“Popular Sovereignty” Leads to the Death of Men and their Nations, part one

As the hour is very late and I am simply not going to stay up for four or five hours to complete a thorough commentary about midterm elections, which proved that the pollsters got it right for the first time in a long time.

Actually, though, one did not have to rely upon the leftist pollsters to understand the mood the nation as President Donald John Trump never understood that his needless, immoral, unnecessary, and unconstitutional war with Iran represented a betrayal of his own previous commitment to avoid Middle Eastern wars of the sort that destroyed George Walker Bush’s presidency in the first decade of the Twentieth Century and made possible the election of Barack Hussein Obama/Barry Soetoro on November 4, 2008, two years after the hapless naturalists of the organized crime family of the false opposite of the naturalist “right” lost both Houses of the Congress and made Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi Speaker of the United States of Representatives for the first time and made the execrable liar named Harry Reid the Majority Leader of the United States Senate.

This time, of course. President Donald John Trump’s willingness to risk whatever good will remained from his remarkable electoral comeback on November 5, 2024, after eight years of false Russian collusion charges and endless efforts by the administration of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and Kamala Harris Emhoff, aided and abetted by New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg,  New York State Attorney General Letitia James, to do the bidding of the genocidally maniacal Zionist Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, who had assured his American stooge that a joint strike would result in a popular uprising in Iran and lead to the sort of success that Trump’s military operation in Venezuela experienced on January 3, 2026.

Instead, of course, the war has turned into a quagmire that has resulted in the needless loss of American lives, the expenditure of billions of American taxpayer dollars, the closure of the previously wide open Strait of Hormuz and a dramatic rise in the cost of gasoline and diesel fuel that is responsible more than anything else for why many of his supporters either refused to vote this year or voted for candidates who belong to the false opposite of the naturalist left.

This is much analysis to provide, and I will do so in the next commentary as I attempt to explain that this not unexpected turn of events represents the end of the farce of the supposed two-party system as, given the changing demographics of the nation as a whole and of previously solid “red” states such as Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia, last evening’s results will be irreversible in human terms. As can be seen in Brazil and Poland right now, the “left” (Communists, globalists, etc.) goes to tremendous lengths to de-legitimize opposition voices.

In this regard, therefore, it is good to remind readers of what the late Soviet dissident named Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn said in his famous commencement address at Harvard University on June 8, 1978, “A World Split Apart”:

As humanism in its development became more and more materialistic, it made itself increasingly accessible to speculation and manipulation at first by socialism and then by communism. So that Karl Marx was able to say in 1844 that "communism is naturalized humanism.'

 This statement turned out not to be entirely senseless. One does see the same stones in the foundations of a despiritualized humanism and of any type of socialism: endless materialism; freedom from religion and religious responsibility, which under communist regimes reach the stage of anti-religious dictatorship; concentration on social structures with a seemingly scientific approach. (This is typical of the Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century and of Marxism). Not by coincidence all of communism's meaningless pledges and oaths are about Man, with a capital M, and his earthly happiness. At first glance it seems an ugly parallel: common traits in the thinking and way of life of today's West and today's East? But such is the logic of materialistic development. 

The interrelationship is such, too, that the current of materialism which is most to the left always ends up by being stronger, more attractive and victorious, because it is more consistent. Humanism without its Christian heritage cannot resist such competition. We watch this process in the past centuries and especially in the past decades, on a world scale as the situation becomes increasingly dramatic. Liberalism was inevitably displaced by radicalism, radicalism had to surrender to socialism and socialism could never resist communism. The communist regime in the East could stand and grow due to the enthusiastic support from an enormous number of Western intellectuals who felt a kinship and refused to see communism's crimes. When they no longer could do so, they tried to justify them. In our Eastern countries, communism has suffered a complete ideological defeat; it is zero and less than zero. But Western intellectuals still look at it with interest and with empathy, and this is precisely what makes it so immensely difficult for the West to withstand the East. (Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart. June 8, 1978.)

Most Western nations are in the grip of the madness called “globalism,” which is simply another name for Marxism-Leninism, and the United States of America was bound to wind up in this direction its religiously indifferentist foundation that had no room even a mention of Christ the King in its founding documents leads to atheism, which of course, is at the root of Communism:

To hold, therefore, that there is no difference in matters of religion between forms that are unlike each other, and even contrary to each other, most clearly leads in the end to the rejection of all religion in both theory and practice. And this is the same thing as atheism, however it may differ from it in name. Men who really believe in the existence of God must, in order to be consistent with themselves and to avoid absurd conclusions, understand that differing modes of divine worship involving dissimilarity and conflict even on most important points cannot all be equally probable, equally good, and equally acceptable to God.

So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. 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 the business of life, from the making of 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.) 

As men are made by God to know, love and to serve Him as He has revealed Himself exclusively through His Catholic Church, which alone provides men with the means of their interior sanctification and is thus the sole means of human salvation, it opposed to the very Will of God to permit those who believe in false religions and false philosophies the "civil" right to propagate them openly. God does not want the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood deceived about First and Last Things. He wants all men and all nations to honor Him as their King, which is one of the lessons He was teaching us as Saints Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar worshiped Him at the Epiphany. The Protestant and Judeo-Masonic and conciliarist notion of "religious liberty," having such tremendous roots in the Constitution of the United States of America, and of separation of Church and State thus are at odds with Divine Revelation itself, as Pope Saint Pius X noted in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906:

That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man's eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man's supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906.) 

The Modern, religiously indifferentist, anti-Incarnational civil state thus becomes a breeding ground for the propagation and multiplication of errors and heresies and blasphemies, none of which have any "civil" right to exist as they offend Our Lord and wound the souls for whom He offered up His life to the Father in Spirit and in Truth on the wood of the Holy Cross. Pope Gregory XVI elaborated on these points in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832:

Now We consider another abundant source of the evils with which the Church is afflicted at present: indifferentism. This perverse opinion is spread on all sides by the fraud of the wicked who claim that it is possible to obtain the eternal salvation of the soul by the profession of any kind of religion, as long as morality is maintained. Surely, in so clear a matter, you will drive this deadly error far from the people committed to your care. With the admonition of the apostle that "there is one God, one faith, one baptism" may those fear who contrive the notion that the safe harbor of salvation is open to persons of any religion whatever. They should consider the testimony of Christ Himself that "those who are not with Christ are against Him," and that they disperse unhappily who do not gather with Him. Therefore "without a doubt, they will perish forever, unless they hold the Catholic faith whole and inviolate." Let them hear Jerome who, while the Church was torn into three parts by schism, tells us that whenever someone tried to persuade him to join his group he always exclaimed: "He who is for the See of Peter is for me." A schismatic flatters himself falsely if he asserts that he, too, has been washed in the waters of regeneration. Indeed Augustine would reply to such a man: "The branch has the same form when it has been cut off from the vine; but of what profit for it is the form, if it does not live from the root?"

This shameful font of indifferentism gives rise to that absurd and erroneous proposition which claims that liberty of conscience must be maintained for everyone. It spreads ruin in sacred and civil affairs, though some repeat over and over again with the greatest impudence that some advantage accrues to religion from it. "But the death of the soul is worse than freedom of error," as Augustine was wont to say. When all restraints are removed by which men are kept on the narrow path of truth, their nature, which is already inclined to evil, propels them to ruin. Then truly "the bottomless pit" is open from which John saw smoke ascending which obscured the sun, and out of which locusts flew forth to devastate the earth. Thence comes transformation of minds, corruption of youths, contempt of sacred things and holy laws -- in other words, a pestilence more deadly to the state than any other. Experience shows, even from earliest times, that cities renowned for wealth, dominion, and glory perished as a result of this single evil, namely immoderate freedom of opinion, license of free speech, and desire for novelty.

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again? (Pope Gregory XVI, Mirari Vos, Auguat 15, 1832.)

A civil state that is open to all religions and to irreligion is a manifestly dangerous place for souls. How can Mohammedans or Communists or Talmudic Jews or Freemasons or Socialists or Wiccans or Satanists be excluded from public office in such a system. They cannot, especially when one considers the words of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States of America:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States. 

Defenders of all things American contend that the “no religious test” clause permitted Catholics, who had been disenfranchised in the United Kingdom and Ireland, to hold public office. Isn't that nice?

What the “no religious test” clause of Article VI of the Constitution of the United States permits also is for atheists and deists and Freemasons and Mohammedans and Wiccans or anyone else to hold public office and thus to seek to use the civil laws as the means to enshrine their false beliefs. Once again, there is no rational, coherent basis to oppose the advances made by baby-killers and perverts when a civil government admits that there is no Divinely instituted authority to which it must submit itself when the good of souls demands such submission. Everything contained in the binding precepts of the Divine positive law and the natural law becomes negotiable. Everything. And given the fact that the devil never rests, those who seek to defend society in a non-denominational or even secular manner against various objective evils begin to look upon "compromise" as a sign of progress, thereby institutionalizing evil more and more by means of civil law and in the nooks and crannies of popular culture, a point made very tellingly by Pope Leo XIII in Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888:

But, to judge aright, we must acknowledge that, the more a State is driven to tolerate evil, the further is it from perfection; and that the tolerance of evil which is dictated by political prudence should be strictly confined to the limits which its justifying cause, the public welfare, requires. Wherefore, if such tolerance would be injurious to the public welfare, and entail greater evils on the State, it would not be lawful; for in such case the motive of good is wanting. And although in the extraordinary condition of these times the Church usually acquiesces in certain modern liberties, not because she prefers them in themselves, but because she judges it expedient to permit them, she would in happier times exercise her own liberty; and, by persuasion, exhortation, and entreaty would endeavor, as she is bound, to fulfill the duty assigned to her by God of providing for the eternal salvation of mankind. One thing, however, remains always true -- that the liberty which is claimed for all to do all things is not, as We have often said, of itself desirable, inasmuch as it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights.

And as to tolerance, it is surprising how far removed from the equity and prudence of the Church are those who profess what is called liberalism. For, in allowing that boundless license of which We have spoken, they exceed all limits, and end at last by making no apparent distinction between truth and error, honesty and dishonesty. And because the Church, the pillar and ground of truth, and the unerring teacher of morals, is forced utterly to reprobate and condemn tolerance of such an abandoned and criminal character, they calumniate her as being wanting in patience and gentleness, and thus fail to see that, in so doing, they impute to her as a fault what is in reality a matter for commendation. But, in spite of all this show of tolerance, it very often happens that, while they profess themselves ready to lavish liberty on all in the greatest profusion, they are utterly intolerant toward the Catholic Church, by refusing to allow her the liberty of being herself free. (Pope Leo XIII in Libertas Praestantissimum, June 20, 1888.) 

This is not a matter of ethereal speculation having nothing to with the real lives of human beings. Not at all. The heresy of religious liberty, which is at the heart of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, devastates souls. The belief that those who belong to false religions have a "civil right" to propagate themselves and that their false beliefs can contribute to the betterment of society make it impossible to exclude those false religions from making their presence felt everywhere in society, especially in "educational" institutions, where the tender souls of the young become ready prey to false ideas that are propagandized by charismatic professors. This is true in the United States of America and elsewhere in the allegedly "free" world of "democratic republics.

Yes, religious indifferentism leads to the atheism, and atheism, which is taught in most of this country’s organized centers of mind control (public schools), leads those who are looking for salvation in all the wrong places to place their trust in politics and political ideologies, and the ideologies of the “left” are, as Solzhenitsyn noted forty-eight years ago, more consistent than those of the “right” and promise “solutions” to problems that can be ameliorated only by the reform of lives in cooperation with Sanctifying Grace. Atheism and anti-Theism lead men into the abyss of licentiousness, which is the pathway to kind of violence that has been unleashed in cities and localities all throughout the United States of America and elsewhere across the world.

A Long Descent Into the Abyss

Yes, of course, the remote cause for all human problems, both personal and social, is Original Sin. The proximate cause of human problems, both personal and social, is Actual Sin.

Human beings are wounded by Original Sin. Those of us who are baptized suffer from the vestigial after-effects of Original Sin (the darkened intellect, the weakened will, a disordering of the balance between our higher rational faculties and lower sensual passions). Those who are unbaptized suffer all the ravages of Original Sin in their immortal souls that are captive to the devil and his minions. There is no legal, political, constitutional, electoral, interdenominational, nondenominational, secular, philosophical, ideological, naturalistic way to solve problems that are caused by the sin of Adam and the sins of us all. Men will descend into the depth of madness and violence over the course of time as men and their societies move more and more away even from the vestigial influences of Catholicism in the world.

It is indeed true that there were social problems during the era of Christendom in Europe. The difference between then and now is simple: most men understood that they were sinners in need of cooperating more fully with the graces won for them on the wood of the Holy Cross by the shedding of every single drop of the Most Precious Blood of Our Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, and that flow into their hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces. Men knew that they had to amend their lives, that social order depended upon order within their own souls. Is there any such understanding today?

Consider Pope Pius XII's concise description of the difference between Christendom and Modernity, contained in his first encyclical letter, 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.) 

The errors of pluralism divide people needlessly into warring camps as a permanently established political class, composed of competing sets of naturalists, each of which believes that the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of His Most Blessed Mother by the power of God the Holy Ghost at the Annunciation is, at best, a matter of complete indifference to personal and social order. So many Americans live from election to election, always believing that "change," whether it be in the direction of "progress" for naturalists of the "left" or in the direction of "constitutionalism" or "liberty" or "limited government" for naturalists of the "right."

Although divisions on some matters will always occur until the General Judgment of the Living and the Dead on the Last Day at the Second Coming of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, it is also true that men today have been needlessly divided about matters pertaining to First and Last Things, oblivious to the fact that they have been given a spotless mother, Holy Mother Church, to serve as their mater and magister (mother and teacher) in this passing, mortal vale of tears. Most men today believe that they are automatons, either independent of any concept of God or "free" from the "dictates" of a hierarchical church.

Personal and social disaster cannot but be the result of such a brew of error. Men resort more and more to violence today because they do not know of the tender mercies of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. They do not know that they have a Blessed Mother who made possible their salvation by her perfect fiat to the will of God the father at the Annunciation. They do not realize that the supernatural helps they need to overcome all sin in their lives and to pray for the conversion of those who are promoting evil in society flow through the loving hands of that same Blessed Mother, who gave the Rosary with her own blessed hands to Saint Dominic de Guzman so that we could be more closely united to her Divine Son, Christ the King, through the mysteries contained in her psalter, the Rosary.

Most men today do not realize that there is nothing that any of us can suffer, whether personally or socially, that is equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Lord to suffer in His Sacred Humanity on the wood of the Holy Cross and that caused those Seven Swords to be thrust through and through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. They tend, therefore, to dwell on their own pain, whether real or imagined, and to stew in their own juices as they conjure up hatred for their fellow human beings, each of whom is made in the image and likeness of the Most Blessed Trinity and for whose salvation we must pray fervently as one of the Spiritual Works of Mercy.

Living in a world that has been deprived of a superabundance of Sanctifying and Actual Graces as a result of the barren liturgical rites of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, most men today are "catechized" by television or the internet or what passes for "entertainment" in popular culture. They are tossed about from one thing to another without having any clear, coherent understanding of they identity as redeemed creatures and that each of us will have to make an accounting of our lives at the moment of our Particular Judgments. Men who lack the Catholic Faith, you see, must descend more and more into a coarseness of life and culture that produces a class of neo-barbarians who are not only at the gates but who are well inside of the fort of the city.

As been noted exhaustively on this site and for more than a decade before that in printed journals (and for decades in my college classrooms), the descent into neo-barbarism just did not happen suddenly. It has been gradual, almost imperceptible at times. Having ridden the shock waves of the Protestant Revolution, which was a violent and very blood revolution against the Divine Plan that God Himself instituted to effect man's return to Him through His Catholic Church as they order their own lives and the laws of their nations in accord with His Deposit of Faith, men descended by steps into theological relativism, religious indifferentism and the worldliness that feeds on a ethos of naturalism and an unbridled licentiousness that passes for what libertarians tell us is "civil liberty."

Among the many factors that contributed to the creation of a religiously indifferent nation out of the British Colonies along the Atlantic coastline in the late-Eighteenth Century was, of course, the influence of Jewish colonists, who introduced Freemasonry to the English colonists. The adversary has long used those who deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as his singular vessel of perdition to blot out the Holy Name of Jesus from public view. One of the terrible ironies of last night’s election results is the fact that it was a man who hates the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who set Donald John Trump’s political party on the road to an epic disaster last evening, something that even some seasoned political analysts seem to understand:

WASHINGTON — Many of President Trump’s longtime loyalists are blaming the Iran war for tanking Republicans in the midterm elections — saying the economic pain of the conflict caused the GOP to lose the House and Senate.

“I hope Chuck Schumer calls Bibi Netanyahu and thanks him for his victory. This war was a disaster. People need to be clear-eyed about it,” a Republican strategist involved in the midterm campaigns told The Post.

“It took some time, almost two years, but we finally have an answer to the question of what happens when you take military and political advice from a mouth breathing buffoon like Mark Levin,” fumed a source close to Trump. “Every piece of data we have says it was the war and gas prices.”

“We got destroyed because of Iran,” added a top Republican strategist. “Iran is what caused gas prices and diesel prices to skyrocket — not tariffs. If Republicans want to rebuild, the first step is ending the war in Iran and embracing an actual America First foreign policy.”

Trump launched the war on Feb. 28 alongside Israel — at the encouragement of Prime Minister Netanyahu — despite saying prior US airstrikes had “obliterated” Tehran’s nuclear program.

He initially said the war would be over within “four weeks or so,” but it now has dragged on more than eight months.

“Too many people sat silently, or even worse, misled the president into a war without a realistic exit,” said a Trump political adviser.

“They convinced him that engagement could be accessed through a revolving door that would allow for an easy exit at the president’s choosing. Instead, the president was left walking through a trapped door, and the same advisors are busy covering their own asses, versus coming to terms with their mistake.”

Former Trump Pentagon official John Ullyot, author of the new book “The President Deserves Better,” told The Post that “in his first term, heads on his team would have rolled months ago.”

“Voters elected Trump to drain the swamp and lower their costs, not to watch his former aides cash in and hear non-stop about ballrooms and arches — not to mention an endless war in Iran,” Ullyot said.

Iran’s throttling of the Strait of Hormuz during the war caused a global surge in energy prices, which in turn caused greater inflation and ultimately higher interest rates. Oil prices dropped sharply Monday as peace talks gained steam and data showed more oil transiting the strait — but too late to meaningfully impact the election.

Trump downplayed the impact of the war as the brutal election blowout became clear.

“I think a part of it was Iran,” he told Fox News in a midnight interview, “but at the same time, people understood the importance of what I’ve done with Iran. I think historically, it’s going to be much more important than this evening because you can’t let the number one state sponsor of terror have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump added: “If I was on the ballot, they would have gotten out. Look, they got out for the rallies. You never saw rallies that big.” (Trump allies blame Iran war for GOP's devastating midterm losses.)

Although I will have more to say about this in tomorrow’s commentary, suffice it to say for the moment that Donald John Trump is absolutely delusional and remains constitutionally incapable of accepting the fact that he can be wrong about anything.

As I have written so many times in the past, those who live by the lie of popular sovereignty will die by the same lie as Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is supposed to be recognize for what He is, the only Sovereign over men and their nations. Men will come to make short work of the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law when He is not so recognized and, quite indeed, is supplanted by what Donald John Trump approvingly said is "The Mutable Will of the People".

The then former and future president used the “mutable will of the people” to discuss the “prudence” of letting the “people” decide that which they have no authority to “decide,” namely, whether to permit or restrict the killing of innocent preborn babies.

Well, the “people” in several states have spoken, and they did so yesterday in the Commonwealth of Virginia:

Virginians overwhelmingly voted on Tuesday to enshrine the right to kill unborn babies through abortion into their state constitution.

Virginia voters approved “Question 1” — which creates a right to abortions up until the moment of birth in the state — 61.4 percent to 38.6 percent with 86 percent of votes counted, the Associated Press (AP) projected. 

While the measure allows for restrictions on abortions in the third trimester, the restrictions must have exceptions for a patient’s health or if the baby is likely not going to survive — wording which opponents say creates a loophole to allow abortion on demand in the state at the discretion of pro-abortion doctors. 

Question 1, also called the “Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment,” was led by Virginians for Reproductive Freedom and was placed on the ballot after state lawmakers passed it last year. The measure read:

Question: Should the Constitution of Virginia be amended to (i) protect the freedom to make personal decisions about prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, birth control, abortion, miscarriage management, and fertility care; (ii) protect doctors, nurses, and patients from being punished for these decisions; and (iii) allow for restrictions on access to abortion during the third trimester of pregnancy except when the patient’s health is at risk or the pregnancy cannot survive?

In Virginia, constitutional amendments must be approved by both the state House and Senate twice before being placed on a ballot and ratified by a simple majority of voters. The abortion amendment was sponsored by Democrat state Sen. Jennifer Boysko and Democrat Del. Charniele Herring. 

Abortions were already legal in Virginia through 27 weeks of pregnancy.

Constitutional ballot measures in particular are effective as an offensive weapon because they are basically irreversible — they change a state constitution, take precedence over laws passed by state legislatures, and can only be overturned by another ballot measure or lengthy legal battles.

Abortion measures in the wake of the Dobbs decision have typically been propped up by left-wing organizations and affiliates with deep pockets — such as Planned Parenthood and the ACLU — out-of-state dark money groups, and billionaires with eugenicist leanings, oftentimes outspending pro-life organizations by double or triple.

Almost every pro-abortion-related ballot measure since the fall of Roe v. Wade has been successful. During the 2022 special elections, Kansans rejected a ballot measure that would have established that the state Constitution does not include a right to abortions. During the 2022 midterms, voters in California, Michigan, and Vermont codified abortion into their constitutions. At the same time, voters in Montana rejected a ballot measure that would have given rights to babies born alive in botched abortions. Voters in Kentucky also rejected an amendment similar to the one in Kansas. In November 2023, Ohioans voted to codify the supposed right to abortions in their state Constitution via Issue 1.

In November 2024, seven states voted in favor of pro-abortion measures, while three states rejected them, breaking the left’s winning streak. The states that rejected abortion measures last election cycle included Florida, South Dakota, and Nebraska.

Abortion is on the ballot in three other states in 2026, including Nevada, Idaho, and Missouri. (Virginia Enshrines Abortion Up Until Birth into State Constitution.)

Where were the supposedly “pro-life” Republicans during the now concluded elections that have seen their candidates lose in formerly solidly “red” states as Texas, Kansas, and South Carolina?

They were deaf, dumb, and blind:

In 2022, the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, turned abortion access back into a state-level issue, and seemingly ushered in a new era of abortion-centric politics. For years, the issue was hotly contested: Red states passed laws slapping new abortion restrictions in place, while voters in many blue and red states passed ballot referendums rolling those restrictions back. In 2022 and especially 2024, Democrats spent heavily messaging the issue: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris campaigned in front of a “RESTORE ROE” banner while trying to stave off the comeback of a president who had embraced the label “the most pro-life president in American history.”

Today, however, abortion politics is an afterthought. A few states¹ have abortion-policy ballot measures on the ballot this year, and the issue has come up in a few races: In Maine, Troy Jackson has repeatedly attacked Sen. Susan Collins for her votes to confirm the Supreme Court justices who ultimately struck down Roe, while Collins has pointed out that Jackson opposed abortion early in his legislative career.

By and large, though, the issue has vanished from candidates’ stump speeches and from the airwaves. This summer, AdImpact estimated that Democrats were buying ads mentioning abortion four times less than in the same period in 2024. Adsmom, a platform that tracks digital ad spending on Meta and Google, found that political spending on abortion ads in October came fifteenth among 26 different topics, below issues like data centers and the climate.

It’s common for one party or the other to inch away from a given issue as it becomes clear the opposition has the more popular position. What’s strange today is that both parties have dropped abortion messaging—for totally different reasons.

For Democrats, it’s mostly a matter of other issues crowding abortion out. In 2022 and 2024, when Democrats held the presidency, it was Republicans who were making the kick-the-bums-out cost-of-living message. Today, amid growing anger about rising prices thanks to tariffs and the Iran war, Democrats seem to see every moment not spent uttering the word “affordability” as a moment wasted.

Cost of living, Democratic strategist David Axelrod told The Bulwark, is “an urgent issue that unifies the largest number of people, so it makes sense that other issues, such as abortion, are playing a lesser role.”

Meanwhile, as Trump has become deeply unpopular and Democrats have pushed the political map deep into red states, they’re suddenly competing for the votes of plenty of Americans who may not fully agree with them on abortion politics. Here, too, it makes more sense to stick to the grand unifying theme of affordability.

“I think the reproductive freedom conversation—although very important—is a very specialized and nuanced conversation,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist in South Carolina. “You don’t think about that when you’re going to pay your light bill.”

All that makes sense. But it also makes it somewhat stranger that Republicans, playing defense in so many red states, aren’t turning to abortion politics to try to rally the troops. The GOP’s midterm strategy has been to give up independents for lost and spend all their time and energy juicing base turnout—so where’s the rally-round messaging for pro-lifers?

One major factor is that Trump and his allies, having seen abortion-access initiatives pass even in red states in 2022 and 2024, are no longer confident that their base actually finds abortion politics particularly motivating. While abortion remains an animating issue for highly religious voters, most social conservatives seem to have executed a Trump-led pivot toward other culture-war issues—most notably rabble-rousing about trans people—without much complaining.

“The pro-life movement died when Trump said it was a state issue,” one social-conservative operative told The Bulwark. “It’s not part of the Republican coalition right now. It’s a side issue. This is tragic, obviously, but it’s the truth.”

Even for the highly anti-abortion conservatives that remain, Republicans today would just as soon have them thinking about something else. That’s because, among the major issue groups of the GOP coalition, they alone have not received the major executive action they’ve sought: The “most pro-life president in history” has not changed FDA regulations to forbid sending the abortion drug mifepristone through the mail.

The administration has been slow-walking a long-promised review on the subject, plainly trying to get to the far side of the midterms before making any decisions. Pro-life groups haven’t been impressed. “The FDA’s court-ordered update on its abortion-drug study is alarming,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said this month. “Instead of the promised gold-standard study, the FDA is trying to peddle fool’s gold.”

Even though nobody seems to want to talk about it right now, abortion politics isn’t going away for good. If Democrats retake a trifecta in 2028, they will likely face major base pressure to re-codify Roe in federal law. And when the midterms are past, the FDA will be out of excuses: Sooner or later, it will have to rule on mifepristone, and some coalition of Americans isn’t going to like it when they do. Whatever abortion-politics hiatus we’re on now, it isn’t going to last. (The Top Campaign Issue of the Decade Has Vanished.)

The innocent preborn had no voice to defend them in 2026 midterm elections because the supposedly “pro-life” president decided in 2023 that it silence about them was the path to electoral victory. However, no one who makes “exceptions” to the inviolability of innocent human life and who supports the immoral practices of in vitro fertilization and contraception while refusing and has refused to enforce the Comstock Act, is “pro-life” whatsoever.

Indeed, President Donald John Trump’s refusal to enforce the Comstock Act and the refusal of his own Food and Drug Administration to take the human pesticide off the market are making the mail order execution of children increasingly institutionalized and accepted:

Remote “telehealth” distribution of abortion pills has overtaken travel as the preferred method of getting around state pro-life laws, according to a new research letter confirming what pro-lifers have been warning about the abortion industry’s post-Roe v. Wade tactics.

An October 22 research letter published by the Journal of the American Medical Association studied monthly abortion surveys from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute across 13 states with “total bans” on abortion from 2023 to 2025. It found that in 2023 the number of people who traveled from a pro-life state to a pro-abortion one for abortion was 89,620, “more than 3 times higher than the number of abortions provided via telehealth to residents of those states.” But by 2025, the number of “telehealth” abortions was greater than those committed by travel at 90,460 compared with 64,590.

“This shift was clearly evidenced in 6 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas,” the report added, thanks largely to “shield laws” protecting those who help facilitate abortions in or from a legal state for someone in or from a pro-life state.

“Between 2024 and 2025, the increase in the number of abortions provided under the protection of shield laws was greater than the decline in residents who traveled out of state,” the authors wrote. “It is possible that the availability of abortion under the protection of shield laws allowed people who would have been unable to travel to obtain wanted abortions. Still, in 2025, more than 60 000 residents of ban states traveled for care, indicating continued demand for abortion funding and practical support.”

The findings are far from surprising but quantify how easy and difficult to prevent abortion has become thanks to the abortion industry’s new favorite distribution tactic: at-home abortion pills, which no longer need an in-person doctor’s appointment before ordering online to take in complete privacy, not only evading state pro-life laws but also ensuring no medical personnel is on-hand to promptly treat potential complications.

Pro-lifers point to an April 2025 analysis by the Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) that concluded almost 11% of women suffer sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or other major conditions after taking mifepristone, according to insurance data, plus similar findings by the Restoration of America Foundation, as part of a “growing body of evidence indicating that the health risks associated with mifepristone abortions are severe, widespread, and significantly underreported.”

Nevertheless, mail-order abortion pills have become the abortion lobby’s most potent tool for circumventing these laws and preserving “choice” without Roe v. Wade. The latest data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute found 1,125,930 clinical abortions in 2025, a slight increase from 2024, which Guttmacher attributed in large part to abortion pills. Planned Parenthood’s 2024-2025 annual report boasts it alone committed 434,450 abortions, a record number for the organization and 8% more than the previous year.

The second Trump administration entered office committed to continuing Biden-era changes that both eliminated the in-person dispensing requirement and stopped enforcement of a federal law against distributing abortion drugs by mail. Pro-lifers are waiting to see if a long-promised FDA safety data review leads to a policy change sometime after March 2027. (Mail-order pills surpass out-of-state travel as primary option for abortions: report.)

God will always chastise men who are too cowardly to defend the lives of the innocent preborn in the name of political expediency just as surely as He chastises those who make no apologies for supporting baby-killing at all times, including up to and even after the baby’s birth. He will also chastise entire nations when the “people” put the economic “cart” before the moral “horse” and think that they can advance the common temporal good while turning aside from the clarion call to defend those who cannot defend themselves.

Obviously, as I have noted so many scores upon scores of times in the past, we are not “voting” our way out of this just chastisement.

However, it nevertheless remains true that those who are either indifferent to or supportive of the slaughter of innocent children will suffer the same eternal fate if they die before repenting of their refusal to govern according to the Divine Mind of Christ the King:

Those who hold the reins of government should not forget that it is the duty of public authority by appropriate laws and sanctions to defend the lives of the innocent, and this all the more so since those whose lives are endangered and assailed cannot defend themselves. Among whom we must mention in the first place infants hidden in the mother's womb. And if the public magistrates not only do not defend them, but by their laws and ordinances betray them to death at the hands of doctors or of others, let them remember that God is the Judge and Avenger of innocent blood which cried from earth to Heaven. (Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii, December 31, 1930.) 

This statement from the pen of a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter was mean to warn those who support one of the four crimes that cry out to Heaven for vengeance what will happen to them if they do not convert and repent before they come face-to-face with the Avenger of innoent blood, which has cried out from earth to Heaven.

This time of chastisement requires us to do penance for our own sins and ever intensify our devotion to Our Lady’s Fatima Message, especially by praying as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits.

We know that the final victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and thus we pray to be able, unworthy though we may be, to plant a few seeds for that Triumph, which is the precondition for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Our Lady, she who is our Immaculate Queen.

Vivat Christus Rex!

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 Charles Borromeo, pray for us.

Saint Vitalis and Agricola, pray for us.

Appendix

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., on Saint Charles Borromeo

Humilitas. This word already stood, crowned with gold, upon his family escutcheon, when Charles was born at the castle of Arona. It had been said of the Borromeos that they knew nothing of humility, except to bear it on their coat of arms: but the time had now come, when the mysterious device was to be justified by the most illustrious scion of that noble family; and when, at the zenith of his greatness, a Borromeo would learn to void his heart of self, in order that God might fill it. Far, however, from abjuring the high-mindedness of his race, the humble Saint was the most intrepid of them all, while his enterprises were to eclipse the noble exploits of a long line of ancestors. One more proof that humility never debases.

Charles was scarcely twenty-two years of age when Pius IV, his maternal uncle, called him to the difficult post of Secretary of State, shortly afterwards created him Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, and seemed to take pleasure in heaping honors and responsibilities on his young shoulders. The late Pontiff, Paul IV, had been ill requited for placing a similar confidence in his nephews the Caraffas, who ended their days upon the scaffold. His successor, on the contrary, as the event testified, was actuated by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, not by the dictates of flesh and blood.

Sixty years of that fatal century had already elapsed, while the evils consequent on Luther’s revolt were ever increasing, and the Church was daily threatened with some new danger. The Protestants had just imposed upon the Catholics of Germany the treaty of Passau, which completed the triumph of the fanatics, and secured to them equality and liberty. The abdication of Charles V in despair left the empire to his brother Ferdinand; while Spain, with its immense dominions in both hemispheres, fell to his son Philip II. Ferdinand I inaugurated the custom of dispensing with Rome, by crowning himself with the diadem which St. Leo III had placed upon the brow of Charlemagne; and Philip, enclosing Italy by taking Naples in the South and Milan in the North, seemed to many to be threatening the independence of Rome herself. England, reconciled for a brief period under Mary Tudor, was replunged by Elizabeth into the schism which continues to the present day. Boy kings succeeded one another on the throne of St. Louis, and the regency of Catharine de Medici involved France in the wars of religion.

Such was the political situation which the minister of Pius IV had to cope with, and to utilize to the best of his power for the interests of the Holy See and of the Church. Charles did not hesitate. With faith to supply for his want of experience, he understood that to the torrent of errors, which threatened to deluge the world, Rome must first of all oppose, as an embankment, that undivided truth of which she is the guardian.

He saw how, in contest with a heresy, which claimed the name of Reformation while it let loose every passion, the Church might take occasion from the struggle to strengthen her discipline, elevate the morals of her children, and manifest to the eyes of all her indefectible sanctity. This thought had already, under Paul III and Julius III, led to the convocation of the Council of Trent, and inspired its dogmatic definitions and reformatory decrees. But the Council, twice interrupted, had not completed its work, which was still under dispute. It had now been suspended for eight years, and the difficulties in the way of its resumption continued to increase, on account of the quarrelsome pretensions of princes. The Cardinal-nephew bent all his efforts to surmount the obstacles. He devoted day and night to the work, imbuing with his views the Sovereign Pontiff himself, inspiring with his zeal the nuncios at the various courts, vying in skill and firmness with diplomatic ministers in order to overcome the prejudices or the ill will of monarch. And when, after two years of these difficult negotiations, the Fathers of Trent gathered together once more, Charles was the providence and the tutelary angel of this august assembly. To him it owed its material organization, its political security, the complete independence of its deliberations and their thenceforward uninterrupted continuity. Himself detained at Rome, he was the intermediary between the Pope and the Council. The presiding legates soon gave him their full confidence, as is proved from the pontifical archives; to him, as to the ablest counselor and most reliable support, they daily had recourse in their solicitudes and anxieties.

For her (wisdom’s) sake, says the Wise Man, I shall have glory among the multitude, and honor with the ancients, though I be young … and the faces of princes shall wonder at me. They shall wait for me when I hold my peace, and they shall look upon me when I speak, and if I talk much they shall lay their hands on their mouths. (Wisdom 8:10-12) Such was truly the case with St. Charles, at this critical moment of the world’s history. No wonder that divine Wisdom, to whom he listened with such docility, and who inspired him so copiously, rendered his name immortal in the memory of a grateful posterity.

In his Defense of the too famous Declaration, Bossuet, speaking of the Council of Trent which owed its completion to St. Charles, says that it brought the Church back to the purity of her origin, as far as the iniquity of the times would permit. (Gallia orthodoxa, Pars III., 6:13, 7:40) And when the ecumenical sessions at the Vatican were opened, the Bishop of Poitiers, the future Cardinal Pie, spoke of “that Council of Trent, which deserved, more truly even than that of Nicæa, to be called the great Council; that Council, concerning which we may confidently assert, that since the creation of the world no assembly of men has succeeded in introducing among mankind such great perfection; that Council whereof it has been said that, as a tree of life, it has forever restored to the Church the rigor of her youth. More than three centuries have elapsed since its labors were completed, and its healing and strengthening virtue is still felt.” (Discourse pronounced at Rome, in the Church of St Andrew della Valle Jan 14, 1870)

“The Council of Trent is perpetuated in the Church by means of the Roman Congregations charged with its continual application, and with ensuring obedience to the pontifical constitutions which have followed and completed it.” (Pastoral instruction on occasion of the approaching Council of Bordeaux, June 26, 1850) Charles suggested the measures adopted for this end by Pius IV, and approved and developed by succeeding Pontiffs. He caused the Liturgical Books to be revised, and the Roman Catechism to be compiled. But first, and in all things, he was himself the living model of his renewed discipline, and thus acquired the right to exercise his zeal for or against others. Rome, initiated by him in the salutary reform, of which it was fitting she should set the first example, was in a few months completely transformed. The three churches now dedicated to St. Charles within her walls, (St Charles at the Catinari, one of the most beautiful in Rome; St Charles on the Corso, which possesses his heart; St Charles at the four fountains.) and the numerous altars which bear his name in other sanctuaries of the holy City, are the testimony of her enduring gratitude.

His administration, however, and his sojourn in Rome lasted only during the six years of Pius IV’s pontificate. On the death of that Pope, in spite of the entreaties of Pius V, whose election was done chiefly to his exertions, Charles set out for Milan, which called for the presence of its Archbishop. For nigh a century, the great Lombard city had scarcely known its pastors save by name; and this abandonment had delivered it, like so many others at that period, to the wolf that catcheth and scattereth the sheep. Our Saint understood far otherwise the responsibility of the cure of souls. He gave himself entirely to this duty, without care for himself, without a thought for the judgments of men, without fear of the powerful. His maxim was: to treat of the interests of Jesus Christ in the spirit of Jesus Christ; (Acta Eccl. Mediolanensis, Oratio habita in Concil. prov 6) his program, the ordinances of Trent. Charles’s episcopate was the carrying out of the great Council; its living form, the model of its practical application in the whole Church, and the proof of its efficiency, demonstrating that it sufficed for every reform, and could, of itself alone, sanctify both pastor and flock.

We would gladly have given more than a passing notice of these Acts of the church of Milan, which have been lovingly collected by faithful hands, and which show our Saint in so grant a light. Herein, after the six provincial councils and eleven diocesan synods over which he presided, follows the inexhaustible series of general or special mandates dictated by his zeal; pastoral letters, the most remarkable of which is the sublime Memorial written after the plague in Milan; instructions upon the holy Liturgy, upon the tenure of churches, upon preaching, upon the administration of the Sacraments, and notably the celebrated instruction to Confessors; ordinances concerning the archiepiscopal court, the chancellorship, canonical visitations; regulations for the archbishop’s domestic family, and his vicars and officials of all ranks, for the parish priests and their meetings in conference (a custom introduced by him), for the Oblates he had founded, the seminaries, schools, and confraternities; edicts and decrees; and lastly various tables, and complete forms of administrative acts, so drawn up that nothing remains but to insert names and dates. It is a true pastoral encyclopedia which, in its magnificent amplitude, would appear to be the work of a long life, yet St. Charles died at the early age of forty-six; and moreover all this was written in the midst of trials and combats sufficient to have been his sole preoccupation.

But it is time to listen to the Church’s account of him.

Charles was born at Milan, of the noble family of Borromeo. His future pre-eminent sanctity was foreshown by a heavenly light shining at night over the room where he was born. He was enrolled in his boyhood in the ranks of the clergy, and soon provided with an Abbey; but he warned his father not to turn its revenues to private use; and as soon as its administration was entrusted to him, he spent all the surplus income on the poor. As a youth he pursued his liberal studies at Pavia. He had the greatest love for holy chastity; and several times put to flight, with the greatest firmness, some shameless women sent to tempt him. In the twenty-third year of his age, his uncle Pius IV created him Cardinal; and he adorned that dignity by his great piety and remarkable virtues. Being soon afterwards made Archbishop of Milan, he labored strenuously to carry out, in his whole diocese, the decrees of the Council of Trent, which had just been concluded mainly through his exertions. To reform the evil customs of his people he held many synods, and moreover was ever himself a perfect model of virtue. He also labored much to expel the heretics from Switzerland and the country of the Grisons, and converted many of them to the true faith.

The charity of this holy man was strikingly exhibited when he sold the principality of Oria, and in one day distributed the price, amounting to about forty thousand gold pieces, among the poor. With no less generosity he, on another occasion, distributed twenty thousand gold pieces left him as a legacy. He resigned the many ecclesiastical benefices which his uncle had bestowed upon him, except a few which he retained for his own necessities and for relieving the poor. When the plague was raging in Milan, he gave up the furniture of his house, even his bed, for the support of the poor, and thenceforward always slept on a bare board. He visited the plague-stricken with unwearied zeal, assisted them with fatherly affection, and, administering to them with his own hands the Sacraments of the Church, singularly consoled them. Meanwhile he approached to God in humble prayer as a mediator for his people; he ordered public supplications to be made, and himself walked in the processions, with a rope round his neck, his feet bare and bleeding from the stones, and carrying a cross; and thus offering himself as a victim for the sins of the people, he endeavored to turn away the anger of God. He strenuously defended the liberty of the Church, and was most zealous in restoring discipline. For this reason some seditious persons fired upon him while he was engaged in prayer, but by the divine power he was preserved unharmed.

His abstinence was wonderful: he very often fasted on bread and water, and sometimes took only a little pulse. He subdued his body by night-watchings, a rough hairshirt and frequent disciplines. He was a great lover of humility and meekness. Even when occupied by weighty business, he never omitted his prayer or preaching. He built many churches, monasteries and colleges. He wrote many works of great value especially for the instruction of bishops; and it was through his care that the catechism for parish priests was drawn up. At length he retired to a solitary place on Mount Varallo, where the mysteries of our Lord’s Passion are sculptured in a lifelike manner, and there after spending some days in severe bodily mortifications sweetened by meditation on Christ’s sufferings, he was seized by a fever. He returned to Milan; but the illness growing much worse, he was covered with sackcloth and ashes, and with his eyes fixed on the crucifix he passed to heaven, in the forty-seventh year of his age, on the third of the Nones of November, in the year of our Lord 1584. He was illustrated by miracles, and was enrolled among the Saints by Pope Paul V.

Successor of Ambrose, thou didst inherit his zeal for the house of God; thy action also was powerful in the Church; and though separated in time by a thousand years, your names are now united in one common glory. May your prayers also mingle before the throne of God for us in these times of decadence; and may your power in heaven obtain for us pastors worthy to continue, or if need be to renew, your work on earth. How obviously applicable to both of you were those words of Holy Writ: What manner of man the ruler of the city is, such also are they that dwell therein. (Ecclesiasticus 10:2) And again: I will fill the soul of the priests with fatness; and my people shall be filled with my good things, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 31:14)

Rightly didst thou say, O Charles: “Never did Israel hear a more awful threat than this: Lex peribit a sacerdote. (The law shall perish.) (Ezekiel 7:26) Priests are divine instruments, upon whom depends the welfare of the world; their abundance is the riches of all, their default is the ruin of nations.” (Concio 1 ad. clerum, in synod. diæces xi)

And when, from the midst of thy priests convoked in synod, thou didst pass to the venerable assembly of seventeen bishops thy suffragens, thy language became, if possible, still more vehement: “Let us fear lest the angered Judge say to us: If you were the enlighteners of my Church, why have you closed your eyes? If you pretended to be shepherds of the flock, why have you suffered it to stray? Salt of the earth, you have lost your savor. Light of the world, they that sat in darkness and the shadow of death have never seen you shine. You were Apostles; who, then, put your apostolic firmness to the test, since you have done nothing but seek to please men? You were the mouth of the Lord, and you have made that mouth dumb. If you allege in excuse that the burden was beyond your strength, why did you make it the object of your ambitious intrigues?” (Oratio habita in concil. prov 2)

But by the grace of God blessing thy zeal for the amendment of both sheep and lambs, thou couldst add, O Charles: “Province of Milan, take heart again. Behold, thy fathers have come to thee, and are assembled once more for the purpose of remedying thy ills. They have no other care than to see thee bring forth the fruits of salvation; and for this end they multiply their united efforts.” (Oratio habita in concil. prov 6)

My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you. (Galatians 4:19) Such is the aspiration of the Bride, which will cease only in heaven: and synods, visitations, reformation, decrees concerning preaching and government and ministry were, in thy eyes, but the manifestation of this one desire of the Church, the expression of the mother’s cry as she brings forth her children. (Concio 1 ad. clerum, in synod. diæces xi)

Deign, O blessed Pontiff, to restore in all places the love of holy discipline, wherein the pastoral solicitude that rendered thee so glorious (Collect of the feast) found the secret of its marvelous fecundity. It may be sufficient for the simple faithful merely to know that among the treasures of the Church there exists, side by side with her doctrine and Sacraments, an incomparable code, the work of ages, an object of legitimate pride to all her sons, whose divine privileges it protects. But the priest, entirely devoted to the Church, cannot serve her usefully without that profound and persevering study which will give him the understanding of her laws in detail. But clergy and laity alike must beseech God that the miseries of the times may not impede the meeting of our venerated superiors in the councils and synods prescribed at Trent, (Session 24, de. Reformatione, Cap. 2) and so grandly carried out by thee, O Charles, who didst prove by experience their value for the salvation of the world. May heaven, for thy sake, hear our prayer; and then we shall be able to say with thee to the Church: “O tender mother, let thy voice cease from weeping … for there is a reward for thy work, saith the Lord; and thy sons shall return out of the land of the enemy. And I will fill the soul of the priests with fatness: and my people shall be filled with my good things.” (Jeremiah 31:16, 14)

Let us offer our homage to two Martyrs, whose memory was celebrated on this day even before that of St. Charles. Vitalis the slave and Agricola his master, combating together in the glorious arena proved that social inequality counts for nothing with regard to heaven’s nobility. St. Ambrose, when sojourning at Bologna where they had suffered, discovered their bodies and celebrated their triumph. (Ambrose, Exortations on Virginity) The Church, following his example, has ever associated them in one common homage. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Charles Borromeo, November 4.)