Living in a World of Anti-Theism

The demons are very active in the world right now, and they are more active than perhaps ever before since Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s Redemptive Act on the wood of the Holy Cross which we are calling to mind in a particular way during this Passiontide in preparation for the Paschal Triduum of His Passion, Death, and Resurrection starting Tenebrae on Wednesday evening, April 6, 2023. This heightened demonic activity has been aided and abetted by the paucity of a superabundance of Sanctifying and Actual Graces caused by the conciliar revolution and its invalid liturgical and sacramental rites.

Father Frederick William Faber wrote the following words one hundred sixty-three years ago about what the world would look like without the benefits of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and they have turned out to be very prophetic words indeed:

It is plain that some millions of sins in a day are hindered by the Precious Blood; and this is not merely a hindering of so many individual sins, but it is an immense check upon the momentum of sin. It is also a weakening of habits of sin, and a diminution of the consequences of sin. If then, the action of the Precious Blood were withdrawn from the world, sins would not only increase incalculably in number, but the tyranny of sin would be fearfully augmented, and it would spread among a greater number of people. It would wax so bold that no one would be secure from the sins of others. It would be a constant warfare, or an intolerable vigilance, to preserve property and rights. Falsehood would become so universal as to dissolve society; and the homes of domestic life would be turned into wards either of a prison or a madhouse. We cannot be in the company of an atrocious criminal without some feeling of uneasiness and fear. We should not like to be left alone with him, even if his chains were not unfastened. But without the Precious Blood, such men would abound in the world. They might even become the majority. We know of ourselves, from glimpses God has once or twice given us in life, what incredible possibilities of wickedness we have in our souls. Civilization increases these possibilities. Education multiplies and magnifies our powers of sinning. Refinement adds a fresh malignity. Men would thus become more diabolically and unmixedly bad, until at last earth would be a hell on this side of the grave. There would also doubtless be new kinds of sins and worse kinds. Education would provide the novelty, and refinement would carry it into the region of the unnatural. All highly-refined and luxurious developments of heathenism have fearfully illustrated this truth. A wicked barbarian is like a beast. His savage passions are violent but intermitting, and his necessities of sin do not appear to grow. Their circle is limited. But a highly-educated sinner, without the restraints of religion, is like a demon. His sins are less confined to himself. They involve others in their misery. They require others to be offered as it were in sacrifice to them. Moreover, education, considered simply as an intellectual cultivation, propagates sin, and makes it more universal.

The increase of sin, without the prospects which the faith lays open to us, must lead to an increase of despair, and to an increase of it upon a gigantic scale. With despair must come rage, madness, violence, tumult, and bloodshed. Yet from what quarter could we expect relief in this tremendous suffering? We should be imprisoned in our own planet. The blue sky above us would be but a dungeon-roof. The greensward beneath our feet would truly be the slab of our future tomb. Without the Precious Blood there is no intercourse between heaven and earth. Prayer would be useless. Our hapless lot would be irremediable. It has always seemed to me that it will be one of the terrible things in hell, that there are no motives for patience there. We cannot make the best of it. Why should we endure it? Endurance is an effort for a time; but this woe is eternal. Perhaps vicissitudes of agony might be a kind of field for patience. But there are no such vicissitudes. Why should we endure, then? Simply because we must; and yet in eternal things this is not a sort of necessity which supplies a reasonable ground for patience. So in this imaginary world of rampant sin there would be no motives for patience. For death would be our only seeming relief; and that is only seeming, for death is any thin but an eternal sleep. Our impatience would become frenzy; and if our constitutions were strong enough to prevent the frenzy from issuing in downright madness, it would grow into hatred of God, which is perhaps already less uncommon than we suppose.

An earth, from off which all sense of justice had perished, would indeed be the most disconsolate of homes. The antediluvian earth exhibits only a tendency that way; and the same is true of the worst forms of heathenism. The Precious Blood was always there. Unnamed, unknown, and unsuspected, the Blood of Jesus has alleviated every manifestation of evil which there has ever been just as it is alleviating at this hour the punishments of hell. What would be our own individual case on such a blighted earth as this? All our struggles to be better would be simply hopeless. There would be no reason why we should not give ourselves up to that kind of enjoyment which our corruption does substantially find in sin. The gratification of our appetites is something; and that lies on one side, while on the other side there is absolutely nothing. But we should have the worm of conscience already, even though the flames of hell might yet be some years distant. To feel that we are fools, and yet lack the strength to be wiser–is not this precisely the maddening thing in madness? Yet it would be our normal state under the reproaches of conscience, in a world where there was no Precious Blood. Whatever relics of moral good we might retain about us would add most sensibly to our wretchedness. Good people, if there were any, would be, as St. Paul speaks, of all men the most miserable; for they would be drawn away from the enjoyment of this world, or have their enjoyment of it abated by a sense of guilt and shame; and there would be no other world to aim at or to work for. To lessen the intensity of our hell without abridging its eternity would hardly be a cogent motive, when the temptations of sin and the allurements of sense are so vivid and strong.

What sort of love could there be, when we could have no respect? Even if flesh and blood made us love each other, what a separation death would be! We should commit our dead to the ground without a hope. Husband and wife would part with the fearfullest certainties of a reunion more terrible than their separation. Mothers would long to look upon their little ones in the arms of death, because their lot would be less woeful than if they lived to offend God with their developed reason and intelligent will. The sweetest feelings of our nature would become unnatural, and the most honorable ties be dishonored. Our best instincts would lead us into our worst dangers. Our hearts would have to learn to beat another way, in order to avoid the dismal consequences which our affections would bring upon ourselves and others. But it is needless to go further into these harrowing details. The world of the heart, without the Precious Blood, and with an intellectual knowledge of God, and his punishments of sin, is too fearful a picture to be drawn with minute fidelity.

But how would it fare with the poor in such a world? They are God’s chosen portion upon the earth. He chose poverty himself, when he came to us. He has left the poor in his place, and they are never to fail from the earth, but to be his representatives there until the doom. But, if it were not for the Precious Blood, would any one love them? Would any one have a devotion to them, and dedicate his life to merciful ingenuities to alleviate their lot? If the stream of almsgiving is so insufficient now, what would it be then? There would be no softening of the heart by grace; there would be no admission of of the obligation to give away in alms a definite portion of our incomes; there would be no desire to expiate sin by munificence to the needy for the love of God. The gospel makes men’s hearts large;and yet even under the gospel the fountain of almsgiving flows scantily and uncertainly. There would be no religious orders devoting themselves with skilful concentration to different acts of spiritual and corporal mercy. Vocation is a blossom to be found only in the gardens of the Precious Blood. But all this is only negative, only an absence of God. Matters would go much further in such a world as we are imagining.

Even in countries professing to be Christian, and at least in possession of the knowledge of the gospel, the poor grow to be an intolerable burden to the rich. They have to be supported by compulsory taxes; and they are in other ways a continual subject of irritated and impatient legislation. Nevertheless, it is due to the Precious Blood that the principle of supporting them is acknowledged. From what we read in heathen history–even the history of nations renowned for political wisdom, for philosophical speculation, and for literary and artistic refinement–it would not be extravagant for us to conclude that, if the circumstances of a country were such as to make the numbers of the poor dangerous to the rich, the rich would not scruple to destroy them, while it was yet in their power to do so. Just as men have had in France and England to war down bears and wolves, so would the rich war down the poor, whose clamorous misery and excited despair should threaten them in the enjoyment of their power and their possessions. The numbers of the poor would be thinned by murder, until it should be safe for their masters to reduce them into slavery. The survivors would lead the lives of convicts or of beasts. History, I repeat, shows us that this is by no means an extravagant supposition.

Such would be the condition of the world without the Precious Blood. As generations succeeded each other, original sin would go on developing those inexhaustible malignant powers which come from the almost infinite character of evil. Sin would work earth into hell. Men would become devils, devils to others and to themselves. Every thing which makes life tolerable, which counteracts any evil, which softens any harshness, which sweetens any bitterness, which causes the machinery of society to work smoothly, or which consoles any sadness–is simply due to the Precious Blood of Jesus, in heathen as well as in Christian lands. It changes the whole position of an offending creation to its Creator. It changes, if we may dare in such a matter to speak of change, the aspect of God’s immutable perfections toward his human children. It does not work merely in a spiritual sphere. It is not only prolific in temporal blessings, but it is the veritable cause of all temporal blessings whatsoever. We are all of us every moment sensibly enjoying the benignant influence of the Precious Blood. Yet who thinks of all this? Why is the goodness of God so hidden, so imperceptible, so unsuspected? Perhaps because it is so universal and so excessive, that we should hardly be free agents if it pressed sensibly upon us always. God’s goodness is at once the most public of all his attributes, and at the same time the most secret. Has life a sweeter task than to seek it, and to find it out?

Men would be far more happy, if they separated religion less violently from other things. It is both unwise and unloving to put religion into a place by itself, and mark it off with an untrue distinctness from what we call worldly and unspiritual things. Of course there is a distinction, and a most important one, between them; yet it is easy to make this distinction too rigid and to carry it too far. Thus we often attribute to nature what is only due to grace; and we put out of sight the manner and degree in which the blessed majesty of the Incarnation affects all created things. But this mistake is forever robbing us of hundreds of motives for loving Jesus. We know how unspeakably much we owe to him; but we do not see all that it is not much we owe him, but all, simply and absolutely all. We pass through times and places in life, hardly recognizing how the sweetness of Jesus is sweetening the air around us and penetrating natural things with supernatural blessings.

Hence it comes to pass that men make too much of natural goodness. They think too highly of human progress. They exaggerate the moralizing powers of civilization and refinement, which, apart from grace, are simply tyrannies of the few over the many, or of the public over the individual soul. Meanwhile they underrate the corrupting capabilities of sin, and attribute to unassisted nature many excellences which it only catches, as it were by the infection, by the proximity of grace, or by contagion, from the touch of the Church. Even in religious and ecclesiastical matters they incline to measure progress, or test vigor, by other standards rather than that of holiness. These men will consider the foregoing picture of the world without the Precious Blood as overdrawn and too darkly shaded. They do not believe in the intense malignity of man when drifted from God, and still less are they inclined to grant that cultivation and refinement only intensify still further this malignity. They admit the superior excellence of Christian charity; but they also think highly of natural philanthropy. But has this philanthropy ever been found where the indirect influences of the true religion, whether Jewish or Christian, had not penetrated? We may admire the Greeks for their exquisite refinement, and the Romans for the wisdom of their political moderation. Yet look at the position of children, of servants, of slaves, and of the poor, under both these systems, and see if, while extreme refinement only pushed sin to an extremity of foulness, the same exquisite culture did not also lead to a social cruelty and an individual selfishness which made life unbearable to the masses. Philanthropy is but a theft from the gospel, or rather a shadow, not a substance, and as unhelpful as shadows are want to be. (Father Frederick Faber, The Precious Blood, published originally in England in 1860, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 53-59.)

This is perhaps the most cogent explanation as to why were are eyewitnesses to the glorification and benediction of sin within the world-at-large and within the lofty precincts of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, and Father Faber’s prescient words also explain why so many people in the world have descended into rank unbelief and thence into a barbaric hatred for both God and their fellow men.

The effects of the revolutions that have convulsed the world since Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on October 31, 1517, have proceeded in turn from hatred of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s true Church, the Catholic Church, to the hatred of God and everything holy in the French Revolution, to the hatred of even any semblance of moral truth on the natural level, to the seething hatred of those dare to believe and profess in the subjects of the world’s hatred: the Most Holy Trinity, the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, His Catholic Church, and everything contained in the binding precepts of the Divine and Natural Laws.

We have reached such a stage of degeneration as to be eyewitnesses to the triumph of abject insanity as many human beings claim that there are more than two sexes and that it is both possible and desirable that those who have been placed into a state of “confusion” about their so-called “gender identity” by perverted ideologues who are in the absolute grip of the adversary to do that which is ontologically impossible: to change one’s sex by having one’s body mutilated surgically and altered chemically to make it appear that they have become something that they are not and can never be.

Alas, to rebel against the way that God has made one is to sow the seeds for the hatred of Him and anyone who dares to point out the truth that perversion is evil and that the mutilation of one’s body is proscribed by the binding precepts of the Fifth Commandment and by the very Natural Law that is inscribed onto the very flesh of our hearts.

Although, the Minister of American Injustice, Merrick Garland, refuses to call the massacre carried out by a twenty-eight year-old woman, Audrey Hale, who identified as a “man,” as a hate crime against Christians even though Hale deliberately targeted the Tennessee Covenant Academy, a Protestant school in Nashville, Tennessee, that she had attended to exact revenge on its pro-life and pro-family teaching, it is abundantly clear that this poor young woman decided to commit this massacre because of her hatred for corrupted version of Christianity. There is a special irony this as Protestantism itself was inspired by the adversary, who has inspired men today to hate and thus to seek to destroy the very handiwork of his own inspiration.

To be sure, Audrey Hale’s hatred of Christianity, though aimed at the children of the Protestant school, is very indicative of the more widespread hatred of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s true Church, the Catholic Church, that is being engendered by the terrorist organization named “Jane’s Revenge” and by those calling for a “Transgender Day of Vengeance.” All that is true, beautiful, good, orderly, and just has been replaced by all that is false, ugly, evil, and disorderly. We have reached such a nadir that there are those who, much like the “progressive” George Soros-backed district attorneys who believe that violent criminals should be “understood” and not imprisoned (see DA Alvin Bragg's chief prosecutor said criminals aren't 'bad dudes,' ripped 'racist’ justice system), who even believe that Audrey Hale was “forced” into doing what she did in order to be “seen”:

A radical transgender group said the transgender Nashville shooter felt "no other effective way to be seen" than killing six people at a private Presbyterian school.

The Trans Resistance Network (TRN), a far-left transgender "collective," released an inflammatory statement on Monday in the wake of the Covenant School shooting by transgender woman Audrey Hale in Nashville that killed three 9-year-olds and three adults.

Calling the mass murder a dual "tragedy," the group wrote the first was the deaths of the children and adults in the school and extended their "deepest sympathies and heartfelt prayers to those families dealing with the loss of loved ones."

"There is nothing we can offer that will comfort the hurt, or ease the sorrow," TRN wrote. "We mourn with you."

"The second and more complex tragedy is that Aiden or Audrey Hale, who felt [she] had no other effective way to be seen than to lash out by taking the life of others, and by consequence, [herself]," they continued.

TRN wrote they "do not claim to know the individual or have access to their inner thoughts and feelings" but they "do know that life for transgender people is very difficult, and made more difficult in the preceding months by a virtual avalanche of anti-trans legislation, and public callouts by Right Wing personalities and political figures for nothing less than the genocidal eradication of trans people from society."

"Many transgender people deal with anxiety, depression, thoughts of suicide, and PTSD from the near-constant drum beat of anti-trans hate, lack of acceptance from family members and certain religious institutions, denial of our existence, and calls for de-transition and forced conversion," TRN claimed.

"All of these factors contribute to a population that is medically under-served and who often faces anti-trans bias while accessing care leading to significant physical and mental health disparities," they continued.

"Hate has consequences," the radical trans "collective" added. (Nashville shooter felt 'no other effective way to be seen,' radical trans group says.)

Yes, hate has consequences, but the real source of Audrey Hale’s hatred for those rightly opposed to the so-called “transgender” agenda of self-mutilation was her act of rebellious hatred against her very nature, which was made by God to know, to love, and to serve Him as He has revealed Himself exclusively through His true Church. She did not know this, of course, but hatred of God’s eternal laws disturbs and agitates those who seethe with this hatred, yes, even to the point of committing heinous crimes such as took place in Nashville, Tennessee, on Monday of Passion Week, March 27, 2023, the Feast of Saint John Damascene.

As noted just above, ine of the greatest tragedies of the conciliar revolution is that it has robbed so many Catholics around the world of access to the merits of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and it was robbed everyone of the benefits from the Actual Graces that flow forth from every valid offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The devil’s hatred for God has always been such as to inspire in fallen creatures to rebel against their First Cause and Last End, and he has always inspired fallen creatures to forget that they are made in the image and likeness of the Most Holy Trinity and thus to hate and then to act violently against each other, starting with the murder of Abel by his brother Cain:

[1] And Adam knew Eve his wife: who conceived and brought forth Cain, saying: I have gotten a man through God. [2] And again she brought forth his brother Abel. And Abel was a shepherd, and Cain a husbandman. [3] And it came to pass after many days, that Cain offered, of the fruits of the earth, gifts to the Lord. [4] Abel also offered of the firstlings of his flock, and of their fat: and the Lord had respect to Abel, and to his offerings. [5] But to Cain and his offerings he had no respect: and Cain was exceedingly angry, and his countenance fell.

[6] And the Lord said to him: Why art thou angry? and why is thy countenance fallen? [7] If thou do well, shalt thou not receive? but if ill, shall not sin forthwith be present at the door? but the lust thereof shall be under thee, and thou shalt have dominion over it. [8] And Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go forth abroad. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him.[9]And the Lord said to Cain: Where is thy brother Abel? And he answered, I know not: am I my brother's keeper? [10] And he said to him: What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth.

[11] Now, therefore, cursed shalt thou be upon the earth, which hath opened her mouth and received the blood of thy brother at thy hand. [12] When thou shalt till it, it shall not yield to thee its fruit: a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be upon the earth. [13] And Cain said to the Lord: My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon. [14] Behold thou dost cast me out this day from the face of the earth, and I shall be hidden from thy face, and I shall be a vagabond and a fugitive on the earth: every one, therefore, that findeth me, shall kill me. [15] And the Lord said to him: No, it shall not be so: but whosoever shall kill Cain, shall be punished sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, that whosoever found him should not kill him. (Genesis 4: 1-15.)

Husbands have battled wives, wives have battled husbands, parents and children have battled each other. King David himself was opposed by his own son Absalom. David, of whose own house Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was born of His Most Blessed Mother, wept over his rebellious son's death because he was concerned over the state of the poor's soul when died, knowing that he had rebelled against the Fourth Commandment itself:

[31] And when he bad passed, and stood still, Chusai appeared: and coming up he said: I bring good tidings, my lord, the king, for the Lord hath judged for thee this day from the hand of all that have risen up against thee. [32] And the king said to Chusai: Is the young man Absalom safe? And Chusai answering him, said: Let the enemies of my lord, the king, and all that rise against him unto evil, be as the young man is. [33] The king therefore being much moved, went up to the high chamber over the gate, and wept. And as he went he spoke in this manner: My son Absalom, Absalom my son: would to God that I might die for thee, Absalom my son, my son Absalom.  (2 Kings 18: 31-33.)

Conflict between human beings is just part of the consequences of Original Sin and of the Actual Sins of men.

There was conflict aplenty even during the years of Christendom. Intrigue fueled by personal ambitions, rivalries of one sort or another or by motivations of revenge were all too common in royal courts, including the most important royal court on the face of the earth, the papal household. Christian kings and emperors made war upon each other. Infighting among generals and their officers of the same army shaped the outcome of battles. Indeed, as depicted fairly accurately in For Greater Glory there was great mistrust among the leaders of the Cristeros in Mexico.

Additionally, of course, human nature being what it is, sloth, one of the seven deadly or capital sins, manifested itself all too frequently even during the High Middle Ages as those who served at court or in various administrative capacities in the service of the crown and the enforcement of laws preferred to exert the least possible effort just to "get through" a given day.

All of this having been noted, however, it is also true that men in the era of Christendom were not divided on matters of Faith and Morals, on matters of First and Last Things. While they may have had great difficulties on occasion in keeping God's laws and thus of practicing the Holy Faith well, they nevertheless knew what was right and wrong and were united in their beliefs in the tenets of the Catholic Faith.

Pope Pius XII noted this in Summi Pontificatus, October 10, 1939:

It is true that even when Europe had a cohesion of brotherhood through identical ideals gathered from Christian preaching, she was not free from divisions, convulsions and wars which laid her waste; but perhaps they never felt the intense pessimism of today as to the possibility of settling them, for they had then an effective moral sense of the just and of the unjust, of the lawful and of the unlawful, which, by restraining outbreaks of passion, left the way open to an honorable settlement. In Our days, on the contrary, dissensions come not only from the surge of rebellious passion, but also from a deep spiritual crisis which has overthrown the sound principles of private and public morality. (Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, October 10, 1939.)

It was Martin Luther's rebellion against the Divine Plan that God Himself had instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church that divided men over First and Last Things, thus paving the way for the triumph of secular substitutes for religious faith in general just as Luther had substituted his own heretical views of Christianity in the place of the true Faith, which is the only foundation of personal and social order.

Pope Leo XIII explained this very succinctly 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 precincts 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.

Amongst these principles the main one lays down that as all men are alike by race and nature, so in like manner all are equal in the control of their life; that each one is so far his own master as to be in no sense under the rule of any other individual; that each is free to think on every subject just as he may choose, and to do whatever he may like to do; that no man has any right to rule over other men. In a society grounded upon such maxims all government is nothing more nor less than the will of the people, and the people, being under the power of itself alone, is alone its own ruler. It does choose, nevertheless, some to whose charge it may commit itself, but in such wise that it makes over to them not the right so much as the business of governing, to be exercised, however, in its name.

The authority of God is passed over in silence, just as if there were no God; or as if He cared nothing for human society; or as if men, whether in their individual capacity or bound together in social relations, owed nothing to God; or as if there could be a government of which the whole origin and power and authority did not reside in God Himself. Thus, as is evident, a State becomes nothing but a multitude which is its own master and ruler. And since the people is declared to contain within itself the spring-head of all rights and of all power, it follows that the State does not consider itself bound by any kind of duty toward God. Moreover. it believes that it is not obliged to make public profession of any religion; or to inquire which of the very many religions is the only one true; or to prefer one religion to all the rest; or to show to any form of religion special favor; but, on the contrary, is bound to grant equal rights to every creed, so that public order may not be disturbed by any particular form of religious belief.

And it is a part of this theory that all questions that concern religion are to be referred to private judgment; that every one is to be free to follow whatever religion he prefers, or none at all if he disapprove of all. From this the following consequences logically flow: that the judgment of each one's conscience is independent of all law; that the most unrestrained opinions may be openly expressed as to the practice or omission of divine worship; and that every one has unbounded license to think whatever he chooses and to publish abroad whatever he thinks.

Now, when the State rests on foundations like those just named -- and for the time being they are greatly in favor -- it readily appears into what and how unrightful a position the Church is driven. For, when the management of public business is in harmony with doctrines of such a kind, the Catholic religion is allowed a standing in civil society equal only, or inferior, to societies alien from it; no regard is paid to the laws of the Church, and she who, by the order and commission of Jesus Christ, has the duty of teaching all nations, finds herself forbidden to take any part in the instruction of the people. With reference to matters that are of twofold jurisdiction, they who administer the civil power lay down the law at their own will, and in matters that appertain to religion defiantly put aside the most sacred decrees of the Church. They claim jurisdiction over the marriages of Catholics, even over the bond as well as the unity and the indissolubility of matrimony. They lay hands on the goods of the clergy, contending that the Church cannot possess property. Lastly, they treat the Church with such arrogance that, rejecting entirely her title to the nature and rights of a perfect society, they hold that she differs in no respect from other societies in the State, and for this reason possesses no right nor any legal power of action, save that which she holds by the concession and favor of the government. If in any State the Church retains her own agreement publicly entered into by the two powers, men forthwith begin to cry out that matters affecting the Church must be separated from those of the State. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

The modern state has become a sort of secular church replete with its own creedal beliefs and possessing an insatiably voracious appetite to exercise a near total control over its citizens, who are subjected to a level of slavery by means of confiscatory tax powers. However, the modern state is a corruption of the true nature of the state, which is not the same thing as a particular form of government that happens to constitute its civil authority, which must be founded on right principles in order for it to work properly in the pursuit of the common good here on Earth and to aid the true Church in the promotion of a cultural environment in which its citizens can best save their souls.

Pope Saint Pius X summarized the entirety of the duties of just governance and statecraft as he condemned the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic precept of the “separation of Church and State” in Paragraph Three of Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. "Between them," he says, "there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-"Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur." He proceeds: "Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them.... As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. -- "Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere.... Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.)

Human societies have, sadly, become criminal because most people, including those who govern, do indeed “act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion.” The consequences of such disorder are deadly to men and their nations. As has been noted many times previously in this website, we are witnessing the perfection of the inherent degeneracy of the false, naturalistic, Pelagian and religiously indifferentist principles of the American founding. Disorder in the souls of men leads to disorder in one’s nation and hence in the world. No nation will ever know a just social order domestically and the world-at-large will never enjoy a genuine peace as long most men are at war with the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity, by means of unrepented sins and by enshrining grave sins as a “civil right” in public law and celebrating them throughout the nooks and crannies of “popular culture.”

As Silvio Cardinal Antoniano noted in the Sixteenth Century:

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

No, no one on the naturalist "right" understands this, which makes it impossible to turn back the tide of evil advance by their opposite numbers among the ranks of the naturalist "left," most of whom are proud to boast of their support for the very evils that undermine justice in their nations and peace in the world.

Pope Leo XIII, writing in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, taught that it is impossible to produce a just social order if the civil law permits all kinds of licentiousness:

Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from life, from laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

This is all a chastisement for the multifarious ways in which the Most Holy Trinity has been dishonored and blasphemed in a land of such “civil liberty” that every manner sin and indecent behavior is protected by the civil laws and celebrated in all the quarters of social life.

We are eyewitnesses to the process of American disintegration, which is all the more reason for us to spend time, if at all possible where you live in this time of apostasy and betrayal, before the Blessed Sacrament and by uniting ourselves more fully to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Which beats for us with such love in the Adorable Sacrament of the Altar, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

As we pray for the families of the three children and three adults killed by Audrey Hale in their time of grief and then to come to truly know Our Lord as members of His true Church as well as for the conversion of those who are involved in the promotion of the devil’s agenda of perversity and mutilation, let us surrender ourselves now and always to the Most Holy Trinity and be ever reliant upon the intercessory power of Our Lady, especially through her Most Holy Rosary, to effect the conversion of men and their nations to the Social Kingship of her Divine Son as the fruit of her Fatima Message and the Triumph of her own Immaculate Heart.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!   

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

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.