Antidotes to Pelagianism: Saints Paulinus of Nola and Saint Alban, the British Protomartyr

Nations that do not place themselves under the sweet yoke of the Social Reign of Christ the King must live under the tyranny of the shifting sands of popular sovereignty and of the caesars who curry favor with “the people.”

As I have noted in the past, the best response to the statism of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and his claque of handlers, enablers, and enforces as well as the statism of Jorge Mario Bergoglio was delivered by the  Archbishop of Venice, Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, in 1896:

In August 1896 in Padua, the second Congress of the Catholic Union for Social Studies took place. We have already seen that this organization had been created seven years before by Professor Giuseppe Toniolo, in the presence of the Bishop of Mantua [Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto]. This time, eight bishops were present and several directors of the Opera del Congressi took part. All the eminent representatives of the Italian Catholic Movement were present (Medolago Pagnuzzi, Alessi and others). Cardinal Sarto’s address attracted considerable notice. Faced with “ardent enemies” (unbelief and revolution) “…menacing and trying to destroy the social fabric,” the Patriarch of Venice invited the participants to make Jesus Christ the foundation of the their work: “the only peace treaty is the Gospel.” He warned them against what is now called the “welfare state,” the state which provides everything and provides all socialization: “substituting public almsgiving for private almsgiving involves the complete destruction of Christianity and it is a terrible attack on the principle of ownership. Christianity cannot exist without charity, and the difference between charity and justice is that justice may have recourse to laws and even to force, depending on the circumstances, whereas charity can only be imposed by the tribunal of God and of conscience.” If public assistance and the redistribution of wealth are institutionalized, “poverty becomes a function, a way of life, a public trade…” (Yves Chiron, Saint Pius X: Restorer of the Church. Translated by Graham Harrison. Angelus Press, 2002, p. 100)

No formula of a naturalist of the “left” or of the “right” can produce true improvement that will redound to men and their nations. It is only by light of the Catholic Faith that men can see clearly enough to pursue temporal matters in light of eternity.

Get out of the diabolical trap of naturalism. Refuse to be agitated by the “talking heads” on radio and television who do not understand anything about First and Last Things and thus whose histrionics are nothing more than the injurious babbling spoken of by Pope Pius IX as they do not understand that the remote cause of all human problems is Original Sin and that their proximate causes are to be found in the Actual Sins of men and thus can be remedied only by the daily conversion of souls as they seek to grow in sanctity by cooperating with the graces sent to them by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the loving hands of His Most Blessed Mother, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces.

These “talking heads” make constant advertence to the genius of the “founding fathers,” men who a founding hatred for Christ the King, and their founding principles that have convinced men that they can establish a social order without regard to any religion, no less the true religion, which is the very premise of Judeo-Masonry. How can men who believe in the very principles that are the fruit of the Protestant Revolution against the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Judeo-Masonry that are the foundation of “American exceptionalism” help us to understand issues that must be viewed through the deeper, supernatural eyes of the Holy Faith? They can’t.

Consider these words of Father Edward Leen and learn from them once and for all, please!

A shudder of apprehension is traversing the world which still retains its loyalty to Jesus expressing Himself through the authority of His Church. That apprehension has not its sole cause the sight of the horrors that the world has witnessed in recent years in both hemispheres. Many Christians are beginning to feel that perhaps all may not be right with themselves. There is solid reason for this fear. The contemplation of the complete and reasoned abandonment of all hitherto accepted human values that has taken place in Russia and is taking place elsewhere, causes a good deal of anxious soul-searching. It is beginning to be dimly perceived that in social life, as it is lived, even in countries that have not as yet definitely broken with Christianity, there lie all the possibilities of what has become actual in Bolshevism. A considerable body of Christians, untrained in the Christian philosophy of life, are allowing themselves to absorb principles which undermine the constructions of Christian thought. They do not realise how much dangerous it is for Christianity to exist in an atmosphere of Naturalism than to be exposed to positive persecution. In the old days of the Roman Empire those who enrolled themselves under the standard of Christ saw, with logical clearness, that they had perforce to cut themselves adrift from the social life of the world in which they lived–from its tastes, practices and amusements. The line of demarcation between pagan and Christian life was sharp, clearly defined and obvious. Modern Christians have not been so favorably situated. As has been stated already, the framework of the Christian social organisation has as yet survived. This organisation is, to outward appearances, so solid and imposing that it is easy to be blind to the truth that the soul had gradually gone out of it. Under the shelter and utilising the resources of the organisation of life created by Christianity, customs, ways of conduct, habits of thought, have crept in, more completely perhaps, at variance with the spirit of Christianity than even the ways and manners of pagan Rome.

This infiltration of post-Christian paganism has been steady but slow, and at each stage is imperceptible. The Christian of to-day thinks that he is living in what is to all intents and purposes a Christian civilisation. Without misgivings he follows the current of social life around him. His amusements, his pleasures, his pursuits, his games, his books, his papers, his social and political ideas are of much the same kind as are those of the people with whom he mingles, and who may not have a vestige of a Christian principle left in their minds. He differs merely from them in that he holds to certain definite religious truths and clings to certain definite religious practices. But apart from this there is not any striking contrast in the outward conduct of life between Christian and non-Christian in what is called the civilised world. Catholics are amused by, and interested in, the very same things that appeal to those who have abandoned all belief in God. The result is a growing divorce between religion and life in the soul of the individual Christian. Little by little his faith ceases to be a determining effect on the bulk of his ideas, judgments and decisions that have relation to what he regards as his purely “secular” life. His physiognomy as a social being no longer bears trace of any formative effect of the beliefs he professes. And his faith rapidly becomes a thing of tradition and routine and not something which is looked to as a source of a life that is real.

The Bolshevist Revolution has had one good effect. It has awakened the averagely good Christian to the danger runs in allowing himself to drift with the current of social life about him. It has revealed to him the precipice towards which he has was heading by shaping his worldly career after principles the context of which the revolution has mercilessly exposed and revealed to be at variance with real Christianity. The sincerely religious–and there are many such still–are beginning to realise that if they are to live as Christians they must react violently against the milieu in which they live. It is beginning to be felt that one cannot be a true Christian and live as the bulk of men in civilised society are living. It is clearly seen that “life” is not to be found along those ways by which the vast majority of men are hurrying to disillusionment and despair. Up to the time of the recent cataclysm the average unreflecting Christian dwelt in the comfortable illusion that he could fall in with the ways of the world about him here, and, by holding on to the practices of religion, arrange matters satisfactorily for the hereafter. That illusion is dispelled. It is coming home to the discerning Christian that their religion is not a mere provision for the future. There is a growing conviction that it is only through Christianity lived integrally that the evils of the present time can be remedied and disaster in the time to come averted. (Father Edward Leen, The Holy Ghost, published in 1953 by Sheed and Ward, pp. 6-9.)

We should take courage from the example of the two saints whose lives were the focus of Holy Mother Church’s liturgy yesterday, Saint Paulinus of Nola, whose feast is on the universal calendar of the Roman Rite, and Saint Alban, the British protomartyr, whose feast is appointed for June 22 but not celebrated universally.

The entirety of Saint Paulinus of Nola’s life was a rebuke to the worldly-wise of his own day and, indeed, of every age, especially our own at this time. Dom Prosper Gueranger explained:

Paulinus, heir to an immense fortune, and at twenty-five years of age already Prefect of Rome, senator, and consul, was far from supposing that there could be a career more honourable for himself or more profitable to the world, than that in which he was thus engaged by the traditions of his illustrious family. Verily, to the eyes of worldly men, no lot in life could be conceived better cast, surrounded as he was by noble connections, buoyed up by the well deserved esteem of great and little, and finding repose in the culture of letters which had already from his earliest youth rendered him the very pride of brilliant Aquitaine, where at Bordeaux he first saw the light. Alas! in our days how many are undeservedly set up as models of a laborious and useful life!

The day came, however, when these lowly careers, which heretofore seemed so brimful of work and prospect, now offered to Paulinus but the spectacle of men 'tossed to and fro in the midst of days and emptiness, had having for the life's toil naught but the weaving of the spider-web of vain worlds.' What then had happened? It was this: once, when in the Campania, which was subject to his government, Paulinus happened to come to the hallowed tomb of St. Felix, that humble priest heretofore proscribed by this very Rome, whose power was symbolized by the terrible fasces borne at that moment in front of him; suddenly floods of new light inundated his soul; Rome and her power became dar as night before this apparition 'of the grand rights of the awful God'. With his whole heart this scion of many an ancient race, that had brought the world to subjection, now pledged his faith to god; Christ, revealing himself in the light of Felix, had won his love. He had long enough sought and run in vain; at least he had found 'that naught is of greater worth than to believe in Jesus Christ.'

A man of so noble a soul as Paulinus carried this new principle, that had taken the place of every other, to its utmost limit. Jesus said: "If thou wilt be perfect, go, sell what thou hast and give to the poor: and then come and follow me.' Paulinus did not hesitate: not for a moment would he neglect what was best to prefer what was least; up to this, perfect in his worldly career, could he now endure not to be so for his God? He renounced his vast possessions, styled even kingdoms; the various nations of the empire, before which were displayed his incalculable riches, were astounded at the new commerce: Paulinus sold all, in order to purchase the cross and follow his God. for he was well aware that the abandonment of earthly goods is but the entrance to the lists, and not the race itself; the athlete does not become victory by the mere fact of casting off his garments; but he strips himself solely with the view of beginning combat; no has the swimmer already breasted the flood, because he stands prepared and stripped on the water's brink.

In holy impetuosity, Paulinus rather cut, than unknotted, the cable that moored his bark to land. Christ is his steersman; and with the applause of his noble wife Therasia (henceforth his sister and imitator), he sailed to the secure port of the monastic life, thinking only of saving his soul. One thought alone held him in suspense: ought he to retire to Jerusalem where so many memories invite a disciple of Christ? Jerome, whom he consulted, answered with all the frankness of strong friendship: 'For clerks, towns: for monks, solitude. It would be utter folly to quit the world in order live in the midst of a crowd greater than before. If you wish to be what you are called,a monk, that is to say, "alone," what are you doing in towns, which surely are not the habitations for solitaries, but for the multitude? Each kind of life has its models. Ours has Paul and Anthony, Hilarion and Macarius; our guides are Elias, Eliseus, and all those sons of the prophets, who dwelt in country places and in solitudes, pitching their tents near Jordan's banks.'

Paulinus followed the counsels of the solitary of Bethlehem. Preferring his title of  monk to abiding even in the holy city, and seeking the 'small field' of which Jerome had spoken, he chose a spot in the territory of Nola, outside the town, near to the glorious tomb where light had beamed upon him. Until his dying day, Felix took the place, here below, of home, of honours, of fortune, of relatives. In his sanctuary he grew, changing, by virtue of the divine seed of the Word within him, his terrestrial form, and receiving in his new being celestial wins, the one object of his ambition, which might lift him up towards God. The world might no longer count on him, either to enhance her feasts or be the recipient of her appointments; absorbed in voluntary penance and humiliation, the former consul was nothing henceforth but the last of the servants of Christ and the guardian of a tomb.

Great was the joy of the saints in heaven and of holy men on earth, at the news of such a spectacle of total renunciation given to the world. No less great was the indignant astonishment of the scandalized politicians, of the prudent according this world, of a host of men to whom the Gospel is tolerable only when its maxims do not jar with the short-sighted prejudices of their wisdom. 'What will the great say?' wrote St. Ambrose. 'The scion of such a family, of such a race, one so gifted, so eloquent, to quit the senate! to cut off the succession of such an ancestral line! It is quite intolerable! Yet look at these very men, when their own whims are at stake; they then see nothing extraordinary in inflicting on themselves transformations the most ridiculous; but if a Christian anxious about perfection dares to change his costume, he is cried down at once with indignation!' (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Paulinus of Nola, June 22.)

And you’re worried about what happens to Donald John Trump at a trial when we should be concerned about the fate of his immortal soul?

Are the likes of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and Donald John Trump anxious about Christian perfection?
Pray for them, but remember that they are but forgettable men.

Saint Alban, in particular, was opposed to Pelagianism, which is the heresy of human self-redemption that was a forerunner of Lockean liberalism and thus is at the heart of every political ideology whether or not their adherents have heard of Pelagius and his heresy.

Pelagius taught that human beings were capable of more or less stirring up graces within themselves to save their souls and to accomplish whatever it is they set their minds to doing by means of their free wills. Many people alive today have never heard of Pelagianism or its variant, semi-Pelagianism, but most Americans believe inchoately, if not more explicitly, that they can do whatever it is they want because they are Americans. Pelagianism is at the heart of “American Exceptionalism,” which is itself but variant of the “British Exceptionalism,” that has been issued to try to remake the world in the image of the religious indifferentist and Calvinist-Judeo-Masonic American “way.”

Pelagianism was fought, however, by many a saint. Saint Germanus used the cult of the Protomartyr of Roman Britain, Saint Alban, who feast is celebrated, although not universally, on June 22, to combat Pelagianism.  Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B.’s The Liturgical Year described the valor of Saint Alban and how he was hated by the anti-historical Protestant Revolutionaries:

For a thousand years Alban too reigned with Christ. At last came the epoch when the depths of the abyss were to be let loose for a little time, and Satan, unchained, would once again seduce nations. Vanquished formerly by the saints, power was now given him to make war with them, and to overcome them in his turn. The disciple is not above his Master: like his Lord, Alban too was rejected by his own. Hated without cause, he beheld his illustrious monastery destroyed, that had been Albion's pride in the palmy days of her history; and scarce was even the venerable church itself saved, wherein God's athlete had so long reposed, shedding benefits around far and near. But, after all, what could he do now, in a profaned sanctuary, in which strange rites had banished those of our forefathers, and condemned the faith for which martyrs had bled and died? So Alban was ignominiously expelled, and his ashes scattered to the winds. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

Hatred for the past is a common theme of revolutionaries, including the one named Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

The work of Saint Alban and others to evangelize Roman Britain was not completed in their lifetimes. Unlike Saint Patrick, who worked a genuine miracle in the conversion of Ireland in his own lifetime it was not until five hundred ninety-five years later that the evangelization of Britain started again, this time under the guidance of Saint Augustine of Canterbury, who had been sent to Britain by Pope Saint Gregory the Great:

Throned on the apostolic See, our saint proved himself to be a rightful heir of the apostles, not only as the representative and depositary of their authority, but as a follow-sharer in their mission of calling nations to the true faith. To whom does England owe her having been, for so.

For many ages, the 'island of saints'? To Gregory, who, touched with compassion for those Angli, of whom, as he playfully said, he would fain Angeli, sent to their island the monk Augustine with forty companions, all of them, as was Gregory himself, children of St. Benedict. The faith had been sown in this land as early as the second century, but it had been trodden down by the invasion of an infidel race. This time the seed fructified, and so rapidly that Gregory lived to see a plentiful harvest. It is beautiful to hear the aged Pontiff speaking with enthusiasm about the results of his English mission. He thus speaks in the twenty-seventh Book of his Morals: 'Lo! the language of Britain, which could once mutter naught save barbarous sounds, has long since begun to sing, in the divine praises, the Hebrew Alleluia! Lo! that swelling sea is now calm, and saints walk on its waves. The tide of barbarians, which the sword of earthly princes could not keep back, is now hemmed in at the simple bidding of God's priests.' (Dom Prosper Gueranger, The Liturgical Year.)

Look at the hatred directed at Father Edmund Campion, S.J., for simply adhering to that which every Englishman believed for nearly a thousand years since the time of Saint Augustine of Canterbury—and which many in Britain, including Saint Helena, had embraced as early as the latter part of the Third Century A.D. as a result of the work of Saint Alban. It was during the closing of his trial that was to conclude with his being sentenced to death by being drawn and quartered that Father Campion himself noted the irony contained in his being condemned for believing what every ancestor of those who had condemned him had believed for nearly a thousand years:

"The only thing I have now to say is, that if my religion makes me a traitor, I am worthy to be condemned. Otherwise I am, and have been, as good a subject as ever the Queen had.

"In condemning me you condemn all your own ancestor--all the ancient priests, bishops and kings--all that was once the glory of England, the island of saints, and the most devoted child of the See of Peter.

"For what I have taught . . . that they did not teach? To be condemned with these lights--not of England only, but of the world--by their degenerate descendants, is both gladness and joy.

"God lives; posterity will live; their judgment is not so liable to corruption as that of those who are now going to sentence me to death." (Father Harold C. Gardiner, S.J., Edmund Campion: Hero of God's Underground, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1957, pp. 160-161.)  

The exact same phenomenon has occurred as a result of the conciliar revolution. All but a microscopically small number of Catholics attached to the structures of the counterfeit church of conciliarism have grown to hate most of what is dismissed derisively as the "pre-conciliar church," which was the point of They Like It! fifteen years ago now. Those who have no direct memory of the "pre-conciliar church" have been brainwashed by a highly sophisticated campaign of disinformation that helped to create a "false memory" of the past that even wiped out the true memories of those who lived in that "pre-conciliar church" and loved everything about it until they were "taught" that they could not even trust their own memories.

What should we do?

Spend more time in prayer before Our Lord’s Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament, if this is at all possible during this time of apostasy and betrayal.

Pray more Rosaries.

Make more sacrifices.

Do more fasting.

Pray for more crosses.

Pray for humiliation.

Enthrone your homes to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Read more books about the lives of the saints.

Stop watching television once and for all! The saints did not need to be bombarded with incessant news reports, did they?

Don’t be agitated by the lies of naturalists and their enablers.

Know that Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart will triumph.

Conscious of making reparation for our own sins, which, although forgiven and thus no longer exist, are in need of our making satisfaction here in this passing, mortal vale of tears before we die, may our Rosaries each day help lift the scales of naturalism that cloud our vision, thus making us courageous apostles of the Social Reign of Christ the King who recognize and are unafraid to proclaim that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order.

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Isn’t it time to pray a Rosary now?

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Paulinus of Nola, pray for us.

Saint Alban, the British Protomartyr, pray for us.