw inspiration from his final words in order to make no compromises about the Faith and to resist all temptations to see in well-meaning naturalists any kind of “hope” to retard the evils of the day:
Being upon the scaffold, he spake to the people in effect as followeth:—"Christian people, I am come hither to die for the faith of Christ's Holy Catholic Church; and, I thank God, hitherto my stomach hath served me very well thereunto, so that yet I have not feared death; wherefore I desire you all to help and assist with your prayers, that, at the very point and instant of death's stroke, I may in that very moment stand steadfast without fainting in any one point of the Catholic faith, free from any fear. And I beseech Almighty God of his infinite goodness to save the king and this realm, and that it may please him to hold his holy hand over it, and send the king a good council." These words he spake with such a cheerful countenance, such a stout and constant courage, and such a reverent gravity, that he appeared to all men, not only void of fear, but also glad of death.
After these few words by him uttered, he kneeled down on both his knees, and said certain prayers. Among which, as some reported, one was the hymn of Te Deum laudamus to the end; and the psalm, In te, Domine, speravi. Then came the executioner and bound an handkerchief about his eyes; and so the bishop, lifting up his hands and heart to heaven, said a few prayers, which were not long, but fervent and devout: which being ended, he laid his head down over the midst of a little block, where the executioner, being ready with a sharp and heavy axe, cut asunder his slender neck at one blow; which bled so abundantly, that many, saith my author, wondered to see so much blood issue out of so lean and slender a body, though, in my judgment, that might rather have translated the wonder from his leanness to his age, it being otherwise a received tradition, that lean folk have the most blood in them.
Thus died John Fisher, in the seventy-seventh year of his age, on the two-and-twentieth of June, being St. Alban's day. (Final Words of Saint John Fisher.)
Saint Thomas More, who had kept his peace about the oath Henry Tudor required Englishmen to take in support of the Act of Supremacy under his trial, resigned his position as the Chancellor of the Realm as he knew that he could not take an oath to support a declaration that was false and had no binding force upon God or man. It was only after the perjured testimony of Richard Rich that Saint Thomas More discharged his mind concerning the injustice of the supremacy law and of his own trial:
In good faith, Master Rich, I am sorrier for your perjury than for mine own peril, and you shall understand that neither I nor any man else to my knowledge ever took you to be a man of such credit in any matter of importance I or any other would at any time vouchsafe to communicate with you. And I, as you know, of no small while have been acquainted with you and your conversation, who have known you from your youth hitherto, for we long dwelled together in one parish. Whereas yourself can tell (I am sorry you compel me to say) you were esteemed very light of tongue, a great dicer, and of no commendable fame. And so in your house at the Temple, where hath been your chief bringing up, were you likewise accounted. Can it therefore seem likely to your honorable lordships, that I would, in so weighty a cause, so unadvisedly overshoot myself as to trust Master Rich, a man of me always reputed for one of little truth, as your lordships have heard, so far above my sovereign lord the king, or any of his noble counselors, that I would unto him utter the secrets of my conscience touching the king's supremacy, the special point and only mark at my hands so long sought for?
A thing which I never did, nor ever would, after the statute thereof made, reveal unto the King's Highness himself or to any of his honorable counselors, as it is not unknown to your honors, at sundry and several times, sent from His Grace's own person unto the Tower unto me for none other purpose. Can this in your judgment, my lords, seem likely to be true? And if I had so done, indeed, my lords, as Master Rich hath sworn, seeing it was spoken but in familiar, secret talk, nothing affirming, and only in putting of cases, without other displeasant circumstances, it cannot justly be taken to be spoken maliciously; and where there is no malice there can be no offense. And over this I can never think, my lords, that so many worthy bishops, so many noble personages, and many other worshipful, virtuous, wise, and well-learned men as at the making of the law were in Parliament assembled, ever meant to have any man punished by death in whom there could be found no malice, taking malitia pro malevolentia: for if malitia be generally taken for sin, no man is there that can excuse himself. Quia si dixerimus quod peccatum non habemus, nosmetipsos seducimus, et veritas in nobis non est. [If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.] And only this word, "maliciously" is in the statute material, as this term "forcibly" is in the statute of forcible entries, by which statute if a man enter peaceably, and put not his adversary out "forcibly," it is no offense, but if he put him out "forcibly," then by that statute it is an offense, and so shall be punished by this term, "forcibly."
Besides this, the manifold goodness of the King's Highness himself, that hath been so many ways my singular good lord and gracious sovereign, and that hath so dearly loved and trusted me, even at my first coming into his noble service, with the dignity of his honorable privy council, vouchsafing to admit me; and finally with the weighty room of His Grace's higher chancellor, the like whereof he never did to temporal man before, next to his own royal person the highest office in this whole realm, so far above my qualities or merits and meet therefor of his own incomparable benignity honored and exalted me, by the space of twenty years or more, showing his continual favors towards me, and (until, at mine own poor suit it pleased His Highness, giving me license with His Majesty's favor to bestow the residue of my life wholly for the provision of my soul in the service of God, and of his special goodness thereof to discharge and unburden me) most benignly heaped honors continually more and more upon me; all this His Highness's goodness, I say, so long thus bountifully extended towards me, were in my mind, my lords, matter sufficient to convince this slanderous surmise by this man so wrongfully imagined against me....
Forasmuch, my lord, as this indictment is grounded upon an act of Parliament directly oppugnant to the laws of God and his holy church, the supreme government of which, or of any part thereof, may no temporal prince presume by any law to take upon him, as rightfully belonging to the See of Rome, a spiritual preeminence by the mouth of our Savior himself, personally present upon the earth, to Saint Peter and his successors, bishops of the same see, by special prerogative granted; it is therefore in law amongst Christian men, insufficient to charge any Christian man....
More have I not to say, my lords, but that like as the blessed apostle Saint Paul, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, was present and consented to the death of Saint Stephen, and kept their clothes that stoned him to death, and yet be they now twain holy saints in heaven, and shall continue there friends forever: so I verily trust and shall therefore right heartily pray, that though your lordships have now in earth been judges to my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together to our everlasting salvation. (See Saint Thomas More's Speech in Defense of Himself, at his Trial.)
Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order.
Who says so?
Sure, you know, right?
Of course you do:
No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. Omnia instaurare in Christo.
Here we have, founded by Catholics, an inter-denominational association that is to work for the reform of civilization, an undertaking which is above all religious in character; for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. The new Sillonists cannot pretend that they are merely working on “the ground of practical realities” where differences of belief do not matter. Their leader is so conscious of the influence which the convictions of the mind have upon the result of the action, that he invites them, whatever religion they may belong to, “to provide on the ground of practical realities, the proof of the excellence of their personal convictions.” And with good reason: indeed, all practical results reflect the nature of one’s religious convictions, just as the limbs of a man down to his finger-tips, owe their very shape to the principle of life that dwells in his body. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
As Our Lady told Jacinta and Francisco Marto in the Cova da Iria, near Fatima, Portugal, on July 13, 1917, that “In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph”:
"To prevent this, I shall come to ask for the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, and the Communion of Reparation on the First Saturdays. If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted, and there will be peace; if not, she will spread her errors throughout the world, causing wars and persecutions of the Church. The good will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer, various nations will be annihilated. In the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Holy Father will consecrate Russia to me and she will be converted, and a period of peace will be granted to the world." (Our Lady's words at Fatima.)
We must continue to pray, fast and to make many sacrifices for the restoration of a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter who will proceed to fulfill Our Lady’s Fatima Message no matter how many people believe that is either unnecessary or that it would not do any good. Our Lady told us what would happen, namely, that her Immaculate Heart will triumph.” Why do we doubt that this is so?
Praying our Rosaries as we beseech Saint Joseph, the Patron of the Universal Church and the Protector of the Faithful, to protect us in these times of great peril, may we fly unto his Most Chaste Spouse, to surrender to everything, including our liberty if this is to be taken away from us, to serve Christ the King as soldiers in His holy army in our battle with the forces of the adversary in our lives and in the world-at-large.
Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!
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 Balthasar, pray for us.
Saint Veronica Giuliani, pray for us.
Saint Thomas More, pray for us.
Saint John Fisher, pray for us.
The Martyrs of Gorkum, pray for us.
Saint Maria Goretti, pray for us.