Immoral Promises Made, Immoral Promises Kept, part two

This is going to be a relatively brief commentary as those who continue to be in the thrall of President Donald John Trump because is “nice” and “funny” and is trying to rein in the size, power, and scope of the Federal government will never be convinced that his support for the ongoing Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza and his continued compromise on the inviolability of innocent human life are from the adversary himself and can never be the foundation of any kind of just social order.

Thus, to quote Spencer Tracy as the fictional Mayor Frank Skeffington in The Last Hurrah, “Let’s get down to cases.”

It was nearly nine months ago that the then former President Donald John Trump had said that he would not enforce the Comstock Act, which was named after a Nineteenth Century advocate for the suppression of vice, Anthony Comstock, that forbids the mailing of material promoting impurity, vice, and everything to with the chemical and surgical killing of the innocent preborn. Trump said flatly in an interview with Columbia Broadcasting System television news that he would not enforce the Comstock Act to stop the mailing of the human pesticide, RU-486 and like drugs, that kill preborn babies chemically:

Former President Donald Trump gave his clearest answer to date on the federal regulation of abortion pills, and it’s not what conservatives wanted to hear.

After months of avoiding specifics, Trump told CBS News on Monday that he would not use the 150-year-old Comstock Act to ban mail delivery of the drugs if elected in November, adding: “The federal government should have nothing to do with this issue.”

Many prominent conservatives and anti-abortion activists were outraged by the remark, calling it “nonsensical” and “cowardly,” and warning that it could dampen turnout and enthusiasm on the right heading into a close election.

“It is not a pro-life position, it’s not an acceptable position, and it does not provide the contrast on this issue to the degree that we have had in the past between him and Kamala Harris,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. “What President Trump is doing is suppressing his own support.”

Though anti-abortion stalwarts credit Trump for appointing the Supreme Court justices who helped overturn Roe, this is far from their first clash over policy and messaging. Trump’s refusal to endorse a national abortion ban and push to soften parts of the GOP platform ahead of the Republican convention sparked outrage from corners of the right, including from his former vice president, Mike Pence.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Though abortion opponents are pouring resources into a myriad of legislative, legal and other strategies to cut off access to abortion pills, they have seized in particular on Comstock as a means of curtailing their use without having to go through Congress.

The law, passed in the 1870s and named for an official who campaigned against everything from masturbation to women’s suffrage, bans mail delivery of any “lewd or lascivious material,” including any “instrument, substance, drug, medicine, or thing” that could be used for an abortion. (Trump says he would not enforce Comstock Act, angering anti-abortion groups.)

Immoral promise made.

Here is the latest news about the forty-seventh president’s efforts to keep the abortion pill available to women to murder their babies surgically:

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to dismiss a lawsuit against Biden-era rules approving mail distribution of abortion pills, in a troubling escalation of the Trump administration’s aversion to undoing the pro-abortion policy.

In December 2021, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) under former President Joe Biden eliminated its requirement that abortion pills be dispensed in person, allowing pharmacists to instead send them through the mail as long as the recipient has a prescription. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) sued on behalf of pro-life doctors and advocates, eventually getting the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case, which pro-lifers hoped might also impact the FDA’s original approval of mifepristone in 2000 and subsequent relaxation of the cutoff point for taking it from seven to 10 weeks. 

The Supreme Court dismissed that challenge last year, but the states of Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri filed another challenge last October.

On May 5, however, the Trump DOJ filed a motion to dismiss, on multiple grounds, from “[t]heir claims have no connection to the Northern District of Texas,” to “[t]he mere fact that someone might violate state law does not by itself injure the government,” to “fail[ure] to identify any actual or imminent controversy over whether any of their laws are preempted,” to “[t]he States fail to cite any precedent supporting their theory that they can sue over any policy that affects their potential future birthrate.”

Politico suggests that the administration’s position fits into a broader legal strategy of “preserving executive power and preventing courts from second-guessing agency decisions,” even in cases that involve “backing policies favored by Democrats.” But it also fits with President Donald Trump’s stated opposition to undoing Biden’s liberalization of abortion pill rules.

Trump has taken a number of pro-life actions since returning to office, but said on the campaign trail that he would not enforce the federal law against mailing abortion pills, as part of his broader push to make the Republican Party more “centrist” on life.

Trump’s Health & Human Services (HHS) Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., suggested in February that he would study the health risks of abortion pills, which gave pro-lifers hope of a reversal. But no action has been taken since then, and, most recently, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said he had “no plans to take action” on abortion pills, while acknowledging that new data might change his mind.

“This is a serious mistake,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said of the Justice Department’s stance. (Trump DOJ asks court to dismiss states' lawsuit against Biden abortion pill rules.)

Immoral promise kept.

There is nothing else to say except to remind the readers of this website God will never permit any country, to enjoy a respite from the angry, bitter divisions caused by pluralism in the religiously indifferentist civil state of Modernity on the blood of the innocent preborn. Live in your fantasies if you prefer. Get all wrapped up in the agitations of the moment if this is how you want to spend your days. Continue to be deluded by the false premises upon which modern civil state, including the United States of America, was founded if you do not want to be reminded of root causes and the fact that Catholicism, not Americanism or any other kind of nationalism, is the one and only foundation of a just civil order.

One of the principal purposes of this website has been and will forever be until I die to promote the Social Reign of Christ the King and to oppose all the errors upon which the modern civil state was founded.

Pope Leo XIII gave us our marching orders as follows:

But, if the laws of the State are manifestly at variance with the divine law, containing enactments hurtful to the Church, or conveying injunctions adverse to the duties imposed by religion, or if they violate in the person of the supreme Pontiff the authority of Jesus Christ, then, truly, to resist becomes a positive duty, to obey, a crime; a crime, moreover, combined with misdemeanor against the State itself, inasmuch as every offense leveled against religion is also a sin against the State. Here anew it becomes evident how unjust is the reproach of sedition; for the obedience due to rulers and legislators is not refused, but there is a deviation from their will in those precepts only which they have no power to enjoin. Commands that are issued adversely to the honor due to God, and hence are beyond the scope of justice, must be looked upon as anything rather than laws. You are fully aware, venerable brothers, that this is the very contention of the Apostle St. Paul, who, in writing to Titus, after reminding Christians that they are "to be subject to princes and powers, and to obey at a word," at once adds: "And to be ready to every good work."Thereby he openly declares that, if laws of men contain injunctions contrary to the eternal law of God, it is right not to obey them. In like manner, the Prince of the Apostles gave this courageous and sublime answer to those who would have deprived him of the liberty of preaching the Gospel: "If it be just in the sight of God to hear you rather than God, judge ye, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard." (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

But in this same matter, touching Christian faith, there are other duties whose exact and religious observance, necessary at all times in the interests of eternal salvation, become more especially so in these our days. Amid such reckless and widespread folly of opinion, it is, as We have said, the office of the Church to undertake the defense of truth and uproot errors from the mind, and this charge has to be at all times sacredly observed by her, seeing that the honor of God and the salvation of men are confided to her keeping. But, when necessity compels, not those only who are invested with power of rule are bound to safeguard the integrity of faith, but, as St. Thomas maintains: "Each one is under obligation to show forth his faith, either to instruct and encourage others of the faithful, or to repel the attacks of unbelievers.'' To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth, is the part of a man either devoid of character or who entertains doubt as to the truth of what he professes to believe. In both cases such mode of behaving is base and is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind. This kind of conduct is profitable only to the enemies of the faith, for nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good. Moreover, want of vigor on the part of Christians is so much the more blameworthy, as not seldom little would be needed on their part to bring to naught false charges and refute erroneous opinions, and by always exerting themselves more strenuously they might reckon upon being successful. After all, no one can be prevented from putting forth that strength of soul which is the characteristic of true Christians, and very frequently by such display of courage our enemies lose heart and their designs are thwarted. Christians are, moreover, born for combat, whereof the greater the vehemence, the more assured, God aiding, the triumph: "Have confidence; I have overcome the world." Nor is there any ground for alleging that Jesus Christ, the Guardian and Champion of the Church, needs not in any manner the help of men. Power certainly is not wanting to Him, but in His loving kindness He would assign to us a share in obtaining and applying the fruits of salvation procured through His grace.

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

Pope Pius XII explained the necessity of resisting unjust laws throughout the course of his nineteen-year pontificate. Here are but two examples:

Everybody knows that the Catholic Church does not act through worldly motives, and that she accepts any and every form of civil government provided it not be inconsistent with divine and human rights. But when it does contradict these rights, Bishops and the faithful themselves are bound, by their own conscience to resist unjust laws. (Pope Pius XII, Allocution on the Cardinal Mindszenty Arrest, as found at: New York Times, February 15, 1949.)

26. We earnestly exhort “in the heart of Christ” (Phil. 1. 8) those faithful of whom We have mournfully written above to come back to the path of repentance and salvation. Let them remember that, when it is necessary, one must render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and with greater reason, one must render to God what is God’s (Cf. Luke 20. 25). When men demand things contrary to the Divine Will, then it is necessary to put into practice the maxim of St. Peter: “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5. 29). Let them also remember that it is impossible to serve two masters, if these order things opposed to one another (Cf. Matt. 6. 24). Also at times it is impossible to please both Jesus Christ and men (Cf. Gal. 1. 10). But if it sometimes happens that he who wishes to remain faithful to the Divine Redeemer even unto death must suffer great harm, let him bear it with a strong and serene soul.

27. On the other hand, We wish to congratulate repeatedly those who, suffering severe difficulties, have been outstanding in their loyalty to God and to the Catholic Church, and so have been “counted worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus” (Acts 5. 41). With a paternal heart We encourage them to continue brave and intrepid along the road they have taken, keeping in mind the words of Jesus Christ: “And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather be afraid of him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell . . . But as for you, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Therefore do not be afraid . . . Therefore everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I in turn will disown him before my Father in heaven” (Matt. 10. 28, 30-33). (Pope Pius XII, Ad Sinarum Gentes, October 7, 1954.)

Pope Pius XII also explained that nations not built upon the firm foundation of the Catholic Faith must wind up as places of injustice and iniquity:

4. If we weigh carefully the causes of today’s crises and those that are ahead, we shall soon find that human plans, human resources, and human endeavors are futile and will fail when Almighty God — He who enlightens, commands, and forbids; He who is the source and guarantor of justice, the fountainhead of truth, the basis of all laws — is esteemed but little, denied His proper place, or even completely disregarded. If a house is not built on a solid and sure foundation, it tumbles down; if a mind is not enlightened by the divine light, it strays more or less from the whole truth; if citizens, peoples, and nations are not animated by brotherly love, strife is born, waxes strong, and reaches full growth.

5. It is Christianity, above all others, which teaches the full truth, real justice, and that divine charity which drives away hatred, ill will, and enmity. Christianity has been given charge of these virtues by the Divine Redeemer, who is the way, the truth, and the life,[2] and she must do all in her power to put them to use. Anyone, therefore, who knowingly ignores Christianity — the Catholic Church — or tries to hinder, demean, or undo her, either weakens thereby the very bases of society, or tries to replace them with props not strong enough to support the edifice of human worth, freedom, and well-being.

6. There must, then, be a return to Christian principles if we are to establish a society that is strong, just, and equitable. It is a harmful and reckless policy to do battle with Christianity, for God guarantees, and history testifies, that she shall exist forever. Everyone should realize that a nation cannot be well organized or well ordered without religion. (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

We would never be arguing about the inarguable (the inviolability of innocent human life, the fact that there are only two genders, that the sin of Sodom and its related vices are abhorrent and can never enjoy the favor of the civil law nor be celebrated within civil society, etc.) in a country that recognizes the Sovereignty of Christ the King and that acknowledges the authority of the Catholic Church to interpose herself with the civil authorities in all that pertains to the good of souls after exhausting her Indirect Powers of teaching, preaching, exhortation, and admonition to warn such authorities of the consequences for defying the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law.

A summary of the civil state’s duty to pursue the common temporal good in light of man’s Last End—the possession of the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost for all eternity in Heaven) was provided to us by Pope Saint Pius X 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. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. “Between them,” he says, “there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.” He proceeds: “Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them…. As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error.  (Pope Saint Pius X, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1905.)

These passages summarize the correct relationship between Holy Mother Church and the civil state, and they note the Holy Father’s bitterness at seeing the trust that Pope Leo XIII had placed in the French anti-clericalists shattered shortly after he, Pope Saint Pius X, had ascended to the Throne of Saint Peter. Pope Saint Pius X manfully articulated right principles while at the same time enumerating the specific ways in which the leaders of the French Third Republic were attempting to subjecting everything about the life of the Church in France to their own arbitrary

Alas, we are consigned to arguing about the inarguable and of having mere mortals send other mere mortals to jail for seeking to defend innocent human life as long as nations remain not only indifferent to the religion but, as a consequence, become hostile to those who merely seek to defend the Natural Law without even mentioning the Divine Law. Those seeking to oppose evil on merely natural grounds will forever be straitjacketed into endless confrontations with those who believe that falsehood trumps truth and that sentimentality trumps reason.

Silvio Cardinal Antoniano, quoted by Pope Pius XI in Divini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929, explained that:

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

Governments that are “religiously neutral,” however, must end up awash in a sewer of evil as men, especially today given the paucity of a superabundance of Sanctifying and Actual Grace caused by the sacramentally barren liturgical rites of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, govern themselves and their nations by means of sentimentality or raw majoritarian impulses. Such governmental systems must place jurists who might know better into making one legal argument after another, no matter how constitutionally or statutorily sound, on a purely naturalistic basis, thus placing into straitjackets from which it is impossible to extricate themselves. One cannot fight naturalism/secularism/humanism with naturalism/secularism/humanism. One can only fight naturalism/secularism/humanism with Catholicism, Nothing.

While we pray for the conversion of all those who solicit, perform, cooperate in, or support the chemical and/or surgical execution of the innocent preborn, we also have a duty to remind those in public life who enable these executions of the very direct words written by Pope Pius XI about their fate when they stand before the Avenger of innocent blood when they die:

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.)

It is no act of “violence” upon anyone to call abortion by its proper name: homicide in the particular and genocide in the universal sense.

The religious indifferentist institutions of Modernity’s anti-Incarnational state have devolved to the point where truth is falsehood, falsehood is truth, criminal activity is virtuous, and that which is virtuous is considered to a “violent” threat to the civil order.

Pope Leo XIII, writing in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, explained that men and their societies who reject Christ the King and His true Church must wind up being bereft of any sense of true justice in a situation where public life itself is stained by crime:

God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.

So great is this struggle of the passions and so serious the dangers involved, that we must either anticipate ultimate ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is of course both right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible way: but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation of the nations must be looked for higher. A power greater than human must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken in them the sense of duty, and make them better. This is the power which once before saved the world from destruction when groaning under much more terrible evils. Once remove all impediments and allow the Christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away; mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realise that they must observe justice and charity, the latter self-restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved. Domestic life will be firmly established (by the salutary fear of God as the Lawgiver. In the same way the precepts of the natural law, which dictates respect for lawful authority and obedience to the laws, will exercise their influence over the people. Seditions and conspiracies will cease. Wherever Christianity rules over all without let or hindrance there the order established by Divine Providence is preserved, and both security and prosperity are the happy result. The common welfare, then, urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to this His own rightful possession. All elements of the national life must be made to drink in the Life which proceedeth from Him- legislation, political institutions, education, marriage and family life, capital and labour. Everyone must see that the very growth of civilisation which is so ardently desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows not so much by material wealth and prosperity, as by the spiritual qualities of morality and virtue. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

There is no naturalistic, electoral, political, or legal way out of the mess in which we find ourselves. We are witnessing the manifestation of the perfection of the inherent degeneracy of the founding principles, a degeneration that includes social decadence and nihilism.

Speaking about the decadence in the supposedly “free” West in his famous commencement address on June 6, 1978, at Harvard University, “A World Split Apart,” the Nobel Laureate Russian nationalist and Soviet dissident, Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, observed that what passes for “civilization” in the West hangs by slender threads:

But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just mentioned are extremely saddening.

A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human beings in the West while in the East they are becoming firmer and stronger -- 60 years for our people and 30 years for the people of Eastern Europe. During that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. Life's complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger, deeper, and more interesting characters than those generally [produced] by standardized Western well-being.

Therefore, if our society were to be transformed into yours, it would mean an improvement in certain aspects, but also a change for the worse on some particularly significant scores. It is true, no doubt, that a society cannot remain in an abyss of lawlessness, as is the case in our country. But it is also demeaning for it to elect such mechanical legalistic smoothness as you have. After the suffering of many years of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer, and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor, and by intolerable music.

There are meaningful warnings which history gives a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, the decadence of art, or a lack of great statesmen. There are open and evident warnings, too. The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system quite unstable and unhealthy.

But the fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their offensive; you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?  (Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart, June 8, 1978, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts .)

The Nobel Laureate gave this address nearly eleven months after riots had broken out in the Borough of Brooklyn in the City of New York, New York, when the inept utility company, Consolidated Edison, suffered an outage at a power plant in Astoria in the Borough of Queens on Wednesday, July 13, 1977. Solzhenitsyn was saying in his address, in effect, that Americans are in trouble if the only thing keeping the masses from rioting and looting is Consolidated Edison, known colloquially in New York and environs as “Con Ed.”

Neither liberalism (or its variants) nor socialism and its variants are the foundation of social order. Catholicism, though not a guarantor of order given the vagaries of fallen human nature, is alone the only means that can provide men and their nations with the foundation for a just social order, a truth that Solzhenitsyn, whose Russian Orthodoxy caused him to loathe Catholicism, failed to understand or accept.

Human nature is wounded, although not entirely corrupted, by Original Sin, leaving the souls of the unbaptized in the grip of the devil and the souls of the baptized with its vestigial after-effects: a darkened intellect, weakened will and the overthrow of the rational, higher faculties in favor of the lower sensual appetites. The Actual Sins of men incline them to sin more and more and to blind them to anything other than what pleases them and their immediate self-interests, no matter how distorted or perverted those self-interests are in the objective order of things.

Men who do not seek to reform their lives by confessing their sins to a true priest in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance and then cooperating with the ineffable graces of the Divine Redeemer’s Most Precious Blood that flow into their souls once a priest utters the words of Absolution or, worse yet, do not even realize that there is any need to so will descend to barbarism over the course of time. There is no turning back the tide of the new barbarians who have been let loose as a direct and inevitable consequence of the fatally flawed belief that men can establish social order without reforming their lives in cooperation with the graces won for them by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday and without a due submission in all that pertains to Holy Mother Church in all that pertains to the good of souls, upon which the entirety of social order depends.

Pope Pius XI explained in his first encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, that men no longer acted as brothers to other men, but “as strangers, and even enemies,” that should resonate with us at all times:

Men today do not act as Christians, as brothers, but as strangers, and even enemies. The sense of man's personal dignity and of the value of human life has been lost in the brutal domination begotten of might and mere superiority in numbers. Many are intent on exploiting their neighbors solely for the purpose of enjoying more fully and on a larger scale the goods of this world. But they err grievously who have turned to the acquisition of material and temporal possessions and are forgetful of eternal and spiritual things, to the possession of which Jesus, Our Redeemer, by means of the Church, His living interpreter, calls mankind.

22. It is in the very nature of material objects that an inordinate desire for them becomes the root of every evil, of every discord, and in particular, of a lowering of the moral sense. On the one hand, things which are naturally base and vile can never give rise to noble aspirations in the human heart which was created by and for God alone and is restless until it finds repose in Him. On the other hand, material goods (and in this they differ greatly from those of the spirit which the more of them we possess the more remain to be acquired) the more they are divided among men the less each one has and, by consequence, what one man has another cannot possibly possess unless it be forcibly taken away from the first. Such being the case, worldly possessions can never satisfy all in equal manner nor give rise to a spirit of universal contentment, but must become perforce a source of division among men and of vexation of spirit, as even the Wise Man Solomon experienced: "Vanity of vanities, and vexation of spirit." (Ecclesiastes i, 2, 14). . . .

There is over and above the absence of peace and the evils attendant on this absence, another deeper and more profound cause for present-day conditions. This cause was even beginning to show its head before the War and the terrible calamities consequent on that cataclysm should have proven a remedy for them if mankind had only taken the trouble to understand the real meaning of those terrible events. In the Holy Scriptures we read: "They that have forsaken the Lord, shall be consumed." (Isaias i, 28) No less well known are the words of the Divine Teacher, Jesus Christ, Who said: "Without me you can do nothing" (John xv, 5) and again, "He that gathereth not with me, scattereth." (Luke xi, 23)

28. These words of the Holy Bible have been fulfilled and are now at this very moment being fulfilled before our very eyes. Because men have forsaken God and Jesus Christ, they have sunk to the depths of evil. They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. It was a quite general desire that both our laws and our governments should exist without recognizing God or Jesus Christ, on the theory that all authority comes from men, not from God. Because of such an assumption, these theorists fell very short of being able to bestow upon law not only those sanctions which it must possess but also that secure basis for the supreme criterion of justice which even a pagan philosopher like Cicero saw clearly could not be derived except from the divine law. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Paragraph number twenty-eight above says it all:

They waste their energies and consume their time and efforts in vain sterile attempts to find a remedy for these ills, but without even being successful in saving what little remains from the existing ruin. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Yet is that even believing Catholics, especially many younger Catholics who know nothing of American political history, permit themselves to be distracted by the bread and circuses and the dog and pony shows of naturalism in the belief that they can change a process that is corrupt to its core because it is based on the anti-Incarnational sin of religious indifferentism, which itself has led to the triumph of practical atheism as the lowest common social denominator.

Catholicism is the one and only foundation for all legitimate social order.

Pope Pius XI made the same point in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:

Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.

It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

In other words, Catholicism is the sole source of human sanctification and the legitimate teacher of men, and thus possesses the sole ability to provide the foundation for a social order that can be as just as possible in a world filled with fallen men, a point that Pope Pius XI reiterated in his encyclical letter commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the issuance of Rerum Novarum, Quadregesimo Anno, May 15, 1931:

127. Yet, if we look into the matter more carefully and more thoroughly, we shall clearly perceive that, preceding this ardently desired social restoration, there must be a renewal of the Christian spirit, from which so many immersed in economic life have, far and wide, unhappily fallen away, lest all our efforts be wasted and our house be built not on a rock but on shifting sand.[62]

128. And so, Venerable Brethren and Beloved Sons, having surveyed the present economic system, We have found it laboring under the gravest of evils. We have also summoned Communism and Socialism again to judgment and have found all their forms, even the most modified, to wander far from the precepts of the Gospel.

129. "Wherefore," to use the words of Our Predecessor, "if human society is to be healed, only a return to Christian life and institutions will heal it."[63] For this alone can provide effective remedy for that excessive care for passing things that is the origin of all vices; and this alone can draw away men's eyes, fascinated by and wholly fixed on the changing things of the world, and raise them toward Heaven. Who would deny that human society is in most urgent need of this cure now?

130. Minds of all, it is true, are affected almost solely by temporal upheavals, disasters, and calamities. But if we examine things critically with Christian eyes, as we should, what are all these compared with the loss of souls? Yet it is not rash by any means to say that the whole scheme of social and economic life is now such as to put in the way of vast numbers of mankind most serious obstacles which prevent them from caring for the one thing necessary; namely, their eternal salvation. (Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931.)

Most men today, however, are more concerned about the acquisition or possible loss of wealth once attained than they are about their immortal souls as they have “excessive care passing things that” are “the origin of all vices.” Only the true Faith can draw “men’s eyes, fascinated by and wholly fixated on the changing things of the world, and raise them toward Heaven.”

We cannot expect true justice to be done by those who are not only personally unjust but who are hypocrites of the highest order, something that is especially true in the State of New York, where George Soros-inspired “bail reform” laws permit violent, recidivist criminals to put back pout on streets immediately after being arraigned on charges of violent assault to commit even more crimes knowing full well that favorably inclined prosecutors will never hold them to account for their crimes against God and the just laws of men.

As I noted in my thirty plus year career as a college professor of political science and have continued to note in my writing and speaking, the “people” have no authority to permit anything that is proscribed by the Divine Positive Law and/or the Natural Law. No one, whether acting individually or collectively with others in the institutions of civil governance, is morally free to contravene the binding precepts of any of the Ten Commandments, including the Fifth, Sixth, and Ninth Commandments.

Truth exists, either in the nature of things or as it has been revealed positively by the true God of Divine Revelation, the Most Blessed Trinity, through His true Church, the Catholic Church. Truth does not depend human acceptance for its binding force or validity, and truth in the supernatural realm and/or in the realm of the natural moral law is no more “imposed” upon anyone than are physical laws such as the “law of gravity.” One who attempts to defy the law of gravity will suffer the consequences for doing so, and those who defy the Divine and Natural Laws suffer consequences both in this life and, if they die having not repented of their sins and confessed them to a true priest in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, for all eternity in hell.

It is only by adherence to our Catholic Faith as we prostrate ourselves before Our Eucharistic King and pledge ourselves to Him through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary to His own Most Sacred Heart that we can find a remedy in the souls of individual men to help them overcome the conflicts and agitations of the moment and thus rise to the heights of personal sanctity.

This world in which we live is passing away. The triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will be made manifest ‘ere long. We must be focused on the sanctification and salvation of our own immortal souls as we keep our First Friday devotions with fervor and pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary every day, including on each First Saturday for the intentions specified by the Mother of God in the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, and to Sister Lucia dos Santos in Tuy, Spain.

I will never tire of reminding the readers of this site that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order.

I will never tire of opposing the lies of naturalism and of documenting the various ways in which the naturalists of the false opposites of the "right" and of the "left" agree on the same basic anti-Incarnational and semi-Pelagian principles upon which the Modern state is based and with which conciliar revolutionaries have made their "official reconciliation" and even help to propagate by means of the "new evangelization."

And I will never tire of reminding readers of this site that we must, as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, use the shield of the Brown Scapular and the weapon of the Most Holy Rosary to combat the forces of the world, the flesh and the devil in our own lives so that we might be able to plant a few seeds for the glorious day when all men and all women everywhere will exclaim:

Viva Cristo Rey! 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.