The Other Blasphemy at Assisi

It has been nearly a week since the Holy Father led the third Assisi meeting in order to fittingly commemorate, so he thought, the original meeting of 1986, led by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Seeing the doves flying around the leaders of the false religions invited by the Successor of Saint Peter, one is less impressed by the ceremony than by the fact that again God had been placed ignominiously on the same level as those gods referred to by the Scriptures as "demons". While Saint Paul might have asked what was common to Christ and Belial, the modern churchmen seem to answer "nearly everything". It might well be asked how peace is to be served by the violation of the first commandment of God wherein He demands that only true worship be offered to Him, and to Him alone. It might be objected that the Pope did not actually pray to these other divinities, nor join with the other adherents of these religions to adore God falsely or to actually adore false gods. This might be true strictly speaking, but this does not lessen the gravity of his actions. He did in fact invite the adherents of false religions to worship falsely, and this is a direct scandal leading others to commit what is objectively a mortal sin. By scandal, one is to take this in its strict meaning of causing another to fall. While the non-believer may or may not have committed mortal sin with due knowledge and consent, it must be assumed that the Pope knew that these members of other religions were not offering the true God the only worship accepted by Him, namely the worship of the Catholic Church, His own Immaculate Bride. How grave will judgement be for one who knowingly led others to break the First Commandment of God! Yet however grave this public demonstration of indifferentism might be, many have overlooked another blasphemy at Assisi. This is not the promiscuous invitation given to believer and unbeliever alike resulting in various forms of false worship, but rather the blasphemy from the mouth of the Pope himself.

What is this blasphemy? What are these words overlooked by the so-called traditional Catholics of the "Ecclesia Dei" variety who revel in papolatry even while doing nothing to take a stand for the Immaculate Bride of Christ the Church? The following words of the Holy Father in his address to the infidels and heretics is enough to cause the angels to weep:

"As a Christian I want to say at this point: yes, it is true, in the course of history, force has also been used in the name of the Christian faith. We acknowledge it with great shame. But it is utterly clear that this was an abuse of the Christian faith, one that evidently contradicts its true nature. The God in whom we Christians believe is the Creator and Father of all, and from him all people are brothers and sisters and form one single family. For us the Cross of Christ is the sign of the God who put "suffering-with" (compassion) and "loving-with" in place of force..."

Behold the other blasphemy hidden in the honeyed words of a false piety. The Pope again offers an apology for the actions of the Church's past. But what are these actions, and from what understanding do they flow? Supposedly, the Christian abhors "force". Use of force is an "abuse of the Christian faith". Now only that, but it "contradicts its true nature". Now who are those who have misunderstood the nature of the Christian faith? Why nearly everyone before the "New Pentecost" of Vatican II, of course. The Pope alone understands Christianity, so unlike his obscurantist predecessors who called for crusades, established the Inquisition, punished evildoers! Poor, poor saints and popes of the past who have not reveled in blasphemy and heresy! I fear that the loving gaze of Jesus, so extolled by this pope, is liable to send him to join those so well described by Dante in the Inferno, for there is no love of truth without hatred of error. Let us pray he repents of his deeds before it is too late.

Let us remind ourselves of Blessed Urban II calling the First Crusade, of the Ecumenical Councils extolling Christians to fight the infidel, of Pope Saint Pius V calling Christendom to fight the Turk and joining this war to a rosary crusade to insure the defeat of the infidel at Lepanto! And what of Saint Bernard, the force behind the Second Crusade, of Saint Peter Martyr, Inquisitor for Lombardy, martyred by the heretics even as he sought to destroy the monster of Catharism? The entire history of the Church resounds with the voices of popes and saints calling Christendom to fight the enemies of Christ with prayer, but also with sword. We see Saint John Capistrano, humble Franciscan friar, leading the Christian forces against the Turks in the 15th Century; we see the Capuchin, Marco D'Aviano rousing the Austrians to fight the Turk in the 16th Century; we see the Catholic kings of Spain fighting the Moors and delivering Granada back to the Faith, while at the same time God granting them the fruits of a "new world". That is Catholicism, not the love-in at Assisi which is little less than the opening to Antichrist.

If we wish to push the matter further, are we to conclude that the Old Testament is only a book of lies about God, who gives Josue the instruction to destroy the pagans in the Promised Land? What of Judith and her violence against the enemy of Israel, whereby she cuts off his head and is declared forever blessed? What of God striking down the priests of Baal by command of the Prophet Elias? What of the Maccabees who take arms against Antiochus? Is this all a misunderstanding? or has the Pope dared to raise his voice against the Most High? God deliver the Church from liberals and blasphemers, and restore to us a Pope who actually is Catholic.

You are working to de-christianize society...

"Eminence, even if you give us everything--a bishop, some autonomy from the bishops, the 1962 liturgy, allow us to continue our seminaries--we cannot work together because we are going in different directions. You are working to dechristianize society and the Church, and we are working to Christianize them."

These are the words of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre to the then Cardinal Ratzinger at a meeting in July of 1987. They are only part of the discussion over the role of the State vis-a-vis the Church and reflect the Archbishop's wise discernment of Cardinal Ratzinger's total miscomprehension of the Social Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This episode is mentioned because recently our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI spoke in Germany regarding his views of the nature of the Church, and in it we can see another side to this divorce between the temporal and spiritual orders so much a part of the mind of Joseph Ratzinger. They are words which are dangerous, especially given the current anti-Christian bias of western politics. Like many expressions of Liberalism, while they contain a grain of truth, there is utter confusion as to where this grain of truth fits into the general picture. The result, as in this case, is disaster. Let us take a look at the ideas recently expressed by the Pope at the Concert Hall in Freiburg.

There is not room to analyze the complete speech. We may summarize the first part by saying that the Pope answers the charges that the Church needs to change if it is to hold on to its members, and obviously the context is the growing disillusion in Germany. Now the Pope says that there is always need for change, but he does not embrace the radicalism looked for by the ultra-modernists. He quotes Mother Teresa of Calcutta by saying that change begins with oneself, and then points out that all of us are the Church, not just the hierarchy. Now it is true that all, both clergy and laity, are members of the Church, but it is not quite true that both have equal responsibility in changing the Church, nor that change that involves reform should not come from the rulers. However, He then mentions Pope Paul VI and his encyclical "Ecclesiam Suam" (the very one that introduced the nefarious idea of dialogue):

"If the Church, in Pope Paul VI’s words, is now struggling “to model itself on Christ’s ideal”, this “can only result in its acting and thinking quite differently from the world around it, which it is nevertheless striving to influence” (Ecclesiam Suam, 58). In order to accomplish her mission, she will constantly set herself apart from her surroundings, she needs in a certain sense to become unworldly or 'desecularized'."

Now this sounds very pious, and it is certainly true that the Church should not think in a worldly manner, that is, in a matter that demonstrates a naturalist spirit that identifies itself with the pursuit of the world, the flesh, and the devil. The problem arises when it comes to understanding separation from the world. This is the same pontiff that destroyed the transcendent nature of the Roman Liturgy, who assured mankind that the Church more than any other embodied the honor due to man. It is, of course, possible that Paul VI was acting like a modern Caiaphas, prophesying by means of his office. However, it is also possible, and indeed, likely, that the pope had something else in mind. His was the pontificate that abhorred the triumphalist Church, that gave his tiara to the United Nations. This separation from the world, then, signifies more than a supernatural vision. Pope Benedict now enters more deeply into what he means.

Firstly, he reminds us of the purpose of the Incarnation of Christ, which is to shape our understanding of the Church's mission. He speaks of a theme much written of by the fathers, that is the "admirabile commercium", the "admirable exchange" by which Christ and man, as partners each give to the other:

"The Christ event includes the inconceivable fact of what the Church Fathers call a commercium, an exchange between God and man, in which the two parties – albeit in quite different ways – both give and take, bestow and receive. The Christian faith recognizes that God has given man a freedom in which he can truly be a partner to God, and can enter into exchange with him. At the same time it is clear to man that this exchange is only possible thanks to God’s magnanimity in accepting the beggar’s poverty as wealth, so as to make the divine gift acceptable, given that man has nothing of comparable worth to offer in return."

Again we see a traditional theme, but with a difference. Why does God become man? It is, of course so that man can be restored to the supernatural order, the life of sanctifying grace, and this is to be accomplished by means of the supreme act of atonement- the Cross. This redemptive act of Christ, this perfect act by which the justice of God is payed by the Blood of Christ is ignored. It is a question of the "I" and "Thou" of Personalism, not the restoration to the supernatural order of man by a God offended by sin. This is a constant lacuna in the works of the pope, and one that is highly problematic. But this takes us away from the Church-State problem. This exchange begun by the Incarnation is carried on by the Church:

"The Church must always open up afresh to the cares of the world and give herself over to them, in order to make present and continue the holy exchange that began with the Incarnation."

The Church, then, cares for the world and its concerns, and works to build unity with God. But the Pope contrasts this with another vision of the Church seen in history:

"In the concrete history of the Church, however, a contrary tendency is also manifested, namely that the Church becomes settled in this world, she becomes self-sufficient and adapts herself to the standards of the world. She gives greater weight to organization and institutionalization than to her vocation to openness."

It is the Church as an institution that becomes the problem. It is too settled in the world, and too attached to the world's standards. The Church's vocation is "openness" a term which is wildly subjective and vague. But it allows us into the mind of the Pope, who like every liberal is uncomfortable with "structures". The problem does not end here. How is the Church to recover her openness, her detachment from the world?

"Secularizing trends – whether by expropriation of Church goods, or elimination of privileges or the like – have always meant a profound liberation of the Church from forms of worldliness, for in the process she has set aside her worldly wealth and has once again completely embraced her worldly poverty. In this the Church has shared the destiny of the tribe of Levi, which according to the Old Testament account was the only tribe in Israel with no ancestral land of its own, taking as its portion only God himself, his word and his signs. At those moments in history, the Church shared with that tribe the demands of a poverty that was open to the world, in order to be released from her material ties: and in this way her missionary activity regained credibility."

Here we have arrived at the heart of Benedictine liberalism and the apostasy of modern Rome. It reflects a totally un-Catholic way of perceiving the world, much in keeping with Freemasonry and the enemies of the Church, though the pope professes to allow the Church to be more spiritual. Liberation from this institutional spirit comes by means of the State stealing the Church's possessions. This nonsense could hardly have come from the pen of a Saint Pius X, who condemned explicitly this theft by the governments of France and Portugal! The Church must be poor, detached from the world. Certainly there should be a spirit of detachment in every Catholic, and the Church must not lose her supernatural vision of things, but it is not to be forgotten that the Church is not a spirit. She is visible, and to accomplish her mission, she has the right to possess that which is necessary. One sees here a fleeting vision of the Franciscan Spirituals or Wycliffe, with their vision of a disincarnate Church. Yet these visions were heretical. Next, the Pope makes an astounding error in his Scriptural analysis of the Old Testament. The Church is compared to the levitical cities within Israel. Now as everyone should know, the Church is not one tribe of Israel symbolically, but Israel itself. The New Testament refers to the Church as the "Israel of God". (Galatians 6:16) The clergy are to imitate the levites in having the Lord as their portion, as the ceremony of the tonsure reminds us, but that refers to the personal life of the cleric, not to the Church herself. He then tells us that the Church needs to be "released from her material ties" a phrase more in keeping with Protestant than Catholic theology. He does not let us linger in any doubt as to what he means by this comparison. He continues:

"History has shown that, when the Church becomes less worldly, her missionary witness shines more brightly. Once liberated from her material and political burdens, the Church can reach out more effectively and in a truly Christian way to the whole world, she can be truly open to the world."

For the Church to be more effective, it must be "liberated" from the material and political. Where is Christendom in all of this? Where is the duty of the Church to build a Catholic civilization and Catholic States? That was the Church of the past. We are in the age of King Lear. The Church must recover her true mission in this world, and the Pope expresses it nature forthwith:

"The Church opens herself to the world not in order to win men for an institution with its own claims to power, but in order to lead them to themselves by leading them to him of whom each person can say with Saint Augustine: he is closer to me than I am to myself (cf. Confessions, III, 6, 11)."

Saint Augustine would be astounded to see his authority so misused. Is this not the Saint Augustine who saw the validity of the Roman pressure on the Donatists to return to the Church, by means of prosecution by the State? Supposedly the Church does not wish to win men "for an institution with its own claims to power". Perhaps the Pope has forgotten that for men to be saved, it must win men to conversion to the Roman and Apostolic Faith, and thus to the Catholic Church. To seek to make men members of this visible institution is not only not blameworthy, but necessary for the salvation of souls. Where then does the Church lead man if not into the True Fold? "To themselves" of course. And to do that, one leads them to God. There is truth in saying that by reconciling to God one is able to start becoming the man that God wants one to be. But the Divine order and human order are not the same in themselves. Man is not God by nature, and sanctifying grace is an accidental perfection given to the soul, to use the terminology of the schoolmen, not a substantial identification with the Godhead! This grace is by no means a natural perfection of man to which he returns! What then is the Church to do practically, according to the Ratingerian vision?

"All the more, then, is it time once again for the Church resolutely to set aside her worldliness. That does not mean withdrawing from the world. A Church relieved of the burden of worldliness is in a position, not least through her charitable activities, to mediate the life-giving strength of the Christian faith to those in need, to sufferers and to their carers."

The Church becomes the channel of love to the world expressed in the acts of mercy. There is no mention of the Pope that we are practice contempt of the world in our personal lives, that is, living a life of mortification by which Heaven becomes the true end of the Christian life, but rather unworldliness is a kind of detachment of the Church from forms of "Triumphalism" and the Social Kingship of Jesus Christ. This is not the Christianity in which the apostles are sent not only to nations but to kings as it mentions in the Acts of the Apostles. This is not the religion that built Christendom, that taught the rights of God over the social order, the Church of "Quas Primas" in which Christ is said to rule by right over all nations, Catholic or not. This is the religion of apostasy in the name of a pseudo-spritualism in which Christ is stripped again of His rights as He was during His Passion. And this by the hands of a Pope. Kyrie Eleison.

Who is Like God?

"Quis ut Deus?" Who is like God? That is the literal meaning of the name "Michael" whose feast day is observed today. Saint Michael has always been a figure of veneration in the Church, and that for a number of reasons. Saint Michael is the guardian angel of the Church, even as he was of Israel which was its prefigurement. That in itself is a worthy reason to offer him a special veneration. But that is not the only reason why the Church should venerate this great archangel. As mentioned above, his very name calls us to order things to the proper end, that is, the service and glory of Almighty God. In face of the rebellion of satan and his cohorts, the reply of Saint Michael in the face of rebellion is instructive. "Who is like God?' That is, what creature can claim the right to withdraw his obedience to the Creator and Lord of all in order to pursue an end outside of the Will of the Almighty? This cry of Saint Michael resounds down to our own day; and in fact, perhaps there has never been such a need to recall the Sovereignty of God over the created order as there is in our own time.

We live in an age where rebellion is a virtue. Even those possessing authority over the Church or the State have become infected with a manner of thinking which is the very antithesis of all authority. Liberty is the conjurer's word that lies at the base of modern thinking. But the questions that must be asked regarding freedom is: freedom from what?  or freedom to do what? The mantra of our age reminds us of freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom to elect leaders, freedom to practice religion or not... the list goes on, though the chant of liberty remains the same. But this ill-defined liberty is simply a revolt of the self against all restraint not desired by man. Man decides what law is, what rights are, what being itself is. Yet this is far from any good liberty which is nothing else that the capacity to choose from various good means in order to attain the end for which man was created: that is the love and service of God and eternal happiness with Him. All else is merely the capacity to mistake evil for good and to make self as the end of man. This used to be called "license".

For Catholics, striving to live in an apostate age, the meaning of "Michael" should recall to mind the fact that liberty fits within an order of things. It itself is a created good, endowed by God so that man can choose those good acts that lead to Him. The liberty of man is not, nor can it be an absolute, for man is not an absolute. He is one creature among others, all of which are subject to the Divine order of creation, and for man, of redemption as well.

In the face of the apostate State, seeking to deify itself, the Catholic replies "who is like God"? In the face of the abominations of abortion, gay marriage, secularism, blasphemy, the Catholic repeats "who is like God"? In the face of ecumenism, of religious liberty, of collegiality, the New Mass, the Catholic asks "who is like God"? The answer is simple to this question. There is but one God, and that God, Trinity in Unity, alone is the source of authority and law, and man is His servant and instrument. Man's law takes it's authority from God who endows authorities with the power to enact laws as long as they do not contradict the Divine Law itself. The Catholic refuses any autonomy by which human activities lie outside of the Divine Authority. Christ reigns over all men and over all their activities, for He as God is the source of all authority, and as Redeemer, He has purchased all men by the price of His Precious Blood.

Saint Michael led the Heavenly Host against the powers of rebellion. Catholics may have to decide whether the time has come to say "no more" to those states that have fallen from the kingdom of Christ in order to replace Him with deified man, of man who will serve none but himself. It is a hard choice, but there cannot be be two Gods, two final ends. There can be but one. So we venerate the first champion ofChrist's kingship, of God's royalty, and take of the cry of this great warrior: who is like God?

Rules for Radicals: Becoming Catholic Again

It might seem overly audacious to borrow from the title of a book that is hardly consonant with Christ and His teachings, but it has often been said that we are to learn from our enemies. The book in question is "Rules for Radicals" by the Jewish writer Saul Alinsky, a book that had among its adherents many liberal Catholic clergy after the Council, and count among its modern disciples Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, to name but a few. Unfortunately there must be a number of Catholics, even in high positions, that still look to Alinsky to teach them about how a radical is to think, and act in consequence. Now this article is not going to be a critique of Alinsky's book; that would take a good deal more time and length than it seeks to encompass. However, it might be a launch point, at least in its title for prodding Catholics to take up a position which is radical in its truest sense- that is, that Catholics abandon the errors of their enemies, and return to the roots of true Catholic thinking. Too often have American Catholics taken for granted "truths" that have their origin in its very enemies, and neglected as old-fashioned or naive, those teachings that the Church have defended throughout the course of the history of Christendom. Of course, now the leaders of the Church have abandoned Catholic principles in favour of modern thinking, and that goes for leaders far removed from the Western Hemisphere.

We remember the dedication that Alinsky makes in his book and recall that we are called to dedicate ourselves to the source of all true authority: The Blessed Trinity and Christ the King, God Incarnate, who rules by right of nature and of conquest. Alinsky dedicates his work to Lucifer, the first revolutionary, while Catholics must dedicate themselves to the rights of God and His authority over man and all his works. One of the problems of Alinsky is that he is not radical enough. He draws most of his principles from modern liberal and materialist thought. Despite his admiration for luciferian revolution, he lacks luciferian wit, wit enough to know that the supernatural order is very much alive. So we pass on from modern decadence of thought to the principles of true radicalism- the principles derived from God both in the natural and supernatural orders, for He is author of them both.

What might be termed the rules of Catholic radicalism? This is an important question. Certainly such rules entail a break with those manners of thinking and acting that attack and attempt to subvert the principles of Roman Catholicism. That unfortunately has not been the case with myriads of Catholics in America in the past, and this cancer of the intellect has passed over to Europe and combined with the enlightenment thinkers already at war against the Church. Its first fruits were the revolutions beginning in 1789, and its high point was the Second Vatican Council, where prelates closed the past off to Catholics and tried to build a new and brighter world hand in hand with its very enemies. We will leave it to the reader to decide whether the result has been a happy one. Let us look then at the rules:

1. Firstly there is need to recognize that there is indeed a supernatural order revealed by God. God has given the blueprint of human salvation to mankind, and this blueprint includes the true nature of many things in the natural order, such as politics and economics, family life and the role of the sexes. The important thing to remember is that Catholicism is not a human fabrication, more or less in need of a gradual perfecting of principles and casting off of error. It is God Himself revealing the truth and becoming man in order to order man again to his true end.

2. Once there is this admission, the Catholic must look around him at the other claimants to the title of religion. If God has revealed His religion, then the others that conflict with that true religion must be false. It is not to say that all that is said is false, but that what truth there is in the false religion becomes all the more lethal as it turns man away from either the end proposed by God, or from the truth necessary to reach that end. Sincerity does not replace truth. We have only to look at the thousands upon thousands of bloody sacrifices by the Aztec religion to see that there is divine truth in the verse speaking of the gods of the nations as demons. There is the evil of satan and his minions, and the evil within man himself as he seeks to create his own "truth". Ecumenism then is a grave falsehood, a falsehood many times fought by the Church. To fight heresy or infidelity is not inhuman but the act of charity seeking to keep man from an eternity of torment.

3. In face of the indifferentism toward the true religion and the true God that has enshrined itself in every modern democracy, and that is omnipresent in the thinking of Americans, whether they be non-believers or Catholics, the Catholic if he is to be a real bearer of that title, must fight for the rights of God and His Incarnate Son to rule over human society. There cannot be compromise with a system like ours that is not neutral; it actively seeks to deprive Jesus Christ of His right to rule over society. Catholicism moves the Catholic to worry not so much about the sacrosanct rights of the human person, but about the rights of Christ in society. Thus the Catholic cannot place his trust in modern political parties, for these are not in any sense trying to profess the only true God nor His rights. For all parties, the will of the majority is crucial, and this flies in the face of all truth. Man does not make the truth. God has given things specific natures that have specific ends. Man can only confess that he is a steward to a higher authority. The Catholic will never admit that authority resides in the people as in its source; rather the Catholic confesses that "all authority comes from God" as Scripture teaches us.

4. Every Catholic must find the courage to question the assumptions of this new civilization that man has built as a replacement for Christendom. He must realize that the cancer of liberalism has deeply penetrated into the vast majority of modern men, and that might very well include himself. He must search out these principles of modern thought, and have the strength to reject them. Catholics do not need to find the answer to the modern problem in hazy notions so prevalent among men and women today. The Church has taught the way to God and the true form of civilization. Pope Saint Pius X teaches us in the letter condemning the Sillon that true civilization is Catholic civilization, even as Pius XI went on to say that true education is Catholic education. But the Catholic cannot simply remain a questioner. When the answers are found in the teachings of the popes and saints, then the Catholic must act.

5. One of the biggest lies of modern civilization so-called is Naturalism. Naturalism seeks to cut man off from the supernatural order and the revealed truths of God taught by His Church. Thus it becomes possible to ignore the effects of original sin by reading books or magazines that seek to inflame the passions or attack the Faith, or to dress immodestly since there is no weakness supposedly in man, or to ignore religious differences since we cannot really know the truth of it all and natural ties are the only really IMPORTANT things after all, or to watch television shows in which the supernatural order does not exist and a whole way of viewing the real world and morality are carefully poured into passive ears and passive eyes. There is no mortification, no self-denial, only self-fulfillment. Only what can be seen and measured are the things that we should. Nothing else should be insisted upon. Those are the siren voices of Naturalism, and our society is filled to the brim with them.

6. The Catholic then decides how he can live his Catholicism in the true manner. This manner is not reconciliation with the forces that undermine the truth. Pope Pius IX had already said in the Syllabus of Errors that the Pope cannot reconcile himself to modern civilization, and that of course means the assumptions that the revolution have used to pervert mankind- freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to do this and to do that, when all these things, if divorced from the unmovable rock of Catholic truth, only lead to the death of civilization and that of every poor man that embrace them. So the Catholic does not reconcile the unreconcilable. The Catholic begins by turning to the supernatural means available to him: the true Mass, the sacraments, the Catechism, the Mother of God, the saints. With the these means he begins to be Catholic in a true sense. Then he declares war on the naturalism infecting his way of thinking of acting. He begins to take seriously the words in Job that "the life of man upon earth is a warfare" and he practices mortification and self-denial. Yet he does not stop there. Man is not just an individual. He is part of things that are greater- the family, for instance, and the State. A Catholic must strive to make sure that marriage reflects the fact that it is a sacrament, and as such leads to the perfection of the spouses, and has as its primary end, as distinguished from other sacraments, the procreation and education of children so that they might people the kingdom of Heaven. The Catholic as a citizen looks to obtain the true good of his nation. This does not mean rubber stamping the nonsense that made America the apostle of a false religion of democracy and pluralism, for that will only bring the wrath of God upon the United States. It is to work for a Catholic America, and that means making it a Catholic confessional State. It is work for the restoration of true authority in the family and in states so that the fatherhood of God is reflected in rulers of all degree and in fathers of families.

The Catholic does not lie to himself and seek to work both for God and for the devil. Republicanism will not save us, nor the Democrats, nor Labour, nor the Conservatives. There is no trust to be put in any of these chimeras. The Catholic must reclaim the natural order for Christ, and that means that when things become bad enough, there must be a refusal of any compromise with the devil. It means the rebuilding of Catholic civilization stone by stone.

YouCat and World Youth Day: The Punishment fits the Crime

My object all sublime

I shall achieve in time —

To let the punishment fit the crime —

The punishment fit the crime;

And make each prisoner pent

Unwillingly represent

A source of innocent merriment!

Of innocent merriment!

Those were the sentiments of the great Mikado, or at least the ones attributed to him by Gilbert and Sullivan. However, if we might take the liberty to apply these words to another situation and time, then it might not be inappropriate to move them into the year 2o11 and see how they apply to one greater than an oriental potentate: to the Pope of Rome himself and the festival of youth known as "World Youth Day" (or Whoah! Yo' Day for the more urban minded, or Woo You Day for the more romantically inclined). Now this author is well aware of the recent words of Msgr. Galindo:

"Whoever is familiar with WYD knows that it is a stupendous occasion for evangelizing youth, a marvelous way for a personal encounter with Jesus in the presence of the Pope,” said Msgr. Delgado, who was looking forward to a career as an attorney before attending the 1989 World Youth Day in Santiago de Compostela and deciding to enter the seminary. “So the real protagonist is Christ, not the show, nor the multitude of young people. It can’t be considered the ‘Catholic Woodstock,’ a multicultural festival of Catholic young people which leaves no lasting trace when the lights go down.”(catholic culture.org)

One might be inclined to trust to the words of one in the curia that this will not be a "Catholic Woodstock" if one is in the habit of buying large New York bridges from unknown strangers, but given the past, and the vivid scenes of vacant or starry-eyes youths lounging in the presence of the Real Presence, half-clad and half-Catholic, one might take such warnings to heart. However, history and the abundant distribution of YouCat at the request of the Pope this coming 16th of August and the following fun-filled days make one even more skeptical. Now it is true that the layout of the book is slick and picture filled. It is also true that there are lots of stick figures to keep the attention, and that the little figure on the right corner pages is amusing when you flip the pages and make him jump and twirl upside down- but these portents of gravity somehow do not stem a growing pessimism.

One opens the book and sees myriads of smiling teens and realizes Catholicism must be an awfully fun religion. There's plenty of casualness in dress, and plenty of flesh to entertain the reader, and everyone pictured is having such a lovely time. This has got to be a good sign, right? After all, youth is about smiles, and about reading the bible, laying on hillsides, with a can of soda and munchies nigh at hand to feed the senses- yet those of the adult universe (besides those who envy youth and remain fixed mentally, spiritually, but not physically at 18 years old) cannot help sensing that all is not well. Surely the doctrine is better, right? It is a catechism, after all, and the Pope gives it such a warm endorsement in his pages at the beginning...

Well, one discovers many treasures of rationalistic biblical studies in the reminder that the biblical authors "...shared in the cultural ideas of the world around them and often were also dominated by its errors..." (except when they spoke directly of God, of course... but does that mean God demanding the death of the pagans in the Promised Land was an error about God? But this author digresses). There is, course the constant insistance of the equality of the sexes in the modern sense. The principle espoused concerning the relation of the sexes is interesting:

"Is there a priority of one sex over the other?

No. God endowed men and women with identical dignity as persons...."

One wonders about the very word "woman" as scripture explains it, that is, "from man". Now while both sexes have immortal souls, there is certainly a priority, for woman is made by God as a helpmate to man, not the other way around. So we are taught in marriage for wives to be subject to their husbands, as to the Lord. Youcat explains that discrimination in regard to the sexes is inhumane and unchristian. Where are we to find a christian view of the relation of man to woman? Nowhere. One might as well read the articles of the modern Democratic party.

Of course there is a question concerning our treatment of the environment, and another treating of animals in order that Youcat presses the right emotional buttons. We live, after all, under the pontificate of the first "green" pope...

Concerning love, there is one mistake after another. Love is defined as "the self-giving of the heart" and there is an exposition of the various ways humans love and our sharing in God's love, and all of this without any division of love in the will and the passion of love, of natural and supernatural love. Love is an univocal thing, and this destroys the infinite distance between the supernatural virtue of charity and natural, created loves. It is a blurring that is all too common among the followers of the "New Theology", one that leads naturally to the anonymous christian of Karl Rahner where all already love in one way or another with the Divine love.

There is no surprise that all forms of discrimination are abominated, despite the fact that God discriminates between the just and unjust, those who save their souls and those who will be damned by His just sentence. We can sum up this nonsense in the words of Youcat itself, an opinion contrary to every teaching of the Church and even common sense:

"Hence, every kind of social, racist, sexist, cultural, or religious discrimination against a person is an unacceptable injustice."

Did Hillary Clinton ghostwrite this book??

The list could go endlessly. Despite the glossy look, Youcat is quite worthy to sit beside the other poor attempts at catechesis that have marked the post-conciliar period. All of the liberal doctrines of the Council find their place in Youcat, and of course, this includes the super dogma of ecumenism. A final question and answer, quite unorthodox, will close this reflection on this attempt to evangelize youth. It is all too fitting that such a work be given as modern manna to the youth who are even now traveling to Spain in order to be present at yet another World Youth Day. Here indeed, the punishment fits the crime, Youcat for World Youth Day:

"Are non-Catholic christians our sisters and brothers also?

All baptised persons belong to the Church of Jesus Christ..."

May God send an auto de fe to Madrid!!

The Price of the Liberal State

"My other piece of advice, Copperfield... you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and, in short, you are for ever floored. As I am!" -Mr. Macawber, from David Copperfield.

These words from Charles Dickens reflect on the reality of economics. To stay within ones means allows one to keep afloat, so to speak. But to overspend, to find oneself daily sinking into a morass of credit or expenditure beyond ones means is only to court disaster.

The Catholic eyeing the current rush in Washington, where politicians of both parties, and of course, the President, seek ways to lift the debt ceiling of the country in order to stave off a default on the part of the United States, push one to ask what the Catholic solution must be. While the Republicans in the House compromise ever farther on the question of how much this ceiling is to be lifted and what will not be affected in the government's ever growing list of social programs, the Democrats in the Senate cast down any proposals that touch the sacrosanct social spending that caused this very disaster. The United States Bishops, ever anxious that any semi-socialist program aimed for the poor, whether these poor are legal or not, does not suffer harm, remain totally silent when it comes to an insistence that the government desist from any funding of that which is immoral. It is as if Socialism, and indeed, the gospel of Liberalism, was the only gospel the hierarchy felt worth defending.

But the Catholic is faced with a problem that wringing hands or socialist minds cannot simply make disappear. The United States has vastly overspent its own government budget. Now trillions of dollars are spoken of casually, as if the left could ignore such inconvenient realities as the treasury, and simply continue to buy its votes by funding the recipients of the Nanny State. But reality has a way of making itself felt, no matter how sweet the dream of buying the ignorant or indolent.

We are forced to look at the morality of a citizenry that has gotten used to living beyond its means, that always thinks that benefits payed by a government are an inalienable right, whether that money exists or not. It is too often a citizenry that is paying out a kind of blackmail money to the self-interests of vocal minorities in order to soothe the consciences of European descendants that no longer believe in what their ancestors stood for. And then this is all compounded by a world that believes that the individual is the center of the universe, and that every sorrow must be monetarily compensated, since any suffering violates ones sacrosanct right to always be happy and enjoying oneself. At last, however, the free rides look to be cut back, if that is, the politicians have the courage to take the consequences of their parties' extravagances.

The Catholic is forced to look at the consequences of immaturity by politicians anxious to buy the electorate. He must see the fate of Mr. Macawber as related by Charles Dickens. Overspending for Macawber meant the Debtor's Prison. One cannot go on spending more than one has without courting disaster. Justice, in fact, demands that the one to whom money is owed, is paid. While money is a convention, what it represents is not. More goes out than is coming in. Will the government try to really face reality, or will yet another band-aid be put on the mortally wounded State? It is to feared that self-interest will win out over the prospect of Doomsday. Yet the Catholic should know, that love of self, of pleasure, of fun, at the price of the common good, is a recipe for disaster in this world and in the world to come.

Freemason or Crusader?

Yesterday saw a grave crime committed against the rights of God over the lives of His subjects. It seems that the death toll of the man who both bombed a government building in Oslo, and shot over eighty teenagers to death on an island, will bring the complete number of dead to over ninety and counting. There is outrage at the man who could laugh as he shot to death his victims, but it remains to be seen how this episode will be spun by the ever-liberal media so as to make it serve their interests in the deconstruction of the West.

The name of the man who caused such havoc is Anders Behring Breivik-if others are not found to be involved as well. His writings are even now being combed for clues as to why he was involved in such a series of acts, but it seems that two quite different portraits of the man are being painted as a result. Firstly, there is a good deal supposedly written by him against the current invasion of Islam in Europe. There is the call for a return to the roots of Europe in terms that are heavily borrowing from the Crusades. There is a call for the re-founding of the Knights Templar in order to defend Europe from the Moslem horde. There is the recognition of the evil that is threatening Europe by the massive settlements of the infidel. There is the claim that he is a Christian, and therefore that Christianity plays a part in the jihad against the innocent Mideasterners. It is quite a reversal from the normal story of the innocent being slain by Moslem savages. There are pages and pages in which there is call for a Liberation Day in Europe from the Moslems on the 11th or 12th of September, a recollection of the efforts of the Christians fighting the infidel before the gates of Vienna. There is so much material to be used by the media- to be used to crush whatever resistance there is in the West to the poor Moslems and to further put pressure on the Church.

However, there is another side to things. This same man who is supposedly the Christian Crusader is at the same time a Freemason, and in the photo above, he wears the apron of the Order- hardly a badge of the Crusade nor of the Church that waged war valiantly against the infidel. It is Freemasonry that has led the West into its present apostasy; it is Freemasonry that has been at the root of secularist wars against what was left of Catholic Christendom in Mexico, South America, or Europe. This is hardly a force to rise to the defense of the West or Christian tradition.

Further, the entire teaching of the Church rebels at such an act as his. There is no just war if there are no leaders that can claim obedience from those fighting on their behalf- not to mention the fact that one does not just go randomly killing non-combatants. This appears to be a case of vigilantism, and that is far from the crusading spirit. Certainly, there is supposedly the desire to unite the "far right" groups in such a crusade. Yet how can that be taken seriously when this attack could produce nothing else except governments clamping down further on anything that they might consider "hate crimes"? Why will the nationalists groups benefit in his mind when his actions could never bring anything but grief to nationalists groups? He surely knew that his actions alone could not free the West. Did he really think there would be a new crusade after such actions? Or rather, did he have something else in mind?

If this was the first shot in a war against the Islamic invader, then why was there not a drop of Moslem blood shed? Why was not a mosque the target of his bombing? Why are the only victims the very westerners that he claims to rally rather than his self-confessed enemies? For someone who so desired the expulsion of the Mid-easterner, it is odd that none of them actually died. It is very strange.

Again we see the photo of this man dressed in the apron of the Lodge and wonder: is he merely insane, or is he the perfect instrument of the Craft so as to be able to crush what resistance still exists to the fall of the Christian West, all the while playing on the hysteria of nations that already have begun to turn against the Church in a serious way? Will this not be a very convenient case to be brought to the attention of those who feel uncomfortable at the annihilation of Europe at the hands of Islam? Will any resistance now be labeled "fanatical" or even worse, "terrorism"? No, this poor fellow is not another Saint Louis or Richard the Lion-Hearted. The Temple he represents is rather that of Osiris and the Craft. It is Masonry far more that the Catholic West that will benefit from the death of the Norwegians.

What does Harry Potter tell us?

Firstly, this is not another post claiming to reveal new secrets about the world of Harry Potter. Despite the fact that this weekend will probably see the latest movie in the Harry Potter series claim the honour of being the greatest money making film of any opening weekend ever, this still does not move the writer to enter into raptures about the benefits of the wizarding world for poor muggle families flocking to empty their pockets for a couple of hours of viewing ecstasy. Yes, Rowling's books have proved lucrative beyond measure; yes, the Prince of Wales has bemoaned the fact that the end of the series could hinder further interest in young persons taking up reading (is there indeed life after Potter?); yes, there was much entertaining about the rise of Valdemort and his war against Harry Potter; yet these factors only move one to ask a bigger question: what does Harry Potter tell us about our modern world?

To speak of Harry Potter and of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is to speak of the question of magic. The modern world seems more and more attracted by the magical, even as its culture plummets into virtual illiteracy. While Rowling is certainly capable of writing interesting stories, one cannot claim that her prose style is anything to write home about. Her ideas are dependent upon earlier movies or novelists; her religious notions are vague at best; her morality is certainly confused. She is no Evelyn Waugh or J.R.R. Tolkien. There is no beauty to her lines or elegance in her writing craft. The appeal of Harry Potter must lie elsewhere. It certainly is an interesting story of the friendship of three chums from a very English wizarding school, but even that does not explain the phenomenon of Harry Potter. Rather the combination of characters and magic is a stronger appeal. It is magic that attracts the readers of the series, and it is magic that has produced apps containing supposed spells for the fans.

The modern world is drawn to magic, as was said above. Magic is not only escapism or something exotic. It is the promise of power, of bending the world to ones own desires. It dominates both the evil wizards like "he who must not be named" as well as Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Ronald Weasley. It is the capacity to rise above the human so as to bend the created order to ones will. In this it is very like the realm of science, where the love of discovery has been often linked to the making of things that help man control the world around him. Curiously enough, the early men of science of the Renaissance were also keen on learning the secrets of Alchemy and so blend the natural with the preternatural, magical world. The two domains have much in common.

Magic allows man to utter words so as to obtain an effect above that of mortals. It is to enter into the preternatural world, a world above the muggle-born, so as to utilize that world to dominate the natural. It is not a world that relies on the power of God or His saints, but rather one in which the witch or wizard is at the center of power. This puts it into conflict with the Christian Order that submits to the Divine Will. The saint may raise the dead to life, but he or she is merely the instrument that God uses in order to accomplish His Will. The saint has no power in himself. All is God; he is nothing. The world of Harry Potter is the opposite. God is nowhere to be found. He is not invoked. Yet the wizard learns the spells in order to increase in his or her dominion over things, to make them subservient to their wills, not God's.

To those who point to fairy stories, or the works of Tolkien, an abyss opens before them. In the older fairy stories, witches are always evil. Those who learn of the forbidden arts are not heroes, but the enemy. In Middle Earth, there is the "magic" of Gandalf or the elves. But this is quite different from the world of Rowling. Gandalf is an angel that takes on himself mortal flesh in order to fulfill a mission given to him by higher angelic beings. He has a native power not learned by masters, but rather has a power over matter even as the angelic world. It comes from his own nature which is above the human. Galadriel, the elven Lady of Lothlorien, is puzzled as to why the elves are said to be magical, for they too are above the human and simply act according to their superior nature. They do not learn how to obtain a power they do not possess. Neither Gandalf or Galadriel teach mortal students how to rise above the human preternaturally. It is only in the world of Sauron's human servants that man is given the power of necromancy, of magic strictly speaking, in order to rise above the human by a power which is evil. The heroes of Tolkien, Frodo and Samwise, achieve victory through the arms of humility and loyalty, not wizardry.

The world of Potter is a world which is ultimately self-centered. It is the world of man rising above his own nature by learning spells of the preternatural order. It is a world that includes the house of Slytherin and Gryffindor both. Evil and good are both necessary. Yet the good world does not seek to conquer self by humility and submission to God, but to keep in check an evil power that is also necessary. It is dualism, and it is fatal to the Christian order. What does Harry Potter tell us? He tells us that a higher world can be made subject to man by magic, that wands and spells are the gateway to man's conquest, not of himself, but of the world he wishes to dominate, whether for what he chooses as good or for evil.

When is enough, enough?

At the end of June, Americans saw the sixth state of the union approve what is euphemistically called gay "marriage". The Democrats and Republicans were able to see beyond their differences enough to agree on the overthrow of the traditional definition of marriage and to embrace a new, elastic one. It was another blow to the conservative cause in the United States, and another example where those supposedly divided in politics were able to act as one, and draw from one principle: there is no moral law save for what man decides; all else is in the private sphere, and even here there is the danger of opposition being stamped out. This was made clear by the warning of the Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan:

"If the experience of those few other states and countries where this is already law is any indication, the churches, and believers, will soon be harassed, threatened, and hauled into court for their conviction that marriage is between one man, one woman, forever, bringing children into the world,” wrote the archbishop.

This is a rather dire warning from one who did little to halt the process as it was being moved forward, yet despite the emptiness of his actions, his warning rings true. For a world in open revolt against the very idea of submission to God, persecution cannot be far behind, open or not. No doubt this new instance of revolt will not stir the conscience of those who are so devoted to the modern ideals of democracy that they not dare to question their loyalties. But for the Catholic who knows history and realizes that states rise and fall while only the Church is guaranteed not to fail, it is time to shake off the illusions of the modern world. For anyone who has eyes to see, the western world is throwing off all of its history so as to embrace the world promised by liberalism, a world where man answers only to himself. No Catholic can embrace such a world-view and yet remain a true Catholic, for he knows that all things were created to help man reach his supernatural goal, that there is truly a God Who governs the world and before Whom all must submit or be destroyed.

The modern illusion is wet with the blood of millions; it bred the First World War, the war to end all wars, the Second World War in which the godlessness of Nazism was fought by the Allies in full union with the scourge of atheistic Communism as incarnate in the Soviet Union, in the rise of Communist China and its purge of millions, in the death of millions of the unborn at the hands of the very mothers that conceived them, and this plague is in the decadent West. Even now, Euthanasia slowly finds legal refuge in lands where death threatens the very young as well as the sick and aged.

The apostasy lies heavy in these United States as modern education and hedonism combine to produce the malleable population foreseen by Pope Leo XIII in his masterful encyclical against Freemasonry. Yet Catholics remain paralyzed. Modernism and the desire for pleasure have converted them in droves, and the anemic Churchmen since the Second Vatican Council either lead the apostasy, or remain unable to gather opposition. For Catholics loyal to Tradition there is a fear of letting go of the last treads tying them to the liberal illusion, though the grosser of the errors have not been able to seduce them. How should we treat this State that more and more shows who its master really is?

Some claim that we are in a position like the early days of the Church, when pagan emperors threatened the lives of Christians, and their empire held many of the present day illusions. Were the rulers not unbelievers? Christians were loyal to them nonetheless, despite their errors. In fact, the Theban Legions shows Catholic soldiery willing to die rather than either to offend God by false worship, or to take up arms against the pagan emperor. It seems a strong argument. However, this modern world is not the world languishing in ignorance concerning the Saviour. It is the world turned away from the true God, rejecting Him and His Rule in favour of the rule of almighty man. This is a different and more evil world, a new paganism worse than the first. It is not to the Caesars that we must turn for inspiration, but to that mighty Pontiff, Pope St. Pius V, as he deprived the bastard Elizabeth of the throne of England, though she was acknowledged by the great majority of her subjects, and his forbidding of Catholics to acknowledge the apostate as legitimate queen. This is the action of a saint faced with a ruler not pagan, but unfaithful. It not the voice of human prudence, but of Divine sight.

The modern governments are not pagan, per se. They are apostate. They have turned away from the truth in order to make their own "truth". They are ripening for the punishment of apostasy. They are the fig tree where Christ can find no fruit. They have been weighed and found wanting. Catholics need not refuse to acknowledge these states, for the Church has not deposed their rulers as she did the bastard Elizabeth. They still have some claim, perhaps, to our allegiance. But the age of illusions must pass. It is time for Catholics to refuse to go along with the tide of liberalism infecting both parties of government. It is time to pull out of a losing battle. There is only one answer, the Catholic one. There is only the true Faith that can save us. It is only Christ Who stands behind every human authority. When that authority allows its own citizens to be put to death by the millions, when it perverts the natural order by contraception, abortion, and gay marriage, the Catholic must finally make a choice as to where his allegiance finally lies.

We live in an age where Americans more and more show that they have lost all contact with even natural truth. They are the makers of reality. God is no more than the religious projection of their own self-deification. With such men, we must realize that compromise is impossible. It might mean that we can no longer patronize restaurants or other businesses that pour money into the organized revolt against God; it might mean refusing to vote unless the candidate is Catholic in his stand; it might mean inconvenience to us as to where we work, or where we keep our money. But it is God's rights that are at stake. We must come to the point when we realize that enough is enough. It is time to be Catholic, and to let the chips fall.

To Restore All Things in Christ

This first posting is timed to occur on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, and that is certainly not a chance occurrence. The Sacred Heart of Our Lord is not simply a devotion to the bodily heart of Christ, though that is worthy of veneration due to the hypostatic union, but it is a devotion to the heart as the sign of the Divine love for us, a love that seeks to elevate man to the supernatural order and bring about a union with God and man. Such a symbol as the Sacred Heart is potent, for we know that the humanity of Christ, being united so intimately to the Second Person of the Trinity, become a window onto God. The Sacred Humanity is the expression in human terms of the Divine Person that is the Logos. Every action becomes a revelation of God. The Heart of Christ, being a symbol of His Charity, and indeed of what is most intimate to Him, becomes then the means of knowing Who God is. "He who sees me," says Our Lord to St. Philip, "sees the Father."

We must ask then about the end of this charity of the Sacred Heart, for it is not necessarily what we think. Moderns think of love as a very subjective thing, and unfortunately as either an excuse to do virtually anything, or at least as being opposed to any kind of sternness. Now this it simply false. Love desires the good of the one loved, and that good is an objective thing. "Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee," writes Saint Augustine in the Confessions. Man is made for God; and so true love for ones neighbour necessitates that one desire ones neighbour to attain his end, and to fight against those things that turn man away from it. This is true of the charity of the Sacred Heart. God is man's end. Thus the Sacred Heart loves man in such a way as to draw him to God, and sometimes intervenes in such a way as to remind man of that end, though that might imply some sternness on His part. Sin separates man from God; and so it is sin that must be overcome by the charity of the Sacred Heart. He was without sin so as to suffer for man the sinner, to overcome sin by His Divine Sacrifice. It is sin that the Sacred Heart cannot condone in man, for it is to consign man to eternal separation.

Why is this important for this commencement of a new blog? It is because the Sacred Heart is the means to our end, the measure of all reality as man makes his pilgrim's way to the eternal city. What is important? What is to be cast aside? Christ is the measure, even as He is the king by right of nature and conquest over all the actions of man. He is Creator for "all things were made by Him," and He is Redeemer, for He has purchased all by the shedding of His Precious Blood. We must remember that it was by Divine Love that creation was brought to be, that is by the Divine and Human Love of the Incarnate God that the Redemption came to pass. and it is through the charity of the Heart of Jesus that grace is given to man now, in this hour, to reach is everlasting end, the union with God in the beatific vision. All things then must be judged in the light of this Heart, and all things tend towards it. There is no other measure.

To the Kingly Heart of the Divine Redeemer this blog is now dedicated. May He, through the intercession of His Immaculate Mother, bring about the submission of all human activity to the reign of the Triune God. Kyrie Eleison.