Republished: Jorge Mario Bergoglio Would Have Urged Catholics to "Dialogue" with Diocletian

The Communist governments of Xi Jinping in Red China and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua are waging full, open, undisguised, and relentless warfare against Catholics and the false “pontiff” remains almost totally silent except to call for “dialogue” as though there is a moral equivalence between the persecutors and the persecuted and as though the persecutors have some kind of justification to continue waging their persecutions against those they are persecuting. This is what the false “pontiff” said on Sunday, August 21, 2022, the Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost and the Commemoration of Saint Jane Frances de Chantal, as an exiled Nicaraguan conciliar “bishop” openly mocked his “pope” for making it appear that “dialogue” with the Marxist murderer named Daniel Ortega would accomplish anything:

ROME – An exiled Nicaraguan bishop appeared to challenge Pope Francis Sunday, after the pontiff appealed for an “open and sincere dialogue” with the government of President Daniel Ortega about the recent imprisonment of another Catholic prelate.

“It is necessary to ask for freedom. We must not negotiate with the person [Ortega]. We must ask for freedom, because they are innocent,” said Bishop Silivio Báez in a Mass celebrated in Miami and broadcast through his social networks.

Báez was calling for the freedom of Bishop Rolando Álvarez, recently arrested, along with several of his companions, on charges of trying to “organize violent groups.” Prior to his house arrest at a family home in Managua, Álvarez, together with several priests, seminarians and laity, had been banned from leaving the curia of Matagalpa, the diocese he leads.

An auxiliary bishop of Managua, Báez left Nicaragua in 2019 at Pope Francis’s request following a series of death threats against him and his family. He has long been one of the loudest voices in opposing the Ortega regime, which reportedly killed over 350 protesters in 2018 and currently has 190 leaders of the opposition in prison, cut off from their families.

Álvarez, 55, bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator of the diocese of Esteli, both in the north of Nicaragua, was removed last Friday by police agents from his headquarters along with four priests and three seminarians, after having been confined for 15 days.

The National Police, headed by Francisco Diaz, in-law of Ortega, confirmed that they carried out an early morning operation in the curia of Matagalpa in which they took Álvarez and his collaborators against their will, and then transferred them to Managua.

Álvarez, the first bishop arrested since Ortega returned to power in Nicaragua in 2007, now is under “home protection” in Managua, while the others were sent to the infamous detention center El Chipote, which has been described by some former inmates as a “torture center.”

Báez’s words differ from those of Pope Francis, who spoke Sunday about Nicaragua for the first time since 2019. At the end of his noontime Angelus, the pontiff expressed “concern and pain” for the situation and called for “an open and sincere dialogue” so that “the basis for a respectful and peaceful coexistence can be found.”

“I follow closely with concern and pain the situation that has been created in Nicaragua that affects people and institutions,” Francis said, avoiding naming Álvarez.

Báez, on the other hand, was more blunt: “I want you to know that I am suffering a lot and praying a lot for you, for Nicaragua and for our church,” he said. “I especially want to greet with affection our brothers and sisters of the diocese of Matagalpa and Esteli who are being at this moment deprived of the physical presence of their pastor, and I know that for them it is a great pain.”

He also asked the Nicaraguans not to lose hope and to trust in the Lord.

The arrest of Alvarez is the latest chapter in a particularly turbulent period for the Catholic Church in Nicaragua under the Ortega regime, which has branded the hierarchy as “coup plotters” and “terrorists.”

This year, the Sandinistas expelled the papal representative, Polish Archbishop Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, severing the diplomatic ties with the Holy See, as well as 18 nuns of the Missionaries of Charity order founded by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

It’s a steadily worsening situation that has seen priests thrown in prison, religious processions canceled by the government, and Catholics forbidden to enter their own churches. Police have also forcibly entered and raided parishes, prevented parishioners from receiving the Eucharist inside the church and besieged other priests in their churches. (Exiled Nicaraguan prelate challenges Pope Francis on bishop’s arrest.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his red-loving Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, have a long history of appeasing Communists while criticizing “pro-life” “conservatives” in public life who oppose open borders and statist policies to “save the planet.”

Longtime readers of this site know that the reason is very simple: Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a leftist. He is a Marxist sympathizer who has gone out of his apostate way to make nice-nice with every single Marxist world leader with whom he has met since he emerged on the balcony of the Basilica of Saint Peter on Wednesday, March 13, 2013. There is not a trace of the authentic sensus Catholicus to be found anywhere within the darkened soul of this veritable agent of Antichrist, whose precursor he is by paving the way for Catholics to accept both One World Governance and a One World Ecumenical religion to bring “peace” to a world that knows none because it has rebelled against Christ the King and the true Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

Obsequiousness to, if not a thinly disguised for, Marxism-Leninism has been a hallmark of Antipopes Angelo Roncalli/John XIII, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI, and, of course, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who has embraced the mass murdering Castro brothers in Cuba, accepted a sacrilegious crucifix in the form of a hammer and sickle from Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, and, quite notoriously, sold out the longsuffering Catholics of Red China to their vicious, amoral, godless persecutors, the so-called Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s sellout of underground Catholics in Red China has been discussed on this site many times. However, it is important to remember that it was presaged by the supposedly anti-Communist Karol Josef Wojtyla’s concessions to the CPCA in the 1980s, setting the stage for Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s letter to the Chinese Catholics of June 29, 2007, which itself set the stage for as yet still secret terms of the 2018 “agreement” (sellout), which was renewed in 2020, of the conciliar Vatican to the Chicoms, thus throwing Catholics who had suffered relentless persecution since the Communist takeover of the Chinese mainland on May 1, 1949, under the bus.

Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick engaged in a policy of Communist surrender known as Ostpolik (East politics) wherein he appointed men as "bishops" in Communist countries behind the Iron Curtain who were friendly to, if not actual agents of, the Communist authorities in those countries. These "bishops" had a perverse "apostolic mandate," if you will, given then sub secreto by Montini: never criticize Communism or any Communist officials. In other words, be good stooges for various "people's" and "democratic" republics in exchange for promoting the false "gospel" of conciliarism.

It was also Montini/Paul VI who sold out the courageous Jozsef Cardinal Mindszenty, the Primate of Hungary and the Archbishop of Budapest, when the latter, after taking refuge in the American Embassy in Budapest for a decade following the Hungarian Revolution in October of 1956, was forced out of the American Embassy as a result of Vatican pressure and then, after being told by Montini/Paul VI that he remained as the Archbishop of Budapest, has his primatial see declared vacant by the theologically, liturgically and morally corrupt Montini, whose Ostpolitik has been revived and expanded by the theologically, liturgically and morally corrupt Jorge Mario Bergoglio.

Indeed, it was in the summer of 2014 that Bergoglio lifted the suspension that had been imposed upon Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, who was a leading figure of the Sandinista revolutionary movement that overthrew the government of Nicaraguan strongman Anastaso Somoza in 1979:

MARYKNOLL, N.Y., Aug. 1, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Vatican has issued a decree that lifts its 29-year suspension on Father Miguel F. d'Escoto Brockmann, a Maryknoll priest. The Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers is the mission society of the U.S. Catholic Church.

Father d'Escoto, 81, was ordained a Roman Catholic priest on June 10, 1961. He helped found Orbis Books, the theological publication division of Maryknoll, and he was an official with the World Council of Churches. During the 1970s, Father d'Escoto became engaged in politics in Nicaragua. He joined the Sandinista National Liberation Front, a political party that overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle and established a revolutionary government.

For his political actions, involvement in the Sandinista government and failing to resign from a political office (Nicaragua foreign minister) held in violation of his ministry, Father d'Escoto was suspended from his priestly duties by the Vatican.

In the notification from the Vatican dated August 1, 2014, "The Holy Father has given His benevolent assent that Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann be absolved from the canonical censure inflicted upon him, and entrusts him to the Superior General of the Institute [Maryknoll] for the purpose of accompanying him in the process of reintegration into the Ministerial Priesthood."

The lifting of the suspension allows Father d'Escoto to resume his priestly duties.

Father d'Escoto has remained a member of the Maryknoll Society with residence in Nicaragua. From September 2008 until September 2009, he presided over the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly as its president. (Vatican Lifts Suspension on US Missionary Priest.)

This completely sanitized piece of propaganda, issued by the Maryknolls themselves twenty-five months ago now, overlooked Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockman's bloody participation in the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, his active support and reliance for financial and military assistance from the mass murdering Fidel Castro and his more recent career as an official at the pro-abortion, pro-perversity World Council of Churches and his praise for supporters of abortion and perversity while he was the President of the United Nations General Assembly from 2008 to 2009. Miguel d'Escoto Brockman is unrepentant in his support of the chemical and surgical assassination of the innocent preborn in their mothers' wombs.

What does this matter to Jorge the Red?

Nothing. He supports the Sandinistas and sees in them misunderstood instruments of “social justice.” Bergoglio is thus quick to consider Catholics who oppose Daniel Ortega’s regime as the sources of national division because they have not accommodated themselves to their “enlightened” persecutors.

Too harsh?

Too rash?

Consider how Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been deaf, dumb, and blind concerning the arrest of “Cardinal” Zen in Hong Kong for his criticism of the Chinese Communist Party’s takeover of what is thought to be the Catholic Church in Red China and Hong Kong.

The May 11, 2022, arrest of Joseph “Cardinal” Zen, by the Communist authorities in Hong Kong, was made possible, of course, by all the history summarized just above, and particularly by Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s 2018 and 2020. The conciliar Vatican’s rather indifferent response to Father Zen’s arrest explains all that one needs to know between how our true popes responded to the arrest of Catholic clergy and how the conciliar authorities have coddled Communist dictatorial regimes even they do so:

Cardinal Pietro Parolin has said that he is “very sorry” about Cardinal Joseph Zen’s arrest earlier this week and hopes it will not complicate the Holy See’s dialogue with China.

“I would like to express my closeness to the cardinal who was freed and treated well,” Cardinal Parolin said on May 12, according to Vatican News, the Holy See’s online news portal.

The Vatican secretary of state, a key architect of the Holy See’s provisional agreement with Chinese authorities on the appointment of bishops, added that Cardinal Zen’s arrest in Hong Kong should not be read as “a disavowal” of the agreement with Beijing, which is up for renewal this fall.

Cardinal Parolin told journalists that his “most concrete hope is that initiatives like this cannot complicate the already complex and not simple path of dialogue between the Holy See and the Church in China.”

Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican’s secretary for relations with states, said in an interview on the same day with an Italian television program, Tg2 Post, that the Vatican’s dialogue with Chinese Communist Party officials was “not always easy,” and “the desired results” have not always been seen. (Vatican Secretary of State “Very Sorry” About Cardinal Zen Arrest, Hopes It will Not Complicate Vatican=Red China Dialogue.)

Pietro Parolin “worries” about the effect of “Cardinal” Zen’s arrest even we know already how has Xi Jinping and his band of murderous thugs responded to initial conciliar Vatican-Red Chinese agreement in 2018 when it was renewed in 2020:

CHINA, November 26, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The refugee, Catholic journalist, Dalù, has detailed the torture of Catholic priests by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), only days after a bishop was ordained by the CCP approved church.

Dalù, a pseudonym, is the journalist and radio show host who made public the Tiananmen Square massacre. Dalù was subsequently fired and fled to Italy, with his life spared only as a result of his public status.

He posted a video, in which he described the torture inflicted on a priest called Fr. Liu Maochun: “As a form of intimidation and even torture, Chinese Police often bang a gong close to the ears and shine bright lights into the eyes, and do so consistently for several days. This method of torture is called ‘exhausting an eagle’.”

Dalù continued: “Through that technique, Father Liu Maochun of Mindong Diocese was deprived of sleep, he was kidnaped, tortured and repeatedly punished for his refusal to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. The brutality and sheer wickedness of the Chinese Communist Party is beyond comprehension.”

Fr. Liu is part of the underground Catholic Church, and as such is not recognised by the Chinese state, or the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA). He was visiting his parents in hospital on September 1, when he was arrested and put “in the hands of the Religious Affairs Bureau for 17 days.”

Speaking to religious liberty magazine, Bitter Winter, a source from Mindong Diocese said, “The government claimed that Fr. Liu Maochun has disobeyed its rule and was ‘ideologically radical’.”

Bitter Winter confirmed that Fr. Liu has been persistently persecuted by the CCP, with the authorities even taking to pressuring his relatives. The source mentioned “Fr. Liu Maochun is Bishop Guo’s assistant. The regime arrests and wants to control those priests close to him who also refuse to join the CPCA.”

The magazine also said that Fr. Liu’s arrest and torture were part of an investigation to discover the leak regarding the torture of Fr. Huang, another priest of the diocese who refused to join the CPCA.

Fr. Liu is one of a number of 20 priests in the diocese who have “refused to join the state-approved Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association” and are thus “viewed as national security threats.” These priests are deemed to be “ ‘illegal’ and a ‘subversion of the state’.”

The bishop of Mindong diocese, Msgr. Vincenzo Guo Xijin, is one of the “victims” of the Vatican-China deal, as the diocese has been used as a “pilot project” for the implementation of the agreement. Bishop Guo was asked by Pope Francis to step down in favor of the CPCA approved bishop.

Just days ago, the CPCA announced the ordination of a new bishop in Qingdao, Bishop Thomas Chen Tianhao, who “had previously served as the president of the Patriotic Association of Qingdao in Shandong Province in 1998 and as a National Patriotic Association Standing Committee member since 2010.”

Asia News reports that Chen “is considered very obedient to the government’s religious policy.” Only last year, Chen led a committee to “study the spirit” of President Xi Jinping’s speech, celebrating the United Front Work Department.

Just a few weeks ago, the Vatican renewed its deal with China. The deal allegedly recognizes the state-approved church and allows the Chinese Communist Party to appoint the bishops. The Pope apparently maintains a veto power although in practice it is the CCP who have control.

It also allegedly allows for the removal of legitimate bishops to be replaced by CCP approved bishops. The actual precise terms of the deal, however, remain a closely guarded secret.

Cardinal Zen, the emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, said that through the deal “the Vatican is selling out the Catholic Church in China.” He also described it as “the murder of the Church in China by those who should protect and defend her from her enemies.” (Renowned Journalist Reveals CCP Tortunre of Catholic Priest As Chinese State Appoints a New “Bishop.”)

So much for a “happy” reconciliation.

All the evidence of the Holy See's actions in the past twenty-two years since death of the Bishop of Shanghai at the time of his arrest and show trial in 1956, the Most Reverend Ignatius Kung, has pointed to the betrayal that has been decried for over four years now by “Cardinal” Zen.

Pietro Parolin was simply “very sorry” for the arrest of “Cardinal” Zen but worried that it might “complicate” the conciliar Vatican’s relations with the Chicom monsters, who have as about as much respect for “agreements,” secret and otherwise, as they have for the lives and property of anyone within their country who dissents from the Red Chinse party line.

Parolin, of course, is the engineer of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s own “Ostpolitik,” and he has been completely mute as underground Catholics have been rounded up, arrested, and tortured even after news of the “secret agreements” was announced in September of 2018. This hideous appeaser of all things Communist has said not one word as crucifixes and statues of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and His Blessed Mother have been removed by Chicom authorities and replaced with images of the current Red Chinese tyrant, Xi Jinping, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who said that “about the past we did not speak” when he met with Fidel Castro in 2015, has remained completely silent about “Cardinal” Zen’s arrest even though he always had a word or two to say about former President Donald John Trump’s immigration policies and worries openly about “sustainable development goals,” rainforests, “global climate warming.”

Pietro Parolin has nothing to "worry about" as his weasel words and Jorge Mario Bergoglio's silence about the arrest of Joseph "Cardinal" Zen will do nothing but embolden and empower the murderous, anti-Theistic Chicom monsters all the more as Zen's arrest was, if you will, a probe to see how far they could go with "Pope Francis" before he pushed back against them. They now know that they can do anything they want, including quite possibly, the execution of a "traitorous" clergymen without Jorge Mario Bergoglio saying a word of condemnation.

How can anyone believe this wretched man, who believes not in the Catholic Faith, can be a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter?

"Pope Francis” is thus equally indifferent to Daniel Ortega’s well documented war against the Catholic Faith in Nicaragua:

The Catholic Church is under increasing assault in Nicaragua by its president/dictator, Daniel Ortega, and his radical socialist regime, according to numerous media reports.

“The Catholic Church has been a common target of contempt and accusations of undermining the leftist regime,” reported the Heritage Foundation in an Aug. 8 commentary, “Christianity under Siege in Nicaragua.”

According to the commentary, Daniel Ortega has long been openly hostile to the Church and has increasingly persecuted Catholics, calling bishops “terrorists” and “devils in cassocks.”

The Catholic Church in Nicaragua has experienced more than 190 attacks since 2018, attacks ranging from exile of important priests and clergy, to arson, and government paramilitary attacks.

Further, 18 Catholic nuns who were Missionaries of Charity were recently “stripped of their legal status” in June and escorted by police into exile in Costa Rica. The nuns were accused of “political subversion and supporting terrorism,” and exiled for their “crimes.”

Attorney Martha Patricia Molina Montenegro addressed this hostility towards Catholics in a report by the Pro-Transparency and Anti-Corruption Observatory, stating that the regime under Ortega has “initiated an indiscriminate persecution against bishops, priests, seminarians, religious, lay groups and toward everything that has a direct or indirect relationship with the Catholic Church.”

Ortega, a long-time Marxist radical, labeled the Church, which 60% of Nicaraguans belong to, as “committed to the coup-mongers [and] part of the coup-mongers’ plan,” according to the Heritage Foundation.

Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Jose Alvarez has been held by the government in a church in Matagalpa since August 4, along with six other priests and six lay Catholics. Bishop Alvarez has frequently spoken out against the Sandinista regime and was detained for allegedly trying to “organize violent groups” in hopes of destabilizing the government.

Nicaraguan police accused Catholic Church leaders in a press release, and particularly Bishop Alvarez, of “using the communications media and social media” to “organize violent groups, inciting them to carry out acts of hatred against the population, creating an atmosphere of anxiety and disorder, disturbing the peace and harmony of the community.”

The press release also said the clergy and lay people seek to destabilize Nicaragua and attack “the constitutional authorities.”

“The road outside our clergy house is closed off by the national police,” Bishop Alvarez said, “And the main gate, as well as the garage, are also blocked by the riot police. However, even in this situation, we maintain our joy, our strength and our inner peace.”

Catholic leader and well-known critic of the regime, Monsignor Silvio Baez, was forced to flee Nicaragua in 2019 when the U.S. Embassy warned him of plans to assassinate him. The Monsignor had previously been stabbed, beaten, and threatened repeatedly for his criticism of the regime.

Ortega’s government also expelled Monsignor Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, the pope’s representative in Nicaragua, in March of this year. Further hostilities towards the Church under the Ortega regime include the closing of eight Catholic radio stations on August 1 of this year.

According to the Heritage Foundation, the Trump administration spoke out against this rampant “persecution of Christians, with then-Vice President Mike Pence calling out Ortega and Venezuelan Dictator Nicolas Maduro on their violations of religious liberty and freedom of speech.”

The U.S. State Department, European Union, and the Bishops of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM) have all condemned these persecutions.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimated that at least 170,000 Nicaraguans have fled to America since 2021 because of the repression under Ortega.

At this moment Ortega “continues to target the Catholic Church and its believers in a quest to purge all dissent,” said the Heritage Foundation.

Pope Francis has yet to comment on th increasingly hostile situation in Nicaragua, and news outlets are calling his silence to an open war on the Church “scandalous.”

Agustin Antonetti, director of Latin America Watch, said, “Pope Francis’ silence on what’s going on in Nicaragua is scandalous. Daniel Ortega’s dictatorship is taking the churches by force, they have shut down all their channels and radios, even one priest is in jail, and the rest are afraid of being kidnapped.”

Writer Sergio Ramirez also spoke out about the Pope’s silence in an interview stating,

“Pope Francis has kept a silence that is heard around the world about the situation in Nicaragua. It would be advisable for all the Catholic faithful of Nicaragua, who are half the population, to listen to what the Pope has to say about this barbarism that has been happening since 2018 and that continues to happen now with the arrest of so many people, with the unstoppable growth of political prisoners.” (Nicaragua’s Marxist Dictator Cracks Down on Catholics.)

The Nicaraguan national police said that the kidnapping of Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, this morning was carried out to "recover normality for the residents and families of Matagalpa."

In a statement released this morning, the police, who serve the regime of President Daniel Ortega, justified their break-in just after 3 a.m. at the bishop’s residence in Matagalpa, saying the bishop would have continued with "destabilizing and provocative activities.”

Since Aug. 4, Álvarez and a group of priests, seminarians, and lay people have been prevented by the police from leaving the house and communicating with the outside world. The police insisted that they had “for several days waited with great patience, prudence, and a sense of responsibility for a communication positive from the Bishopric of Matagalpa, which never came to pass.”

According to the police statement, the bishop of Matagalpa and the other eight people who remained with him inside the bishop’s residence "were transferred, with respect and observance of their rights,” to Managua for legal inquiries.

The bishop “remains in house protection (sic) in this capital city and has been able to meet with his relatives this morning," the statement said.

The Nicaragua police also said that the Archbishop of Managua and vice president of the Nicaraguan Bishops Conference, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, visited Álvarez this morning "and both have talked extensively."

According to the police, the Matagalpa vicar, Monsignor Oscar Escoto, remains in the bishop’s residence "without any police or mobility restrictions."

The Archdiocese of Managua has not yet issued an official statement on the meeting between Brenes and Álvarez.

The Ortega dictatorship “is capable of anything”

In statements to ACI Prensa, Nicaraguan lawyer Martha Patricia Molina Montenegro, a member of the Pro-Transparency and Anti-Corruption Observatory, said that the Ortega dictatorship "is capable of anything" and "will always generate as much damage as possible.”

The jurist underscored the arbitrariness of the National Police's incursion into the episcopal house of Matagalpa, pointing out that it violates the Constitution and the Code of Criminal Procedure, which establish limitations on house arrest and home invasion. Ordinarily, it can only be done “between six in the morning and six in the evening,” according to Montenegro.

She also stressed that the bishop, priests, seminarians, and lay people who were surrounded by the police since Aug. 4 "spent 15 days kidnapped, not detained."

"The police are acting like a criminal group that does not submit to the rule of law and once again it makes clear that Nicaragua is a dictatorship where they proceed according to the whim and state of mind of President Daniel Ortega and his consort," she said. Ortega’s wife, Rosario Murillo, has held the position of Vice President of Nicaragua, since January 2017.

The lawyer explained to ACI Prensa that "the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship proceeds arbitrarily because it knows that if it uses legal channels it would not have any legal basis, because all the crimes that are attributed to innocent citizens are false."

"Ortega fears no one"

Montenegro, the author of a report that indicates more than 190 attacks have occurred against the Catholic Church since 2018 under the shadow of the Ortega dictatorship, pointed out that "Ortega fears no one."

“This has been demonstrated by escalating the intensity of the repression,” she said.

The jurist recalled that the Ortega dictatorship "has ordered the assassination of more than 350 Nicaraguans," referring to those killed to repress the peaceful protests of 2018, and noted that the regime has "sent into exile more than 200,000" in addition to taking “190 political prisoners.”

In the last week, the regime closed all media outlets, prompting international backlash. Montenegro voiced her skepticism about the backlash, however, noting that though the international community condemns Ortega, “they continue to finance him by granting him millionaire loans, which are used to repress and not to invest in social works.”

"The victory will be given by the Lord"

Still, Montenegro has reason to hope while events unfold.

"I can assure you that this arbitrariness and attacks on the Church have united us more as Christians," she said, noting that "yesterday we were more than 3,500 families praying the Holy Rosary in the company of Bishop Rolando, through social media and thousands more who connected from other places.”

"We are strengthened with that peace and tranquility that only the Holy Spirit provides," she continued.

“There is no human power that can put an end to this nefarious and criminal dictatorship. Victory will be given by the Lord.”

The last post on the bishop's Twitter account, shortly before he was kidnapped by the National Police, recalled the Gospel: "Let us worry about wearing festive garments in the Kingdom of God."

(Police put Nicaraguan bishop under house arrest again, send priests and seminarians to jail.)

One can be assured that Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s passive indifference in the face of Ortega’s monstrous policies has not escaped the notice of the members of the false opposite of the naturalist “left” here in the United States of America at a time when the politicized agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) are ignoring attacks waged by pro-baby-killing terrorists upon Catholic churches, statues, and shrines as well as crisis pregnancy counseling centers after the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of Thomas E. Dobbs, Mississippi State Health Officer v. Jackson Women’s Organization, June 24, 2022. A time when come when one of Ortega’s admirers in this country will come to power and being assured of Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s silent acquiescence, will launch a like state-sponsored persecution here that will make Ortega’s seem like so much child’s play. Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s indifference as Catholics suffer at the hands of his Marxist friends is yet another correlative proof that he is an Antipope, a man who does exactly what the opposite of what true popes have done when either they and/or their bishops and ordinary Catholics were being persecuted by the brute force of the civil state.

As noted in a commentary earlier this year, Pope Pius XII reacted with indignation after the arrest and trial of the Primate of Hungary, Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty by the Communist authorities there:

Venerable Brethren, we have convoked this extraordinary consistory today in order to unfold to you our soul, which is crushed with most bitter grief. You will readily understand the reason of our sorrow: it concerns a most serious outrage which inflicts a deep wound not only on your distinguished colleague and on the church, but also on every upholder of the dignity and liberty of man. As soon as ever we knew that our beloved son, Joseph Cardinal Midszenty, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Archbishop of Estergrom, was cast into prison due to religion we sent a loving message to the Hungarian hierarchy in which we publicly and solemnly protest, our duty demanded, against the injury done to the church.

At present, when things have come to such a pass that this most worthy prelate has been reduced to supreme indignity and condemned like a criminal to life imprisonment, we cannot but repeat this solemn protest in your presence. We are prompted to do this primarily on behalf of the moral rights of religion which this valiant prelate tirelessly propounded and defended so strenuously and courageously. Besides, unanimous consensus of free peoples, expressed in speech and writings even by leaders of nations and by those who do not belong to the Catholic Church has been given the fullest light of publicity.

But, as you are aware, the full light of publicity did not shine over the trial of this prelate who deserved so well of all, in defending the religion of his ancestors and in the restoration of Christian morals. In fact, from the beginning the news that arrived caused alarm. People outside Hungary who asked permission to be present at the trial were refused permission if they seemed likely to judge impartiality or to give a sincere report: This led them to believe, and all upright and honest men as well, that those who were conducting the trial in Budapest seemed to be afraid to allow all to see what was taking place.

Justice, which is worthy of the name, does not begin with prejudices and is not based on a decision previously taken, but it gladly admits of free discussion and gives everyone due facility for thinking, believing and speaking.

But although the facts have set not been reliably made known, or reported clearly and completely, we cannot omit mentioning the judgment which all civilized people have passed on this trial. Referring particularly to the speed with which it was conducted; thus suggesting a ready reason for suspicion; of accusations captiously and deceitfully contrived; and to the physical condition of the Cardinal, which is indeed inexplicable except as a result of a secret influence which may not be publicly revealed, to prove this there is the fact which suddenly made of a man, until then exceptionally energetic by nature and by way of life, a feeble being and of vacillating mind, so that his behavior appeared, an accusation not against himself but against his very accusers and condemners.

In all this matter one thing alone stands out clearly: The principal object of the trial was to disrupt the Catholic Church in Hungary and precisely for the purpose set forth in sacred scripture: “I shall strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock shall be dispersed (Matt. XXVI, 31.)

While this sorrow in our heart we deplore this very sad event and entrust it in a sense to public opinion and the tribunal of history for the final judgment, we are doing what the outraged rights of the church and the dignity of the human person demand.

We deem it especially our duty to brand as completely false the assertion made in the course of the trial that the whole question at issue was that this Apostolic See, in furtherance of a plan for political domination of nations, gave instructions to oppose the Republic of Hungary and its rulers: thus all responsibility would fall on the same Apostolic See.

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.

In the midst of this grievous anguish, however, venerable brethren, the “Father of Mercies” (cf. II. Cor 1, 3) has not left us without consolations from above which have served to mitigate our sorrow. It is consoling above all to witness the tenacious faith of the Catholics of Hungary who are doing all they can, though faced with serious obstacles and difficulties, to defend their age-old religion and to keep alive and fresh the glorious tradition of their ancestors. Solace comes to us from the unflinching confidence we cherish in our paternal heart that the Hungarian episcopate, acting in complete harmony of principle of practice, will labor with every resource at their command to strengthen the unity of the faithful and buoy them up with that hope which can neither be extinguished nor dimmed by sad or unjust happenings of this life, because it has its source in heaven, and is fed by a grace divine.

From you, venerable brethren, similar heavenly solace has come to us. For we have seen you gathered close about us in this crisis, to share our sorrow and unite your prayers to ours. We have been heartened likewise by the other Cardinals, Archbishops and Bishops of whole Catholic world, who along with their clergy and people have express by fervid letter and telegrams their reprobation for the outrage offered to the church, and promised us their public and private prayers.

We earnestly desire that these prayers should continue to rise before the throne of God. For as often as the church is tossed by such tempests as cannot be quelled by human means, one must appeal with confidence to the Divine Redeemer, who alone can calm the swelling waves and restore them to peace and tranquility. Through the most powerful intercession of the Virgin Mother of God, let us all pray fervently that those who suffer persecution, imprisonment and hardship, may be consoled with the necessary help of divine grace and fortified with the strength of Christian virtue; that those who rashly dare to trample upon the liberty of the church and the rights of human conscience, may at length understand that no civil society can endure when religion has been suppressed and God, as it were, driven into exile. It is only the sacred principles of religion that can moderated within the limits of reason the duties and the rights of citizens, can consolidate the foundations of the state, and make men’s lives conform to the salutary norms and morality, restoring them to order and virtue.

The words of the greatest Roman orator: “High priests, you defend the city more securely by religion than by its surrounding walls” (De Nat Deor. III, 40), when applied to Christian precepts and faith is infinitely more true and certain. Let all those into whose hands public government has been entrusted, recognize this truth and let due liberty be everywhere restored to the church that untrammeled she may be able to enlighten the minds of men with her salutary doctrine. Rightly instruct youth and lead them to virtue, restore to families their sacred character, and permeate with her influence the whole life of men. Civil society has nothing to fear from this activity but rather will reap the greatest advantages. It is then, venerable brethren, that social questions will be solved with justice and equity; the conditions of the poor will be ameliorated, as is just, and they will be restored to a state befitting the dignity of man; fraternal charity will bring peace to men’s minds and better days and better days as we fondly hope and pray, will happily ensue for all peoples and races.

This is not, of course, how Jorge Mario Bergoglio speaks when Catholics, including his own “bishops,” are under siege by Communist dictators and their Marxists fellow travelers in so-called Western “democracies.”

Our true popes have risen to the defense of the persecuted and the first thirty-three of their number suffered martyrdom after being persecuted by various Roman emperors and own their minions. Noting a few exceptions here and there, most notably Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II’s admonitions against the Polish Communist dictators and Sandinista Marxist mass murderous, the conciliar “popes” have refused to speak out against Communist attacks on Catholics, and that includes Wojtyla/John Paul II’s initial steps to sell out faithful Catholics in Red China that started in 1988.

Contrasting Bergoglio’s Passivity with the Courage of our True Popes

As noted just above, the entire history of Holy Mother Church is replete with countless examples of our true popes who defended the rights of the Papacy, of Holy Mother Church, and of individual Catholics including those who did so at the risk of their own lives.

Pope Leo the Great put himself at risk when he rode on horseback to meet Atilla the Hun to plead with him not to sack Rome:

The Barbarian hordes were invading the West; the Empire was little more than a ruin: and Attila, “the Scourge of God,“ was marching on towards Rome. Leo’s majestic bearing repelled the invasion, as his word had checked the ravages of heresy. The haughty king of the Huns, before whose armies the strongest citadels had fallen, granted an audience to the Pontiff on the banks of the Mincio, and promised to spare Rome. The calm and dignity of Leo—who thus unarmed confronted the most formidable enemy of the Empire and exposed his life for his flock—awed the barbarian, who afterwards told his people that, during the interview, he saw a venerable person standing, in an attitude of defense, by the side of Rome’s intercessor: it was the Apostle St. Peter. Attila not only admired, he feared the Pontiff. It was truly a sublime spectacle, and one that was full of meaning;—a Priest, with no arms save those of his character and virtues, forcing a king such as Attila was, to do homage to a devotedness which he could ill understand, and recognize, by submission, the influence of a power which had heaven on its side. Leo, single-handed and at once, did what it took the whole of Europe several ages to accomplish later on. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, April 11, Feast of Pope Saint Leo the Great.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio would have sent Pietro Parolin to “dialogue” with Attila the Hun, who would laughed in Parolin’s face and have proceeded to sack Rome.

Similarly, Blessed Pope Urban II sought to defend Catholics who were under siege by Mohammedans in the Holy Land when he preached the First Crusade in 1092:

"If among the churches scattered about over the whole world some, because of persons or location, deserve reverence above others (for persons, I say, since greater privileges are accorded to apostolic sees; for places, indeed, since the same dignity which is accorded to persons is also shown to regal cities, such as Constantinople), we owe most to that church from which we received the grace of redemption and the source of all Christianity. If what the Lord says namely, 'Salvation is from the Jews,' accords with the truth, and it is true that the Lord has left us Sabaoth as seed, that we may not become like Sodom and Gomorrah, and our seed is Christ, in whom is the salvation and benediction of all peoples, then, indeed, the very land and city in which He dwelt and suffered is, by witnesses of the Scriptures, holy. If this land is spoken of in the sacred writings of the prophets as the inheritance and the holy temple of God before ever the Lord walked about in it, or was revealed, what sanctity, what reverence has it not acquired since God in His majesty was there clothed in the flesh, nourished, grew up, and in bodily form there walked about, or was carried about; and, to compress in fitting brevity all that might be told in a long series of words, since there the blood of the Son of God, more holy than heaven and earth, was poured forth, and His body, its quivering members dead, rested in the tomb. What veneration do we think it deserves? If, when the Lord had but just been crucified and the city was still held by the Jews, it was called holy by the evangelist when he says, 'Many bodies of the saints that had fallen asleep were raised; and coming forth out of the tombs after His resurrection, they entered into the holy city and appeared unto many,' and by the prophet Isaiah when be says, 'It shall be His glorious sepulchre,' then, surely, with this sanctity placed upon it by God the Sanctifier Himself, no evil that may befall it can destroy it, and in the same way glory is indivisibly fixed to His Sepulchre. Most beloved brethren, if you reverence the source of that holiness and I . you cherish these shrines which are the marks of His footprints on earth, if you seek (the way), God leading you, God fighting in your behalf, you should strive with your utmost efforts to cleanse the Holy City and the glory of the Sepulchre, now polluted by the concourse of the Gentiles, as much as is in their power.

"If in olden times the Maccabees attained to the highest praise of piety because they fought for the ceremonies and the Temple, it is also justly granted you, Christian soldiers, to defend their liberty of your country by armed endeavor. If you, likewise, consider that the abode of the holy apostles and any other saints should be striven for with such effort, why do you refuse to rescue the Cross, the Blood, the Tomb? Why do you refuse to visit them, to spend the price of your lives in rescuing them? You have thus far waged unjust wars, at one time and another; you have brandished mad weapons to your mutual destruction, for no other reason than covetousness and pride, as a result of which you have deserved eternal death and sure damnation. We now hold out to you wars which contain the glorious reward of martyrdom, which will retain that title of praise now and forever.

"Let us suppose, for the moment, that Christ was not dead and buried, and had never lived any length of time in Jerusalem. Surely, if all this were lacking, this fact alone ought still to arouse you to go to the aid of the land and city -- the fact that 'Out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem!' If all that there is of Christian preaching has flowed from the fountain of Jerusalem, its streams, whithersoever spread out over the whole world, encircle the hearts of the Catholic multitude, that they may consider wisely what they owe such a well-watered fountain. If rivers return to the place whence they have issued only to flow forth again, according to the saying of Solomon, it ought to seem glorious to you to be able to apply a new cleansing to this place, whence it is certain that you received the cleansing of baptism and the witness of your faith.

"And you ought, furthermore, to consider with the utmost deliberation, if by your labors, God working through you, it should occur that the Mother of churches should flourish anew to the worship of Christianity, whether, perchance, He may not wish other regions of the East to be restored to the faith against the approaching time of the Antichrist. For it is clear that Antichrist is to do battle not with the Jews, not with the Gentiles; but, according to the etymology of his name, He will attack Christians. And if Antichrist finds there no Christians (just as at present when scarcely any dwell there), no one will be there to oppose him, or whom he may rightly overcome. According to Daniel and Jerome, the interpreter of Daniel, he is to fix his tents on the Mount of Olives; and it is certain, for the apostle teaches it, that he will sit at Jerusalem in the Temple of the Lord, as though he were God. And according to the same prophet, he will first kill three kings of Egypt, Africa, and Ethiopia, without doubt for their Christian faith: This, indeed, could not at all be done unless Christianity was established where now is paganism. If, therefore, you are zealous in the practice of holy battles, in order that, just as you have received the seed of knowledge of God from Jerusalem, you may in the same way restore the borrowed grace, so that through you the Catholic name may be advanced to oppose the perfidy of the Antichrist and the Antichristians then, who can not conjecture that God, who has exceeded the hope of all, will consume, in the abundance of your courage and through you as the spark, such a thicket of paganism as to include within His law Egypt, Africa, and Ethiopia, which have withdrawn from the communion of our belief? And the man of sin, the son of perdition, will find some to oppose him. Behold, the Gospel cries out, 'Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.' 'Times of the Gentiles' can be understood in two ways: Either that they have ruled over the Christians at their pleasure, and have gladly frequented the sloughs of all baseness for the satisfaction of their lusts, and in all this have had no obstacle (for they who have everything according to their wish are said to have their time; there is that saying: 'My time is not yet come, but your time is always ready,' whence the lustful are wont to say 'you are having your time'). Or, again, 'the times of the Gentiles' are the fulness of time for those Gentiles who shall have entered secretly before Israel shall be saved. These times, most beloved brothers, will now, forsooth, be fulfilled, provided the might of the pagans be repulsed through You, with the cooperation of God. With the end of the world already near, even though the Gentiles fail to be converted to the Lord (since according to the apostle there must be a withdrawal from the faith), it is first necessary, according to their prophecy, that the Christian sway be renewed in those regions either through you, or others, whom it shall please God to send before the coming of Antichrist, so that the head of all evil, who is to occupy there the throne of the kingdom, shall find some support of the faith to fight against him.

"Consider, therefore, that the Almighty has provided you, perhaps, for this purpose, that through you He may restore Jerusalem from such debasement. Ponder, I beg you, how full of joy and delight our hearts will be when we shall see the Holy City restored with your little help, and the prophet's, nay divine, words fulfilled in our times. Let your memory be moved by what the Lord Himself says to the Church: 'I will bring thy seed from the East and gather thee from the West.' God has already brought our, seed from the East, since in a double way that region of the East has given the first beginnings of the Church to us. But from the West He will also gather it, provided He repairs the wrongs of 1 Jerusalem through those who have begun the witness of the final faith, that is the people of the West. With God's assistance, we think this can be done through you.

"If neither the words of the Scriptures arouse you, nor our admonitions penetrate your minds, at least let the great suffering of those who desired to go to the holy places stir you up. Think of those who made the pilgrimage across the sea! Even if they were more wealthy, consider what taxes, what violence they underwent, since they were forced to make payments and tributes almost every mile, to purchase release at every gate of the city, at the entrance of the churches and temples, at every side journey from place to place: also, if any accusation whatsoever were made against them, they were compelled to purchase their release; but if they refused to pay money, the prefects of the Gentiles, according to their custom, urged them fiercely with blows. What shall we say of those who took up the journey without anything more than trust in their barren poverty, since they seemed to have nothing except their bodies to lose? They not only demanded money of them, which is not an unendurable punishment, but also examined the callouses of their heels, cutting them open and folding the skin back, lest, perchance, they had sewed something there. Their unspeakable cruelty was carried on even to the point of giving them scammony to drink until they vomited, or even burst their bowels, because they thought the wretches had swallowed gold or silver; or, horrible to say, they cut their bowels open with a sword and, spreading out the folds of the intestines, with frightful mutilation disclosed whatever nature held there in secret. Remember, I pray, the thousands who have perished vile deaths, and strive for the holy places from which the beginnings of your faith have come. Before you engage in His battles, believe without question that Christ will be your standard-bearer and inseparable forerunner."

The most excellent man concluded his oration and by the power of the blessed Peter. absolved all who vowed to go and confirmed those acts with apostolic blessing. He instituted a sign well suited t so honorable a profession by making the figure of the Cross, the stigma of the Lord's Passion, the emblem of the soldiery, or rather, of what was to be the soldiery of God. This, made of any kind of cloth, he ordered to be sewed upon the shirts, cloaks, and byrra of those who were about to go. He commanded that if anyone, after receiving this emblem, or after taking openly this vow, should shrink from his good intent through base change of heart, or any affection for his parents, he should be regarded an outlaw forever, unless he repented and again undertook whatever of his pledge he had omitted. Furthermore, the Pope condemned with a fearful anathema all those who dared to molest the wives, children, and possessions of these who were going on this journey for God. . . . (Guibert de Nogent: Historia quae dicitur Gesta Dei per Francos.)

Blessed Pope Urban II’s call for the First Crusade a little over nine hundred nineteen years ago was premised upon a denunciation of the unjust wars that Christian soldiers had fought on behalf of territorial gain and/or the conquest of raw political power. Blessed Pope Urban II was calling upon these soldiers to put their military skills to use in a just war against the Mohammedans who were treating their coreligionists with barbaric cruelty and holding the shrines of the Holy Faith captive as part of their ill-gotten gains won by the spread of Mohammedanism at the point of the sword throughout northern Africa and the Near East at the beginning of the Seventh Century and thereafter.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, of course, has apologized for the First Crusade, believing it to be a source of “embarrassment” and he refuses to admit the truths contained Pope Urban II’s meticulous description of the barbaric cruelty of Mohammedans, a cruelty that is endemic to this false religion.

It was four hundred seventy-nine years that Pope Saint Pius V called upon Catholics to pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary to win the victory for the combined Christian fleet against the Turks in the Bay of Lepanto against on October 5, 1571:

The Papal influence was all in favor of fighting, whatever the odds. The invincible spirit of the old saint in the Vatican was perhaps the decisive factor. When Bishop Odescalchi, his nuncio, came to bless the fleet and to give a large portion of the True Cross for distribution among the crews, each vessel having a grain of the Precious Wood, he also brought to Don Juan the solemn assurance of Pope Pius V that, if he offered battle, God would give him the victory. If they were defeated, the Pope promised "to go to war himself with his gray hairs, to put idle youth to shame." But with courage they could not fail. Had not several revelations, including two prophecies by Saint Isidore of Sevilla, described such a battle and victory as seemed imminent, won by a youth closely resembling Don Juan?

At the Holy Father's suggestion, Don Juan adopted a modus operandi seldom if ever taught in naval academies. No women were allowed aboard the ships. Blasphemy was to be punished with death. While waiting for a good wind and the return of his scouting squadron with news of where the Turks were, the Generalissimo fasted for three days. All his officers and crews did likewise. Contemporary accounts agree that not one of the 81,000 sailors and soldiers failed to confess and to receive Holy Communion. Even the galley slaves were unshackled from their long benches and led in droves ashore, to confess to the numerous priests who toiled day and night at the Jesuit College helping the chaplains of the galleys. . . .

As the sun sank over Cephalonia, Doria's right wing was still furiously engaged with the Algerians. Gianandrea was red from head to foot with blood, but escaped without a scratch. When Aluch Ali saw that the Moslem fleet was getting the worse of it, he skilfully withdrew between the right and the center of the Christians. In the rear of Doria's fleet he came upon a galley of the Knights of Malta, whom he especially hated. He pounced upon it from the stern, slew all the knights and the crew, and took possession of the vessel; but when Santa Cruz attacked him, he abandoned his prize, and fled with 40 of his best ships toward the open sea and the crimson sunset. Doria's fleet pursued him until night and the coming of a storm forced him to desist.

The Christians took refuge in the port of Petala, and there counted their casualties, which were comparatively light, and their booty, which was exceedingly rich. They had lost 8,000 slain, including 2,000 Spanish, 800 of the Pope's men, and 5,200 Venetians. The Turks had lost 224 vessels, 130 captured and more than 90 sunk or burned; at least 25,000 of their men had been slain, and 5,000 captured; 10,000 of their Christian captives were set free. 12 Don Juan at once sent ten galleys to Spain to inform the King, and dispatched the Count of Priego to Rome. But Pius V had speedier means of communication than galleys. On the afternoon of Sunday, October seventh, he was walking in the Vatican with his treasurer, Donato Cesis. The evening before he had sent out orders to all convents in Rome and nearby to double their prayers for the victory of the Christian fleet, but now he was listening to a recital of some of his financial difficulties. Suddenly he stepped aside, opened a window, and stood watching the sky as if astonished. Then, turning with a radiant face to the treasurer, he said, "Go with God. This is not the time for business, but to give thanks to Jesus Christ, for our fleet has just conquered."

He then hurried to his chapel to prostrate himself in thanksgiving. Afterwards he went out, and everybody noticed his youthful step and joyous countenance. The first news of the battle, through human agencies, reached Rome by way of Venice on the night of October twenty-first, just two weeks after the event. Saint Pius went to St. Peter's in a procession, singing the Te Deum Laudamus. There was great joy in Rome. The Holy Father commemorated the victory by designating October seventh as the Feast of the Holy Rosary, and by adding "Help of Christians" to the titles of Our Lady in the Litany of Loreto. (William Thomas Walsh, Philip II, published originally in 1943 by the Bruce Publishing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., Rockford, Illinois, 1987, pp. 513-525.)

Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s antipapal role model and direct ideological forefather, Giovanni Enrico Battista Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, mocked the great victory over the Mohammedan forces in the Battle of Lepanto that was wrought by Pope Saint Pius V’s plea to Catholics to pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary by returning the Mohammedan flag to the Turks in 1965:

Presumably “no one” does does not include God. Paul’s performance at the United Nations [on October 4, 1965], an organization long viewed with suspicion by the Church for the obvious reasons, sent many a Catholic reeling. So did another papal act just two months later, when Paul gave back to the Muslims the Standard of Lepanto. The history of the flag was venerable. It was taken from a turkish admiral during a great naval battle in 1571. While Pope St. Pius V fasted and prayed the Rosary, an out-numbered Christian fleet defeated a much larger Moslem navy, thus saving Christendom from the infidel. In honor of the miraculous victory, Pius V instituted the Feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary to commemorate Her intercession.

In one dramatic act Paul renounced not only a remarkable Christian victory, but the prayers and the sacrifices of a great Pope and saint. Worse, he appeared to be rejecting the intercession of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary–again. “The wars of religion are finished for good,” Paul told the Turks by way of explanation. Their immediate response was not recorded, but the rise of militant Islam in the last three decades indicates that yet another of Pope Paul’s prophesies had gone awry. The next give-away involved Paul’s Shepherd’s Crook and fisherman’s ring, which he gave to the Buddhist U Thant [United Nations Secretary General between November 30, 1971, and December 31, 1971]. Paul also abolished the anti-Modernist oath of St. Pius X, and the Profession of Faith of the Council of Trent. In 1968 the Index was abolished. The Holy Office was reformed: its primary function now was research, not defending the Faith. (Mark Fellows, Fatima in Twilight, Marmion Publications, 2003, p. 193.)

The conciliar “popes” have contempt for the courage exhibited by our true popes. The conciliar antipopes have been and continue to be effeminate wimps who believe that everything except Catholicism as it has been taught from time immemorial and that all words spoken and actions undertaken in its defense have been erroneous and, as such, are objects of shame for which endless apologies must be made.

The advent of the modern civil state in the aftermath of the Protestant Revolution and the subsequent rise of a welter of ever-mutating Judeo-Masonic fables purporting themselves to be “philosophies” and ideologies has brought about a recrudescence of the Roman Empire’s outright hostility to the Holy Faith that was made manifest first in the anti-Theistic French Revolution from which France has never recovered. The false principles of the French Revolution with which the conciliar revolutionaries had made what the then Joseph “Cardinal” Ratzinger called their “official reconciliation at the “Second” Vatican Council sought to root out the Cross of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, from the soil of once Catholic Europe and to replace it with a “brotherhood” that is only “brotherly” towards those who do not dissent from its precepts du jour. This was the source of open conflict with the Holy Faith and, when necessary, our true popes denounced the revolution, its falsehoods, and its efforts to force Catholics to be faithful to the civil state’s hostility to the Faith and to reject It.

Popes Pius VI and VII openly denounced the French Revolution’s concept of religious liberty as follows:

"Man should use his reason first of all to recognize his Sovereign Maker, honoring Him and admiring Him, and submitting his entire person to Him. For, from his childhood, he should be submissive to those who are superior to him in age; he should be governed and instructed by their lessons, order his life according to their laws of reason, society and religion. This inflated equality and liberty, therefore, are for him, from the moment he is born, no more than imaginary dreams and senseless words." (Pope Pius VI, Brief Quod aliquantum, March 10, 1791; Religious Liberty, a “Monstrous Right").

The Catholic Church: For how can We tolerate with equanimity that the Catholic religion, which France received in the first ages of the Church, which was confirmed in that very kingdom by the blood of so many most valiant martyrs, which by far the greatest part of the French race professes, and indeed bravely and constantly defended even among the most grave adversities and persecutions and dangers of recent years, and which, finally, that very dynasty to which the designated king belongs both professes and has defended with much zeal - that this Catholic, this most holy religion, We say, should not only not be declared to be the only one in the whole of France supported by the bulwark of the laws and by the authority of the Government, but should even, in the very restoration of the monarchy, be entirely passed over? But a much more grave, and indeed very bitter, sorrow increased in Our heart - a sorrow by which We confess that We were crushed, overwhelmed and torn in two - from the twenty-second article of the constitution in which We saw, not only that "liberty of religion and of conscience" (to use the same words found in the article) were permitted by the force of the constitution, but also that assistance and patronage were promised both to this liberty and also to the ministers of these different forms of "religion". There is certainly no need of many words, in addressing you, to make you fully recognize by how lethal a wound the Catholic religion in France is struck by this article. For when the liberty of all "religions" is indiscriminately asserted, by this very fact truth is confounded with error and the holy and immaculate Spouse of Christ, the Church, outside of which there can be no salvation, is set on a par with the sects of heretics and with Judaic perfidy itself. For when favour and patronage is promised even to the sects of heretics and their ministers, not only their persons, but also their very errors, are tolerated and fostered: a system of errors in which is contained that fatal and never sufficiently to be deplored HERESY which, as St. Augustine says (de Haeresibus, no.72), "asserts that all heretics proceed correctly and tell the truth: which is so absurd that it seems incredible to me." (Pope Pius VII, Post Tam Diuturnas, April 29, 1814, POST TAM DIUTURNAS)

The conciliar revolutionaries have championed the very false principles that were condemned by our true popes and that have proven to be the instruments by which statists, globalists, and open Marxists attack believing Catholics while being praised by Jorge Mario Bergoglio for the way in which they are “saving the planet.”

It was during a wave of anticlerical revolutionary activity in the 1840s that the newly elected Pope Pius IX sought to defend the rights of the papacy and of individual Catholics from the onslaught being waged by godless men who were intent on creating a new world order without any trace of the Sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff nor of Holy Mother Church’s liberty.

This is what Pope Pius IX wrote in Nostris et Nobiscum, December 8, 1849:

16. All who defend the faith should aim to implant deeply in your faithful people the virtues of piety, veneration, and respect for this supreme See of Peter. Let the faithful recall the fact that Peter, Prince of Apostles is alive here and rules in his successors,[10] and that his office does not fail even in an unworthy heir.[11] Let them recall that Christ the Lord placed the impregnable foundation of his Church on this See of Peter[12] and gave to Peter himself the keys of the kingdom of Heaven.[13] Christ then prayed that his fait would not fail, and commanded Peter to strengthen his brothers in the faith.[14]Consequently the successor of Peter, the Roman Pontiff, holds a primacy over the whole world and is the true Vicar of Christ, head of the whole Church and father and teacher of all Christians.[15]

17. Indeed one simple way to keep men professing Catholic truth is to maintain their communion with and obedience to the Roman Pontiff. For it is impossible for a man ever to reject any portion of the Catholic faith without abandoning the authority of the Roman Church. In this authority, the unalterable teaching office of this faith lives on. It was set up by the divine Redeemer and, consequently, the tradition from the Apostles has always been preserved. So it has been a common characteristic both of the ancient heretics and of the more recent Protestants — whose disunity in all their other tenets is so great — to attack the authority of the Apostolic See. But never at any time were they able by any artifice or exertion to make this See tolerate even a single one of their errors. For this reason the enemies of God and human society at the present time are making every attempt to tear the Italian people from their allegiance to Us and to this Holy See. They think, no doubt, that then at last, they could have the good fortune of contaminating Italy itself with their impious teaching and the plague of their novel theories.

18. As regards this teaching and these theories, it is now generally known that the special goal of their proponents is to introduce to the people the pernicious fictions of Socialism and Communism by misapplying the terms “liberty” and “equality.” The final goal shared by these teachings, whether of Communism or Socialism, even if approached differently, is to excite by continuous disturbances workers and others, especially those of the lower class, whom they have deceived by their lies and deluded by the promise of a happier condition. They are preparing them for plundering, stealing, and usurping first the Church’s and then everyone’s property. After this they will profane all law, human and divine, to destroy divine worship and to subvert the entire ordering of civil societies. In this critical period for Italy, it is your duty, venerable brothers, to help the faithful realize that if they let themselves be deceived by such perverted doctrines and theories, these theories will cause their temporal and their eternal destruction.

19. Therefore, warn your faithful that the very nature of human society obligates its members to obey its lawfully established authority; nothing in the precepts of the Lord on this subject, which are proclaimed in holy scripture, can be altered. For it is written: “Be subject to every human institution for God’s sake, to the king as supreme or to governors as sent by him to punish wrongdoers and to praise those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing right, you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. Be as free men, yet without using freedom as a pretext for evil, but be as servants of God.”[16] And again: “Let ever soul be subject to the higher authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, he who resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur their own condemnation.”[17]

20. Let them furthermore know that it is likewise a mark of the natural, and so of the immutable, condition of human affairs that even among those who are not in higher authority, some surpass others in different endowments of mind or body or in riches and such external goods; therefore it can never be lawful under any pretext of liberty or equality to usurp or injure in any way the good or rights of other men. Divine precepts on this subject are clear and can be found throughout the holy scriptures. They forbid us strictly even to desire the goods of other men, much less seize them.[18]

21. In addition, let the poor and all the wretched recall their great debt to the Catholic religion which keeps the teaching of Christ unspoiled and preaches it publicly. For He proclaimed that whatever benefits are conferred on the poor and wretched are likewise conferred on Himself.[19] Furthermore, He wishes that all be informed of the special account He will take of these works of mercy on the Day of Judgment; that is, He will give the gift of eternal life to the faithful who engaged in works of mercy, and He will punish with eternal fire those who neglected them.[20]

22. This proclamation of Christ and His other stern warnings on the use of wealth and its dangers[21] have meant that the condition of the poor and wretched in Catholic nations is much less harsh than in any other nations. The poor would receive even greater aid if the many institutions which our pious ancestors established for their relief had not been closed down or plundered in the recent recurrent public demonstrations. Let Our poor recall the teaching of Christ Himself that they should not be sad at their condition, since their very poverty makes lighter their journey to salvation, provided that they bear their need with patience and are poor not alone in possessions, but in spirit too. For He says: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”[22]

23. All the faithful should know too that the old kings of the pagan nations and other chiefs of state misused their power in more serious ways and more often. The faithful should reckon it to the credit of our most holy religion that princes in Christian times feared “the stern judgment in store for governors,” and the eternal punishment prepared for sinners, in which “the strong will suffer strong torments.”[23] Because of this fear, they have ruled the peoples subject to them more justly and clemently.

24. Finally, let the faithful recognize that Christian law protects true liberty and equality. God Almighty, who has made “the small and the great” and who “takes equal care of everyone,”[24] “will not withdraw from anyone nor fear anyone’s greatness.”[25] He has established a day “on which He will judge the world in justice”[26] in His Only-Begotten Son Christ Jesus, “who will come in the glory of His Father with His angels and will then make return to each man according to his works.”[27]

25. But if the faithful scorn both the fatherly warnings of their pastors and the commandments of the Christian Law recalled here, and if they let themselves be deceived by the present-day promoters of plots, deciding to work with them in their perverted theories of Socialism and Communism, let them know and earnestly consider what they are laying up for themselves. The Divine Judge will seek vengeance on the day of wrath. Until then no temporal benefit for the people will result from their conspiracy, but rather new increases of misery and disaster. For man is not empowered to establish new societies and unions which are opposed to the nature of mankind. If these conspiracies spread throughout Italy there can only be one result: if the present political arrangement is shaken violently and totally ruined by reciprocal attacks of citizens against citizens by their wrongful appropriations and slaughter, in the end some few, enriched by the plunder of many, will seize supreme control to the ruin of all.

26. Now the life and example of the clergy help keep the faithful safe from the snares of the impious in their profession of the Catholic religion and help stir them to the works of true virtue. But, alas! there have been in Italy some men of the Church, although they were few, who by deserting to the Church’s enemies, helped them greatly in deceiving the faithful. The lapse of these men doubtless incited you afresh, venerable brothers, to watch daily with keener zeal over the discipline of the clergy. And now since We desire to provide, as We should, for the future, We recommend what We emphasized in Our first encyclical letter to the bishops of the whole world:[28] that you should lay hands on no one in haste,[29] but show the greatest possible care in selecting soldiers for the Church’s army. Candidates for holy orders especially must be examined at thorough length to determine whether their learning, serious morals and zeal for divine worship indicate that they will by their life and work edify and bring spiritual benefit to your flock, like lanterns burning in the house of the Lord. (Nostris et Nobiscum, December 8, 1849.)

Pope Pius IX knew that the infiltration of Holy Mother Church had begun and that there bishops and priests who were evangelists of the revolution, not of the Gospel of Christ the King, something that he saw with especial bitterness in Italy, where the Freemasons of the Risorgimento were plotting to overthrow the Papal States and to make warfare upon the Church and her institutions throughout what would become the Kingdom of Italy.

Writing in Levate, September 27, 1867, the Holy Father warned of the impending doom that would afflict the papacy itself that had begun to manifest itself elsewhere in Italy as early as 1861. His Holiness also decried the persecutions that Holy Mother Church was experiencing at the hands of evil men in those parts of Poland then under the control of the Russian Empire:

Lift up your eyes, venerable brothers. Look about you and grieve at the evil abominations which now defile unhappy Italy. We can but humbly revere the inscrutable judgments of God, which destined Us to live in these most sorrowful times. By the efforts of many, particularly those who hold power in Italy, the venerable commands of God and the sacred laws of the Church are completely despised. Here triumphant impiety rears her ugly head, and here We grieve to see all kinds of injustice, evil, and destruction. Hence the many phalanxes of rebels, men who walk in impiety and fight under the standard of Satan — a leader branded with deceit. Raising their mouths to the very heavens, they blaspheme God; polluting and scorning all that is sacred, they trample underfoot all laws, divine and human. Like ravening wolves panting after their prey, they spill blood and destroy souls with their grievous scandal. They seek the unjust gain of their own malice and seize the property of others.

Then they sadden the lowly and the poor, making widows of wives and orphans of happy children. They pardon the impious and condemn the just, for there are bribes to take and goods to steal; with a corrupt heart they satisfy every depraved desire, to the detriment of all civil society.

Evil Men

2. At present We are surrounded by evil men of this sort, men entirely animated by a diabolical spirit. They plan to raise the standard of lies in this beloved city of Ours, before the very Chair of Peter, the center of Catholic truth and unity. And the officials of the government of Piedmont, who should have repressed these uprisings, have aided them in every way. They supply them with arms and other goods and even fortify the approach to this city. But these officials, though they hold the highest rank in civil government, are fearful because through their wickedness they ensnare themselves in a net of ecclesiastical penalties and censures. In the humility of Our heart We continue to beseech the God of mercy to return these miserable men to a salutary penitence and to the straight path of justice, religion, and piety. Nevertheless We must declare the dangers We are exposed to in this hour of darkness. We tranquilly await whatever events may bring, be it nefarious frauds, calumnies, treachery, or lies. We place all Our hope in the God of Our salvation, who is Our helper and strength in all Our tribulations. He does not permit those who trust in Him to be confounded, He who thwarts the attacks of the impious and breaks the necks of sinners. In the meantime We are anxious to inform you and your faithful of the sad condition and the great danger in which We live, due especially to the activity of the Piedmont government. Although Our faithful army defends Us vigorously and heroically, it is clear that they cannot resist for long because they are greatly outnumbered by these unjust aggressors. The filial piety of Our subjects, now greatly reduced in number by the evil usurpers, consoles Us. But We must also grieve since they suffer serious dangers rising against them from the savage throngs of the wicked, who terrify them constantly with all sorts of threats and plunder them exhaustively.

Evils in Poland and Russia

3. But We have other evils to deplore, too. You know well from Our consistorial address of October 29 of last year, and from its publication with supporting documents, the many calamities with which the Catholic Church and her sons are troubled in the Russian Empire and in the Polish Kingdom. There the Catholic bishops, the ecclesiastics, and the lay faithful are exiled, thrown into prison, harassed in every way, robbed of their possessions, and oppressed with severe penalties. The canons and laws of the Church are completely trampled underfoot. And not at all content with this, the Russian government continues with its long-standing plan to violate the teaching of the Church and to break the chain of union and communication between those faithful to Us and the Holy See. The government strives to overthrow the Catholic religion completely in regions, separating the faithful from the Church in order to draw them into a disastrous schism. With great sorrow We inform you that that government has issued two decrees after the last address We mentioned. An abhorrent decree promulgated last May 22 suppressed the Polish diocese of Podlachia, together with its college of canons, the Consistory General, and the diocesan seminary. The bishop of the diocese was separated from his flock and at once forced to leave his territory. And this decree is similar to the one published last June 3, which We were not able to mention because We had no knowledge of it. By this decree the same government arbitrarily suppressed the diocese of Kamieniec and dispersed its college of canons, Consistory, and seminary; then it violently tore its bishop from his diocese.

Communication by Papal Decree

4. Now since We cannot communicate with those faithful, and also lest someone be exposed to arrest, exile, or some other penalty, We have been compelled to insert an Act in Our publication to provide for the exercise of legitimate jurisdiction in those extensive dioceses and for the spiritual needs of the faithful. By means of the printed word, notice of Our plans will reach them. Anyone can easily understand the attitude and purpose with which the Russian government would publish such a decree, since the suppression of dioceses is added to the absence of many bishops.

Governmental College

5. But what adds to Our bitterness is another decree of this same government, promulgated last May 22, by which a college was established in St. Petersburg, a college called “Roman Catholic Ecclesiastical,” with the presiding officer the Archbishop of Mohilev. All petitions pertaining to matters of faith and conscience which the bishops, clergy, and faithful of the Russian Empire and Polish Kingdom send to Us and this Apostolic See are first to be sent to this college. This same college is to examine them to determine whether the petitions exceed the power of the bishops; if so, it will send them to Us. But after Our decision reaches there, the presiding officer of the college is bound to send this decision to the minister of internal affairs, who is to determine whether it contains anything against the laws of the state and the rights of the supreme ruler. If nothing is found, he may execute it according to his will and judgment.

Condemnation of This College

6. You surely see how vehemently a decree of this kind must be condemned. This schismatic secular power destroys the constitution of the Catholic Church and subverts ecclesiastical discipline. Furthermore, it inflicts the greatest injury on Our supreme Pontificate, on the power and authority of this Holy See and of the bishops, and on the liberty of the highest pastor of all the faithful. It therefore drives the faithful to a mournful schism and even tramples underfoot natural law in matters pertaining to faith and conscience.

7. Add to this that the Catholic Academy of Warsaw has been closed and that a sad ruin awaits the Ruthenian dioceses of Chelm and Belzium. And what is most grievous is that a certain priest Woicicki has been found whose faith is suspect and who has no regard for ecclesiastical penalties and censures, nor for the terrible judgment of God. He was not afraid to accept the rule and administration of this same diocese from that civil power, nor to issue ordinances contrary to ecclesiastical discipline and favoring schism.

8. In these calamitous difficulties, no one fights for Us except Our Lord and God. We earnestly beseech you, because of your love for things Catholic and your devotion to Us, that you join your most fervent prayers with Ours. Together with all your clergy and faithful people, beseech God unceasingly to snatch His Holy Church and Us from such great evils. The sons of this same Church, who are most dear to Us, are exposed to many plots and afflicted with many hardships almost everywhere, but especially in Italy, in the Russian Empire, and in the Kingdom of Poland. Pray that God may aid and defend them by His omnipotent power. Pray that He may preserve, confirm, and strengthen them more each day in the Catholic faith and the profession of its salutary doctrines. Pray that He thwart all the impious plans of hostile men, recalling them from the abyss of iniquity to the way of salvation and leading them in the path of His commandments.

Plenary Indulgences

9. Therefore We desire that within six months a three-day period of public prayer be proclaimed in your dioceses; for those beyond the sea, the proclamation should be made within one year. To encourage more ardent devotion at these prayers, We grant mercifully in the Lord a plenary indulgence and the remission of all their sins to each and all the faithful in Christ, both men and women, who are devoutly present at these prayers on these three days, who have prayed to God for the present necessities of the Church according to Our intention, who have expiated their sins by sacramental confession, and who have received holy communion. But to the faithful who with at least a contrite heart are present on any one of these days, and have performed the other works, We grant an indulgence of seven years, and We relax as many forty day periods of the penance enjoined on them or otherwise owed by them, in accordance with the usual custom of the Church. We also grant that these indulgences, all and singly, the remission of sins, and the relaxation of penances are applicable by way of suffrage to the souls of the faithful who, joined to God by love, have left this life. We also declare that anything to the contrary has no power to resist Our decrees.

10. Finally, nothing is more pleasing to Us than that We may use this occasion to testify and confirm the great benevolence with which We embrace you in the Lord. Receive as a certain pledge of this the Apostolic Benediction which We impart most lovingly to you, venerable brothers, and to all the clergy and faithful laity entrusted to your vigilance. (Pope Pius IX, Levate, September 27, 1867.)

This was a marvelous defense of Catholics undergoing persecution and it was a manly display of abject courage in its denunciation of those waging these persecutions. There was no spirit of compromise or any effort to do what Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Pietro Parolin are prone to do, namely, to blame the persecuted for supposedly “forcing” their persecutors to persecute them.

Importantly, Pope Pius IX explained how he would accept the will of God no matter what might befall the Papal States or his own physical safety, and it is with this same spirit of peaceful surrender to the inscrutable will of God that He accept the defeat of the Papal States during the Franco-Prussian War. His Holiness accepted defeat but he remained strong in its opposition to those who engineered it and who were set on destroying the dignity of the papacy itself by continuing to subordinate the Church of God to the whims of the civil state.

This is what Pope Pius IX wrote in Ubi Nos, May 15, 1871:

When We were defeated by Our enemies in accordance with the mysterious design of God, We observed the severely bitter fortunes of Our City and the downfall of the civil rule of the Apostolic See in the face of military invasion. Then We sent you Our letter of the 1st of November 1869 to tell you, and the whole Catholic world through you, the state of Our affairs and those of this City. We also told you of Our subjection to the excesses of impious and unbridled license. We testified before God and man that We desired the rights of the Apostolic See to be safe and unprejudiced, as the nature of Our supreme office demanded. We summoned you and all Our beloved children, the faithful entrusted to your care, to appease the divine majesty with fervent prayers. Since that time the ills and disasters of this City and Ourselves, foreshadowed by those first unhappy experiences, have really exceeded all bounds in assailing Our Apostolic rank and authority, the sanctity of religion and morals, and Our dearest subjects. What is more, venerable brothers, since conditions worsen daily, We are compelled to repeat the words of St. Bernard: “this is the beginning of the evils; we fear worse evil.”[1] For wickedness advances on its path and promotes its designs. No longer does it take pains to conceal its worst deeds since they cannot remain hidden, but it is eager to carry off the last spoils from the overthrow of justice, honor, and religion. Our days are filled with bitterness, particularly when We consider the dangers and deceits to which the virtue of Our faithful people is subjected every day. When We recall the exceptional merits of yourselves, venerable brothers, and of the faithful embraced by your care, We are greatly pleased. For in every region of the earth, Christ’s faithful have answered Our exhortations with wonderful enthusiasm, ever since the ill-starred day of the City’s capture. Following your lead and example, they have prayed continually and fervently. They approach the throne of divine clemency with perseverance in repeated public supplication, in undertaking holy pilgrimages, in unceasingly thronging to the churches, in partaking of the sacraments, and in the other main works of Christian virtue.

Benefits of Prayer

2. This burning zeal for prayer cannot fail to produce the most abundant fruit in God’s sight. Many benefits indeed have already come from this source, and these give promise of further benefits which We confidently await. For We see the faith and charity growing and spreading daily, and We observe that the distressing attacks on this See and on the supreme Shepherd have aroused such concern in the spirits of Christ’s faithful as only God could inspire. We perceive such great unity that never until now, since the first days of the Church, did the multitude of the faithful so clearly show that they are of one heart and one soul.[2] With this show of virtue before Us, We cannot be silent about Our dearest children, the citizens of this fair city, whose love and piety towards Us exceed all bounds. Their constancy too continues to be splendidly equal to the struggle, and their greatness of soul rivals that of their ancestors.

3. Consequently, We give unending glory and thanks to God for all of you and for Our beloved children, Christ’s faithful. He continues to effect great deeds in you and in His Church, and has ensured that although malice abounds, the grace of faith, charity, and confession abound too. “What then is our hope and joy and crown of glory? Isn’t it you in the presence of God? A wise son is the glory of his father. May God accordingly reward you and be mindful of the faithful service, pious compassion, consolation, and honor which you continue to give to the spouse of His Son in an evil time and in the days of her affliction.”[3]

The Northern Government

4. Meanwhile indeed, the Piedmont government is on the one hand bent on making the city the talk of the world.[4] On the other hand, to deceive the Catholics and calm their anguish, it has promoted certain empty immunities and privileges, commonly called “guarantees.” These “guarantees are compensation for stripping Us of Our civil rule; this they accomplished by a lengthy series of machinations and their unholy arms. We have already delivered Our judgment on these immunities and provisions, and stigmatized their absurdity, cunning and mockery in Our letter of last 2nd March to Constantine Patrizi, cardinal of the holy Roman Church, dean of the Sacred College, and Vicar of Our Authority in the City. This letter was immediately printed and published.

5. But it is characteristic of the Piedmont Government to unite continuous, base pretense with shameless contempt for Our papal rank and authority. It has also shown that it completely disregards Our protestations, complaints and censures. Accordingly it has not ceased in the least to press on with the serious discussion and examination of these “guarantees” before the highest bodies in the kingdom, despite Our expressed judgment on these provisions. In this discussion, both the truth of Our judgment on the nature of these provisions and the vain attempt of Our enemies to conceal their malice and deceit have been clearly seen. Assuredly, these many errors and blasphemies are plainly at variance with the Catholic faith and with the very foundations of natural law. It is unbelievable that they could have been produced here in Italy, whose chief glory has always been in the practice of the Catholic religion and in the Apostolic See. And in fact, Italians join with Us in lamenting and deploring this novel and unheard-of sacrilege. Indeed, they have shown Us by ever-increasing notable proofs and deeds of piety that they are allied in one spirit and understanding with the rest of the world’s faithful.

Warning Against Deceivers

6. Accordingly We address you again, venerable brothers. The faithful entrusted to you have clearly indicated both by letter and serious protestations how painful they find Our beleaguered state. They are far from being deceived by the measures which are disguised as “guarantees.” Nevertheless We must solemnly declare through you to the whole world that not only these so-called guarantees, but all other titles, honors, immunities, and privileges-that is whatever else can be named a “guarantee” — cannot protect the due and free exercise of Our God — given power and cannot preserve the necessary liberty of the Church.

Necessity of Civil Rule

7. Therefore We can submit to no agreement which would in any way destroy or diminish Our rights, which are the rights of God and of the Apostolic See. If We did, We would be violating Our sworn trust, which We have often declared and professed. Similarly, We never can and never shall allow or accept those “guarantees” devised by the Piedmont Government, whatever their motive. Nor shall We ever accept other similar ones. These are often offered under the guise of defending Our holy power and liberty in compensation for the civil rule they stripped Us of. But divine providence has willed this civil rule to be protection and strength for the Apostolic See; furthermore, legitimate and indisputable titles, as well as Our having possessed it for more than eleven centuries, confirm Our right to it. For if the Roman Pontiff were subject to the sway of another ruler, but no longer possessed civil power, neither his position nor the acts of the Apostolic ministry would be exempt from the authority of the other ruler. This ruler could be either a heretic or a persecutor of the Church or constantly at war with other rulers.

God-given Rights

8. Indeed, is not this concession of “guarantees” itself the clearest proof that laws are being imposed on Us? God has given Us the authority of making laws in regard to the religious and moral order. We have been established as interpreters of the natural and divine law for the entire world; these laws concern the government of the universal Church. Will their observance and execution be right only because they are commanded and established by the will of lay powers? We, as the representative of blessed Peter, have received directly from God Himself all the prerogatives and all rights of authority which are necessary for ruling the universal Church; those prerogatives and rights, as well as the liberty of the Church, were produced and acquired by the blood of Jesus Christ and must be valued in accordance with the infinite value of His divine blood. So We would not be valuing the divine blood of Our Redeemer if We borrowed Our rights for the rulers of the earth, especially in the curtailed and defiled condition in which they now want to present them.

Teaching of St. Anselm

9. For Christian rulers are sons, not lords, of the Church. St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, that great light of holiness and teaching, aptly used to say to rulers: “Do not think that the Church of God has been given to you to serve you as its master you are its advocate and defender. God loves nothing in this world more than the liberty of His holy Church.”[5] To inspire rulers, he wrote elsewhere: “Never consider that your high rank is diminished if you love and defend the liberty of the Spouse of God and your Mother the Church; do not think you are humbled if you raise Her up: do not believe you are weakened if you strengthen Her. Look round and see: examples are ready: contemplate the rulers who fought against Her and trampled on Her. What was their reward? To what end did they come? It is clear enough and need not be stated. Assuredly those who glorify Her will be glorified with Her and in Her.”[6]

10. Now from what We have just told you, as We have done on other occasions, it must be perfectly clear to all that injury suffered by this Holy See in these bitter times affects the entire Christian commonwealth. For, as St. Bernard used to say, an injury done to the Apostles, the glorious rulers of the earth, involves every Christian. And since the Roman Church works for all the churches, as St. Anselm says, whoever takes this church’s goods away is regarded as guilty of sacrilege, not towards this church alone, but towards all churches.[7] No one can doubt that the preservation of the rights of this Apostolic See is most closely bound up with the most important advantages and benefits of the universal Church and the freedom of your episcopal ministry.

Civil Rule Given by God

11. Reflecting on all these matters, We are compelled to confirm again and profess without change what We have often declared to you and what you have all agreed with. Divine Providence gave the civil rule of the Holy See to the Roman Pontiff. This rule is necessary in order that the Roman Pontiff may never be subject to any ruler or civil power, but may be able to freely exercise his supreme power and authority of feeding and ruling the entire flock of the Lord, and of looking after the greater good of this Church, its well-being, and its needs.

Pray for the End of the Fighting

12. Since you and your faithful understand this well, you have all risen up for the sake of religion, justice, and tranquillity, which are the foundation of all good things. You make the Church of God glorious with the worthy show of your faith, charity, constancy, and virtue; by your faithful efforts in the Church’s defense, you fashion a new and wonderful example in its history, which will be remembered by generations to come. But since the God of mercies is the source of those good things, We raise Our eyes, Our hearts, and Our hope to Him. We continually beseech Him to strengthen and increase the illustrious understanding of you and of the faithful, the piety you share, your love, and your zeal. We strongly exhort you and your people likewise to cry to the Lord with Us more strongly day by day, as the fighting grows more stern, that He may Himself deign to hasten the days of His propitiation.

Unite the Rulers

13. The rulers of the earth do not want the usurpation which We are suffering to be established and to thrive to the ruin of all authority and order. May God unite all rulers in agreement of mind and will. By removing all discord, claiming the disturbance of rebellions, and rejecting the ruinous counsels of the sects, may these rulers join in a common effort to have the rights of the Holy See restored. Then tranquillity will once again be restored to civil society.

14. Then request the divine clemency to dispel the blindness of impious minds and convert their hearts to penitence before the great and awful day of the Lord arrives, or to check their lawless plans and show them how foolish those men are who attempt to overthrow the rock founded by Christ and infringe its divine privileges.[8] In these prayers may Our hope be set more strongly on God. “Do you think that God can turn His ear away from His dearest spouse when she cries while opposing those who straiten her? How shall He not acknowledge bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh and even in some manner spirit of His spirit? Now indeed is the hour of wickedness and the power of darkness. But it is the final hour and the power quickly passes away. Christ the strength of God and the wisdom of God is with us, and He is on our side. Have confidence: he has overcome the world.”[9] Meanwhile let Us follow with great courage and assured faith the voice of eternal truth which says: fight for justice with your life, and struggle for justice even to death, then God will conquer your enemies for you.[10] (Ubi Nos, May 15, 1871.)

Pope Pius IX’s Ubi Nos contained a very clear explanation of the Social Reign of Christ the King as it applied to the temporal power of the Sovereign Pontiff:

Interjection:

In other words, all civil rules on the face of the earth are duty bound to submit to the teaching of the Holy Father in all that pertains to the good of souls as the papacy has been “established as” the “interpreters of the natural and divine law for the entire world; these laws concern the government of the universal Church.” These are principles that Pope Pius IX’s successor, Pope Leo XIII, would explicate at length in his great social encyclical letters even though he was the antithesis of Pope Pius IX’s firmness when it came to dealing with civil potentates or movements (Otto von Bismarck, the leaders of the French Third Republic, the Knights of Labor in the United States of America, ) propagating principles contrary to the good of souls.

Although Pope Pius IX had been a firm opponent of error and those who promoted it while defending the rights of the Papacy and Holy Mother Church, perhaps his most shining moment of his nearly thirty-two year pontificate came when he stood up to the thirty-third degree Mason named Otto von Bismarck when the latter instituted his Kulturkampf to “purify” a united Germany from the “unscientific” and “superstitious” influences of Catholicism through the German Empire, including in those parts of Poland under German control.

Bismarck was a clever man, who much like the demagogues of today and of the past, sought to portray faithful Catholics as “disloyal” and “subversive,” going so far as to work with schismatic and heretical Catholics to form a sect, the Old Catholics, much in the mold of the French Constitutional Church during the French Revolution and the so-called Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in Red China at this time with which Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Pietro Parolin have made their own “official reconciliation” at the cost of the sacrifices that had been made by underground Catholics there to remain faithful to what they thought was the papacy.

Unlike Montini/Paul VI, Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Pius IX acted decisively to oppose Chancellor Bismarck and his stooge, Kaiser Wilhelm I, while also excommunicating the founder of the Old Catholic sect, Joseph Reinkens. While the entire text of Etsi Multa, November 21, 1873, is to be found in Appendix B, here are a few excerpts that illustrate Pope Pius IX’s unstinting courage in the face of state-sponsored persecutions:

14. Thus the holy Church of Christ, whose necessary and full freedom of which religion had repeatedly been guaranteed by public pacts and the highest princes, has in these same places been deprived of all its rights and exposed to hostile men. Its final extinction now threatens. For the new laws, to be sure, have as their intent its destruction.

15. No wonder, then, that the former religious tranquility has been gravely disturbed in that Empire by this kind of law and other plans and actions of the Prussian government most hostile to the Church. But who would wish to falsely cast the blame of this disturbance on the Catholics of the German Empire! For if they are faulted for not acquiesing in such laws in which they could not acquiesce with good conscience, for the same reason the apostles of Jesus Christ ant the martyrs, who preferred to undergo most dreadful tortures and death itself than to betray their duty and violate the rights of their most holy religion by obeying the commands of the princes who persecuted them, must also be faulted.

16. If no other laws than these of the civil authority existed and if they were of the highest order, it would be wrong to transgress them. If, moreover, these same civil laws constituted the norm of conscience, as some maintain both impiously and absurdly, the early martyrs and their followers would have been worthy of reprehension rather than honor and praise. Indeed it would have been against the laws and the wish of princes to hand down the Christian faith, propagate it, and found the Church. Nevertheless the faith teaches and human reason demonstrates that there is a twofold order of things. Two kinds of powers must be distinguished on earth-one natural that looks to the tranquility and secular business of human society; the other, whose origin is above nature, which is in charge of the Church of Christ, divinely instituted for the salvation and peace of souls. The offices of these two powers are wisely coordinated so that things which belong to God are returned to God and, because of God, those of Caesar to Caesar, who “for this reason is great because he is less than heaven for he belongs to Him whom heaven and all creatures belong.”[4]

17. From this divine command, to be sure, the Church has never turned aside. It always and everywhere attempts to inculcate in the faithful an inviolable obedience towards their supreme rulers and their rights, insofar as they are secular, and it has taught, with the Apostle, that they are rulers not for fear of good works but of evil, teaching the faithful to be subject not only because of fear, because the prince bears the sword to carry out his ire against him who has done evil, but also because of conscience because in his office he is a minister of God.[5] However, this fear of princes the Church limits to evil acts, excluding the same totally from the observance of the divine law, being mindful of what blessed Peter taught the faithful; “May none of you suffer for being a murderer, a thief, a criminal or an informer, but if any of you should suffer for being a Christian, then he is not to be ashamed of it; let him glorify God in that name.”[6]

18. Since these things are so, you understand how sad We must have been when We read in the recent letter from the German Emperor the unexpected accusation against certain of his Catholic subjects, especially against the Catholic clergy, and bishops. The reason for this accusation is that they, fearing neither bonds nor tribulations and not placing any great value on their lives,[7] refuse to obey the aforementioned laws. They protest with that same firmness shown before the passing of these laws. They pointed out their faults by serious, clear and most solid explanations which, with the approval of the whole Catholic world and even of some heterodox men, they delivered to the Prince, his administrators and the supreme council of the kingdom.

19. For the same reason now they are accused of treason, as if they were conspiring with those who strive to upset all orders of human society. No attention is paid to the excellent arguments in which they clearly attest their unbroken loyalty and obedience to the Prince and their lively devotion to their fatherland. Indeed We Ourselves are asked to exhort Catholics and holy pastors there to observe these laws; this would be equivalent to Our contributing to the oppression and dispersion of the flock of the Christ. However, supported by God, We are confident that the most serene Emperor, having more carefully weighed things, will reject the empty suspicion conceived against his most loyal subjects and will no longer allow their honor to be reviled with foul detraction. In addition, he will end the unmerited persecution against them. Moreover, We would have willingly passed over the imperial letter if it had not been published, against Our knowledge and in a most unusual fashion, by an official newspaper in Berlin. It was published together with other material written by Us, in which We appealed for justice from the Emperor for the Catholic Church in Prussia. (Pope Pius XI, Etsi Multa, November 21, 1873.)

The accusations made against Catholics by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and his nominal superior, Kaiser Wilhelm I, are almost identical to those that have been made throughout the ages, including the charges being leveled at this time by the likes of Daniel Ortega and the Chicom stooges within the “Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association” that have been met with stony silence from the otherwise ever moving lips of the Argentine Apostate. Pope Pius XI never flinched in his denunciation of error, and he was never afraid to exercise the full might of his Apostolic authority when circumstances required him to do so.

Part two of this two-part series will provide examples from the pontificates of Popes Leo XIII, Saint Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII to provide further historical proof that Jorge Mario Bergoglio and those who have preceded him on the conciliar seat of apostasy have been apostles of Antichrist, not of Christ the King.

Fidelity to the Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary has won the day not only at Lepanto or the Gates of Vienna or The Philippines or Peru or Austria in 1955 as the Soviets ended the occupation of their part of the country, of course. Fidelity to Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary has saved countless souls from sin and error, saving them from eternal damnation in the process. In the process, of course, Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary has helped to reform nations, especially during the era of Christendom in the High Middle Ages.

Consider these words of Pope Leo XIII, contained in Fidentem Piumque Animum, September 20, 1896:

Yet another excellent fruit follows from the Rosary, exceedingly opportune to the character of our times. This we have referred to elsewhere. It is that, whilst the virtue of Divine Faith is daily exposed to so many dangers and attacks, the Christian may here derive nourishment and strength for his faith. Holy writ calls Christ the Author and finisher of faith (Heb. vii. 2), the Author, because He taught men many things which they had to believe, especially about Himself in whim dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead (Colos. ii., 9), and also because He mercifully gives the power of believing by the grace and, as it were, the function of the Holy Ghost; the Finisher, because in Heaven, where He will change the habit of faith into the splendour of glory, He openly discloses to them those things which they have seen in this mortal life as through a veil. Now Christ stands forth clearly in the Rosary. We behold in meditation His life, whether His hidden life in joy, or His public life in excessive toil and sufferings unto death, or His glorious life from His triumphant resurrection to His eternal enthronement at the right hand of the Father. And since faith, to be full and sufficient, must display itself, – for with the heart we believe unto justice, but with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Rom. x., 10), – so have we also in the Rosary an excellent means unto this, for by those vocal prayers with which it is intermingled, we are enabled to express and profess our faith in God, our most watchful Father; in the future life, the forgiveness of sins; in the mysteries of the august Trinity, the Incarnation of the Word, the Divine Maternity, and others. All know the value and merit of faith. For faith is just like a most precious gem, producing now the blossoms of all virtue by which we are pleasing to God, and hereafter to bring forth fruits that will last for ever: for to know Thee is perfect justice, and to know Thy justice and Thy power is the root of immortality (Wisdom xv., 3). It is here the place to add a remark respecting the duties of those virtues which faith rightly postulates. Among them is the virtue of penance, and one part of this is abstinence, which for more reasons than one is necessary and salutary. It is true the Church is growing more indulgent towards her children in this matter, but they must understand they are bound to take all care to make up for this maternal indulgence by other good works. We rejoice for this reason also to propose particularly the use of the rosary, which is capable of producing worthy fruits of penance, especially by the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ and His Mother.

5. To those therefore who are striving after supreme happiness this means of the Rosary has been most providentially offered, and it is one unsurpassed for facility and convenience. For any person, even moderately instructed in his religion can make use of it with fruit, and the time it occupies cannot delay any man’s business. Sacred history abounds with striking and evident examples. It is well known that there have been many persons occupied in most weighty functions or absorbed in laborious cares who have never omitted for a single day this pious practice. Combined with this advantage is that inward sentiment of devotion which attracts minds to the Rosary, so that they love it as the intimate companion and faithful protector of life; and in their last agony they embrace and hold fast to it as the dear pledge of the unfading Crown of glory. Such a pledge is greatly enhanced by the benefits of sacred indulgences, if properly employed; for the devotion of the Rosary has been richly endowed with such indulgences by both our Predecessors and Ourselves. These favours will certainly prove most efficacious to both the dying and the departed, being bestowed as it were by the hands of the merciful Virgin, in order that they may the sooner enjoy the eternal peace and light they have desired.

6. These considerations, Venerable Brethren, move us incessantly to extol and recommend to Catholic peoples this excellent and most salutary form of devotion. Yet another very urgent reason, of which we have often spoken both in Letters and Allocutions, encourages us to do this. For that earnest desire, which We have learnt from the Divine Heart of Jesus, of fostering the work of reconciliation among those who are separated from Us daily urges Us more pressingly to action; and we are convinced that this most excellent Re-union cannot be better prepared and strengthened than by the power of prayer. The example of Christ is before us, for in order that His disciples might be one in faith and charity, he poured forth prayer and supplication to His Father. And concerning the efficacious prayer of His most holy Mother for the same end, there is a striking testimony in the Acts of the Apostles. Therein is described the first assembly of the Disciples, expecting with earnest hope and prayer the promised fullness of the Holy Spirit. And the presence of Mary united with them in prayer is specially indicated: All these were persevering with one mind in prayer with Mary the Mother of Jesus (Acts i., 14). Wherefore as the nascent church rightly joined itself in prayer with her as the patroness and most excellent custodian of Unity, so in these times is it most opportune to do the same all over the Catholic World, particularly during the whole month of October, which we have long ago decreed to be dedicated and consecrated, by the solemn devotion of the Rosary, to the Divine Mother, in order to implore her for the afflicted Church. Let then the zeal for this prayer everywhere be re-kindled, particularly for the end of Holy Unity. Nothing will be more agreeable and acceptable to Mary; for, as she is most closely united with Christ she especially wishes and desires that they who have received the same Baptism with Him may be united with Him and with one another in the same faith and perfect charity. So may the sublime mysteries of this same faith by means of the Rosary devotion be more deeply impressed in men’s minds, with the happy result that “we may imitate what they contain and obtain what they promise.” (Pope Leo XIII, Fidentem Piumque Animum, September 20, 1896.)

“And the time it occupies can delay no man’s business.”

Translation in our own days: Spend less time—like no time at all—glued to the babbling idiots of naturalism Do not permit yourselves to be agitated. Worse yet, do not seek out the agitation on daily basis. Why all the endless histrionics? Why all the breathless emails announcing the end of the world? Why?

Pray more Rosaries.

We need to pray Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary with fervor. Men need to be reminded of this fact on a daily basis. Our Lady has exhorted us to pray her Most Holy Rosary, which is one sure way to win the favor of Heaven and of planting seeds for the conversion of men and their nations to the true Faith, without which there can be true order in the souls of men or in their societies.

We must also continue to pray to Our Lady with confidence as one of her titles is Our Lady of Confidence, and it is indeed with confidence that we must pray to her every day for the restoration of a true and legitimate Successor of Saint Peter, who will never make concessions to error nor treat Communism as anything other than a tool for the adversary to make warfare upon Christ the King and His true Church.

Part Two

Although fast-breaking events in a world gone mad occupy the attention of so many these days, the purpose of this website is to help those who access it to see the world more clearly through the eyes of the true Faith without becoming overwrought with the histrionics into which so many Catholics, no matter where they may fall along the vast expanse of the ecclesiastical divide during this time of apostasy and betrayal, become so engrossed as they lose sight of all supernatural perspective and thereby exhibit little if any understanding that God has known from all eternity that we would be living at this time and that the graces His Co-Equal, Co-Eternal Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, won for us during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross are more than sufficient for us to suffer well as His consecrated slaves through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. While I still write about the madness of a world gone mad and will do so yet again after this commentary is completed, I take a much longer view of things than many other commentators who are obsessed with the here and now.

This particular commentary continues a survey of some of our more recent true popes responded to attacks on the Faith in general and upon believing Catholics in particular.

It should be noted at the outset that the decisions made by a true Successor of Saint Peter on matters of discipline and diplomacy are not protected by the charism of Papal Infallibility. Popes can be bad judges of character and place their trust in cardinals, bishops, and priests who are unworthy of it, and they can make bad decisions about how to respond to various threats made against Holy Mother Church’s liberties and attacks upon individual Catholics. Although Catholics are not free to publicly criticize a pope during his lifetime, which is why Pope Leo XIII issued Epistola Tua, June 17, 1885, and Est Sane Molestum, December 17, 1888, when he was being criticized by French royalists because of his policy of rapprochement with the French Third Republic, it is possible for Catholic historians to review such decisions after a pope’s death. Pope Leo XIII’s use of diplomacy to deal with Otto von Bismarck and the leaders of the anticlerical French Third Republic, to say nothing of his trust in Cardinal Mariano Rampolla, whose longtime personal secretary, Giacomo della Chiesa, became Pope Benedict XV, who temporized Pope Saint Pius X’s firmness against Modernism, has been the subject of much historical debate since his, Pope Leo’s death. Similarly, Pope Pius XI’s trust in the “good intentions” of Plutarco Elias Calles in Mexico, which he came to regret bitterly, and Pope Pius XII’s personnel decisions have been the subject of much discussion and debate over the years.

Thus, as noted just above, Pope Leo XIII, trained in the Holy See’s diplomatic service, believed that the French Third Republic was a legitimate government to which French Catholics had an obligation to accept even though it had come to power after the French Revolution of 1871 during which the Archbishop of Paris, Georges Darboy, was executed:

18. And how are these political changes of which We speak produced? They sometimes follow in the wake of violent crises, too often of a bloody character, in the midst of which preexisting governments totally disappear; then anarchy holds sway, and soon public order is shaken to its very foundations and finally overthrown. From that time onward a social need obtrudes itself upon the nation; it must provide for itself without delay. Is it not its privilege — or, better still, its duty — to defend itself against a state of affairs troubling it so deeply, and to re-establish public peace in the tranquillity of order? Now, this social need justifies the creation and the existence of new governments, whatever form they take; since, in the hypothesis wherein we reason, these new governments are a requisite to public order, all public order being impossible without a government. Thence it follows that, in similar junctures, all the novelty is limited to the political form of civil power, or to its mode of transmission; it in no wise affects the power considered in itself. This continues to be immutable and worthy of respect, as, considered in its nature, it is constituted to provide for the common good, the supreme end which gives human society its origin. To put it otherwise, in all hypotheses, civil power, considered as such, is from God, always from God: “For there is no power but from God.”[9]

19. Consequently, when new governments representing this immutable power are constituted, their acceptance is not only permissible but even obligatory, being imposed by the need of the social good which has made and which upholds them. This is all the more imperative because an insurrection stirs up hatred among citizens, provokes civil war, and may throw a nation into chaos and anarchy, and this great duty of respect and dependence will endure as long as the exigencies of the common good shall demand it, since this good is, after God, the first and last law in society.

20. Thus the wisdom of the Church explains itself in the maintenance of her relations with the numerous governments which have succeeded one another in France in less than a century, each change causing violent shocks. Such a line of conduct would be the surest and most salutary for all Frenchmen in their civil relations with the republic, which is the actual government of their nation. Far be it from them to encourage the political dissensions which divide them; all their efforts should be combined to preserve and elevate the moral greatness of their native land.

21. But a difficulty presents itself. “This Republic,” it is said, “is animated by such anti-Christian sentiments that honest men, Catholics particularly, could not conscientiously accept it.” This, more than anything else, has given rise to dissensions, and in fact aggravated them…. These regrettable differences would have been avoided if the very considerable distinction between constituted power and legislation had been carefully kept in view. In so much does legislation differ from political power and its form, that under a system of government most excellent in form legislation could be detestable; while quite the opposite under a regime most imperfect in form, might be found excellent legislation. It were an easy task to prove this truth, history in hand, but what would be the use? All are convinced of it. And who, better than the Church, is in position to know it — she who has striven to maintain habitual relations with all political governments? Assuredly she, better than any other power, could tell the consolation or sorrow occasioned her by the laws of the various governments by which nations have been ruled from the Roman Empire down to the present. (Pope Leo XIII, Au Milieu des Sollicitudes, February 16, 1892.)

Pope Leo XIII made a distinction between the acceptance of the fact of a particular government and a rejection of any false principles upon which it might be based and upon which it might operate, noting in particular the falsehood that is the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic principle of “separation of Church and State” that has been accepted as virtuous by the conciliar revolutionaries:

We shall not hold to the same language on another point, concerning the principle of the separation of the State and Church, which is equivalent to the separation of human legislation from Christian and divine legislation. We do not care to interrupt Ourselves here in order to demonstrate the absurdity of such a separation; each one will understand for himself. As soon as the State refuses to give to God what belongs to God, by a necessary consequence it refuses to give to citizens that to which, as men, they have a right; as, whether agreeable or not to accept, it cannot be denied that man’s rights spring from his duty toward God. Whence if follows that the State, by missing in this connection the principal object of its institution, finally becomes false to itself by denying that which is the reason of its own existence. These superior truths are so clearly proclaimed by the voice of even natural reason, that they force themselves upon all who are not blinded by the violence of passion; therefore Catholics cannot be too careful in defending themselves against such a separation. In fact, to wish that the State would separate itself from the Church would be to wish, by a logical sequence, that the Church be reduced to the liberty of living according to the law common to all citizens….It is true that in certain countries this state of affairs exists. It is a condition which, if it have numerous and serious inconveniences, also offers some advantages — above all when, by a fortunate inconsistency, the legislator is inspired by Christian principles — and, though these advantages cannot justify the false principle of separation nor authorize its defense, they nevertheless render worthy of toleration a situation which, practically, might be worse.

29. But in France, a nation Catholic in her traditions and by the present faith of the great majority of her sons, the Church should not be placed in the precarious position to which she must submit among other peoples; and the better that Catholics understand the aim of the enemies who desire this separation, the less will they favor it. To these enemies, and they say it clearly enough, this separation means that political legislation be entirely independent of religious legislation; nay, more, that Power be absolutely indifferent to the interests of Christian society, that is to say, of the Church; in fact, that it deny her very existence. But they make a reservation formulated thus: As soon as the Church, utilizing the resources which common law accords to the least among Frenchmen, will, by redoubling her native activity, cause her work to prosper, then the State intervening, can and will put French Catholics outside the common law itself. . . In a word: the ideal of these men would be a return to paganism: the State would recognize the Church only when it would be pleased to persecute her. (Pope Leo XIII, Au Milieu des Sollicitudes, February 16, 1892.)

Pope Leo XIII’s trust in the willingness of the French Third Republic’s leaders to work with believing Catholics proved to be misplaced, causing his successor, Pope Saint Pius X, to issue two different encyclical letters, Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, and Une Fois Encore, January 6, 1907, within eleven months of each other following the French law of separation in 1905 that violated both the spirit and the letter of the Concordat to which Pope Leo XIII had made reference in Au Milieu des Sollictudes.

No matter his solicitude towards the French Third Republic, Pope Leo XIII was very militant in his opposition to the anti-clerical government of the Kingdom of Italy to such an extent that, contrary to his exhortation to French Catholics to participate in the affairs of their republic, he banned Catholics from voting in Italian elections and from cooperating in any way with the anticlerical Masons who had overthrown the Papal States two decades earlier:

The war began by the overthrow of the civil power of the Popes, the downfall of which, according to the secret intentions of the real leaders, afterwards openly avowed, was, under a political pretext, to be the means of enslaving at least, if not of destroying the supreme spiritual power of the Roman Pontiffs. — That no doubt might remain as to the true object of this warfare, there followed quickly the suppression of the Religious Orders; and thereby a great reduction in the number of evangelical laborers for the propagation of the faith amongst the heathens, and for the sacred ministry and religious service of Catholic countries. — Later, the obligation of military service was extended to ecclesiastics, with the necessary result that many and grave obstacles were put to the recruiting and due formation even of the secular Clergy. Hands were laid upon ecclesiastical property, partly by absolute confiscation, and partly by charging it with enormous burdens, so as to impoverish the Clergy and the Church, and to deprive the Church of what is necessary for its temporal support and for carrying on institutions and works in aid of its divine apostolate. This the sectaries themselves have openly declared. To lessen the influence of the Clergy and of clerical bodies, one only efficacious means must be employed: to strip them all their goods, and to reduce them to absolute poverty. So also the action of the State is of itself all directed to efface from the nation its religious and Christian character. From the laws, and from the whole of official life, every religious inspiration and idea is systematically banished, when not directly assailed. Every public manifestation of faith and of Catholic piety is either forbidden or, under vain pretenses, in a thousand ways impeded.-From the family are taken away its foundation and religious constitution by the proclaiming of civil marriage, as it is called; and also by the entirely lay education which is now demanded, from the first elements to the higher teaching of the universities, so that the rising generations, as far as this can be effected by the State, have to grow up without any idea of religion, and without the first essential notions of their duties towards God. This is to put the ax to the root. No more universal and efficacious means could be imagined of withdrawing society, and families, and individuals, from the influence of the Church and of the faith. To lay Clericalism (or Catholicism) waste in its foundations and in its very sources of life, namely, in the school and in the family: such is the authentic declaration of Masonic writers. (Pope Leo XIII, Dall’Alto Dell’Apostolico Seggio, October 15, 1890.)

Brief Interjection:

As indulgent as Pope Leo XIII was to the leaders of the French Third Republic, men who believed in the exact same errors as the Masonic anti-clerical leaders of the Kingdom of Italy, he was unstinting in his explicit enumeration of the evils that Masonry and its diabolical spirit had wrought in his homeland. These evils are universal in nature, perhaps none more so that state-sponsored efforts to “cancel” public expressions of the Catholic Faith and to stigmatize those who attempt to use their Faith as the foundation of public policy which Pope Leo had summarized as follows in the paragraph above: “Every public manifestation of faith and of Catholic piety is either forbidden or, under vain pretenses, in a thousand ways impeded.” This is true in all so-called “civilized” nations of the Western world and it is being practice in a virulent form today by the Red Chinese and by Daniel Ortega’s thugs in Nicaragua while Jorge Mario Bergoglio says nothing in the midst of open persecutions against Catholics.

Pope Leo XIII understood that what was happening in his beloved Italy (and was also happening in France) would provide a model for the rest of the world:

This description applies to the United States of America today just as much as it did to Italy one hundred thirty-two years ago.

Pope Leo XIII, who had condemned the use of boycotting in Ireland to gain independence from England and urged Catholics in Spain to cooperate with the authorities there, was so concerned about the situation in Italy that he issued Custodi de Quella Fede, December 8, 1892, to amplify his opposition to the Masonic schemes in his native land that existed also in France, Spain, Germany, and Portugal.

The following two paragraphs explain the social ruin to which must befall men and their nations when the license of error and the banishment of the true Faith from public life provide the basis of governments and public policy:

6. We do not wish to exaggerate the masonic power by attributing to its direct and immediate action all the evils which presently preoccupy Us. However, you can clearly see its spirit in the facts which We have just recorded and in many others which We could recall. That spirit, which is the implacable enemy of Christ and of the Church, tries all ways, uses all arts, and prevails upon all means. It seizes from the Church its first-born daughter and seizes from Christ His favored nation, the seat of His Vicar on earth and the center of Catholic unity. To see the evil and efficacious influence of this spirit on our affairs, We have more than a few fleeting indications and the series of facts which have succeeded themselves for thirty years. Proud of its successes, the sect herself has spoken out and told us all its past accomplishments and future goals. It regards the public powers as its instruments, witting or not, which is to say that the impious sect boasts as one of its principal works the religious persecution which has troubled and is troubling our Italy. Though often executed by other hands, this persecution is inspired and promoted by masonry, in an immediate or mediate, direct or indirect manner, by flattery or threats, seduction or revolution.

7. The road is very short from religious to social ruin. The heart of man is no longer raised to heavenly hopes and loves; capable and needing the infinite, it throws itself insatiably on the goods of this earth. Inevitably there is a perpetual struggle of avid passions to enjoy, become rich, and rise. Then we encounter a large and inexhaustible source of grudges, discords, corruptions, and crimes. In our Italy there was no lack of moral and social disorders before the present events — but what a sorrowful spectacle we see in our days! That loving respect which forms domestic harmony is substantially diminished; paternal authority is too often unrecognized by children and parents alike. Disagreements are frequent, divorce common. Civil discords and resentful anger between the various orders increase every day in the cities. New generations which grew up in a spirit of misunderstood freedom are unleashed in the cities, generations which do not respect anything from above or below. The cities teem with incitements to vice, precocious crimes, and public scandals. The state should be content with the high and noble office of recognizing, protecting, and helping divine and human rights in their harmonious universality. Now, however, the state believes itself almost a judge and disowns these rights or restricts them at will. Finally, the general social order is undermined at its foundations. Books and journals, schools and universities, clubs and theaters, monuments and political discourse, photographs and the fine arts, everything conspires to pervert minds and corrupt hearts. Meanwhile the oppressed and suffering people tremble and the anarchic sects arouse themselves. The working classes raise their heads and go to swell the ranks of socialism, communism, and anarchy. Characters exhaust themselves and many souls, no longer knowing how to suffer nobly nor how to redeem themselves manfully, take their lives with cowardly suicide.

8. Such are the fruits which the masonic sect has borne to us Italians. And after that it yearns to come before you, extolling its merits towards Italy. It likewise yearns to give Us and all those who, heeding Our words, remain faithful to Jesus Christ, the calumnious title of enemies of the state. The facts reveal the merits of this guilty sect toward our peninsula, “merits” which bear repeating. The facts say that masonic patriotism is no less than sectarian egotism which yearns to dominate everything, particularly the modern states which unite and concentrate everything in their hands. The facts say that in the plans of masonry, the names of political independence, equality, civilization, and progress aimed to facilitate the independence of man from God in our country. From them, license of error and vice and union of faction at the expense of other citizens have grown. The easy and delicious enjoyment of life by the world’s fortunate is nurtured in the same source. A people redeemed by divine blood have thus returned to divisions, corruptions, and the shames of paganism. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

The license of error and union of faction have indeed grown while men and their nations have become characterized by the sorts of divisions and corruptions that demagogues such as Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., seek to exploit and to use as justification for the suppression of dissent while totalitarianism is imposed in the name of “saving” the demigod of democracy.

Quite unlike the conciliar “popes,” who have preached “solidarity” with the merchants of error and have treated false religions with respect and familiarity, Pope Leo XIII warned the Catholics of Italy to avoid precisely what the conciliar revolutionaries have endorsed and practiced with ready abandon:

15. Everyone should avoid familiarity or friendship with anyone suspected of belonging to masonry or to affiliated groups. Know them by their fruits and avoid them. Every familiarity should be avoided, not only with those impious libertines who openly promote the character of the sect, but also with those who hide under the mask of universal tolerance, respect for all religions, and the craving to reconcile the maxims of the Gospel with those of the revolution. These men seek to reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the state without God.

16. Every Christian should shun books and journals which distill the poison of impiety and which stir up the fire of unrestrained desires or sensual passions. Groups and reading clubs where the masonic spirit stalks its prey should be likewise shunned. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

This is one of the best proofs that the counterfeit church of conciliarism cannot be the Catholic Church as it has made its peace with the precepts of the revolution and have indeed sought to “reconcile Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the State without God.”

Additionally, longtime readers of this website know that Pope Leo XIII went to great lengths in Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895, to condemn the framework of Church-State relations in the United States of America and to condemn the heresy of Americanism in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899, which is nothing than an effort to reconcile “Christ and Belial, the Church of God and the State without God.”

Lest critics assert that Pope Leo XIII’s Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895, contained uncritical praise of the Constitution of the United States of America, it is important to note yet again that His Holiness only noted that there was no overt hostility to the Faith and that the American republic was well-ordered at that time. He was not endorsing the American scheme of religious neutrality, noting very specifically that the growth of the Catholic Church in the United States of America was the result of the working of the fecundity of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, not the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America:

The main factor, no doubt, in bringing things into this happy state were the ordinances and decrees of your synods, especially of those which in more recent times were convened and confirmed by the authority of the Apostolic See. But, moreover (a fact which it gives pleasure to acknowledge), thanks are due to the equity of the laws which obtain in America and to the customs of the well-ordered Republic. For the Church amongst you, unopposed by the Constitution and government of your nation, fettered by no hostile legislation, protected against violence by the common laws and the impartiality of the tribunals, is free to live and act without hindrance. Yet, though all this is true, it would be very erroneous to draw the conclusion that in America is to be sought the type of the most desirable status of the Church, or that it would be universally lawful or expedient for State and Church to be, as in America, dissevered and divorced. The fact that Catholicity with you is in good condition, nay, is even enjoying a prosperous growth, is by all means to be attributed to the fecundity with which God has endowed His Church, in virtue of which unless men or circumstances interfere, she spontaneously expands and propagates herself; but she would bring forth more abundant fruits if, in addition to liberty, she enjoyed the favor of the laws and the patronage of the public authority. (Pope Leo XIII, Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895.)

The late Dr. Justin Walsh understood James Cardinal Gibbons' 1887 sermon in the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere for exactly what it was: heresy in the making. Dr. Walsh explained in an article in The Angelus magazine how Pope Leo XIII's Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895, was a complete repudiation of the Gibbons view of religious liberty:

It was clear by 1895 that Americanist views were incompatible with orthodox Catholicism. In the spiritual realm [Bishop John] Keane was hell-bent on fostering interdenominational congresses. In the temporal realm Ireland, and to a lesser extent Gibbons, had peculiar penchants for meddling in things better left alone by Churchmen. In such a situation action by Rome was inevitable. It came on January 6 when Leo XIII addressed Longinqua Oceani to American bishops.

The Pope began by noting that the United States had a "good Constitution" and as a result Catholicism was unhindered, protected alike by law and the impartial administration of justice. Nonetheless the Holy Father warned...:

...it would be an error to conclude that America furnishes an example of the ideal condition for the Church or that it is always lawful and expedient that civil and religious affairs should be disjoined and kept apart....

According to the Pope, in a formal letter addressed to all American bishops, it would be an error to say that religious liberty and the separation of Church and State were beneficial to the Catholic Church. In explicit refutation of Gibbons's notion that American liberty caused the Church to "blossom like a rose," the Pope asserted that if the Catholic religion "is safe among you and is even blessed with increase" it was "entirely due to the divine fruitfulness of the Church." He concluded tellingly that "the fruit would be still more abundant if the Church enjoyed not only liberty but the favor of...laws and...protection of the public power."13

Few, if any, heeded the Holy Father's warnings. They redoubled their efforts, with immediately dire consequences for Denis O'Connell and John Keane. O'Connell fell first when, in the summer of 1895, he was removed as rector of the North American College. His cohorts unsuccessfully defended him, although Gibbons did succeed in keeping him in Rome as rector of the Cardinal's titular church. From this vantage point O'Connell became "a kind of liaison officer of the American hierarchy, and more particularly its left wing" until he returned to the US in 1903. Catholic liberals claim that "the suppositious liberalism of the Catholic University" was responsible for the dismissal in 1896 of John J. Keane. In fact the liberalism of neither the CUA nor its rector was "suppositious." As the California Volksfreund noted, "It was clear enough from the beginning that Americanism was interwoven with the plan for the...University." This newspaper called instead for something that Keane could never provide: "a Catholic University with Catholic professors [where] the doctrine of the Catholic, and not of an American Church, is taught. (Dr. Justin Walsh, Heresy Blossoms Like a Rose.)

As has been noted on this site many times, whatever framework of order existed under the Constitution of the United States of America was bound to collapse over the course of time. This is especially the case as it was the Actual Graces that flowed out into the world from the Masses offered by countless thousands of true priests that upheld as much social order and comity that existed prior to the spigot of such graces being shut off as a result of the liturgical barrenness of the Protestant and Judeo-Masonic Novus Ordo liturgical service.

Moreover, Pope Leo XIII explained later in Longiqua Oceani, which contained subtle rebukes on various points, that the American bishops had to teach his encyclical letters on the civil state and human liberty that he knew were not being taught from Catholic pulpits or in Catholic schools, colleges or universities:

15. As regards civil affairs, experience has shown how important it is that the citizens should be upright and virtuous. In a free State, unless justice be generally cultivated, unless the people be repeatedly and diligently urged to observe the precepts and laws of the Gospel, liberty itself may be pernicious. Let those of the clergy, therefore, who are occupied with the instruction of the multitude, treat plainly this topic of the duties of citizens, so that all may understand and feel the necessity, in political life, of conscientiousness, self restraint, and integrity; for that cannot be lawful in public which is unlawful in private affairs. On this whole subject there are to be found, as you know, in the encyclical letters written by Us from time to time in the course of Our pontificate, many things which Catholics should attend to and observe. In these writings and expositions We have treated of human liberty, of the chief Christian duties, of civil government, and of the Christian constitution of States, drawing Our principles as well from the teaching of the Gospels as from reason. They, then, who wish to be good citizens and discharge their duties faithfully may readily learn from Our Letters the ideal of an upright life. In like manner, let the priests be persistent in keeping before the minds of the people the enactments of the Third Council of Baltimore, particularly those which inculcate the virtue of temperance, the frequent use of the sacraments and the observance of the just laws and institutions of the Republic. (Pope Leo XIII, Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895.)

To amplify this point, it should be pointed out again that the Governor of the State of New York, Alfred Emanuel Smith, responded as follows in 1927 when he had heard that a Protestant lawyer, Charles Marshall, who was very well-acquainted with papal encyclical letters on the civil state even though he rejected their content and authority entirety, had written an article stating that Smith, who was considering a second bid for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in 1928, was bound to obey Pope Pius XI’s encyclical letter on the Social Kingship of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Quas Primas:

“What the hell is an encyclical?” (Vatican II and American Politics.)

When informed of the teachings contained in those encyclical letters that were critical of the religiously neutral civil state and unfettered civil liberty, Smith wrote a response to Marshall’s article that was mostly the work of the decorated Catholic priest, Father Francis Duffy, who had served with valor as a military chaplain during World War I but was nonetheless a firm Americanist:

Al Smith’s response to Charles Marshall appeared in the next issue of The Atlantic Monthly under the title “Catholic and Patriot: Governor Smith Replies.” The words were Smith’s, but the ideas were Duffy’s. To be on the safe side, Judge Proskauer first showed the text to Cardinal Patrick Hayes, who read it and pronounced it “good Catholicism and good Americanism.” Marshall had raised the issue of the teaching in papal encyclicals. “By what right do you ask me to assume responsibility for any statement that may be made in any encyclical letter?” With transparent sincerity, he added: “I and all my children went to a parochial school. I never heard of any such stuff being taught or of anybody who claimed that it was.” (Vatican II and American Politics.)

Pope Leo XIII knew what he was doing when he wrote Longiqua Oceani thirty-two years before Smith’s response to Charles R. Marshall in The Atlantic Monthly, a response that was very similar to then United States Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s famous speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary.

Yet it is that the text of Longiqua Oceani reiterated Pope Leo XIII’s concern, expressed in Immortale Dei, on November 1, 1885, that Catholics in public life refuse to treat their Faith as a “private” matter. Moreover, Pope Leo reminded the American bishops to warn Catholics of the dangers of reading non-Catholic newspapers and journals of opinion, which today would extend as well to neoconservative columnists and commentators who combine a supposed concern for limited government with full-throated support for the murderous policies of the State of Israel. His Holiness also reiterated and applied to the United States of America the warnings he had issued to Catholic writers and journalists in Epistola Tua, June 17, 1885, and Est Sane Molestum, December 17, 1888, to obey their bishops:

Let them, however, seriously reflect that their writings, if not positively prejudicial to religion, will surely be of slight service to it unless in concord of minds they all seek the same end. They who desire to be of real service to the Church, and with their pens heartily to defend the Catholic cause, should carry on the conflict with perfect unanimity, and, as it were, with serried ranks, for they rather inflict than repel war if they waste their strength by discord. In like manner their work, instead of being profitable and fruitful, becomes injurious and disastrous whenever they presume to call before their tribunal the decisions and acts of bishops, and, casting off due reverence, cavil and find fault; not perceiving how great a disturbance of order, how many evils are thereby produced. Let them, then, be mindful of their duty, and not overstep the proper limits of moderation. The bishops, placed in the lofty position of authority, are to be obeyed, and suitable honor befitting the magnitude and sanctity of their office should be paid them. Now, this reverence, "which it is lawful to no one to neglect," should of necessity be eminently conspicuous and exemplary in Catholic journalists. For journals, naturally circulating far and wide, come daily into the hands of everybody, and exert no small influence upon the opinions and morals of the multitude. (Pope Leo XIII, Longiqua Oceani, January 6, 1895.)

In other words, the spirit of the “resist while recognize” movement has both Gallicanist and Americanist roots. To quote the late Melvin Allen Israel, better known as “Mel Allen” (even those who rooted against the incarnation of all evil in the world, the New York Yankees, respected the broadcasting skills of Mel Allen in his prime in the 1950s and early-1960s), “How ‘bout that, sports fans.”

The American bishops, of course, did not take Pope Leo XIII’s subtle but nevertheless clear rebukes in Longiuqa Oceani with any degree of seriousness, which is why Pope Leo XIII wrote Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae to James Cardinal Gibbons, the Americanist Archbishop of Baltimore, Maryland, between 1877 and 1921, in Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899, to explain that Catholics in this country faced dangers of a more subtle but nonetheless grave kind as those that had been faced by Catholics who lived during periods of overt persecution and martyrdom:

But, beloved son, in this present matter of which we are speaking, there is even a greater danger and a more manifest opposition to Catholic doctrine and discipline in that opinion of the lovers of novelty, according to which they hold such liberty should be allowed in the Church, that her supervision and watchfulness being in some sense lessened, allowance be granted the faithful, each one to follow out more freely the leading of his own mind and the trend of his own proper activity. They are of opinion that such liberty has its counterpart in the newly given civil freedom which is now the right and the foundation of almost every secular state. (Pope Leo XIII, Apostolical Letter to James Cardinal Gibbons, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, January 22, 1899.)

In other words, Pope Leo XIII understood that Catholics were being converted by the ethos of Americanism to view Holy Mother Church through the eyes of the world rather than to view the world through the eyes of the Holy Faith even though they did not realize that this was the case, making the matter all the graver to souls and even for the common temporal good of the nation itself. The Americanist bishops believed that there had to be an “accommodation” with the spirit of the world, a point, of course, that has been made on this site endless numbers of times and is the thesis of volume one of Conversion in Reverse: How the Ethos of Americanism Converted Catholics.)

Pope Leo XIII’s condemnation of the errors of Modernity was firm no matter his indulgence towards those errors as they manifested themselves in France as he trusted in the ability of Catholics to work within the framework of the Third Republic to be a force for mitigating the anticlerical spirit there.

Ironically, Pope Leo XIII’s successor, Pope Saint Pius X, was more indulgent of the situation in Italy and more condemning of the one in France that he had been.

Pope Saint Pius X reversed Pope Leo XIII’s ban on Catholics voting in Italian elections according to the judgments of their diocesan bishops as he emphasized the importance of Catholic Action to restore all things in Christ the King:

7. For Catholic Action to be most effective it is not enough that it adapt itself to social needs only. It must also employ all those practical means which the findings of social and economic studies place in its hands. It must profit from the experience gained elsewhere. It must be vitally aware of the conditions of civil society, and the public life of states. Otherwise it runs the risk of wasting time in searching for novelties and hazardous theories while overlooking the good, safe and tried means at hand. Again, perhaps it may propose institutions and methods belonging to other times but no longer understood by the people of the present day. Or, finally, it may go only half way, failing to use, in the measure in which they are granted, those civil rights which modern constitutions today offer all, and therefore also Catholics. In particular, the present constitution of states offers indiscriminately to all the right to influence public opinion, and Catholics, with due respect for the obligations imposed by the law of God and the precepts of the Church, can certainly use this to their advantage. In such a way they can prove themselves as capable as others (in fact, more capable than others) by cooperating in the material and civil welfare of the people. In so doing they shall acquire that authority and prestige which will make them capable of defending and promoting a higher good, namely, that of the soul.

18. These civil rights are of various kinds, even to the extent of directly participating in the political life of the country by representing the people in the legislative halls. Most serious reasons, however, dissuade Us, Venerable Brethren, from departing from that norm which Our Predecessor, Leo XIII, of blessed memory, decreed during his Pontificate. According to his decree it was universally forbidden in Italy for Catholics to participate in the legislative power. Other reasons equally grave, however, founded upon the supreme good of society which must be preserved at all costs demand that in particular cases a dispensation from the law be granted especially when you, Venerable Brethren, recognize the strict necessity of it for the good of souls and the interest of your churches, and you request such a dispensation.

19. This concession places a duty on all Catholics to prepare themselves prudently and seriously for political life in case they may be called to it. Hence it is of the utmost importance that the same activity (previously so praiseworthily planned by Catholics for the purpose of preparing themselves by means of good electoral organization for the administrative life of common and provincial councils) be extended to a suitable preparation and organization for political life. This was already recommended by the Circular of December 3, 1904, issued by the general Presidency of Economic Works in Italy. At the same time the other principles which regulate the conscience of every true Catholic must be inculcated and put into practice. Above all else he must remember to be and to act in every circumstance as a true Catholic, accepting and fulfilling public offices with the firm and constant resolution of promoting by every means the social and economic welfare of the country and particularly of the people, according to the maxims of a truly Christian civilization, and at the same time defending the supreme interests of the Church, which are those of religion and justice. (Pope Saint Pius X, Il Fermo Proposito, June 11, 1905.)

Unlike the conciliar revolutionaries, who are most content with the anti-Incarnational civil state of Modernity, Pope Saint Pius X premised his concession to permit Catholics to participate in the political life of an Italian government that had been hostile to Holy Mother Church for over four decades upon their acting in ever circumstance as true Catholics. This is quite a distinction, of course, from “Pope Francis” reaffirming Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and Nancy Patricia D’Alesandro Pelosi in their support for surgical baby-killing under cover of the civil law if that is what their “conscience” tells them to do. Pope Saint Pius X knew that a Catholic’s conscience must be formed by the truth and that he had a duty to promote Catholic truth as the foundation for a just social order. Any kind of participation in public life that does not tend to the promotion of Catholic truth in matters pertaining to the good of souls is inauthentic and of little use even in the practical order to pursue the common temporal good.

When it came to France, though, Pope Saint Pius X was absolutely unstinting in his complete rejection of the law of separation Holy Mother Church’s eldest daughter, and he noted in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, how French officials violated both the spirit and the letter of the Concordat they had made with Pope Leo XIII:

Our soul is full of sorrowful solicitude and Our heart overflows with grief, when Our thoughts dwell upon you. How, indeed, could it be otherwise, immediately after the promulgation of that law which, by sundering violently the old ties that linked your nation with the Apostolic See, creates for the Catholic Church in France a situation unworthy of her and ever to be lamented? That is, beyond question, an event of the gravest import, and one that must be deplored by all the right-minded, for it is as disastrous to society as it is to religion; but it is an event which can have surprised nobody who has paid any attention to the religious policy followed in France of late years. For you, Venerable Brethren, it will certainly have been nothing new or strange, witnesses as you have been of the many dreadful blows aimed from time to time by the public authority at religion. You have seen the sanctity and the inviolability of Christian marriage outraged by legislative acts in formal contradiction with them; the schools and hospitals laicized; clerics torn from their studies and from ecclesiastical discipline to be subjected to military service; the religious congregations dispersed and despoiled, and their members for the most part reduced to the last stage of destitution. Other legal measures which you all know have followed: the law ordaining public prayers at the beginning of each Parliamentary Session and of the assizes has been abolished; the signs of mourning traditionally observed on board the ships on Good Friday suppressed; the religious character effaced from the judicial oath; all actions and emblems serving in any way to recall the idea of religion banished from the courts, the schools, the army, the navy, and in a word from all public establishments. These measures and others still which, one after another really separated the Church from the State, were but so many steps designedly made to arrive at complete and official separation, as the authors of them have publicly and frequently admitted.

2. On the other hand the Holy See has spared absolutely no means to avert this great calamity. While it was untiring in warning those who were at the head of affairs in France, and in conjuring them over and over again to weigh well the immensity of the evils that would infallibly result from their separatist policy, it at the same time lavished upon France the most striking proofs of indulgent affection. It has then reason to hope that gratitude would have stayed those politicians on their downward path, and brought them at last to relinquish their designs. But all has been in vain-the attentions, good offices, and efforts of Our Predecessor and Ourself. The enemies of religion have succeeded at last in effecting by violence what they have long desired, in defiance of your rights as a Catholic nation and of the wishes of all who think rightly. At a moment of such gravity for the Church, therefore, filled with the sense of Our Apostolic responsibility, We have considered it Our duty to raise Our voice and to open Our heart to you, Venerable Brethren, and to your clergy and people-to all of you whom We have ever cherished with special affection but whom We now, as is only right, love more tenderly than ever.

3. That the State must be separated from the Church is a thesis absolutely false, a most pernicious error. Based, as it is, on the principle that the State must not recognize any religious cult, it is in the first place guilty of a great injustice to God; for the Creator of man is also the Founder of human societies, and preserves their existence as He preserves our own. We owe Him, therefore, not only a private cult, but a public and social worship to honor Him. Besides, this thesis is an obvious negation of the supernatural order. It limits the action of the State to the pursuit of public prosperity during this life only, which is but the proximate object of political societies; and it occupies itself in no fashion (on the plea that this is foreign to it) with their ultimate object which is man’s eternal happiness after this short life shall have run its course. But as the present order of things is temporary and subordinated to the conquest of man’s supreme and absolute welfare, it follows that the civil power must not only place no obstacle in the way of this conquest, but must aid us in effecting it. The same thesis also upsets the order providentially established by God in the world, which demands a harmonious agreement between the two societies. Both of them, the civil and the religious society, although each exercises in its own sphere its authority over them. It follows necessarily that there are many things belonging to them in common in which both societies must have relations with one another. Remove the agreement between Church and State, and the result will be that from these common matters will spring the seeds of disputes which will become acute on both sides; it will become more difficult to see where the truth lies, and great confusion is certain to arise. Finally, this thesis inflicts great injury on society itself, for it cannot either prosper or last long when due place is not left for religion, which is the supreme rule and the sovereign mistress in all questions touching the rights and the duties of men. Hence the Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State. Our illustrious predecessor, Leo XIII, especially, has frequently and magnificently expounded Catholic teaching on the relations which should subsist between the two societies. “Between them,” he says, “there must necessarily be a suitable union, which may not improperly be compared with that existing between body and soul.-“Quaedam intercedat necesse est ordinata colligatio (inter illas) quae quidem conjunctioni non immerito comparatur, per quam anima et corpus in homine copulantur.” He proceeds: “Human societies cannot, without becoming criminal, act as if God did not exist or refuse to concern themselves with religion, as though it were something foreign to them, or of no purpose to them…. As for the Church, which has God Himself for its author, to exclude her from the active life of the nation, from the laws, the education of the young, the family, is to commit a great and pernicious error. — “Civitates non possunt, citra scellus, gerere se tamquam si Deus omnino non esset, aut curam religionis velut alienam nihilque profuturam abjicere…. Ecclesiam vero, quam Deus ipse constituit, ab actione vitae excludere, a legibus, ab institutione adolescentium, a societate domestica, magnus et perniciousus est error.”[1]

4. And if it is true that any Christian State does something eminently disastrous and reprehensible in separating itself from the Church, how much more deplorable is it that France, of all nations in the world, would have entered on this policy; France which has been during the course of centuries the object of such great and special predilection on the part of the Apostolic See whose fortunes and glories have ever been closely bound up with the practice of Christian virtue and respect for religion. Leo XIII had truly good reason to say: “France cannot forget that Providence has united its destiny with the Holy See by ties too strong and too old that she should ever wish to break them. And it is this union that has been the source of her real greatness and her purest glories…. To disturb this traditional union would be to deprive the nation of part of her moral force and great influence in the world.”[2]

5. And the ties that consecrated this union should have been doubly inviolable from the fact that they were sanctioned by sworn treaties. The Concordat entered upon by the Sovereign Pontiff and the French Government was, like all treaties of the same kind concluded between States, a bilateral contract binding on both parties to it. The Roman Pontiff on the one side and the Head of the French Nation on the other solemnly stipulated both for themselves and their successors to maintain inviolate the pact they signed. Hence the same rule applied to the Concordat as to all international treaties, viz., the law of nations which prescribes that it could not be in any way annulled by one alone of the contracting parties. The Holy See has always observed with scrupulous fidelity the engagements it has made, and it has always required the same fidelity from the State. This is a truth which no impartial judge can deny. Yet to-day the State, by its sole authority, abrogates the solemn pact it signed. Thus it violates its sworn promise. To break with the Church, to free itself from her friendship, it has stopped at nothing, and has not hesitated to outrage the Apostolic See by this violation of the law of nations, and to disturb the social and political order itself — for the reciprocal security of nations in their relations with one another depends mainly on the inviolable fidelity and the sacred respect with which they observe their treaties.

6. The extent of the injury inflicted on the Apostolic See by the unilateral abrogation of the Concordat is notably aggravated by the manner in which the State has effected this abrogation. It is a principle admitted without controversy, and universally observed by all nations, that the breaking of a treaty should be previously and regularly notified, in a clear and explicit manner, to the other contracting party by the one which intends to put an end to the treaty. Yet not only has no notification of this kind been made to the Holy See, but no indication whatever on the subject has been conveyed to it. Thus the French Government has not hesitated to treat the Apostolic See without ordinary respect and without the courtesy that is never omitted even in dealing with the smallest States. Its officials, representatives though they were of a Catholic nation, have heaped contempt on the dignity and power of the Sovereign Pontiff, the Supreme Head of the Church, whereas they should have shown more respect to this power than to any other political power — and a respect all the greater from the fact that the Holy See is concerned with the eternal welfare of souls, and that its mission extends everywhere.

7. If We now proceed to examine in itself the law that has just been promulgated, We find, therein, fresh reason for protesting still more energetically. When the State broke the links of the Concordat, and separated itself from the Church, it ought, as a natural consequence, to have left her independence, and allowed her to enjoy peacefully that liberty, granted by the common law, which it pretended to assign to her. Nothing of the kind has been done. We recognize in the law many exceptional and odiously restrictive provisions, the effect of which is to place the Church under the domination of the civil power. It has been a source of bitter grief to Us to see the State thus encroach on matters which are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Church; and We bewail this all the more from the fact that the State, dead to all sense of equity and justice, has thereby created for the Church of France a situation grievous, crushing, and oppressive of her most sacred rights.

8. For the provisions of the new law are contrary to the constitution on which the Church was founded by Jesus Christ. The Scripture teaches us, and the tradition of the Fathers confirms the teaching, that the Church is the mystical body of Christ, ruled by the Pastors and Doctors (I Ephes. iv. II sqq.) — a society of men containing within its own fold chiefs who have full and perfect powers for ruling, teaching and judging (Matt. xxviii. 18-20; xvi. 18, 19; xviii. 17; Tit. ii. 15; 11. Cor. x. 6; xiii. 10. & c.) It follows that the Church is essentially an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of per sons, the Pastors and the flock, those who occupy a rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful. So distinct are these categories that with the pastoral body only rests the necessary right and authority for promoting the end of the society and directing all its members towards that end; the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors. St. Cyprian, Martyr, expresses this truth admirably when he writes: “Our Lord, whose precepts we must revere and observe, in establishing the episcopal dignity and the nature of the Church, addresses Peter thus in the gospel: “Ego dico tibi, quia tu es Petrus,” etc. Hence, through all the vicissitudes of time and circumstance, the plan of the episcopate and the constitution of the Church have always been found to be so framed that the Church rests on the Bishops, and that all its acts are ruled by them. — “Dominus Noster, cujus praecepta metuere et servare debemus, episcopi honorem et ecclesiae suae rationem disponens, in evangelio loquitur et dicit Petro: Ego dico tibi quia tu es Petrus, etc…. Inde per temporum et successionum vices Episcoporum ordinatio et Ecclesiae ratio decurrit, ut Ecclesia super Episcopos constituatur et omnis actus Ecclesiae per eosdem praepositos gubernetur” (St. Cyprian, Epist. xxvii.-xxviii. ad Lapsos ii. i.) St. Cyprian affirms that all this is based on Divine law, “divina lege fundatum.” The Law of Separation, in opposition to these principles, assigns the administration and the supervision of public worship not to the hierarchical body divinely instituted by Our Savior, but to an association formed of laymen. To this association it assigns a special form and a juridical personality, and considers it alone as having rights and responsibilities in the eyes of the law in all matters appertaining to religious worship. It is this association which is to have the use of the churches and sacred edifices, which is to possess ecclesiastical property, real and personal, which is to have at its disposition (though only for a time) the residences of the Bishops and priests and the seminaries; which is to administer the property, regulate collections, and receive the alms and the legacies destined for religious worship. As for the hierarchical body of Pastors, the law is completely silent. And if it does prescribe that the associations of worship are to be constituted in harmony with the general rules of organization of the cult whose existence they are designed to assure, it is none the less true that care has been taken to declare that in all disputes which may arise relative to their property the Council of State is the only competent tribunal. These associations of worship are therefore placed in such a state of dependence on the civil authority that the ecclesiastical authority will, clearly, have no power over them. It is obvious at a glance that all these provisions seriously violate the rights of the Church, and are in opposition with her Divine constitution. Moreover, the law on these points is not set forth in clear and precise terms, but is left so vague and so open to arbitrary decisions that its mere interpretation is well calculated to be productive of the greatest trouble.

9. Besides, nothing more hostile to the liberty of the Church than this Law could well be conceived. For, with the existence of the associations of worship, the Law of Separation hinders the Pastors from exercising the plenitude of their authority and of their office over the faithful; when it attributes to the Council of State supreme jurisdiction over these associations and submits them to a whole series of prescriptions not contained in the common law, rendering their formation difficult and their continued existence more difficult still; when, after proclaiming the liberty of public worship, it proceeds to restrict its exercise by numerous exceptions; when it despoils the Church of the internal regulation of the churches in order to invest the State with this function; when it thwarts the preaching of Catholic faith and morals and sets up a severe and exceptional penal code for clerics — when it sanctions all these provisions and many others of the same kind in which wide scope is left to arbitrary ruling, does it not place the Church in a position of humiliating subjection and, under the pretext of protecting public order, deprive peaceable citizens, who still constitute the vast majority in France, of the sacred right of practicing their religion? Hence it is not merely by restricting the exercise of worship (to which the Law of Separation falsely reduces the essence of religion) that the State injures the Church, but by putting obstacles to her influence, always a beneficent influence over the people, and by paralyzing her activity in a thousand different ways. Thus, for instance, the State has not been satisfied with depriving the Church of the Religious Orders, those precious auxiliaries of hers in her sacred mission, in teaching and education, in charitable works, but it must also deprive her of the resources which constitute the human means necessary for her existence and the accomplishment of her mission.

10. In addition to the wrongs and injuries to which we have so far referred, the Law of Separation also violates and tramples under foot the rights of property of the Church. In defiance of all justice, it despoils the Church of a great portion of a patrimony which belongs to her by titles as numerous as they are sacred; it suppresses and annuls all the pious foundations consecrated, with perfect legality, to divine worship and to suffrages for the dead. The resources furnished by Catholic liberality for the maintenance of Catholic schools, and the working of various charitable associations connected with religion, have been transferred to lay associations in which it would be idle to seek for a vestige of religion. In this it violates not only the rights of the Church, but the formal and explicit purpose of the donors and testators. It is also a subject of keen grief to Us that the law, in contempt of all right, proclaims as property of the State, Departments or Communes the ecclesiastical edifices dating from before the Concordat. True, the Law concedes the gratuitous use, for an indefinite period, of these to the associations of worship, but it surrounds the concession with so many and so serious reserves that in reality it leaves to the public powers the full disposition of them. Moreover, We entertain the gravest fears for the sanctity of those temples, the august refuges of the Divine Majesty and endeared by a thousand memories to the piety of the French people. For they are certainly in danger of profanation if they fall into the hands of laymen.

11. When the law, by the suppression of the Budget of Public Worship, exonerates the State from the obligation of providing for the expenses of worship, it violates an engagement contracted in a diplomatic convention, and at the same time commits a great injustice. On this point there cannot be the slightest doubt, for the documents of history offer the clearest confirmation of it. When the French Government assumed in the Concordat the obligation of supplying the clergy with a revenue sufficient for their decent subsistence and for the requirements of public worship, the concession was not a merely gratuitous one — it was an obligation assumed by the State to make restitution, at least in part, to the Church whose property had been confiscated during the first Revolution. On the other hand when the Roman Pontiff in this same Concordat bound himself and his successors, for the sake of peace, not to disturb the possessors of property thus taken from the Church, he did so only on one condition: that the French Government should bind itself in perpetuity to endow the clergy suitably and to provide for the expenses of divine worship.

12. Finally, there is another point on which We cannot be silent. Besides the injury it inflicts on the interests of the Church, the new law is destined to be most disastrous to your country. For there can be no doubt but that it lamentably destroys union and concord. And yet without such union and concord no nation can live long or prosper. Especially in the present state of Europe, the maintenance of perfect harmony must be the most ardent wish of everybody in France who loves his country and has its salvation at heart. As for Us, following the example of Our Predecessor and inheriting from him a special predilection for your nation, We have not confined Ourself to striving for the preservation of full rights of the religion of your forefathers, but We have always, with that fraternal peace of which religion is certainly the strongest bond ever before Our eyes, endeavored to promote unity among you. We cannot, therefore, without the keenest sorrow observe that the French Government has just done a deed which inflames on religious grounds passions already too dangerously excited, and which, therefore, seems to be calculated to plunge the whole country into disorder.

13. Hence, mindful of Our Apostolic charge and conscious of the imperious duty incumbent upon Us of defending and preserving against all assaults the full and absolute integrity of the sacred and inviolable rights of the Church, We do, by virtue of the supreme authority which God has confided to Us, and on the grounds above set forth, reprove and condemn the law voted in France for the separation of Church and State, as deeply unjust to God whom it denies, and as laying down the principle that the Republic recognizes no cult. We reprove and condemn it as violating the natural law, the law of nations, and fidelity to treaties; as contrary to the Divine constitution of the Church, to her essential rights and to her liberty; as destroying justice and trampling underfoot the rights of property which the Church has acquired by many titles and, in addition, by virtue of the Concordat. We reprove and condemn it as gravely offensive to the dignity of this Apostolic See, to Our own person, to the Episcopacy, and to the clergy and all the Catholics of France. Therefore, We protest solemnly and with all Our strength against the introduction, the voting and the promulgation of this law, declaring that it can never be alleged against the imprescriptible rights of the Church. (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 whims. The religiously indifferentist civil state, including the government of the United States of America, leads to spiritual and temporal ruin as practical atheism becomes the lowest common denominator over time. Anyone who thinks that one is voting oneself out of a chastisement is a fool. One must know the signs of the times, and those who ignore the fact that even most “conservatives” support at least some surgical killings of innocent preborn children and overwhelming support the denial of the Sovereignty of God over the sanctity and fecundity of marriage by means of contraceptive pills and devices, to say nothing of speaking impurely and/or blasphemously, dressing indecently, and believing in religious indifferentism is not facing the world as it is. Sin maketh nations miserable. The restoration of a just social order cannot be built upon a foundation of unrepentant sins that multiply daily. With Pope Saint Pius X, you see, we pray and work for the restoration of all things in Christ the King.

The leaders of the French Third Republic, being French, of course, responded with arrogant indignation to Pope Saint Pius X’s Vehementer Nos, prompting Pope Saint Pius X to issue his second encyclical letter, Une Fois Encore, January 6, 1907:

Venerable Brethren and Beloved Sons, Health and Apostolic Benediction.

Once again the serious events which have been precipitated in your noble country compel Us to write to the Church of France to sustain her in her trials, and to comfort her in her sorrow. When the children are suffering the heart of the Father ought more than ever to go out to them. And so, now that We see you suffer, from the depths of our fatherly heart floods of tenderness break forth more copiously than ever, and flow to you with the greater comfort and sweetness.

2. These sufferings, Venerable Brethren and beloved sons, now find a sorrowful echo throughout the whole Catholic Church; but We feel them more deeply still and We sympathize with a pity which grows with your trials and seems to increase day by day.

3. But with these cruel sorrows the Master has, it is true, mingled a consolation than which none can be dearer to our heart. It springs from your unshakable attachment to the Church, from your unfailing fidelity to this Apostolic See, and from the firm and deeply founded unity that reigns amongst you. On this fidelity and union We confidently reckoned from the first, for we were too well aware of the nobleness and generosity of the French heart to have any fear that on the field of battle disunion would find its way into your ranks. Equally great is the joy that We feel at the magnificent spectacle you are now giving to the world; and with our high praise of you before the whole Church, We give thanks from the depths of Our heart to the Father of mercies, the Author of all good.

4. Recourse to God, so infinitely good, is all the more necessary because, far from abating, the struggle grows fiercer and expands unceasingly. It is no longer only the Christian faith that they would uproot at all costs from the hearts of the people; it is any belief which lifting man above the horizon of this world would supernaturally bring back his wearied eyes to heaven. Illusion on the subject is no longer possible. War has been declared against everything supernatural, because behind the supernatural stands God, and because it is God that they want to tear out of the mind and heart of man. (Pope Saint Pius X, Une Fois Encore, January 6, 1907.)

Brief Interjection:

The late Father Vincent Miceli called the French Revolution the first anti-Theistic revolution of Modernity. All subsequent forms of anti-Theism (Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, Castroism, Titoism, Sandinistas, the “woke” and “critical race theory” movements, Globalism, Environmentalism, Statism, Evolutionism, etc.) have carried on the work of the French Revolution. Warfare upon the supernatural has been a hallmark of so-called “public education” (actually, compulsory state imposed indoctrination—see Public Schools Are Fatal to Men and Their Nations), which has served as the means by which the following Judeo-Masonic principles as summarized by the late Father Edward Cahill, S.J., have become institutionalized:

We have already referred to Rationalism and Hermeticism (including Theosophy, Christian Scientism, Spiritism, etc.) as characteristic of the Masonic religion and philosophy, These, which are put forward as a substitute for real religion, are fast becoming more and more widespread in England and throughout the English-speaking world. They are the most powerful dissolvents of whatever elements of true Christianity are being attempted. This element is perhaps the most deadly and dangerous aspect of the whole Masonic movement; for it cuts deeper than anything into Christian life, whose very foundation it attacks.

The immediate aim of the practical policy of Freemasonry is to make its naturalistic principles effective in the lives of the people; and first of all to enforce them in every detail of public life. Hence its political and social programme includes:

(1) The banishment of religion from all departments of government, and from all public institutions; and as a mark of the triumph of this policy, the removal of the Crucifix and all religious emblems from the legislative assemblies, the courts of justice, the public hospitals, the schools and university colleges, etc. (Father Edward Cahill, S.J., Freemasonry and the anti-Christian Movement, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged, published originally by M. H. Gill and Son, Ltd., in Dublin, Ireland, 1930, and republished by Kessinger Legacy Reprints, pp. 156-157.)

It is very telling that the conciliar revolutionaries have applauded these “developments” as most of their own colleges and universities have divested themselves of official control of what is purported to be the Catholic Church and have removed the Crucifix and other religious emblems from most of their classrooms. Formerly Catholic hospitals have done the same. Indeed, many of them, participating fully in the medical industry’s manufactured, money-making myth of “brain death”), have merged with secular corporations. And most Catholics in public life are fully supportive of various evils under cover of the civil law, and none of them is reprobated by Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who, quite instead, praises those of them that he meets as “servants of the poor.”

To return to Father Cahill’s enumeration of the Judeo-Masonic program:

(2) The secularization of marriage.

(3) The establishment of a State system of so-called education which, at least in its primary stages, will be obligatory and conducted by the laity.

(4) Complete freedom of worship (at least for all except the true one.) (Father Edward Cahill, S.J., Freemasonry and the anti-Christian Movement, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged, published originally by M. H. Gill and Son, Ltd., in Dublin, Ireland, 1930, and republished by Kessinger Legacy Reprints, p. 157.)

To the final two points of the Judeo-Masonic program as outlined by Father Edward Cahill:

(5) Unrestrained liberty of the Press even in the propagation of irreligious doctrines and of principles subversive of morality; similar freedom for the stage, the cinema, and all manner of public activities, even when injurious to the public interest, such as the operation of the betting and gambling agencies, the drink traffic, etc.

(6) The elimination of all distinction between the sexes in education and in all departments of public life and the promotion or encouragement of radical feminism.

The same programme usually includes or favours a (so-called) Democratic or Republican form of government, indiscriminate universal suffrage, and the centralization of political and administrative authority in the hands of a bureaucracy. It is opposed on the other hand to all to the national distinctions which are associated with the Christian virtue of patriotism, to the ideal of strongly organized rural communities settled permanently on the land; and finally to the organization of society in classes bound together by ties of common interest and mutual service. Hence its policy tends towards commercialism, a false internationalism and extreme individualism.

It is clear that in a social system organized according to these Masonic ideals, the masses of the people, while nominally free, and in theory the source of all authority in the State, would inevitably become degraded and enslaved. Demoralized by indulgence, deprived of the guidance and help which Christian principles give, isolated and unorganized, mostly bereft of permanent property, having a smattering of literacy, but without real education, they would have little or no power of resistance against the tyranny of bureaucracies or financial combines controlling the Press and the economic life of the country. The substantial freedom, prosperity, and true civilization which accompany or result from the Christian regime would give way to social conditions akin to those of pre-Christian Rome. (Father Edward Cahill, S.J., Freemasonry and the anti-Christian Movement, Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged, published originally by M. H. Gill and Son, Ltd., in Dublin, Ireland, 1930, and republished by Kessinger Legacy Reprints, pp. 157-159.)

Nothing that I said in college classrooms between 1974 and 2007 (and for a brief time in the Fall of 2014) or in campaigns for public office or in lectures around the nation or wrote in various publications or have written on this site contains an ounce of originality concerning the state of Western civilization as it spirals into the lowest reaches of the abyss possible, making ancient Rome seem truly tame by way of comparison. We have been given the prescient insights of such giants of Catholic scholarship as Fathers Edward Cahill and Denis Fahey in Ireland and defenders of the immutable Catholic doctrine of the Social Reign of Christ the King as Louis Edouard “Cardinal” Pie, Monsignor Henri Delassus and Father Theotime de Just in France.

The Protestant and Judeo-Masonic ethos that is at the heart of the American founding and has precipitated many errors and the conflicts between false opposites of naturalism ever since was described as follows by William Thomas Walsh in Characters of the Inquisition:

(1) The isolation of the human soul from God. The indifference and godlessness of our day are directly traceable to the triumph of Manicheanism under the guise of Sixteenth Century Protestantism. Many thoughtful Protestants are now beginning to see that the Revolt inflicted a ghastly wound upon Christianity without adding anything to it. Such positive Christian elements as the Reformers taught were already in Catholicism. As for the aberrations – Luther's doctrine of grace, Calvin's predestination – how many who call themselves Protestants today believe in the divinity of Christ; a Methodist will say he believes in the existence of some vague Life Force, not a personal God. With each generation the descendants of the men and women who were led from the Catholic fold by plausible reformers promising them primitive Christianity, become less and less concerned with any religion, and more the prey of Communism, Fascism or some other panacea with new false hopes of creating something permanently good on the frail structure of human nature alone. These will not even listen to the ancient wisdom of the Catholic Church; as Mr. Chesterton wrote somewhere, “They are tired of hearing what they have never heard.”

(2) Moral confusion and nihilism. There is and can be no objective and eternal standard of conduct, except that of Christ, as interpreted by His Church. All the old sins and follies that the Church began to drive into exterior darkness two thousand years ago, have come back to destroy the peace of individuals and the harmony of society. Divorce is destroying the family, murder the individual. The free love of the Beghards and the Alumbrados is corrupting the young. What is the prevalent craze for self-destruction but a manifestation of the old Manichean despair of life? And what is the fatal race-suicide known euphemistically as “birth control” but the old nastiness of the Manichees, born of cowardice, sensuality, distrust of life itself and the Author of life? Usury, which the medieval schoolmen called theft, and capitalism, which in its reprehensible form they identified as one of the seven deadly sins (greed), are defended by dull college professors in the name of economic law; while the enslaved masses everywhere pay tribute to the modern Mammon.

(3) Intellectual confusion. The Catholic Church speaks with authority in our world in defense of the human reason against a thousand sophistries having their origin in obscure feelings or prejudices. It has become the fashion in certain academic circles to speak disdainfully of logic itself, and of the law of cause and effect, as if these were relics of medieval barbarism. It was not merely a coincidence that a Manichean thought, or rather feeling has appeared extensively in our literature, and in some of the best of it, wherever the Protestant Revolt has prepared for the return of darkness and slavery. Consider the Manichean attitudes in some of Thomas Hardy's work – especially in Jude the Obscure, in The Return of the Native, and in that frightful sneer at the end of Tess; in Ibsen's Master Builder and Hedda Gabler; in Shelley's Defense of Poetry; in the Autobiography of Mark Twain; in such plays as the Piper of Josephine Preston Peabody, The Scarecrow of Percy Mackaye, and a great deal of O'Neill's work; even in that calm Victorian, Tennyson, who puts into the mouth of a Catholic King a sentiment that would have set Bernard Gui on the trail of any Albigensian:

“For why is all around us here,

As if some lesser god has made the world,

but had not force to make it as he would,

Until the High God enter from beyond . . .?”

Not to press the point too far – for some liberty must be allowed the facies of poets! – this and much more that could be mentioned is clearly symptomatic of the sickness which afflicts a world which will not turn to Christ.

(4) Totalitarianism. Is not the present evolution of government a retrogression toward heresies that the medieval Inquisitors combatted with all their might? Communism, first propagated by the Freemasons on the ruins of Protestantism, finally set up in Russia the absolute state which the Fraticelli had invoked (in so far as the state of science and communications would permit them to envisage it): it was a perversion also of their concept of primitive Christianity, without private property. The Nazi State, set up partly in imitation of Mussolini's Fascism, as a natural reaction to Communism, had also another parentage. The ideal of the omnipotent absolute state, for whose sake the individual exists, was expressed in very similar terms on behalf of Kaiserism by Bernhardi, in 1911; and Bernhadi's teacher was Treitchke, who in turn acknowledged his indebtedness to Martin Luther. (I have developed this idea further in an article published in The Sign, with quotations from Luther and others, in February, 1940.) Thus in two different directions we trace the origins of the Totalitarian State, toward which, by imitation or reaction, the governments of the whole world are tending, to breaches made by medieval heretics in the walls of the City of God, in despite of the watchdogs of the Inquisition.

The list could be extended. All the evils that the Inquisition sought to repress, and did in great measure repress, have returned to the modern world, grown great and ravening, to feed upon our children. What then of the evils incidental to the Inquisition itself – torture, loss of liberty and even life, occasional deceit and hypocracy? Are we better in those regards? Can anyone think of the torture cells maintained by the Reds in Spain in 1936-7 to drive their victims mad, (the cells constructed by the “Loyalist” Reds “were described as hollow cement blocks four feet height and containing a cement chair and bed, built in a slanting position so that it was impossible for a prisoner to sit or lie down for more than a minute at a time. Raised cement blocks were arranged in a crazy-quilt fashion on the floor to prevent prisoners from standing up. The prosecutor (in the Cik trial) charged that the Loyalists placed rings in the eyelids of prisoners to keep them open in the glare of powerful lights. Some of the witnesses testified that the prisoners were denied food and water and were flogged, sometimes while suspended head down from the ceiling or while cold water was showered upon them. Witnesses said the cells were pained with hundreds of yellow spots, broad black lines and scores of black and white cubes.” – Associated Press, dispatch from Barcelona, June 13, 1939, published in the New York Sun and other newspapers, Torquemada would have shrunk from the very idea of such diabolical ingenuity.) of the unspeakable butcheries of civilians and priests by both Germans and Russians in Poland in 1939, of the unrestrained villainy of modern warfare, of all our nightmare of hypocrisy, abortion, child-suicide, unpunished murder, and what is worse even that all these monstrosities, disdain for the Deity Himself, without wondering whether we have really progressed to a point where we can look patronizingly upon the memory of a Torquemada?

All the worst miseries which men everywhere endure today, while they begin “withering away for fear and expectations of what shall come? – famine and pestilence and civil wars whose shadows may already be discerned on the dim walls of the futre – all these have been foretold by the Popes of modern tomes, on after another pointing out the causes that must lead to such effects, and pleading with mankind to turn away from them to the only possible remedy, held forth by Christ in the Catholic Church. Against all the progressive steps in the disintegration of the European Order, from the Manichees to the Communists and other state worshippers, The Vicars of Christ have uttered solemn and deliberate warnings, based upon ample information. Very soon after the reorganization of the Freemasonry by the Grand Lodge of England, in Spain, the situation was clearly seen at Rome; and in 1738, Pope Clement XII uttered the first formal denunciation of this particular heresy, this oriental dissolvent in modern guise. “If they were not doing evil, they would not fear the light,” he said of all societies, without any exception, of the Masonic type or affiliation. He forbade Catholics to join them, favor, support, shelter, or defend them in any way, or even to receive the members into their homes. Any Catholic so doing was excommunicated by the very fact, and the ban could be removed only by the Pope himself, save in the danger of death. This, as we have seen, did not deter vain, ambitious or stupid Catholics, even among the clergy here and there, from being drawn into an organization which pretended to be social and philanthropic, and masked its real aims and nature from all its neophytes, from all except a few initiates. The Popes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries continued to raise their voices against the stealthy advances of this mystery of iniquity. Pius XII accused the Freemasons of being the chief causes of the revolutionary upheavals (antichristian in their direction) of Europe. Gregory XVI said they were guilty of sacrilege, infamy and blasphemy, and promoted heresy and revolution. Pius IX applied to them the words that Christ addressed to the scribes and pharisees who sought His destruction, “You are of your father the devil, and the works of your father you will do.” He called them the wolves in sheep's clothing against whom Our Lord and the Apostles had warned the first Christians. In another letter he referred to them as “the Synagogue of Satan . . . whose object is to blot out the Church of Christ, were it possible from the face of the Universe.” Renewing the condemnations of his predecessors, he explicitly included Freemasons in America “and in whatever part of the world they may be.”

Pope Leo XIII warned the world that Freemasonry was the real source and center of Communist and Atheist propaganda. “In this insane and wicked endeavor,” he wrote, “we may almost see the implacable hatred and spirit of revenge with which Satan himself is inflamed against Jesus Christ.” In that same magnificent encyclical he cried out to all Catholics, laymen as well as priests, to “tear the mask off the face? Of the hidden menace. If not, he said, “the ruin and overthrow of all things must necessarily follow.: (Encyclical, Humanum genus, 1884.)

This tremendous prophecy, deliberately uttered by the Vicar of Christ, and now being fulfilled with terrible literalness as the flimsy structure built of the sands of the great apostacy of the Sixteenth Century comes crashing down about us, has of course been generally disregarded by the world, as the prophecies of Christ were disregarded. Other profound observations from Leo and his successors have met the same characteristically Christian fate; nevertheless they remain as truth.

It was Pius XI who pointed out the close spiritual affinity of Liberalism and Socialism, even when they waged a sham battle across the arena of the world. “Let us bear in mind,” he wrote in Quadragesimo Anno, “that the parent of this cultural Socialism was Liberalism, and that its offspring will be Bolshevism.” He had no more regard for one of these antichristian aberrations than for the other. Liberalism, he said, had shown as early as 1891 “its utter impotence to find a right solution of the social question,” while Socialism “would have exposed human society to still graver dangers by offering a remedy much more disastrous than the evil it designed to cure.” (Quadragesimo Anno, 1931)

This great Pope remarked that since the time of Leo XIII the “capitalistic economic regime” had “penetrated everywhere”; and that:

“It is patent that in our days not alone is wealth accumulated, but immense power and despotic economic domination are concentrated in the hands of a few, and that those few are frequently not the owners, but only the trustees and directors of invested funds, who administer them at their good pleasure. This power becomes particularly irresistible when exercises by those who, because they hold and control money, are able also to govern credit and determine its allotment, for that reason supplying, so to speak, the lifeblood to the entire economic body, and grasping, as it were, in their hands the very soul of production, so that no one dare breathe against their will. This accumulation of power, the characteristic note of the modern economic order, is a natural result of limitless free competition which permits the survival of those only who are the strongest, which often means those who fight most relentlessly, who pay least heed to the dictates of conscience. This concentration of power has led to a threefold struggle for domination. First, there is the struggle for dictatorship in the economic sphere itself; then, the fierce battle to acquire control of the state, so that its resources and authority may be abused in the economic struggles. Finally, the clash between states themselves. . . The state, which should be the supreme arbiter, ruling in kingly fashion far above all party contention, intent only upon justice and the common good, has become instead a slave, bound over to the service of human passion and greed.” (Quadragesimo Anno, 1931)

Elsewhere, of course, Pius condemned the totalitarian theory which, reacting against the evil here described, rushed to the opposite extreme, and erroneously hald that the individual existed for the benefit of the state. None of these panaceas could reach the center of the disorder; they were all, inf fact, so many forms of Socialism, one fighting the other, but all tending toward a common end. With characteristic acuteness, Pius noticed that since the time of Leo XIII Socialism had broken up into various forms, of which he condemned even the most moderate.

“The question arises, or is unwarrantably proposed in certain quarters, whether the principles of Christian truth also could not be somewhat moderated and attenuated, so as to meet Socialism, as it were, halfway upon a common ground. Some are engaged by the empty hope of gaining Socialists in this way to our cause. But such hope are vain. Those who wish to be apostles among the Socialists should preach the Christian truth whole and entire, openly and sincerely, without any connivance with error. If they wish in truth to be heralds of the Gospel, let them convince Socialists that their demands, in so far as they are just, are defended much more cogently by the principles of Christian faith, and are promoted much more efficaciously by the power of Christian charity . . . Whether Socialism be considered as a doctrine or as an historical fact, or as a movement, if it really remain socialism, it cannot be brought into harmony with the dogmas of the Catholic Church, even after it has yielded to truth and justice in the points. We have mentioned; the reason being that it conceives human society in a way utterly alien to Christian truth.

“According to Christian doctrine, Man, endowed with a social nature, is place here on earth in order that he may spend his life in society, and under authority ordained by God, that he may develop and evolve to the full all his faculties to the praise and glory of his Creator; and that, by fulfilling faithfully the duties of his station, he may attain to temporal and eternal happiness. Socialism, on the contrary, entirely ignorant of or unconcerned about his sublime end both of individuals and of society, affirms that living in community was instituted merely for the sake of advantages which it brings to mankind. Goods are produced more efficiently by a suitable distribution of labor than by the scattered efforts of individuals. Hence the Socialist argue that economic production, of which they see only the material side, must necessarily be carried on collectively, and that because of this necessity men must surrender and submit themselves wholly to society with a view to the production of wealth. Indeed, the possession of the greatest possible amount of temporal goods is esteemed so highly, that man's higher goods, not excepting liberty must, they claim, be subordinated and even sacrificed to the exigencies of efficient production. They affirm that the loss of human dignity, which result from these socialized methods of production, will be easily compensated for by the abundance of good produced in common and accring to the individual who can turn them at his will to the comforts and culture of life. Society, therefore, as the Socialist conceives it, is, on the one hand, impossible and unthinkable without the use of compulsion of the most excessive kind: on the other it fosters a false liberty, since in such a scheme no place if found for true social authority, which is not based on temporal and material advantages, but descends from God alone, the Creator and Last End of all things. If, like all errors, Socialism, contains a certain element of truth (and this founded upon a doctrine of human society peculiarly its own, which is opposed to true Christianity . . . No one can be at the same time a sincere Catholic and a true Socialist." (Quadragesimo Anno, 1931)

Since Pius XI wrote those words in 1931, the nations of the world generally have taken long steps toward various forms of Socialism which, however different they appeared on first view, are more and more revealing themselves as essentially the same. Communism, the most radical and patently godless form was not too remote ideologically from its pretended rival Nazi-Socialism, to lie down beside it in the same foul nest, when it suited both to beget a second great war. Other nations, loving freedom, have been conquered and drawn into the two Socialist orbits. Still others have imitated Socialist regimes by reaction, or by military necessity. Few have been able to maintain fully the sacredness of human personality. The tiny nations of Portugal and Ireland, both thoroughly Catholic, are glorious exceptions. Of Spain, I have high hopes; may the Catholic spirit of General Franco prevail, and not certain others, very different and very crafty, which still exist in the country and even in high places, hungry for power. England, while fighting Hitler, has kept a friendly hand mysteriously outstretched toward his partner, Stalin; and whatever the outcome of the present war, is likely to emerge from it shackled to some form of Socialism.

Here in the United States Socialism has made more cautious but not the less evident gains. It is rather amusing, and at the same time depressing, to see that likable Socialist Mr. Norman Thomas denouncing both Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilkie as champions of peace-time conscription, which he says (and I think rightly) must lead toward dictatorship, and to realize at the same time that both these gentlemen are fundamentally (that is to say spiritually) as Socialistic as he is. If we judge not by what a man says he is or even believes he is, but by the antithesis set up by Pope Pius XI as a test of spirits, this conclusion becomes inescapable. Mr. Roosevelt has tried to save the country by curtailing production. Mr. Wilkie proposes to do it by speeding up curtailing production, Yet both these Liberals, as they proudly call themselves, are interested primarily in production; in the material, in the things of this world. It is difficult, of course, to see how a politician could wholly free himself from such concerns, and I am not criticising either, or discussing any issues, political or economic, between them – whoever is elected will be entitled to our obedience, under the Constitution, and no doubt, will do his best according to his lights. I would only suggest that neither has the lights necessary to solve the social problem. (It is true that both have spoken reverently in public of Divine Providence; but so, for that matter has Hitler; so have the politicians of every country, except godless Russian.) Not too much must be expected from these well-meaning statesmen. They are children of a Liberalism evolving rapidly into Socialism. Both are high in the ranks of a secret society proscribed and abhorred by the Catholic Church and denounced by Pope Leo XIII as the true source of Socialism and Communism, and the general corruption of European and world society. They are servants of the same invisible masters, to whose obedience they are bound by oaths – masters who may not even be in America, but in Europe or Asia; masters of whose exact identity they may themselves be ignorant. When they speak of “Democracy,” one must remember this background, and the fact that the elastic word has been used by many Liberals to include even the tyranny of Soviet Russia. Can Democracy be anything but a farce among men, when some of them, including the most influential, belong to a secret society whose real aims and principles have been repeatedly disclosed as political and anti-Christian? The French Catholics, in the sad clarifying light of catastrophe, have recently found the answer to this question. As Our Holy Father Pope Pius XII said in welcoming the French Ambassador after the tragedy of last summer, “Like lightening which flashes through heavy clouds, the devastating lights of war . . . have torn from the eyes of all careful and sincere observers that veil of prejudices which for half a century the voice of the Church, and especially the reiterated warnings of the last Popes, Our venerated predecessors, did not succeed in penetrating . . . May the lessons of this bitter period in acts which permit us to hope in the future for a revival of Christian spirit, particularly in the education of youth . . .” and “the creation of a new Christian order . . . When will this desired hour arrive? God preserves the secret of it; but We beseech Him to hasten its advent.”

All this is part of a universal conflict between the church of Christ and the Prince of This World. All other conflicts are either subsidiary to this or camouflages for it. Just now there seems to be a deadly strife between international capitalism, intrenched in the United States and gradually leading this country toward a State Socialism or (what amounts to the same thing) toward a State Capitalism, and on the other side, the seemingly more godless and godless forms of Socialism beyond the seas. Yet if Nazi-Socialism and Bolshevism, after so violent a sham battle, could so speedily come to terms, for a purpose convenient to both, what is to prevent this American Socialism, now in the making and already accepted and propagated by the dominant educational forces of this county, from arriving at mutually agreeable arrangements with both the Soviet and the Nazi forms of Socialism, whenever it may suit the real leaders on both sides to do so? Within a generation we have seen our Liberal politicians denounce the Soviet, cultivate friendly relations with it, and denounce it again – this time more coyly. As the world grows smaller in time, may not all the forms of Socialism be gathered together by skilful hands into a World Sate, such as many Masonic writers have advocated, and the League of Nations sought to achieve? It is not only conceivable, but probable; for all forms of Socialism (even if some still call themselves Democracies) will be animated by a single obscure but powerful principle: the worship of the material, which is and always must be the negation of Christianity. Here, then, by a masterly antithesis, Pius XI has cast a strong light upon the shapes of things to come. It is all the more revealing when it shows us only the recurrence upon a larger stage of a deathless drama that happened long ago. Christ still lives in His Mystical Body, the Church, as truly as in the human body he took from Our Lady; and when the time comes for Him to be crucified again in His Church, depend upon it, Pilate and Herod that day will find a way to patch up their differences, some Caiaphas will cry, “Crucify Him! We have no king but Caesar!” and there will always be found some Judas to give the kiss of death.

Admittedly (perhaps my wish is father to this thought) we may by some miracle escape that fate, here in America. Perhaps despite their affiliations, Mr. Roosevelt or Mr. Wilkie, as political Catholic admirers of each will tell us, will be led in the right direction by a divine hand. Again, perhaps not. Only the future can reveal this. Meanwhile this much is certain: the United States, in a very few years, will be either a Catholic country (and therefore a free country) or a Socialist country, (and therefore a slave country). “He who is not with Me is against Me.” History demonstrates the unfailing truth of this dilemma.

Here on the last edge and in the twilight of the world, the stage is set for the reenactment of an ancient tragedy – or can it this time be a comedy? Here are all the actors who have appeared over and over again in that tragedy in Europe. Here we have most of the Freemasons of the world, the Jews, most of the gold and its masters; Parthians and Medes and Elamites – men gathered together from all nations under the sun, speaking one language, leading a common life; and among them heirs of all the isms and heresies that the Catholic Church has denounced throughout the centuries, and some millions of good bewildered folk who have ceased to believe much in anything, and do not know what they believe, or whether anything be worth believing; and, scattered among these millions with their roots in such movements of the past, some twenty-five millions of Catholics.

Now, either the Catholic body will come into sharp conflict with those about them, or they will not.

If they do not, it will be the first time in history that the Mystical Body of Christ (and American Catholics, like all others, are “cells” of that Body) has not aroused violent and unreasoning antagonism. This has been so uniformly a characteristic of the life of Christ and the life of the Catholic Church, that when persons calling themselves Christian or Catholic do not meet with oppositions, and strong opposition, one may well begin to wonder whether they are profoundly Christian and truly Catholic. Perhaps then it is a reflection upon us American Catholics that we have inspired so little antagonism (comparatively) thus far. Perhaps we have not been telling our neighbors the truth, the strong truth, the hard saying they will not like: that the real test of our republican experiment here must ultimately be whether it accepts or opposes the Church of Christ; that it must become either a Catholic state, or a slave state.

A great many Catholics, influenced by the Protestant or Liberal environments in which they have lived, have sincerely and deliberately set out to propagate Christianity in such ways as to never arouse antagonism. They have compromised with Socialism, they have compromised with the economy theory of history, they have emphasized the importance of various material elements. It is a sad evidence of the lack of unity into which we have been betrayed when a Catholic Justice of the Supreme Court [Frank Murphy] can publicly proclaim that “Democracy” is more important than religion; when a Catholic priest, who has taught for some years at the Catholic University at Washington and has filled our country with his disciples, openly goes to address a Jewish Masonic lodge (though Catholics are still forbidden by Canon 2335 to cooperate with or condone Masonry in any way)—and this, according to the press, not to remind his hearers of their true home in the Church Catholic, but to confirm them in their sense of injured innocence; or when a Catholic journalist burns a little incense on the altar of the economic theory of history, or a Catholic college professor condones usury, or defends the Communist cause in Spain.

Now all these gentlemen, these liberal broad-minded Catholics, many of whom are teaching the next generation of American Catholics no doubt think that they are doing a service to God in smoothing out our differences with others, and neglecting to utter the challenge which Christianity has uttered everywhere else in the world, until the opposed gnashed its teeth, and took up stones to cast. Perhaps they hope in this way to avert persecution, and gradually to bring about the conversion of the country they love to the true Faith. I do not impugn their motives or their sincerity; indeed, they are often animated by a great, if misguided charity. But if the history of Christianity teaches anything, it fairly cries out from the stones of desecrated and stolen churches that if they have their way, they will do just the opposite to what they intend, and even worse. They will lead us, if we are foolish enough, to follow them, to that abyss over which English Catholics fell, one by one and family by family, in the Sixteenth Century. The English Catholics, a huge majority, were kept comparatively silent and inactive in the face of an intolerable but gradual oppression by a small rich crafty minority, in the hope that if they ever compromised on this point and that point, they would ultimately prevail, since they were more numerous, and had truth on their side. The result was the almost complete extinction of Catholicism in England for centuries—perhaps forever. (William Thomas Walsh, Characters of the Inquisition, New York, P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1940 pp. 281-294.)

That last paragraph summarized the theme that I have tried to hammer home in hundreds upon hundreds of lengthy commentaries on this site—and in countless hours of lectures around the country and online. William Thomas Walsh’s prophetic vision of what would happen to Catholicism in the United States of America has been accomplished by conciliar revolutionaries, many of whose American predecessors before the “Second” Vatican Council sought to pave the way for the triumph of Americanist “ideals.”

Yes, the United States of America has become a slave state controlled by the same set of forces that the Inquisition sought to eliminate from within Holy Mother Church. This is because the United States of America was founded on false principles, including those of “religious liberty” and “religious indifferentism” that contributed to the rise of counterfeit church of conciliarism, whose very false spirit was being pioneered by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America Frank Murphy and the others, including that nameless priest who taught at the Catholic University of America, described by Mr. Walsh above.

Pope Saint Pius X, therefore, summarized a situation in France that had already taken root gradually here in the United States of America but had to be instituted in France by means of a violent series of revolutions as, unlike the situation here in the United States of America, the Cross of Cross had been implanted deep in the soil of France and elsewhere in Europe, which is why I t had to be rooted out with unremitting hatred and violence.

We return now to Pope Saint Pius X’s Une Fois Encore. The passages below explain the distinction between accepting the fact of persecutions while emphasizing that Holy Mother Church does not seek such persecutions as it is her desire to be an instrument of the Prince of Peace in spreading peace within the souls of Catholics and hence throughout every fabric of human institutions:

5. The war will be bitter and without respite on the part of those who wage it. That as it goes on harder trials than those which you have hitherto known await you is possible and even probable. Common prudence calls on each of you to prepare for them. And this you will do simply, valiantly, and full of confidence, sure that however fiercely the fight may rage, victory will in the end remain in your hands.

6. The pledge of this victory is your union first of all amongst yourselves, and secondly with this Apostolic See. This twofold union will make you invincible, and against it all efforts will break.

7. Our enemies have on this been under no misapprehensions. From the outset, and with the greatest clearness of vision, they determined on their objective; first to separate you from Us and the Chair of Peter, and then to sow disorder among you. From then till now they have made no change in their tactics; they have pursued their end without rest and by every means; some with comprehensive and catching formulas; others with the most brutal cynicism. Specious promises, dishonorable bribes offered to schism, threats and violence, all these have been brought into play and employed. But your clear-sighted fidelity has wrecked all these attempts. There- upon, thinking that the best way to separate you from Us was to shatter your confidence in the Apostolic See, they have not hesitated, from the tribune and in the press, to throw discredit upon Our acts by misrepresenting and sometimes even by calumniating Our intentions.

8. The Church, they said, is seeking to arouse religious war in France, and is summoning to her aid the violent persecution which has been the object of her prayers. What a strange accusation! Founded by Him who came to bring peace to the world and to reconcile man with God, a Messenger of peace upon earth, the Church could only seek religious war by repudiating her high mission and belying it before the eyes of all. To this mission of patient sweetness and love she rests and will remain always faithful. Besides, the whole world now knows that if peace of conscience is broken in France, that is not the work of the Church but of her enemies. Fair-minded men, even though not of our faith, recognize that if there is a struggle on the question of religion in your beloved country, it is not because the Church was the first to unfurl the flag, but because war was declared against her. During the last twenty-five years she has had to undergo this warfare. That is the truth and the proof of it is
seen in the declarations made and repeated over and over again in the Press, at meetings, at Masonic congresses, and even in Parliament, as well as in the attacks which have been progressively and systematically directed against her. These facts are undeniable, and no argument can ever make away with them. The Church then does not wish for war, and religious war least of all. To affirm the contrary is an outrageous calumny.

9. Nor has she any desire for violent persecution. She knows what persecution is, for she has suffered it in all times and in all places. Centuries passed in bloodshed give her the right to say with a holy boldness that she does not fear it, and that as often as may be necessary she will be able to meet it. But persecution is in itself an evil, for it is injustice and prevents man from worshipping God in freedom. The Church then cannot desire it, even with a view to the good which Providence in its infinite wisdom ever draws out of it. Besides, persecution is not only evil, it is also suffering, and there we have a fresh reason why the Church, who is the best of mothers, will never seek it.

10. This persecution which she is reproached as having provoked, and which they declare they have refused, is now being actually inflicted upon her. Have they not within these last days evicted from their houses even the Bishops who are most venerable by their age and virtues, driven the seminarists from the grands and petits seminaries, and entered upon the expulsion of the cures from their presbyteries? The whole Catholic world has watched this spectacle with sadness, and has not hesitated to give the name which they deserved to such acts of violence.

11. As for the ecclesiastical property which we are accused of having abandoned, it is important to remark that this property was partly the patrimony of the poor and the patrimony, more sacred still, of the dead. It was not permissible to the Church to abandon or surrender it; she could only let it be taken from her by violence. Nobody will believe that she has deliberately abandoned, except under the pressure of the most overwhelming motives, what was confided to her keeping, and what was so necessary for the exercise of worship, for the maintenance of sacred edifices, for the instruction of her clergy, and for the support of her ministers. It was only when perfidiously placed in the position of having to choose between material ruin and consent to the violation of her constitution, which is of divine origin, that the Church refused, at the cost of poverty, to allow the work of God to be touched by her. Her property, then, has been wrested from her; it was not she that abandoned it. Consequently, to declare ecclesiastical property unclaimed on a given date unless the Church had by then created within herself a new organism; to subject this creation to conditions in rank opposition to the divine constitution of the Church, which was thus compelled to reject them; to transfer this property to third parties as if it had become "sans maitre," and finally to assert that in thus acting there was no spoliation of the Church but only a disposal of the property abandoned by her -- this is not merely argument of transparent sophistry but adding insult to the most cruel spoliation. This spoliation is undeniable in spite of vain attempts at palliating it by declaring that no moral person existed to whom the property might be handed over; for the state has power to confer civil personality on whomsoever the public good demands that it should be granted to, establishments that are Catholic as well as others. In any case it would have been easy for the state not to have subjected the formation of "associations cultuelles" to conditions in direct opposition to the divine constitution of the Church which they were supposed to serve.

12. And yet that is precisely what was done in the matter of the "associations cultuelles." They were organized under the law in such a way that its dispositions on this subject ran directly counter to those rights which, derived from her constitution, are essential to the Church, notably as affecting the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the inviolable base given to His work by the Divine Master himself. Moreover, the law conferred on these associations powers which are the exclusive prerogative of ecclesiastical authority both in the matter of the exercise of worship and of the proprietorship and administration of property. And lastly, not only are these associations withdrawn from ecclesiastical jurisdiction but they are made judicially answerable to the civil authority. These are the reasons which have driven Us in Our previous Encyclicals to condemn these "associations cultuelles" in spite of the heavy sacrifices which such condemnation involved.

13. We have also been accused of prejudice and inconsistency. It has been said that We had refused to approve in France what We had approved in Germany. But this charge is equally lacking in foundation and justice. For although the German law was blameable on many points, and has been merely tolerated in order to avoid greater evils, the cases were quite different, for that law contained an express recognition of the Catholic hierarchy, which the French law does not do.

14. As regards the annual declaration demanded for the exercise of worship, it did not offer the full legal security which one had a right to desire. Nevertheless -- though in principle gatherings of the faithful in church have none of the constituent elements proper to public meetings, and it would, in fact, be odious to attempt to assimilate them -- the Church could, in order to avoid greater evils, have brought herself to tolerate this declaration. But by providing that the "cure or officiating priest would no longer," in his church, "be anything more than an occupier without any judicial title or power to perform any acts of administration," there has been imposed on ministers of religion in the very exercise of their ministry a situation so humiliating and vague that, under such conditions, it was impossible to accept the declaration. There remains for consideration the law recently voted by the two Chambers.

15. From the point of view of ecclesiastical property, this law is a law of spoliation and confiscation, and it has completed the stripping of the Church. Although her Divine Founder was born poor in a manger, and died poor on the Cross, although she herself has known poverty from her cradle, the property that came to her was nonetheless hers, and no one had the right to deprive her of it. Her ownership, indisputable from every point of view, had been, moreover, officially sanctioned by the state, which could not consequently violate it. From the point of view of the exercise of worship, this law has organized anarchy; it is the consecration of uncertainty and caprice. Uncertainty whether places of worship, always liable to be diverted from their purpose, are meanwhile to be placed, or not placed, at the disposition of the clergy and faithful; uncertainty whether they shall be reserved from them or not, and for how long; whilst an arbitrary administrative regulates the conditions of their use, which is rendered eminently precarious. Public worship will be in as many diverse situations as the other. On the other hand, there is an obligation to meet all sorts of heavy charges, whilst at the same time there are draconian restrictions upon the resources by which they are to be met. Thus, though but of yesterday, this law has already evoked manifold and severe criticisms from men belonging indiscriminately to all political parties and all shades of religious belief. These criticisms alone are sufficient judgment of the law.

16. It is easy to see, Venerable Brethren and beloved sons, from what We have just recalled to you, that this law is an aggravation of the Law of Separation, and we can not therefore do otherwise than condemn it.

17. The vague and ambiguous-wording of some of its articles places the end pursued by our enemies in a new light. Their object is, as we have already pointed out, the destruction of the Church and the dechristianization of France, but without people's attending to it or even noticing it. If their enterprise had been really popular, as they pretend it to be, they would not have hesitated to pursue it with visor raised and to take the whole responsibility. But instead of assuming that responsibility, they try to clear themselves of it and deny it, and in order to succeed the better, fling it upon the Church their victim. This is the most striking of all the proofs that their evil work does not respond to the wishes of the country.

18. It is in vain that after driving Us to the cruel necessity of rejecting the laws that have been made -- seeing the evils they have drawn down upon the country, and feeling the universal reprobation which, like a slow tide, is rising round them -- they seek to lead public opinion astray and to make the responsibility for these evils fall upon Us. Their attempt will not succeed.

19. As for Ourselves, We have accomplished Our duty, as every other Roman Pontiff would have done. The high charge with which it has pleased Heaven to invest Us, in spite of Our unworthiness, as also the Christian faith itself, which you profess with Us, dictated to Us Our conduct. We could not have acted otherwise without trampling under foot Our conscience, without being false to the oath which We took on mounting the chair of Peter, and without violating the Catholic hierarchy, the foundation given to the Church by our Savior Jesus Christ.

We await, then, without fear, the verdict of history. History will tell how We, with Our eyes fixed immutably upon the defense of the higher rights of God, have neither wished to humiliate the civil power, nor to combat a form of government, but to safeguard the inviolable work of Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ. It will say that We have defended you, Our beloved sons, with all the strength of Our great love; that what We have demanded and now demand for the Church, of which the French Church is the elder daughter and an integral part, is respect for its hierarchy and inviolability of its property and liberty; that if Our demand had been granted religious peace would not have been troubled in France, and that, the day it is listened to that peace so much desired will be restored in the country.

20. And, lastly, history will say, that if, sure beforehand of your magnanimous generosity. We have not hesitated to tell you that the hour for sacrifice had struck, it is to remind the world, in the name of the Master of all things, that men here below should feed their minds upon thoughts of a higher sort than those of the perishable contingencies of life, and that the supreme and intangible joy of the human soul on earth is that of duty supernaturally carried out, cost what it may and so God honored, served and loved, in spite of all.

21. Confident that the Immaculate Virgin, Daughter of the Father, Mother of the Word, and Spouse of the Holy Ghost, will obtain for you from the most holy and adorable Trinity better days, and as a token of the calm which We firmly hope will follow the storm, it is from the depths of Our heart that We impart Our Apostolic Blessing to you, Venerable Brethren, as well as to your clergy and the whole French people.

Given at Rome, at St. Peter's on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 1907, the fourth year of Our pontificate. (Pope Saint Pius X, Une Fois Encore, January 6, 1907.)

Pope Saint Pius X rose to the defense of French Catholics when they were under attack. Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s silence about the persecution of Catholics in Red China and Nicaragua betokens his belief that Catholics who have acted in what he thinks are “confrontational” ways with the Communist tyrants and murderers have brought the current persecutions upon themselves. He is a hideously wicked man who hates Catholic doctrine and worship and who has never met a baby-killing leftist he has not sought to praise and appease.

Pope Saint Pius X was not content to criticize the law of separation in France. He saw it as his duty to condemn the attempt by some French Catholics to use The Sillon movement as the means to “baptize” the principles of the French Revolution, a “baptism,” if you will, that later received the sanction of the counterfeit church of conciliarism in Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965:

Let us be content to say here that the text serves as a countersyllabus and, as such, represents on the part of the Church, an attempt at an official reconciliation with the new era inaugurated in 1789. (Joseph Ratzinger, Principles of Catholic Theology, p. 382.)

Pope Saint Pius X, on the other hand, made clear that the Catholic Church would never make any kind of “reconciliation” with the false, anti-Theistic principles of the French Revolution:

We know only too well the dark workshops in which are elaborated these mischievous doctrines which ought not to seduce clear-thinking minds. The leaders of the Sillon have not been able to guard against these doctrines. The exaltation of their sentiments, the undiscriminating good-will of their hearts, their philosophical mysticism, mixed with a measure of illuminism, have carried them away towards another Gospel which they thought was the true Gospel of Our Savior. To such an extent that they speak of Our Lord Jesus Christ with a familiarity supremely disrespectful, and that – their ideal being akin to that of the Revolution – they fear not to draw between the Gospel and the Revolution blasphemous comparisons for which the excuse cannot be made that they are due to some confused and over-hasty composition.

We wish to draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to this distortion of the Gospel and to the sacred character of Our Lord Jesus Christ, God and man, prevailing within the Sillon and elsewhere. As soon as the social question is being approached, it is the fashion in some quarters to first put aside the divinity of Jesus Christ, and then to mention only His unlimited clemency, His compassion for all human miseries, and His pressing exhortations to the love of our neighbor and to the brotherhood of men. True, Jesus has loved us with an immense, infinite love, and He came on earth to suffer and die so that, gathered around Him in justice and love, motivated by the same sentiments of mutual charity, all men might live in peace and happiness. But for the realization of this temporal and eternal happiness, He has laid down with supreme authority the condition that we must belong to His Flock, that we must accept His doctrine, that we must practice virtue, and that we must accept the teaching and guidance of Peter and his successors. Further, whilst Jesus was kind to sinners and to those who went astray, He did not respect their false ideas, however sincere they might have appeared. He loved them all, but He instructed them in order to convert them and save them. Whilst He called to Himself in order to comfort them, those who toiled and suffered, it was not to preach to them the jealousy of a chimerical equality. Whilst He lifted up the lowly, it was not to instill in them the sentiment of a dignity independent from, and rebellious against, the duty of obedience. Whilst His heart overflowed with gentleness for the souls of good-will, He could also arm Himself with holy indignation against the profaners of the House of God, against the wretched men who scandalized the little ones, against the authorities who crush the people with the weight of heavy burdens without putting out a hand to lift them. He was as strong as he was gentle. He reproved, threatened, chastised, knowing, and teaching us that fear is the beginning of wisdom, and that it is sometimes proper for a man to cut off an offending limb to save his body. Finally, He did not announce for future society the reign of an ideal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one’s personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910).

We are living in the midst of an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism today, one that is championed by the morbidly obese naturalist who dresses up to look like a pope but who is nothing other than an antipope and an agent, whether witting or unwitting, of Antichrist’s legions from hell.

Pope Saint Pius X gave Catholics their marching orders in Notre Charge Apostolique when he wrote the following:

To reply to these fallacies is only too easy; for whom will they make believe that the Catholic Sillonists, the priests and seminarists enrolled in their ranks have in sight in their social work, only the temporal interests of the working class? To maintain this, We think, would be an insult to them. The truth is that the Sillonist leaders are self-confessed and irrepressible idealists; they claim to regenerate the working class by first elevating the conscience of Man; they have a social doctrine, and they have religious and philosophical principles for the reconstruction of society upon new foundations; they have a particular conception of human dignity, freedom, justice and brotherhood; and, in an attempt to justify their social dreams, they put forward the Gospel, but interpreted in their own way; and what is even more serious, they call to witness Christ, but a diminished and distorted Christ. Further, they teach these ideas in their study groups, and inculcate them upon their friends, and they also introduce them into their working procedures. Therefore they are really professors of social, civic, and religious morals; and whatever modifications they may introduce in the organization of the Sillonist movement, we have the right to say that the aims of the Sillon, its character and its action belong to the field of morals which is the proper domain of the Church. In view of all this, the Sillonist are deceiving themselves when they believe that they are working in a field that lies outside the limits of Church authority and of its doctrinal and directive power. . . .

We know well that they flatter themselves with the idea of raising human dignity and the discredited condition of the working class. We know that they wish to render just and perfect the labor laws and the relations between employers and employees, thus causing a more complete justice and a greater measure of charity to prevail upon earth, and causing also a profound and fruitful transformation in society by which mankind would make an undreamed-of progress. Certainly, We do not blame these efforts; they would be excellent in every respect if the Sillonist did not forget that a person’s progress consists in developing his natural abilities by fresh motivations; that it consists also in permitting these motivations to operate within the frame of, and in conformity with, the laws of human nature. But, on the contrary, by ignoring the laws governing human nature and by breaking the bounds within which they operate, the human person is lead, not toward progress, but towards death. This, nevertheless, is what they want to do with human society; they dream of changing its natural and traditional foundations; they dream of a Future City built on different principles, and they dare to proclaim these more fruitful and more beneficial than the principles upon which the present Christian City rests.

No, Venerable Brethren, We must repeat with the utmost energy in these times of social and intellectual anarchy when everyone takes it upon himself to teach as a teacher and lawmaker - the City cannot be built otherwise than as God has built it; society cannot be setup unless the Church lays the foundations and supervises the work; no, civilization is not something yet to be found, nor is the New City to be built on hazy notions; it has been in existence and still is: it is Christian civilization, it is the Catholic City. It has only to be set up and restored continually against the unremitting attacks of insane dreamers, rebels and miscreants. omnia instaurare in Christo. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

By separating fraternity from Christian charity thus understood, Democracy, far from being a progress, would mean a disastrous step backwards for civilization. If, as We desire with all Our heart, the highest possible peak of well being for society and its members is to be attained through fraternity or, as it is also called, universal solidarity, all minds must be united in the knowledge of Truth, all wills united in morality, and all hearts in the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ. But this union is attainable only by Catholic charity, and that is why Catholic charity alone can lead the people in the march of progress towards the ideal civilization.

Finally, at the root of all their fallacies on social questions, lie the false hopes of Sillonists on human dignity. According to them, Man will be a man truly worthy of the name only when he has acquired a strong, enlightened, and independent consciousness, able to do without a master, obeying only himself, and able to assume the most demanding responsibilities without faltering. Such are the big words by which human pride is exalted, like a dream carrying Man away without light, without guidance, and without help into the realm of illusion in which he will be destroyed by his errors and passions whilst awaiting the glorious day of his full consciousness. And that great day, when will it come? Unless human nature can be changed, which is not within the power of the Sillonists, will that day ever come? Did the Saints who brought human dignity to its highest point, possess that kind of dignity? And what of the lowly of this earth who are unable to raise so high but are content to plow their furrow modestly at the level where Providence placed them? They who are diligently discharging their duties with Christian humility, obedience, and patience, are they not also worthy of being called men? Will not Our Lord take them one day out of their obscurity and place them in heaven amongst the princes of His people? (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

The very false principles condemned by Pope Saint Pius X have become the cornerstone of the counterfeit church of conciliarism’s theological and pastoral acceptance of the religiously indifferentist civil state that, as noted above, leads only and inexorably to the triumph, however temporary until the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, of practical atheism as the lowest common denominator of social life and public policy.

Our last truly canonized Roman Pontiff also condemned the institutionalization of the separation of Church and State in Portugal precisely ninety-nine years before Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI praised it while on a anti-apostolic pilgrimage there in 2010:

2. Whilst the new rulers of Portugal were affording such numerous and awful examples of the abuse of power, you know with what patience and moderation this Apostolic See has acted towards them. We thought that We ought most carefully to avoid any action that could even have the appearance of hostility to the Republic. For We clung to the hope that its rulers would one day take saner counsels and would at length repair, by some new agreement, the injuries inflicted on the Church. In this, however, We have been altogether disappointed, for they have now crowned their evil work by the promulgation of a vicious and pernicious Decree for the Separation of Church and State. But now the duty imposed upon Us by our Apostolic charge will not allow Us to remain passive and silent when so serious a wound has been inflicted upon the rights and dignity of the Catholic religion. Therefore do We now address you, Venerable Brethren, in this letter and denounce to all Christendom the heinousness of this deed.

3. At the outset, the absurd and monstrous character of the decree of which We speak is plain from the fact that it proclaims and enacts that the Republic shall have no religion, as if men individually and any association or nation did not depend upon Him who is the Maker and Preserver of all things; and then from the fact that it liberates Portugal from the observance of the Catholic religion, that religion, We say, which has ever been that nation's greatest safeguard and glory, and has been professed almost unanimously by its people. So let us take it that it has been their pleasure to sever that close alliance between Church and State, confirmed though it was by the solemn faith of treaties. Once this divorce was effected, it would at least have been logical to pay no further attention to the Church, and to leave her the enjoyment of the common liberty and rights which belong to every citizen and every respectable community of peoples. Quite otherwise, however, have things fallen out. This decree bears indeed the name of Separation, but it enacts in reality the reduction of the Church to utter want by the spoliation of her property, and to servitude to the State by oppression in all that touches her sacred power and spirit. (Pope Saint Pius X, Iamdudum, May 24, 1911.)

That the Holy See made an accommodation to the reality caused by the Portuguese decree of separation of Church and State and had its property and many of its privileges restored in the Concordat of 1940 in no way justifies the revolution against the Social Reign of Christ the King in Portugal wrought by the Masonic and socialistic forces there one hundred tenyears ago. Holy Mother Church has long sought to accommodate herself to the concrete realities of any given situation in which her children find themselves so that she can continue her work of teaching and preaching and sanctification without the hindrance of the civil state. To reach a concordat that recognizes the reality of a forced separation of Church and State is not the same thing as endorsing that false thesis or to praise the free flow of false ideas and organizations that have occurred in its wake.

eal happiness from which suffering would be banished; but, by His lessons and by His example, He traced the path of the happiness which is possible on earth and of the perfect happiness in heaven: the royal way of the Cross. These are teachings that it would be wrong to apply only to one’s personal life in order to win eternal salvation; these are eminently social teachings, and they show in Our Lord Jesus Christ something quite different from an inconsistent and impotent humanitarianism. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910).

Pope Saint Pius X gave Catholics their marching orders in Notre Charge Apostolique when he wrote the following:

Pope Saint Pius X, far from praising a revolution that suppressed much of the Church's liberties for thirty years prior to the Concordat of 1940, understood that the life of the Church and thus the good of souls in Portugal would be irreparably harmed by the decree of separation of Church and State that was praised by Ratzinger/Benedict yesterday upon his arrival in Lisbon, Portugal:

The way in which the Portuguese law binds and fetters the liberty of the Church is scarcely credible, so repugnant is it to the methods of these modern days and to the public proclamation of all liberty. It is decreed under the heaviest penalties that the acts of the Bishops shall on no account be printed and that not even within the walls of the churches shall there be any announcement made to the people except by leave of the Republic. It is, moreover, forbidden to perform any ceremony outside the precincts of the sacred buildings without permission from the Republic, to go round in procession, to wear sacred vestments or even the cassock. Furthermore, it is forbidden to place any sign which savors of the Catholic religion not only on public monuments, but even on private buildings; but there is no prohibition at all against so exposing what is offensive to Catholics. Similarly, it is unlawful to form associations for the fostering of religion and piety; indeed societies of this sort are placed on a level with the criminal associations which are formed for evil purposes. And whilst on the one hand all citizens are allowed to employ their means according to their pleasure, on the other, Catholics are, against all justice and equity, placed under restrictions like these if they wish to bequeath something for prayers for the dead, or the upkeep of divine worship; and such bequests already made are impiously diverted to other purposes in utter violation of the wills and wishes of the testators. In fine, the Republic -- and this is harshest and gravest stroke of all -- goes so far as to invade the domain of the authority of the Church, and to make provisions on points which, as they concern the constitution of the priesthood, necessarily claim the special care of the Church. We speak of the formation and training of young ecclesiastics. For not only does the Decree compel ecclesiastical students to pursue their scientific and literary studies which precede theology in the public lycees where, by reason of a spirit of hostility to God and the Church, the integrity of their faith plainly is exposed to the greatest peril; but the Republic even interferes in the domestic life and discipline of the Seminaries, and arrogates the right of appointing the professors, of approving of the textbooks and of regulating the sacred studies of the Clerics. Thus are the old decrees of the Regalists revived and enforced; but what was grievous arrogance whilst there was concord between Church and State, is it not now, when the State will have nothing to do with Church, repugnant and full of absurdity? And what is to be said of the fact that this law is positively framed to deprave the morals of the clergy and to provoke them to abandon their superiors? For fixed pensions are assigned to those who have been suspended from their functions by the authority of the Bishops, and benefices are given to those priests who in miserable forgetfulness of their duty shall have dared to contract marriage; and what is still more shameful to record, it extends the same benefits to be shared and enjoyed by any children there may be of such a sacrilegious union. (Pope Saint Pius X, Iamdudum, May 24, 1911.)

The revolution praised by Ratzinger/Benedict yesterday did not open up a "new era of freedom for the Church" as the subsequent concordats (1940 and (2004) sought only to limit the effects of a revolution that had its inspiration from the same source as conciliarism, the devil himself. Unlike the concordat of 1940, which was negotiated under the pontificate of our last true pope thus far, Pope Pius XII, the concordat negotiated by the then Secretary of State of the Holy See, the late Angelo "Cardinal" Sodano (another of the troika that helped to deconstruct Our Lady's Fatima Message), specifically recognized and accepted the separation of Church and State in Portugal:

The Holy See and the Portuguese Republic, recognising that the Catholic Church and the State are, each and severally, autonomous and independent; taking into account the deep and historical ties between the Catholic Church and Portugal and bearing in mind the reciprocal responsibilities which bind them together, within the limits of religious freedom, and for the benefit of the common good and the duty of building a society which promotes the dignity of the mankind, justice and peace; recognising the Concordat of 7 May 1940, agreed between the Holy See and the Portuguese Republic, and its application has contributed to a considerable extent in to strengthen their historical ties and consolidate the activity of the Catholic Church in Portugal for the benefit of the faithful and for the Portuguese community in general; mindful of the need of an up-date in the light of profound changes on a national and international scale, and in particular as regards the Portuguese legal system, the new Democratic Constitution, revised provisions of European Community law and contemporary international law, and in so far as this affects the church, and the evolution of its relations with the political community; have agreed to stipulate the following Concordat in the terms laid down:

Article 1

The Holy See and the Portuguese Republic declare the commitment of the state and the Catholic Church to cooperate in promoting the dignity of mankind, justice and peace.

The Portuguese Republic recognises the legal status of the Catholic Church.

Relations between the Holy See and the Portuguese Republic are assured through the auspices of an Apostolic Nuncio, as attaché to the Portuguese Republic, and a Portuguese Ambassador to the Holy See. ( Church-State Concordat in Portugal 2004)

Circumstances within countries do change. Granted. Concordats may need to be amended from time to time. Certainly. Catholic teaching remains immutable, and one of the articles of Catholic teaching that remains immutable is the condemnation of the separation of Church and State:

Many believe in or claim that they believe in and hold fast to Catholic doctrine on such questions as social authority, the right of owning private property, on the relations between capital and labor, on the rights of the laboring man, on the relations between Church and State, religion and country, on the relations between the different social classes, on international relations, on the rights of the Holy See and the prerogatives of the Roman Pontiff and the Episcopate, on the social rights of Jesus Christ, Who is the Creator, Redeemer, and Lord not only of individuals but of nations. In spite of these protestations, they speak, write, and, what is more, act as if it were not necessary any longer to follow, or that they did not remain still in full force, the teachings and solemn pronouncements which may be found in so many documents of the Holy See, and particularly in those written by Leo XIII, Pius X, and Benedict XV.

There is a species of moral, legal, and social modernism which We condemn, no less decidedly than We condemn theological modernism.

It is necessary ever to keep in mind these teachings and pronouncements which We have made; it is no less necessary to reawaken that spirit of faith, of supernatural love, and of Christian discipline which alone can bring to these principles correct understanding, and can lead to their observance. This is particularly important in the case of youth, and especially those who aspire to the priesthood, so that in the almost universal confusion in which we live they at least, as the Apostle writes, will not be "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness, by which they lie in wait to deceive." (Ephesians iv, 14) (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Pope Pius XII made it clear in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, that we are duty bound to accept papal encyclical letters, something that Ratzinger/Benedict does not believe applies to the "older" encyclical letters condemning the separation of Church and State as he believes that those letters were conditioned by the historical circumstances in which they were written, thus making them subject to modification at a later time. Once again, however, this is false. Catholic truth is immutable, admitting that it may not be possible always in the circumstances of the world to realize this teaching with exactness. He is as bound as each of one us to accept and to preach the immutable teaching that the civil state has an obligation to recognize the Catholic Church and to accord her the favor and the protection of the laws:

Nor must it be thought that what is expounded in Encyclical Letters does not of itself demand consent, since in writing such Letters the Popes do not exercise the supreme power of their Teaching Authority. For these matters are taught with the ordinary teaching authority, of which it is true to say: "He who heareth you, heareth me"; and generally what is expounded and inculcated in Encyclical Letters already for other reasons appertains to Catholic doctrine. But if the Supreme Pontiffs in their official documents purposely pass judgment on a matter up to that time under dispute, it is obvious that that matter, according to the mind and will of the same Pontiffs, cannot be any longer considered a question open to discussion among theologians. (Pope Pius XII, Humani Generis, August 12, 1950.)

Unlike Ratzinger/Benedict, who praised the decree of the separation of Church and State as a "liberating" factor in the life of the Catholic Church, Pope Saint Pius X condemned it very vigorously:

Accordingly, under the admonition of the duty of Our Apostolic office that, in the face of such audacity on the part of the enemies of God, We should most vigilantly protect the dignity and honor of religion and preserve the sacred rights of the Catholic Church, We by our Apostolic authority denounce, condemn, and reject the Law for the Separation of Church and State in the Portuguese Republic. This law despises God and repudiates the Catholic faith; it annuls the treaties solemnly made between Portugal and the Apostolic See, and violates the law of nature and of her property; it oppresses the liberty of the Church, and assails her divine Constitution; it injures and insults the majesty of the Roman Pontificate, the order of Bishops, the Portuguese clergy and people, and so the Catholics of the world. And whilst We strenuously complain that such a law should have been made, sanctioned, and published, We utter a solemn protest against those who have had a part in it as authors or helpers, and, at the same time, We proclaim and denounce as null and void, and to be so regarded, all that the law has enacted against the inviolable rights of the Church. (Pope Saint Pius X, Iamdudum, May 24, 1911.)

The contrast cannot be much clearer.

Pope Saint Pius X had made it clear in Vehementer Nos, February 11, 1906, that the "Roman Pontiffs have never ceased, as circumstances required, to refute and condemn the doctrine of the separation of Church and State." The conciliar "popes" have endorsed what is opposed what our true popes have denounced as offensive to the rights of Christ the King and to the right ordering of men and their nations.

I don't why this is so difficult to understand or to accept, but the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, is immutable. He does not inspire Holy Mother Church to teach one thing for one thousand nine hundred years before changing course. To believe this is to disbelieve in the very nature of God Himself, and that, you see, is at the base of all that one needs to know about the counterfeit church of conciliarism and its willing subordination to the lords of the anti-Incarnational civil state of Protestant/Judeo-Masonic Modernity.

Pope Leo XIII explained that a generic belief in God leads to the acceptance of religious indifferentism, which is one of the chief goals of Judeo-Masonry:

But the naturalists go much further; for, having, in the highest things, entered upon a wholly erroneous course, they are carried headlong to extremes, either by reason of the weakness of human nature, or because God inflicts upon them the just punishment of their pride. Hence it happens that they no longer consider as certain and permanent those things which are fully understood by the natural light of reason, such as certainly are -- the existence of God, the immaterial nature of the human soul, and its immortality. The sect of the Freemasons, by a similar course of error, is exposed to these same dangers; for, although in a general way they may profess the existence of God, they themselves are witnesses that they do not all maintain this truth with the full assent of the mind or with a firm conviction. Neither do they conceal that this question about God is the greatest source and cause of discords among them; in fact, it is certain that a considerable contention about this same subject has existed among them very lately. But, indeed, the sect allows great liberty to its votaries, so that to each side is given the right to defend its own opinion, either that there is a God, or that there is none; and those who obstinately contend that there is no God are as easily initiated as those who contend that God exists, though, like the pantheists, they have false notions concerning Him: all which is nothing else than taking away the reality, while retaining some absurd representation of the divine nature.

When this greatest fundamental truth has been overturned or weakened, it follows that those truths, also, which are known by the teaching of nature must begin to fall -- namely, that all things were made by the free will of God the Creator; that the world is governed by Providence; that souls do not die; that to this life of men upon the earth there will succeed another and an everlasting life.

When these truths are done away with, which are as the principles of nature and important for knowledge and for practical use, it is easy to see what will become of both public and private morality. We say nothing of those more heavenly virtues, which no one can exercise or even acquire without a special gift and grace of God; of which necessarily no trace can be found in those who reject as unknown the redemption of mankind, the grace of God, the sacraments, and the happiness to be obtained in heaven. We speak now of the duties which have their origin in natural probity. That God is the Creator of the world and its provident Ruler; that the eternal law commands the natural order to be maintained, and forbids that it be disturbed; that the last end of men is a destiny far above human things and beyond this sojourning upon the earth: these are the sources and these the principles of all justice and morality.

If these be taken away, as the naturalists and Freemasons desire, there will immediately be no knowledge as to what constitutes justice and injustice, or upon what principle morality is founded. And, in truth, the teaching of morality which alone finds favor with the sect of Freemasons, and in which they contend that youth should be instructed, is that which they call "civil," and "independent," and "free," namely, that which does not contain any religious belief. But, how insufficient such teaching is, how wanting in soundness, and how easily moved by every impulse of passion, is sufficiently proved by its sad fruits, which have already begun to appear. For, wherever, by removing Christian education, this teaching has begun more completely to rule, there goodness and integrity of morals have begun quickly to perish, monstrous and shameful opinions have grown up, and the audacity of evil deeds has risen to a high degree. All this is commonly complained of and deplored; and not a few of those who by no means wish to do so are compelled by abundant evidence to give not infrequently the same testimony. (Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, April 20, 1884.)

To Remain Calm in the Midst of the Agitation

In the midst of all this, however, we must remain ever in the hands of Our Lady and ever reliant upon her Most Rosary as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. This is a time for Catholic heroes who are willing to pray and fast for the conversion of men and their nations to the true Faith, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order, and for the restoration of a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter.

Although it may sound trite as I have repeated this endlessly in my writing over the past few decades, this is the time that God has known from all eternity that we would be alive. The graces His Co-Equal, Co-Eternal Divine Son won for us by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday in atonement for our sins and that flow into our souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces, are more than sufficient for us to prosper under the yoke of overt persecution and censorship.

Remember, the Sanhedrin demanded that the Apostles be silent about the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. They refused to do and rejoiced that we were deemed worthy to suffer for sake of His Holy Name.

What are we afraid of now?

Remember, the first Catholics were told by Roman emperors and their minions to make sacrifices to idols and abandon the Catholic Faith. According to Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, nearly eleven million Catholics gave up their lives in order to avoid even the appearance of doing apostatizing.

What’s wrong with us?

As noted a short while earlier in this commentary, Catholics in England and Ireland hid priests in priest-holes and were willing to lose everything they hand, including their lives, to remain faithful to the true Church during the persecutions of King Henry VIII and his own daughter and granddaughter, Elizabeth I, whose mother, Anne Boleyn, was Henry’s illegitimate daughter.

We are afraid of the Red Chinese-bought and paid for high priests and priestesses of Silicon Valley?

To quote the “big guy” whose wallet got very fat from Chinese Communist Party front companies, “Come on, man.”

Remember, Catholics suffered during the French Revolution, under Otto von Bismarck’s Kulturkampf in Germany, and the suffered at the hands of the Soviet Bolsheviks, the Chinese Maoists, the Cuban Castroists and the Mexican Freemasons.

With Our Lady and Saint Joseph so near to us every day, why are we so agitated and afraid?

As courageous as the truckers were in Canada before they were brutalized by the forces unleashed by Deng Xiaoping Trudeau, the commendable battle they waged was not for Christ the King and His Holy Church. While Catholics who participated in the effort certainly gained merit for enduring injustices and even violence wrought upon their own person, the coming battles will be about the Holy Faith, and that alone is condition for martyrdom as we the minions of the world have always required believing Catholics to deny the Faith before men or face severe consequences.

Living A World Devoid of a Superabundance of the Merits of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus: Prophetic Words from Father Frederick Faber and Father Henry James Coleridge, S.J.

We are looking at what happens in a world where most people, including most baptized Catholics, are devoid of contact with the Most Precious Blood of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as Father Frederick Faber made this exact point in The Precious Blood:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Father Faber described the very world in which we live today,

Father Faber noted in his The Precious Blood is characterized by the Pelagian spirit of human self-redemption and the libertinage that flows forth as a result merely from the pull of the world, which is so strong and very difficult for so many to resist in these days of apostasy and betrayal:

All devotions have their characteristics; all of them have their own theological meanings. We must say something, therefore, upon the characteristics of the devotion to the Precious Blood. In reality the whole Treatise has more or less illustrated this matter. But something still remains to be said, and something will bear to be repeated. We will take the last first. Devotion to the Precious Blood is the devotional expression of the prominent and characteristic teaching of St. Paul. St. Paul is the apostle of redeeming grace. A devout study of his epistles would be our deliverance from most of the errors of the day. He is truly the apostle of all ages. To each age doubtless he seems to have a special mission. Certainly his mission to our is very special. The very air we breathe is Pelagian. Our heresies are only novel shapes of an old Pelagianism. The spirit of the world is eminently Pelagian. Hence it comes to pass that wrong theories among us are always constructed round a nuclear of Pelagianism; and Pelagianism is just the heresy which is least able to breathe in the atmosphere of St. Paul. It is the age of the natural as opposed to the supernatural, of the acquired as opposed to the infused, of the active as opposed to the passive. This is what I said in an earlier chapter, and here repeat. Now, this exclusive fondness for the natural is on the whole very captivating. It takes with the young, because it saves thought. It does not explain difficulties; but it lessens the number of difficulties to be explained. It takes with the idle; it dispenses from slowness and research. It takes with the unimaginative, because it withdraws just the very element in religion which teases them. It takes with the worldly, because it subtracts the enthusiasm from piety and the sacrifice from spirituality. It takes with the controversial, because it is a short road and a shallow ford. It forms a school of thought which, while it admits that we have an abundance of grace, intimates that we are not much better for it. It merges privileges in responsibilities, and makes the sovereignty of God odious by representing it as insidious. All this whole spirit, with all its ramifications, perishes in the sweet fires of devotion to the Precious Blood.

The time is also one of libertinage; and a time of libertinage is always, with a kind of practical logic, one of infidelity. Whatever brings out God's side in creation, and magnifies his incessant supernatural operation in it, is the controversy which infidelity can least withstand. Now, the devotion to the Precious Blood does this in a very remarkable way. It shows that the true significance in every thing is to be found in the scheme of redemption, apart from which it is useless to discuss the problems of creation. (Father Frederick Faber, The Precious Blood, written in 1860, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 258-259.)

Those words are even truer now than when Father Faber wrote them one hundred fifty-nine years ago.

A similarly prophetic reading of the signs of the times was made about eight later by Father Henry James Coleridge in Father Faber’s beloved England. A careful reading of this essay, which was delivered as a series of sermons, will reveal that Father Coleridge understood perfectly the destructive trajectory of Modernity, a world moored on the rocky shoals of the rationalism of Protestantism and the naturalism of Judeo-Masonry:

But yet the Son of Man when He cometh, shall He find, think you, faith on earth.

(Words taken from the 8^th verse of the 13^th chapter of St. Luke's Gospel.)

We have this description chiefly in two great documents – in St. Paul's speech at Athens to the philosophers, (Acts xivv. 22-31.) and in his account of the miseries of the heathendom in the Epistle to the Romans. (Rom. I. 18-32) I shall speak presently of a third great passage which I mean to compare with these, in which, years after his Epistle to the Roman, he describes the men of the latter times. Let us first deal with the account given by the Apostle of the heathenism among which he lived and worked. In his speech, then, at the Areopagus, St. Paul describes in brief God's ways of dealing with the world. He tells the Athenians, as you know, of the “unknown God,” whom they worshipped in ignorance, Who, nevertheless, was the Creator and the Father of all. He had made of one blood, of one stock, of one nature, all nations on the face of earth. He had given them, as is implied in this, one moral law, one promise, one primeval tradition, one common hope of future salvation. Then He had, as it were, withdrawn, and left them themselves, though still His providence ruled them appointing the whole course of what is called the world's history, the rise, and fall, and character, and vicissitudes of nations and empires, and giving to all men, as St. Paul had said before at Iconium, abundance of good gifts, “Giving rains and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” (Acts xiv. 14-17) And the Apostle tells his hearers how the heathen had, as it were, to grope like blinded men, after God, although He was all the time so near to them, as to all of us – “for in Him we live and move and be.” (Acts xiv. 14-17) And he speaks in the same place, though gently and reservedly, of those terrible and lamentable errors into which the nations left to themselves had falling touching upon the crown and consummation of them all, the idolatrous worship of false gods.

And now we must turn to the other great passage, which must be compared with this of which I have been speaking, where, at the beginning of his Epistle to the Romans, the same Apostle gives what we may call a companion picture to the former, describing the manner in which the heathen nations had in return treated God, and the consequence to themselves in which that treatment had issued. He speaks of the inexcusable ingratitude of the heathen to so good and wonderful a Creator, of their refusal to acknowledge Him, notwithstanding the strong evidences concerning Himself which He had imprinted on the face and on the course of nature; of the punishment which fell on them – that of being given over to idolatry: and then again of the further punishment of this judicial delusion, by which they became the slaves of lusts which in their abominable degradation went even beyond the extreme indulgence of all natural animal appetites. You may remember, my brethren, that fearful picture, on the details of which it is not necessary that we should linger for any space of time this afternoon. The character of heathendom, as he describes it, is based, of course, on intense selfishness, woking itself out in an eager grasping after all the object of concupiscence, and so in avarice, in the reckless pursuit of pleasure at whatever cost to others, in the passionate love of earthly honour and position; then rising, as was only natural after this, into intense pride and haughtiness, into unending stubbornness of will and judgment, and, further still, wreaking itself on all who came across its path, in envy, contentiousness, violence, contumely, in malignant craft, or insolent and reckless cruelty. By the side of these save features of debased humanity, we find placed, as is always the case in reality, a voluptuousness and licentiousness that knew no bound. And these two great passions of lust and pride combine in the character of the heathen world, as drawn by St. Paul, to smother and destroy all those instincts of natural piety and goodness which are implanted in man by his Creator, to which his conscience witnesses, and which animate and sustain all that social and domestic life which is the fundamental condition of our being and our happiness as men. Hence we find in St. Paul's description of heathenism a number of traits which point to the want of all natural affection. The tie which binds parents to children, and children to parents, was dissolved; so again, the law of faithfulness and truthfulness, which is essential in order that we may trust one another in the common intercourse of life, was set aside, as also the rule of gratitude and honest, the law of respect for the characters of others in men's language, the observance of obligations, the habit of peaceableness, the practice of kindness, even the instinct of mercy to the conquered, the weak, the helpless, the afflicted – mercy, the one provision of God for the numberless and otherwise inconsolable miseries to which the world is given up !

Such, in brief, is this great description of the heathenism of his own time given us by St. Paul. And now I come to the point of our argument concerning the latter days. This great Apostle as I have already said, has dwelt in more than one place on the characteristics of the men of those future times, as he has so often dwelt on the characteristics of the old heathen. We have already had occasion to examine what he has said in some of these passages; but one great description remains, written, moreover, as I have said, at the very end of St. Paul's life, on the eve of his martyrdom, in his last Epistle to his beloved child Timothy. (2 Tim. iii. I seq.) This is the longest and most particular description given us by the Apostle, and striking as it is in itself, it is perhaps still more striking when it is compared with the earlier passage in the Epistle to the Romans, to which I have referred. If you will take that passage, in which the vices and degradation of the unconverted heathen world are described with so much indignant severity, and yet with a certain discriminating tenderness and largesness of sympathy, and if you will put it side by side with the other account which, by way of prophecy, St. Paul gives, so many years afterwards, of the corruptions of the latter days, you will find that with one or two striking differences, which I shall point out, the two passages tally exactly. The differences that exist are important in themselves, as we shall see; and they are precious also on another ground, because they show us, if that be needed, that St. Paul has weighed his every word, that he has nowhere made one single charge, either against the ancient heathenism or against its modern revival, without the fullest knowledge and the calmest deliberation. Bear with me, then, if I dwell for a few moments on the points of agreement and of differences between the two,.

In that old heathenism of the Roman world, into which it was the will of God that the Christian religion should be introduced by the Apostles, there were three diverse and often conflicting elements. There was a good element, which came from God; there was a thoroughly bad element, which came from Satan; and there was a corrupt element, which was the fruit of the workings of unregenerate human nature upon society, and upon the objects of sense and intelligence with which man is placed in relations. The good element we see embodied in great part of the laws and institutions of the ancient world, as also in much of the literature, the poetry, the philosophy of Greece and Rome, which literature consequently – after having been purified and as it were, baptized – has always been used by the Christian Church in the education of her children. This element, I say, was originally the gift of God, the Author of nature, to man, the offspring of reason and consicence, the tradition of a society of which God was Himself the founder. It enshrined whatever fragments of primeval truth as to God, the world, and man hiself, still lingered, in whatever shape among the far-wandering children of Adam. St. Paul alludes to this element in the first passage on which we dwelt to-day, and his words altogether seem to imply that God watched over it, supported it, and fostered it, as far as men were worthy of it, and that it might even have been expanded into a perfect system of natural religion and of reasonable virtue, had men been grateful enough to earn larger measure of grace from God, Who left not Himself without witness in His daily providence, and was “not far from” any one of His children.

But now we come to another element which just now I place the last of the three, the working of which we may distinguish in the heathen world. All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth, and man had shut out the knowledge of God from his soul, and had let his passions lead him instead of his conscience. The unregenerate instincts of nature gradually overpowered the moral law in the heart of man, and their victory reflected itself in the rules of society, in the customs and maxims by which human life was guided. In proportion as man became more and more the master of the world, as wealth and power and knowledge and experience increased, as civilization (so to call it) and means of communication advanced, there grew up that great system of cruelty and immorality, of the godless pursuit of pleasure and worldly ends, which we call paganism. For paganism is not properly a religion, so much as a system of human life and human society, according to the impulses and unbridled lust of the natural man, checked only by what remained of strength in the law of right as written in men's hearts, in the voice of conscience, and in the old traditions of better days, and also by the law of necessity which made it imperative that society should in some way or other be kept alive and held together. St. Paul, in the passage to the Romans on which we have dwelt, has described to us, my brethren, what sort of men they were who were penetrated by this pagan spirit. And now, as I have already said, when the same Apostle comes to describe the men of the latter days, he paints them, as to all moral degradation, in the same colours as the pagans of his own time. The two passages correspond as to this word for word; the latter text is almost a repetition of the former. Thus far, the, we have St. Paul's authority for saying that the apostacy of the latter days will be a return to heathenism, understanding by the word that godless system of life and manners which is the fruit of the unrestrained development and reign of the lower instincts of human nature.

These thoughts bring us to the third element of paganism – that which I call the work of Satan, the enemy of God and man. As to this, also, we have St. Paul's authority, in that passage where in a few short words he tells us that the gods of the heathen were devils (I Cor. x. 20) We, my brethren, are often inclined to look upon the personages of which the heathen mythology is made up, as a number of poetic creations, as the powers of nature symbolized, or perhaps, at worst, as great men and famous heroes of fabulous times raised by a sort of natural canonization to the thrones of a higher world. This is the human part of the heathen religions, skillfully used by the authors of evil to disguise their own work for the delusion of men. But there was more behind the forms of apparent grace and beauty than the imagination of earthly poets. This might have been seen, we might truly say, by the base impurities in which they were steeped. No, my brethren, unless St. Paul is mistaken, unless thousands of Christian martyrs were mistaken who treated the heathen idols as the forms under which the apostate angels were adored, the gods of the heathen were Satan and his associates, permitted by the just judgment of God to draw to themselves the adoration which men had denied to Him; and taking care to deify in themselves every shape of human vice and passion, and to exact from their worshippers impure rites and filthy mysteries, that man made in the image God, might learn from them to degrade himself even beneath the level of the beasts of the field. Or, if we want a still more clear proof of the Satanic agencies which underlay the pagan religion we may find it in that other kind of worship which it exacted in the ancient world, and is still found to exact – in the ancient world, and is still found to exact – I mean the frightful tribute of human sacrifice, a custom widely spread and almost universal among pagan nations, some of whom have astonished even their Christian discoverers by their mildness and gentleness, their courtesy and simplicity, and yet have been found to be penetrated to the core by corruption, and to be in the habit of honouring their gods by the frightful homage of the tombs of human victims, a homage enough of itself to proclaim as its author the hater alike of man, and of God Who created him! (Father Henry James Coleridge, S.J.. Discourses on the Latter Days, 1883, pp. 28-40. Published by St. Pius X Press.)

Father Coleridge made the proper distinctions about the pagan world in which our spiritual ancestors lived and, all too frequently, shed their blood to plant the seeds for the rise of Holy Mother Church from the catacombs.

It is true, of course, that Holy Mother Church “baptized,” if you will, what was naturally good in pagan cultures. It is also true that human weakness, which is always at work in the lives of fallen men, undermined the naturally good and beautiful.

This having been noted, however, pagan cultures always do the bidding of satan and his legion of cohorts to seek both the temporal ruin of men and their nations, and it is this third aspect that is at work so fiercely in the world even more than it was in ancient times.

Father Colerdige continued:

Here, then my brethren, we have come to that part of the comparison as to which it need not be said that St. Paul's two descriptions are identical. We need not exaggerate the miseries of our own time, nor draw in darker colours than St. Paul the evil features of the last great apostacy. The Son of God, as another Apostle tells us, was “manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil,” (I St. John iii, S.) and I do not find, in any of the prophetic descriptions of the restored paganism of modern days, that the system of the worship of false gods is to revive, with its abominable rites of blood and its mysteries of licentiousness. Wherever the Cross has been once firmly planted, we may surely hope that the world has seen the last of the public worship of Satan. In St. Paul's description of the latter days, I find the blasphemy of the true God substituted for the worship of devils. But, my brethren, the Son of God was not manifested altogether to destroy the works of man. He came to raise man, change him, regenerate him, sanctify him, by uniting him to Himself. He did not come to take away man's free will, or to tear out of his nature those seeds of possible evil which produced all the human part of the paganism on which we have been reflecting. The empire of Satan has been overthrown, but alas! Man is still his own great enemy, and though our Lord has armed him against himself, He has still left him the power to mar the work of God in his own soul, and this power, which each one of us possesses in his own case, is always fearfully active in the corruption of the Christian society, the character of which is the result and the reflection of that of the parts of which it is made up.

And now, my brethren, what need have we of any subtlety of inquiry or refinement of speculation to tell us that this modern heathenism of which the prophecies speak is around us on every side? Mankind are in many sense far mightier, and the resources and enjoyments at their command are far ampler, than in the days of old. We are in possession of the glorious but intoxicating fruits of that advanced civilization and extended knowledge which has sprung up from the seeds which the Church of God has, as it were, dropped on her way through the world. Society has been elevated and refined, but on that very account it has become capable of a more penetrating degradation, of a more elegant and a more poisonous corruption. Knowledge has been increased, but on the increase of knowledge has followed the increase of pride. Science has unravelled the laws of nature and the hidden treasures of the material universe, and they place fresh combinations of power and new revelations of enjoyment in the hands of men who have not seen in the discovery increased reasons for self-restraint or for reverence for the Giver of all good gifts. The world, the home of the human race, has been opened to civilised man in all its distant recesses, and he has taken, or is taking, possession of his full inheritance; but his onward path is the path of avarice and greed, of lust and cruelty, and he seizes on each new land as he reaches it in the spirit of the merchant or the conqueror, not in that of the harbinger of peace, the bearer of the good tidings of God. At home, in Christendom itself, we hear, as our Lord said, of wars and rumours of wars, nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. In the Apostles' time, it was an unheard of thing that the majestic peace and unity of the Roman Empire should not absorb and keep in harmony a hundred rival nationalities. In our time it is not to be thought of that the supernatural bond of the christian church should be able to keep nations which are brethren in the faith from devouring one another.

Or, again, my brethren, let us turn from public to private life. Look at social life, look at domestic manners; consider the men and women of the present day in their amusements, their costumes, the amount of restraint they put upon the impulses of nature; compare them at their theatres and their recreations, compare them as to their treatment of the poor and the afflicted classes; compare them, again, as to the style of art which they affect, or the literature in which they delight, with the old heathen of the days of St. Paul. I do not say, God forbid! That there is not a wide and impassable gulf between the two, for that would be to say that so many centuries of Christendom had been utterly wasted, and that the Gospel law has not penetrated to the foundations of society, so that it is not true that our Lord rules as the Psalmist says, “in the midst of His enemies,” (Psalm cix, 2) even over the world, which would fain emancipate itself from His sway. But I do say, that if a Christian of the first ages were to rise from the dead, and examine our society, point by point, on the heads which I have intimated, and compare it, on the one hand, with the polished refined heathen whom he may have known at the courts of Nero or Domitian, and, on the other, with the pure strict holiness of his own brethren in the faith, who worshipped with him in the catacombs, he might find it difficult indeed to say that what he would see around him in London or Paris was derived by legitimate inheritance rather from the traditions of the martyr Church than from the customs of the persecuting heathen. He would miss the violence, the cruelty, the riotous and ruffianly lust, the extraordinary disrespect for humanity and human life which distinguished the later Roman civilization; but he would find much of its corruption, much of its licentiousness, much of its hardness of heart. The unregenerate instincts of human nature are surging up like a great sea all around us, society is fast losing all respect for those checks upon the innate heathenism of man which have been thrown over the surface of the world by the Church. It is becoming an acknowledged law that whatever is natural is right, and by nature is meant nature corrupted by sin, nature unilluminated by faith and unassisted by grace – that is, the lower appetites of man in revolt against conscience, looking for no home but earth and no satisfaction but in the present “having no hope of the promise, and without God in this world.” . . . . (Father Henry James Coleridge, S.J.. Discourses on the Latter Days, 1883, pp. 28-40. Published by St. Pius X Press.)

Time has proven Father Coleridge wrong on one point as a Christian from the first ages who would rise from the dead would indeed find “the violence, the cruelty, the riotous and ruffianly lust, the extraordinary disrespect for humanity and human life which distinguished the later Roman civilization.”

Over three thousand babies are killed surgically every day under cover of law in the United States of America alone, thousands more are killed “silently” by means of chemical abortifacients. Thousands of innocent human beings are dispatched every week in hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and even in the comfort of their homes by those who want to give them a “compassionate death” rather than to accept the death that God has willed for them from all eternity to endure, replete with all of its pains sufferings with which they can make final satisfaction for their sins.

Blasphemy is rampantly uncontrolled and seemingly uncontrollable.

All that is holy and just is mocked and reviled.

Believing Catholics are persecuted and denied employment and/or promotions because they are said to be “haters” who deny the “rights” of women to kill their babies or of those immersed in the sin of Sodom and its related vices to celebrate their iniquity publicly.

The world is awash with the blood of the innocent.

Yes, a visitor from Holy Mother Church’s first three centuries would recognize this world as being worse than that of Roman antiquity, because men, having heard the Gospel of the Divine Redeemer, have rejected the Holy Faith and prefer to live as brutes.

Father Coleridge’s remarkable essay concludes:

So then, in these our days, can we too often remind ourselves of the points of attack chosen by the enemies of faith and of society? Can we forget with what a wearisome sameness of policy the war is waged year after year, first in one place and then in another; how certain it is that as soon as we hear that some nation hitherto guided by Catholic instincts has become a convert to the enlightened ideas of our times, the next day will bring the further tidings that in that nation marriage is no longer to be treated as a sacrament and that education is to be withdrawn from the care of the church and her ministers? And, indeed, my brethren, we know not how soon we ourselves may be engaged in a deadly conflict, on one at least, of these points. Up to this time we, at least in England, have been able to train our children for ourselves. And, to give honour where honour is due, we have owed our liberty in great measure to the high value which certain communities outside the Church set upon distinctively Christian and doctrinal instruction. But we know not how soon the tide of war may come to our homes. We hear cry in the air – it says that the child belongs to the State, and that it is the duty of the State to take his education to itself. The cry is false; the child belongs to the parent, belongs to the Church, belongs to God. In that cry speaks the reviving paganism of our day. Surely it should teach us, if nothing else can, the paramount importance of Christian education. If we give in to that cry we are lost. Train up your children, my brethren, in the holy discipline and pure doctrine of the Church, and they are formed thereby to be soldiers of Jesus Christ in the coming conflict against the powers of evil. Train them up in indifference to religion and Christian doctrine, and if they are not at once renegades from their faith, at least they are far too weak and faint-hearted in their devotion to the Church, to range themselves courageously among her champions in her terrible battle against the last apostacy. (Father Henry James Coleridge, S.J.. Discourses on the Latter Days, 1883, pp. 28-40. Published by St. Pius X Press.)

Anyone who does not see we are living at a time when the consequences of the dreadful errors set upon the world by Niccolo Machiavelli, Martin Luther, et al. is a fool. The conditions described by Father Coleridge describe our conditions today. Sadly, there are still Catholics today who permit themselves to become agitated over the events of the world without realizing that there is no getting the “toothpaste back into the tube” by natural means. Men revel in their sins and they are evangelistic in behalf of their errors. Worse yet, obviously, is the fact that the false “pope” and his equally false “bishops” reaffirm them in their sins and are even more evangelistic than they in the spread of errors and heresies that fulfill the very prophecy of Saint Paul to Saint Timothy:

[1] I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom: [2] Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine. [3] For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: [4] And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables. [5] But be thou vigilant, labour in all things, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. (2 Tim. 4: 1-15.)

Men prefer to have others tickle their itching ears rather than to consider the sweet entreaties of Christ the King and to respond to the motherly intercession of Our Blessed Mother in their behalves.

Men prefer to believe in naturalism of one sort or another, not Catholicism.

Men prefer to pursue material pleasure and well-being to the exclusion of all considerations of futurity, of where they will spend eternity, Heaven or Hell.

Men prefer to submit to the statists of Modernity rather than to the sweet yoke of Christ the King and to His true Church.

Men prefer to walk in the darkness rather than in the light of Christ the King.

To Flee from the Deceptions and Snares of a World Gone Mad

Catholics must reject the deceptions of a world gone mad, a world that has no more place for Christ the King than it did when He was born in a stable in a cave in Bethlehem as He was warmed by the breath of stable animals.

We must, as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, offer up the sacrifices of the moment, recognizing that this is the time that God has appointed for us from all eternity in which to live and to sanctify our souls.

We have been given the weapon of Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary and the shield of her Brown Scapular.

Conscious of our need to make reparation for our own many sins and to live in the world but without being of the world, we take seriously this instruction that Our Lady gave to the Venerable Mary of Agreda about the public manifestation of her Divine Son to Saint John the Baptist, His cousin, herald and precursor, at the Jordan River prior to embarking upon His Public Ministry to accept the sufferings of this time as redeemed creatures eager to make satisfaction in this life for how our sins have offended Divine Justice and thus worsened the state of the Church Militant and of the world-at-large:

272. My daughter, since in relating to thee the works of my most holy Son I so often remind thee how gratefully I appreciated them, thou must understand how pleasing to the Most High is the most faithful care and correspondence on thy part, and the hidden and great blessings enclosed within it. Thou art poor in the house of the Lord, a sinner, insignificant and useless as dust; yet I ask thee to assume the duty of rendering ceaseless gratitude for all the incarnate Word has done for the sons of Adam, and for establishing the holy and immaculate, the powerful and perfect law for their salvation. Especially must thou be grateful for the institution of Baptism by which He frees men from the tyranny of the devil, regenerates them as his children (Jn. 3:5), fills them with grace, clothes them with justice, and assists them to sin no more. This is indeed a duty incumbent upon all men in common, but since creatures neglect it almost entirely I enjoin thee to give thanks for all of them as if thou alone wert responsible for them. Thou art bound to special gratitude to the Lord for other things as well because He has shown Himself so generous to no one among other nations as He has with thee. In the foundation of his holy law and of his Sacraments thou wert present in his memory; He called and chose thee as a daughter of his Church, proposing to nourish thee by his own blood with infinite love.

273. And if the Author of grace, my most holy Son, as a prudent and wise Artificer, in order to found his evangelical Church and lay its first foundations in the sacrament of Baptism, humiliated Himself, prayed, and fulfilled all justice, acknowledging the inferiority of his human nature, and if, though at the same time God and man, He hesitated not to lower Himself to the nothingness of which his purest soul was created and his human being formed, how much must thou humiliate thyself, who hast committed sins and art less than the dust and despicable ashes? Confess that in justice thou dost merit only punishment, the persecution and wrath of all the creatures, and that none of the mortals who has offended his Creator and Redeemer can say in truth that any injustice or offense is done to them if all the tribulations and afflictions of the world from its beginning to its end were to fall upon them. Since all sinned in Adam (I Cor. 15:22), how deeply should they humiliate themselves when the hand of the Lord visits them (Job 19:21)? If thou dost suffer all the afflictions of men with the utmost resignation, and at the same time fulfill all that I enjoin upon thee by my teachings and exhortations with the greatest fidelity, thou nevertheless must esteem thyself as a useless and unprofitable servant (Lk. 17:10). How much then must thou humiliate thyself when thou dost fail in thy duty and in the return due to all the blessings received from God? Since I desire thee to make a proper return both for thyself and for others, think well how much thou art obliged to annihilate thyself to the very dust, not offering any resistance, nor ever being satisfied until the Most High receives thee as his daughter and accepts thee as such in his own presence and in the celestial vision of the triumphant Jerusalem. (New English Edition of The Mystical City of God: Book Five, The Transfixion, Chapter XXIV)

The Immaculate Heart of Mary will triumph in the end, and it will be upon this triumph that the words Our Lord spoke to Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque will be fulfilled:

"I will reign in spite of all who oppose Me." (quoted in The Right Reverend Emile Bougaud. The Life of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, reprinted by TAN Books and Publishers in 1990, p. 361.)

PART THREE

The secular religion that is political ideology started with the Liberalism of John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government, which was, depending on what sources one accepts, an impetus to the overthrow of King James II of England in 1688 or an ex post facto justification for that overthrow in 1690.

As has been noted many times on this site, one of the proximate root causes of what can be called "liberalism" is the writing of John Locke, whose views were the direct result of the Protestant Revolution that began in England under King Henry VIII in 1534 and resulted in the proliferation of Protestant sects in a kingdom that had been Catholic for nearly a millennium. Readers of this site know that I care very much about root causes.

The Protestant Revolt engendered murder and mayhem in the German states after it was launched by the hideous, lecherous, drunken Augustinian monk named Father Martin Luther, O.S.A., on October 31, 1517, when he posted his "ninety-five theses" on the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther himself was aghast to see the almost instantaneous moral degeneration of his "evangelicals" into violent mobs who pilfered and sacked formerly Catholic churches and lived riotously, oblivious to the fact that he was responsible for this degeneration by depriving those who followed his revolution against Christ the King of the Sacraments and of the true teaching that Our King has entrusted to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication.

In like manner, of course, the Protestant Revolt in England engendered murder and violence, much of which was state-sponsored as Henry Tudor was responsible between the years of 1534 and 1547 for ordering the executions of over 72,000 Catholics who remained faithful to the Catholic Church following the decree that Parliament has passed that declared him to be the "supreme head of the Church in England as far as the law of God allowed." As was the case in the German states as princes gave Luther protection so that they, the princes, could govern in a Machiavellian manner free of any interference from Rome or their local bishops, so was it the case in England that the Protestant Revolution provided the receipt for the unchecked tyranny of English monarchs.

Indeed, the kind of state-sponsored social engineering that has created the culture of entitlement in England and elsewhere in Europe has its antecedent roots in Henry's revolt against the Social Reign of Christ the King and His Catholic Church in the Sixteenth Century.

Henry had Parliament enact various laws to force the poor who had lived for a nominal annual fee on the monastery and convent lands (as they produced the food to sustain themselves, giving some to the monastery or convent) off of those lands, where their families had lived for generations, in order to redistribute the Church properties he had stolen to those who supported his break from Rome. Henry quite cleverly created a class of people who were dependent upon him for the property upon which they lived and the wealth they were able to derive therefrom, making them utterly supportive of his decision to declare himself Supreme Head of the Church in England. Those of the poorer classes who had been thrown off of the monastery and convent lands were either thrown into prison (for being poor, mind you) or forced to migrate to the cities, where many of them lost the true Faith and sold themselves into various vices just to survive. The effects of this exercise of state-sponsored engineering are reverberating in the world today, both politically and economically. Indeed, many of the conditions bred by the disparity in wealth created by Henry's land grab in the Sixteenth Century would fester and help to create the world of unbridled capitalism and slave wage that so impressed a German emigre in London by the name of Karl Marx. Unable to recognize the historical antecedents of the real injustices he saw during the Victorian Era, Marx set about devising his own manifestly unjust system, premised on atheism and anti-Theism, to rectify social injustice once and for all. In a very real way, Henry of Tudor led the way to Lenin of Russia.

The abuses of power by English monarchs led to all manner of social unrest in England, especially as those Anglicans who were followers of John Calvin sought to eradicate all remaining vestiges of Catholicism from Anglican "worship" and "doctrine" (removing Latin from certain aspects of the heretical Anglican liturgy, smashing statues, eliminating high altars in favor of tables, things that have been undertaken in the past forty years in many formerly Catholic churches that are now in the custody of the counterfeit church of conciliarism). This unrest produced the English Civil Wars of the 1640s and the establishment in 1649 of what was, for all intents and purposes, a Calvinist state under the control Oliver Cromwell that became a Cromwellian dictatorship between the years of 1653 to 1660 until the monarchy under the House of Stuart was restored in 1660. Oh yes, King Charles I lost his head, quite literally, in 1649 as the "Roundheads" of Oliver Cromwell came to power in 1649 following seven years of warfare between "parliamentarians" and "royalists." Revolutions always wind up eating their own. The English monarchy itself was eaten up by the overthrow of the Social Reign of the King of Kings by Henry VIII of the House of Tudor in 1534.

King James II, who had converted to Catholicism in France in 1668 while he was the Prince of York under his brother, King Charles II of the restored monarchy, acceded to the English throne in on June 6, 1685, following his brother's death, which occurred after Charles II himself had converted to the the Faith on his deathbed. Suspicious that the property that had been acquired and the wealth that had been amassed as a result of Henry VIII's social-engineering land grab of 150 years before would be placed in jeopardy, Protestant opponents of King James II eventually forced him to abdicate the throne in 1688, his rule having been declared as ended on December 11 of that year. The abdication of King James, whose second wife, Mary of Modena, had been assigned Blessed Father Claude de la Colombiere as her spiritual director when she was the Princess of York, is referred to by Protestant and secular historians as the "glorious revolution," so-called because it ushered in the penultimate result of the Protestant Revolution, the tyranny of the majority.

It was to justify the rise of majoritarianism that John Locke, a Presbyterian (Calvinist) minister, wrote his Second Treatise on Civil Government. Locke believed, essentially, that social problems could be ameliorated if a majority of reasonable men gathered together to discuss their situation. The discussion among these "reasonable men" would lead to an agreement, sanctioned by the approval of the majority amongst themselves, on the creation of structures which designed to improve the existing situation. If those structures did not ameliorate the problems or resulted in a worsening of social conditions then some subsequent majority of "reasonable men" would be able to tear up the "contract" that had bound them before, devising yet further structures designed to do what the previous structures could not accomplish. Locke did not specify how this majority of reasonable men would form, only that it would form, providing the foundation of the modern parliamentary system that premises the survival of various governments upon the whims of a majority at a given moment.

In other words, England's "problem" in 1688 was King James II. The solution? Parliament, in effect, declared that he had abdicated his throne rather than attempt to fight yet another English civil war to maintain himself in power as the man chosen by the parliamentarians to replace him, his own son-in-law William of Orange, who was married to his daughter Mary, landed with armed forces ready to undertake such a battle. The parliamentary "majority" had won the day over absolutism and a return to Catholicism.

Unfortunately for Locke, you see, social problems cannot be ameliorated merely by the creation of structures devised by "reasonable men" and sanctioned by the majority.

All problems in the world, both individual and social, have their remote causes in Original Sin and their proximate causes in the Actual Sins of men. There is no once-and-for-all method or structure by which, for example, "peace" will be provided in the world by the creation of international organizations or building up or the drafting of treaties.

There is no once-and-for-all method or structure by which, for example, "crime" will be lessened in a nation by the creation of various programs designed to address the "environmental" conditions that are said to breed it.

The only way in which social conditions can be ameliorated is by the daily reformation of individual lives in cooperation with the graces won for men by the shedding of the Most Precious Blood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the wood of the Holy Cross and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, she who is the Mediatrix of All Graces. And to the extent that social structures can be effective in addressing and ameliorating specific problems at specific times in specific places those who create and administer them must recognize their absolute dependence upon God's graces and that there is no secular, non-denominational or inter-denominational way to provide for social order. Social order and peace among nations depend entirely upon the subordination of the life of every person and the activities of every nation to the Social Reign of Christ the King as it is exercised by the Catholic Church.

Locke’s construct of social reform sanctioned by a majority of supposedly “reasonable men” begat what became an ever-evolving series of “salvific” naturalistic ideologies, each replete with its own sets of competing interpreters, guardians, and evangelists.

Here is a partial listing and thumbnail sketch of many, although far all, of the major political ideologies that have been spanned in the past three hundred forty years: Some of the other consequences of naturalism include:

"Positivism," the contention that something is true because it has been asserted as being true;
"Materialism," the acquisition and retention of wealth and material goods as the ultimate end of human existence;
"Utilitarianism," the belief that public policy must be founded on the principle of the "greatest good for the greatest number," meaning that "inconvenient" or "useless" human lives may be "engineered," either passively or aggressively, out of existence;
"Pragmatism," the belief that social problems must be resolved on a "practical" basis without regard to a consideration of "root causes;"
"Egalitarianism," the belief that there are no divinely-instituted distinctions among men in society, starting with a rejection of the authority vested in the hierarchy of the Church (which is also known as "anti-clericalism"); "
Feminism," the assertion that there are no distinctions ordained by God between the sexes and that women have the "right" to do everything that men can do in society;
"Evolutionism," the rejection of Special Creation of man by God and his subsequent the Fall from Grace in the Garden of Eden and replacing it with a belief that life evolved over billions of years, thus convincing man that truth itself evolves over time and that there are no fixed standards by which one can judge human behavior;
"Majoritarianism," the belief, drawn, although in different ways, from John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, that public policy is determined by will of the majority in society at any given time;
"Liberalism," the political ideology that contends that it is possible for a majority of reasonable men to devise social structures to improve social conditions by the light of their own unaided reason;
"Conservatism," an amalgamation of different philosophies that have one thing in common: a rejection of the necessity of men and their nations to subordinate themselves to the Social Teaching of the Catholic Church;
"Libertarianism," the belief that the civil government has only a limited role to play in the restriction of the behavior of its citizens;
"Socialism," a term used to describe any number of specific politico-economic systems that reject, to one degree or another, the private ownership of property and places the control of the major means of production in the hands of the state while imposing confiscatory taxation in order to "redistribute" wealth according to the decisions made by the socialist elite;
"Communism," the ultimate form of socialism that contends it is possible for all clash among men to cease once private property is confiscated and the wealth derived therefrom distributed equitably amongst the workers according to the principle of "from each according to his ability and to each according to his need;
"Nationalism," the exaltation of the myths of one's nation above love of God as He has revealed Himself exclusively through the Catholic Church;
"Statism," the exaltation of the state as being endowed with the properties of infallibility and invincibility its domestic and international policies;
"Fascism," very much related to statism, seeks to orchestrate politics and the national economy and popular culture to the honor and glory of the state (private property might be permitted in a fascist state, only subject to state-imposed restrictions; corporate enterprises not controlled directly by the state must produce what the state demands and according to the price control established by the tate);
"Secularism," which is simply another name for naturalism;
Environmentalism, which is a pantheistic worship of the natural elements of the world as a cover to advance population control and massive social engineering;
Globalism, which is a suppression of the sovereignty of nation-states in favor of multinational bureaucracies composed of unelected elites who believe that it is necessary to destroy “democracy” in order to “save” “democracy” and thus govern the world according to “scientific” principles. Globalism is nothing other than Communism by another word.

This review is intended to add some context to the world that face our true popes following the death of Pope Saint Pius X on August 20, 1914, which was less than a month after the onset of World War I on July 28, 1914.

World War I was caused by a number of factors, not the least being the aforementioned ideology of nationalism that had become a psychic disease of many formerly Catholic nations of Europe, especially England, France, and Italy, although to be sure, there the disease of nationalism was rife within the many parts of the still Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire. World War I was a needless exercise in militarism on behalf of nationalism fought with the means of modern weaponry, especially aerial combat, and the use chemical nerve agents. The war was immoral and unjust, and it is said that Pope Saint Pius X’s health took a turn for the worse following the outbreak of war in once Catholic Europe.

Pope Saint Pius X’s successor, Pope Benedict XV, was no Giuseppe Melchior Sarto when it came to the governance of the Church and the suppression of Modernism, and unlike the pastor who hailed from the farm community of Riese, Italy, trained in diplomacy, which he sought to use throughout the course of World War I, especially by issuing a Peace Note in 1917 that was scoffed at by the militarist, war-mongering anti-Catholic bigot named Thomas Woodrow Wilson, who was President of the United States from March 4, 1913, to March 4, 1921.

Pope Benedict XV had to walk a delicate line during World War I as Catholics were fighting on both sides of the war and, to make matters more complex, there were Catholics in Poland, then under control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, who desired their beloved homeland to be independent again, a sentiment that was shared by some, although far from all, Catholics in Bohemia and Slovakia. It was in light of these difficulties that Pope Benedict XV’s first encyclical letter, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914, sought to address general principles of Catholic truth, including a reminder about the binding nature of Catholic teaching in all the circumstances of life, which is why he emphasized the obligation of civil rulers to subordinate their actions to Holy Mother Church in all that pertained to the good of souls.

His Holiness started his encyclical letter by noting the irony that there was less brotherhood of men in the world in 1914 even though agents of naturalism spoke constantly about such brotherhood while ignoring the fact that Holy Mother Church is the source of the true unity of men throughout the world:

Far different from this is the behaviour of men today. Never perhaps was there more talking about the brotherhood of men than there is today; in fact, men do not hesitate to proclaim that striving after brotherhood is one of the greatest gifts of modern civilization, ignoring the teaching of the Gospel, and setting aside the work of Christ and of His Church. But in reality never was there less brotherly activity amongst men than at the present moment. Race hatred has reached its climax; peoples are more divided by jealousies than by frontiers; within one and the same nation, within the same city there rages the burning envy of class against class; and amongst individuals it is self-love which is the supreme law overruling everything.

8. You see, Venerable Brethren, how necessary it is to strive in every possible way that the charity of Jesus Christ should once more rule supreme amongst men. That will ever be our own aim; that will be the keynote of Our Pontificate. And We exhort you to make that also the end of your endeavours. Let us never cease from reechoing in the ears of men and setting forth in our acts, that saying of St. John: “Let us love one another” (I John iii. 23). Noble, indeed, and praiseworthy are the manifold philanthropic institutions of our day: but it is when they contribute to stimulate true love of God and of our neighbours in the hearts of men, that they are found to confer a lasting advantage; if they do not do so, they are of no real value, for “he that loveth not, abideth in death.” (I John iii. 14). (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

The passages above could be used to describe the hypocrisy of the “left” today, of course, and the passages immediately below struck at the heart of World War I’s cause: nationalism:

9. The second cause of the general unrest we declare to be the absence of respect for the authority of those who exercise ruling powers. Ever since the source of human powers has been sought apart from God the Creator and Ruler of the Universe, in the free will of men, the bonds of duty, which should exist between superior and inferior, have been so weakened as almost to have ceased to exist. The unrestrained striving after independence, together with over-weening pride, has little by little found its way everywhere; it has not even spared the home, although the natural origin of the ruling power in the family is as clear as the noonday sun; nay, more deplorable still, it has not stopped at the steps of the sanctuary. Hence come contempt for laws, insubordination of the masses, wanton criticism of orders issued, hence innumerable ways of undermining authority; hence, too, the terrible crimes of men who, claiming to be bound by no laws, do not hesitate to attack the property or the lives of their fellow men.

10. In presence of such perversity of thought and of action, subversive of the very constitution of human society, it would not be right for Us, to whom is divinely committed the teaching of the truth, to keep silence: and We remind the peoples of the earth of that doctrine, which no human opinions can change: “There is no power but from God: and those that are, are ordained of God” (Rom. xiii 1). Whatever power then is exercised amongst men, whether that of the King or that of an inferior authority, it has its origin from God. Hence St. Paul lays down the obligation of obeying the commands of those in authority, not in any kind of way, but religiously, that is conscientiously-unless their commands are against the laws of God: “Wherefore be not subject of necessity, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake” (Rom. xiii. 5). In harmony with the words of St. Paul are the words of the Prince of the Apostles himself: “Be ye subject of every human creature for God’s sake: whether it be the King as excelling, or to governors as sent by him” (I Peter ii. 13-14). From which principle the Apostle of the Gentiles infers that he who contumaciously resists the legitimate exercise of human authority, resists God and is preparing for himself eternal punishment: “Therefore he that resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist, purchase to themselves damnation” (Rom. xiii. 2). (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

The cure for naturalism, of course, is to be found in rejecting Modernity’s cries for the separation of Church and State in favor of a concord between rules and Holy Mother Church in all that pertains to the good of souls, upon which the right order with nations and peace among them depends:

11. Let the Princes and Rulers of peoples remember this truth, and let them consider whether it is a prudent and safe idea for governments or for states to separate themselves from the holy religion of Jesus Christ, from which their authority receives such strength and support. Let them consider again and again, whether it is a measure of political wisdom to seek to divorce the teaching of the Gospel and of the Church from the ruling of a country and from the public education of the young. Sad experience proves that human authority fails where religion is set aside. The fate of our first parent after the Fall is wont to come also upon nations. As in his case, no sooner had his will turned from God than his unchained passions rejected the sway of the will; so, too, when the rulers of nations despise divine authority, in their turn the people are wont to despise their human authority. There remains, of course, the expedient of using force to repress popular risings; but what is the result? Force can repress the body, but it cannot repress the souls of men.

12. When the twofold principle of cohesion of the whole body of society has been weakened, that is to say, the union of the members with one another by mutual charity and their union with their head by their dutiful recognition of authority, is it to be wondered at, Venerable Brethren, that human society should be seen to be divided as it were into two hostile armies bitterly and ceaselessly at strife? Drawn up against those who possess property, whether by inheritance or by industry, stand the proletariate and the workers, inflamed with hatred and envy, because, although they are by nature the same, they do not occupy the same position as the others. Once they have been imbued with the fallacies of the agitators, to whose behests they are most docile, who will ever make them see that it does not follow that because men are equal by their nature, they must all occupy an equal place in the community? And further, who will ever make them see that the position of each one is that which each by use of his natural gifts-unless prevented by force of circumstances-is able to make for himself? And so the poor who strive against the rich as though they had taken part of the goods of others, not merely act contrary to justice and charity, but also act irrationally, particularly as they themselves by honest industry can improve their fortunes if they choose. It is not necessary to enumerate the many consequences, not less disastrous for the individual than for the community, which follow from this class hatred. We all see and deplore the frequency of strikes, which suddenly interrupt the course of city and of national life in their most necessary functions, we see hostile gatherings and tumultous crowds, and it not unfrequently happens that weapons are used and human blood is spilled. (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum, November 1, 1914.)

The themes addressed by Pope Benedict XV in the passages just above would be reiterated very emphatically and in a far more urgent manner by his own successor, Pope Pius XI, in his first encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, which will be reviewed once again later in this commentary.

Pope Benedict XV’s Ad Beatissimi Apostolorum went on to condemn Socialism and all other forms of naturalism, including materialism and the godless education of children, as being nothing other than incitements to envy, class warfare within nations and armed hostilities among them:

13. It is not our intention here to repeat the arguments which clearly expose the errors of Socialism and of similar doctrines. Our predecessor, Leo XIII, most wisely did so in truly memorable Encyclicals; and you, Venerable Brethren, will take the greatest care that those grave precepts are never forgotten, but that whenever circumstances call for it, they should be clearly expounded and inculcated in Catholic associations and congresses, in sermons and in the Catholic press. But more especially-and We do not hesitate to repeat it-by the help of every argument, supplied by the Gospels or by the nature of man himself, or by the consideration of the interests of the individual and of the community, let us strive to exhort all men, that in virtue of the divine law of charity they should love one another with brotherly love. Brotherly love is not calculated to get rid of the differences of conditions and therefore of classes-a result which is just as impossible as that in the living body all the members should have the same functions and dignity-but it will bring it to pass that those who occupy higher positions will in some way bring themselves down to those in a lower position, and treat them not only justly, for it is only right that they should, but kindly and in a friendly and patient spirit, and the poor on their side will rejoice in their prosperity and rely confidently on their help-even as the younger son of a family relies on the help and protection of his elder brother.

14. But there is still, Venerable Brethren, a deeper root of the evils we have hitherto been deploring, and unless the efforts of good men concentrate on its extirpation, that tranquil stability and peacefulness of human relations we so much desire, can never be attained. The apostle himself tells us what it is: “The desire of money is the root of all evils” (I. Tim vi. 10). If any one considers the evils under which human society is at present labouring, they will all be seen to spring from this root.

15. Once the plastic minds of children have been moulded by godless schools, and the ideas of the inexperienced masses have been formed by a bad daily or periodical press, and when by means of all the other influences which direct public opinion, there has been instilled into the minds of men that most pernicious error that man must not hope for a state of eternal happiness; but that it is here, here below, that he is to be happy in the enjoyment of wealth and honour and pleasure: what wonder that those men whose very nature was made for happiness should with all the energy which impels them to seek that very good, break down whatever delays or impedes their obtaining it. And as these goods are not equally divided amongst men, and as it is the duty of authority in the State to prevent the freedom enjoyed by the individual from going beyond its due limits and invading what belongs to another, it comes to pass that public authority is hated, and the envy of the unfortunate is inflamed against the more fortunate. Thus the struggle of one class of citizen against another bursts forth, the one trying by every means to obtain and to take what they want to have, the other endeavouring to hold and to increase what they possess.

16. Christ our Lord, foreseeing the present state of things, definitely stated in his sublime Sermon on the Mount, what are the real “beatitudes” of man in the world; and thereby He may be said to have laid down the foundations of Christian philosophy. Even in the eyes of the adversaries of the faith they are full of incomparable wisdom, and form a most complete religious and moral system; and certainly all would admit that before Christ, Who is the Very Truth, no such teaching in those matters had ever been uttered with such weight and dignity, or with such a depth of love.

17. Now, the whole secret of this divine philosophy is, that what are called the goods of this mortal life have indeed the appearance of good, but not the reality; and, therefore, that it is not in the enjoyment of them that man can be happy. In the divine plan, so far are riches and glory and pleasure from bringing happiness to man that if he really wishes to be happy, he must rather for God’s sake renounce them all: “Blessed are ye poor . . . Blessed are ye that weep now; . . . Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil” (Luke vi. 20-22). That is to say, that it is through the sorrows and sufferings and miseries of this life, patiently borne with, as it is right that they should be, that we shall enter into possession of those true and imperishable goods which “God hath prepared for them that love Him” (I. Cor. ii. 9). This most important teaching of our Faith is overlooked by many, and by not a few it has been completely forgotten.

18. Hence it is necessary, Venerable Brethren, to revive it once more in the minds of all, for in no other way can individuals and nations attain to peace. Let us, then, bid those who are undergoing distress of whatever kind, not to cast their eyes down to the earth in which we are as pilgrims, but to raise them to Heaven to which we are going: “For we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come” (Heb. xiii. 14). In the midst of the adversities whereby God tests their perseverance in His service, let them often think of the reward that is prepared for them if victorious in the trial: “For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory” (II Cor. iv. 17). We must strive by every possible means to revive amongst men faith in the supernatural truths, and at the same time the esteem, the desire and the hope of eternal goods. Your chief endeavours, Venerable Brethren, that of the Clergy, and of all good Catholics, in their various societies, should be to promote God’s glory and the true welfare of mankind. In proportion to the growth of this faith amongst men will be the decrease of that feverish striving after the empty goods of the world, and little by little, as brotherly love increases, social unrest and strife will cease.

19. Let us now turn our thoughts from human society to the immediate affairs of the Church, for it is necessary that Our soul, stricken with the evils of the times, should seek consolation in one direction at least. Over and above those luminous proofs of the divine power and indefectibility enjoyed by the Church, We find a source of no small consolation in the remarkable fruits of the active foresight of our Predecessor, Pope Pius X, who shed upon the Apostolic Chair the lustre of a most holy life. For We see as a result of his efforts a revival of religious spirit in the clergy throughout the whole world; the piety of the Christian people revived; activity and discipline stimulated in Catholic associations; the foundation and increase of episcopal sees; provision made for the education of ecclesiastical students in harmony with the canonical requirements and in so far as necessary with the needs of the times; the saving of the teaching of sacred science from the dangers of rash innovations; musical art brought to minister worthily to the dignity of sacred functions; the Faith spread far and wide by new missions of heralds of the Gospel. (Pope Benedict XV, Ad Beatissimi Aposotolorum, November 1, 1914.)

Pope Benedict XV issued a letter in April of 1917 to plea for peace among the warring nations. Although the principal purpose of the letter was to insert the title “Queen of Peace” in the Litany of Our Lady (the Litany of Loretto), he made it clear that the hostilities had to end:

On April 27, 1915, with the letter addressed to the rev. P. Crawley-Boevey, We extended to all those who consecrated their home to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Indulgences two years earlier granted for this act of piety by Our Predecessor Pius X, of venerable and holy memory, to the families of the Republic Chilean. Then, vivid and serene, the hope that the Divine Redeemer, called to reign visibly in the domestic hearths, would spread the infinite treasures of meekness and humility of His most loving Heart and prepare all souls to welcome the paternal invitation to peace, which We proposed to address in His August Name to the belligerent peoples and their leaders on the first anniversary of the outbreak of the current terrible war. The ardor with which Christian families, and also the soldiers of the various fighting armies,

We then pointed out to the peoples the only way to settle - with honor and with the benefit of each of them - their disagreements and, by tracing the foundations on which the future structure of the States will have to lay, in order to be lasting, we averted them, in the name of God and humanity, to abandon the purposes of mutual destruction and come to a just and equitable agreement.

But Our breathless voice, invoking the cessation of the immense conflict, the suicide of civil Europe, that day and thereafter remained unheard! The dark tide of hatred spreading among the warring nations seemed to rise even more, and the war, overwhelming other countries in its frightful whirlwind, multiplied the ruins and the massacres.

Yet, Our trust did not fail! You know, Cardinal, that you have lived and lives with Us in the anxious expectation of the longed-for peace. In the inexpressible torment of Our soul and among the most bitter tears, which We shed on the atrocious pains accumulated on the fighting peoples by this horrible storm, We love to hope now not farther away the hoped-for day, in which all men, children of the same Heavenly Father, they will go back to considering themselves brothers. The sufferings of the peoples, which have become almost importable, have made the general desire for peace more acute and intense. May the Divine Redeemer do, in the infinite goodness of his Heart, that even in the minds of the rulers the advice of meekness prevails, and that, aware of their responsibility before God and before humanity,

To this end, may the prayer of the miserable human family ascend to Jesus, more frequent, humble and trusting, especially in the month dedicated to His Most Holy Heart, and you implore the cessation of the terrible scourge. Let each one purify himself more often in the salutary washing of the sacramental Confession, and to the most loving Heart of Jesus, joined to him in Holy Communion, offer him his petitions with affectionate insistence. And since all the graces, which the Author of all good deigns to share with the poor descendants of Adam, are, by the loving advice of his Divine Providence, dispensed through the hands of the Most Holy Virgin, We want the Great Mother of God in this terrible hour more than ever turn the question of your most afflicted children alive and confidently. Let us therefore give you, Mr. Cardinal, the task of making known to all the Bishops of the world Our ardent desire that they have recourse to the Heart of Jesus, throne of graces, and that this throne be resorted to through Mary. To what purpose We order that, starting from the first day of next June, the invocation "Regina pacis, ora pro nobis”, which we allowed the Ordinaries to add temporarily with the Decree of the Sacred Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs on 16 November 1915.

Rise, therefore, to Mary, who is Mother of mercy and omnipotent by grace, from every corner of the earth, in majestic times and in the smallest chapels, from the palaces and rich mansions of the great as from the poorest hovels, where lodges a 'faithful soul, from the fields and bloody seas, the pious, devout invocation and bring to her the anguished cry of mothers and wives, the groan of innocent children, the sigh of all well-blessed hearts: move your tender and most benign solicitude to obtain the longed-for peace from the troubled world and remember, for centuries to come, the efficacy of your intercession and the magnitude of the benefit shared by you.

With this trust in our hearts, We implore from God on all peoples, whom we embrace with equal affection, the most chosen graces and we impart the Apostolic Blessing to you, Lord Cardinal, and to all Our children. (Pope Benedict XV, Epistle to Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, May 5, 1917.)

What is noteworthy about this letter is that it was issued twenty-nine days after United States President Thomas Woodrow Wilson had secured a declaration of war against the German Empire on April 6, 1917, which just happened to be Good Friday that year. Wilson was, as has been noted on this site endless numbers of times, an egregious anti-Catholic, and he seethed with contempt when Pope Benedict XV had called for an end to hostilities less than a month after he had convinced the Congress of the United States of America to enter a war to “make the world safe for democracy” even though such was the farthest thing from the minds of those dying in the horrors of trench warfare on the battlefields of France and Belgium. Wilson wanted to construct a Judeo-Masonic New World Order in Europe to replace the residual influence of Holy Mother Church upon civil affairs in Europe, and the Church he hated could have no role to play in the reconstruction of a postwar world that was designed to eliminate the last remaining Catholic Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and with it the last semblance of the Holy Roman Empire. What is even worse is that many Americanist bishops, led by the arch-Americanist James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore, Maryland, wanting to prove their “patriotic” bona fides to the Catholic-hating Wilson, urged the sons and grandsons of European immigrants to fight in a needless and immoral war that was being fought with Modernity’s nascent weapons of mass destruction. Americanism first, Holy Mother Church a distant second.

Nevertheless, however, Pope Benedict XV’s career in diplomacy taught him to believe that the formation of a league of nations would be of service to the cause of world peace once the war had ended. His successor, Pope Pius XI, though, was unsparing in his mockery of the league of nations, which he expressed as follows in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922:

pe Pius XI wrote in Ubi Arcano Consilio about the “community of nations”:

39. We have already seen and come to the conclusion that the principal cause of the confusion, restlessness, and dangers which are so prominent a characteristic of false peace is the weakening of the binding force of law and lack of respect for authority, effects which logically follow upon denial of the truth that authority comes from God, the Creator and Universal Law-giver.

40. The only remedy for such state of affairs is the peace of Christ since the peace of Christ is the peace of God, which could not exist if it did not enjoin respect for law, order, and the rights of authority. In the Holy Scriptures We read: “My children, keep discipline in peace.” (Ecclesiasticus xli, 17) “Much peace have they that love the law, O Lord.” (Psalms cxviii, 165) “He that feareth the commandment, shall dwell in peace.” (Proverbs xiii, 13) Jesus Christ very expressly states: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” (Matt. xxii, 21) He even recognized that Pilate possessed authority from on High (John xiv, 11) as he acknowledged that the scribes and Pharisees who though unworthy sat in the chair of Moses (Matt. xxiii, 2) were not without a like authority. In Joseph and Mary, Jesus respected the natural authority of parents and was subject to them for the greater part of His life. (Luke ii, 51) He also taught, by the voice of His Apostle, the same important doctrine: “Let every soul be subject to higher powers: for there is no power but from God.” (Romans xiii, 1; cf. also 1 Peter ii, 13, 18)

41. If we stop to reflect for a moment that these ideals and doctrines of Jesus Christ, for example, his teachings on the necessity and value of the spiritual life, on the dignity and sanctity of human life, on the duty of obedience, on the divine basis of human government, on the sacramental character of matrimony and by consequence the sanctity of family life — if we stop to reflect, let Us repeat, that these ideals and doctrines of Christ (which are in fact but a portion of the treasury of truth which He left to mankind) were confided by Him to His Church and to her alone for safekeeping, and that He has promised that His aid will never fail her at any time for she is the infallible teacher of His doctrines in every century and before all nations, there is no one who cannot clearly see what a singularly important role the Catholic Church is able to play, and is even called upon to assume, in providing a remedy for the ills which afflict the world today and in leading mankind toward a universal peace.

42. Because the Church is by divine institution the sole depository and interpreter of the ideals and teachings of Christ, she alone possesses in any complete and true sense the power effectively to combat that materialistic philosophy which has already done and, still threatens, such tremendous harm to the home and to the state. The Church alone can introduce into society and maintain therein the prestige of a true, sound spiritualism, the spiritualism of Christianity which both from the point of view of truth and of its practical value is quite superior to any exclusively philosophical theory. The Church is the teacher and an example of world good-will, for she is able to inculcate and develop in mankind the “true spirit of brotherly love” (St. Augustine, De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, i, 30) and by raising the public estimation of the value and dignity of the individual’s soul help thereby to lift us even unto God.

43. Finally, the Church is able to set both public and private life on the road to righteousness by demanding that everything and all men become obedient to God “Who beholdeth the heart,” to His commands, to His laws, to His sanctions. If the teachings of the Church could only penetrate in some such manner as We have described the inner recesses of the consciences of mankind, be they rulers or be they subjects, all eventually would be so apprised of their personal and civic duties and their mutual responsibilities that in a short time “Christ would be all, and in all.” (Colossians iii, 11)

44. 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.

45. 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.

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.

It is possible to sum up all We have said in one word, "the Kingdom of Christ." For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. Jesus reigns over the family when it, modeled after the holy ideals of the sacrament of matrimony instituted by Christ, maintains unspotted its true character of sanctuary. In such a sanctuary of love, parental authority is fashioned after the authority of God, the Father, from Whom, as a matter of fact, it originates and after which even it is named. (Ephesians iii, 15) The obedience of the children imitates that of the Divine Child of Nazareth, and the whole family life is inspired by the sacred ideals of the Holy Family. Finally, Jesus Christ reigns over society when men recognize and reverence the sovereignty of Christ, when they accept the divine origin and control over all social forces, a recognition which is the basis of the right to command for those in authority and of the duty to obey for those who are subjects, a duty which cannot but ennoble all who live up to its demands. Christ reigns where the position in society which He Himself has assigned to His Church is recognized, for He bestowed on the Church the status and the constitution of a society which, by reason of the perfect ends which it is called upon to attain, must be held to be supreme in its own sphere; He also made her the depository and interpreter of His divine teachings, and, by consequence, the teacher and guide of every other society whatsoever, not of course in the sense that she should abstract in the least from their authority, each in its own sphere supreme, but that she should really perfect their authority, just as divine grace perfects human nature, and should give to them the assistance necessary for men to attain their true final end, eternal happiness, and by that very fact make them the more deserving and certain promoters of their happiness here below.

It is, therefore, a fact which cannot be questioned that the true peace of Christ can only exist in the Kingdom of Christ -- "the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ." It is no less unquestionable that, in doing all we can to bring about the re-establishment of Christ's kingdom, we will be working most effectively toward a lasting world peace. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

So much for the League of Nations!

It was in that same encyclical letter, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, that Pope Pius XI described the true nature of modern political parties:

To these evils we must add the contests between political parties, many of which struggles do not originate in a real difference of opinion concerning the public good or in a laudable and disinterested search for what would best promote the common welfare, but in the desire for power and for the protection of some private interest which inevitably result in injury to the citizens as a whole. From this course there often arise robberies of what belongs rightly to the people, and even conspiracies against and attacks on the supreme authority of the state, as well as on its representatives. These political struggles also beget threats of popular action and, at times, eventuate in open rebellion and other disorders which are all the more deplorable and harmful since they come from a public to whom it has been given, in our modern democratic states, to participate in very large measure in public life and in the affairs of the government. Now, these different forms of government are not of themselves contrary to the principles of the Catholic Faith, which can easily be reconciled with any reasonable and just system of government. Such governments, however, are the most exposed to the danger of being overthrown by one faction or another. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

Those in civil rule must exercise their authority for the cause of Christ the King and His true Church, a cause that is synonymous with the common temporal good of society, something that Silvio Cardinal Antoniano explained over five hundred forty years ago:

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, as quoted by Pope Pius XI inDivini Illius Magistri, December 31, 1929.)

Do you have any better ideas?

God the Holy Ghost saw fit to instruct us in Sacred Scripture, including in the passage from the Book of Proverbs:

[34] Justice exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable. (Proverbs 14: 34.)

Christ the King will not be mocked. He will suffer the sins of men so that they and their nations might be brought to repentance. He is not, however, indifferent to that which caused Him to suffer in His Sacred Humanity during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross, sin, and that wounds the Church Militant on earth and impedes the pursuit of the true common temporal good of men and their nations.

The former Achille Ratti, Pope Pius XI, was a great champion of Christ the King by means of his powerful encyclical letters. As was the case with Pope Leo XIII, however, some of his decisions in the practical order of relations with various states made the realization of the Social Reign of Christ the King less likely. However, Pope Pius XI was looking at a changed Europe after World War I but he did not abandon the Social Reign of Christ the King in principle, quite to the contrary of the scandalous assertion made to this effect by Joseph "Cardinal" Ratzinger in Principles of Catholic Theology.

Unlike the conciliarists, though, Pope Pius XI never abandoned the immutable principles concerning the absolute duty of the civil state to recognize the true religion as he championed the cause of the Social Reign of Christ the King, taking as his very papal motto, "The Peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ.” He merely authorized his Secretary of State, Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, an Americanist, to assure the life of Holy Mother Church in the wake of the Treaty of Versailles and the creation of new "republics" in countries that either came back to life, such as Poland, or had been created from the various parts of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. This was indeed very important and Cardinal Gasparri did it very well.

Mexico, however, was another matter.

War is always a regrettable last resort to be undertaken only after the exhausting of all peaceful remedies. The Cristeros in Mexico did not seek the conflict that began with the promulgation of the Calles Law in June of 1926.

Working with the Mexican bishops, the Vatican, led by Pope Pius XI and Cardinal Gasparri, specifically requested that the Calles Law be repealed and the offending provisions of the 1917 Mexican Constitution upon which it was based be repealed as well. Time and time again, however, the requests were denied, something that should have indicated to the Vatican that Calles was of bad will and desired to shut down the "superstition" of the Catholic religion once and for all. It was after all requests for a peaceful resolution were exhausted that the Mexican bishops announced on August 1, 1926, that Pope Pius XI had approved their decision to suspend all religious services in Mexico in order to avoid armed conflict.

It was just two days later, August 3, 1926, that two hundred forty Mexican army troops stormed the church in in Sahuayo, Michoacan. Another army siege of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Guadalajara had taken place the day before. Although it would not be until after the Mexican Congress rejected the petition signed by over two million Catholics for the repeal of the Calles Law that the battles would rage in earnest in early 1927, those conflicts in August of 1926 made it clear to Pope Pius XI that Mexico was about to explode.

This is why His Holiness issued Iniquis Afflictisque on November 18, 1926. Pope Pius XI carefully explained the background to the conflict:

8. In the first place, let us examine the law of 1917, known as the "Political Constitution" of the federated republic of Mexico. For our present purposes it is sufficient to point out that after declaring the separation of Church and State the Constitution refuses to recognize in the Church, as if she were an individual devoid of any civil status, all her existing rights and interdicts to her the acquisition of any rights whatsoever in the future. The civil authority is given the right to interfere in matters of divine worship and in the external discipline of the Church. Priests are put on the level of professional men and of laborers but with this important difference, that they must be not only Mexicans by birth and cannot exceed a certain number specified by law, but are at the same time deprived of all civil and political rights. They are thus placed in the same class with criminals and the insane. Moreover, priests not only must inform the civil authorities but also a commission of ten citizens whenever they take possession of a church or are transferred to another mission. The vows of religious, religious orders, and religious congregations are outlawed in Mexico. Public divine worship is forbidden unless it take place within the confines of a church and is carried on under the watchful eye of the Government. All church buildings have been declared the property of the state. Episcopal residences, diocesan offices, seminaries, religious houses, hospitals, and all charitable institutions have been taken away from the Church and handed over to the state. As a matter of fact, the Church can no longer own property of any kind. Everything that it possessed at the period when this law was passed has now become the property of the state. Every citizen, moreover, has the right to denounce before the law any person whom he thinks is holding in his own name property for the Church. All that is required in order to make such action legal is a mere presumption of guilt. Priests are not allowed by law to inherit property of any kind except it be from persons closely related to them by blood. With reference to marriage, the power of the Church is not recognized. Every marriage between Catholics is considered valid if contracted validly according to the prescriptions of the civil code.

9. Education has been declared free, but with these important restrictions: both priests and religious are forbidden to open or to conduct elementary schools. It is not permitted to teach children their religion even in a private school. Diplomas or degrees conferred by private schools under control of the Church possess no legal value and are not recognized by the state. Certainly, Venerable Brothers, the men who originated, approved, and gave their sanction to such a law either are totally ignorant of what rights pertain jure divino to the Church as a perfect society, established as the ordinary means of salvation for mankind by Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer and King, to which He gave the full liberty of fulfilling her mission on earth (such ignorance seems incredible today after twenty centuries of Christianity and especially in a Catholic nation and among men who have been baptized, unless in their pride and foolishness they believe themselves able to undermine and destroy the "House of the Lord which has been solidly constructed and strongly built on the living rock") or they have been motivated by an insane hatred to attempt anything within their power in order to harm the Church. How was it possible for the Archbishops and Bishops of Mexico to remain silent in the face of such odious laws?

10. Immediately after their publication the hierarchy of Mexico protested in kind but firm terms against these laws, protests which Our Immediate Predecessor ratified, which were approved as well by the whole hierarchies of other countries, as well as by a great majority of individual bishops from all over the world, and which finally were confirmed even by Us in a letter of consolation of the date of the second of February, 1926, which We addressed to the Bishops of Mexico. The Bishops hoped that those in charge of the Government, after the first outburst of hatred, would have appreciated the damage and danger which would accrue to the vast majority of the people from the enforcement of those articles of the Constitution restrictive of the liberty of the Church and that, therefore, out of a desire to preserve peace they would not insist on enforcing these articles to the letter, or would enforce them only up to a certain point, thus leaving open the possibility of a modus vivendi, at least for the time being.

11. In spite of the extreme patience exhibited in these circumstances by both the clergy and laity, an attitude which was the result of the Bishops' exhorting them to moderation in all things, every hope of a return to peace and tranquillity was dissipated, and this as a direct result of the law promulgated by the President of the Republic on the second of July, 1926, by virtue of which practically no liberty at all was left the Church. As a matter of fact, the Church was barely allowed to exist. The exercise of the sacred ministry was hedged about by the severest penalties as if it were a crime worthy of capital punishment. It is difficult, Venerable Brothers, to express in language how such perversion of civil authority grieves Us. For whosoever reveres, as all must, God the Creator and Our Beloved Redeemer, whosoever will obey the laws of Holy Mother Church, such a man, We repeat, such a man is looked on as a malefactor, as guilty of a crime; such a man is considered fit only to be deprived of all civil rights; such a man can be thrown into prison along with other criminals. With what justice can We apply to the authors of these enormities the words which Jesus Christ spoke to the leaders of the Jews: "This is your hour, and the power of darkness." (Luke xxii, 53)

12. The most recent law which has been promulgated as merely an interpretation of the Constitution is as a matter of fact much worse than the original law itself and makes the enforcement of the Constitution much more severe, if not almost intolerable. The President of the Republic and the members of his ministry have insisted with such ferocity on the enforcement of these laws that they do not permit the governors of the different states of the Confederation, the civil authorities, or the military commanders to mitigate in the least the rigors of the persecution of the Catholic Church. Insult, too, is added to persecution. Wicked men have tried to place the Church in a bad light before the people; some, for example, uttering the most brazen lies in public assemblies. But when a Catholic tries to answer them, he is prevented from speaking by catcalls and personal insults hurled at his head. Others use hostile newspapers in order to obscure the truth and to malign "Catholic Action."

13. If, at the beginning of the persecution, Catholics were able to make a defense of their religion in the public press by means of articles which made clear the truth and answered the lies and errors of their enemies, it is now no longer permitted these citizens, who love their country just as much as other citizens do, to raise their voices in protest. As a matter of fact, they are not even allowed to express their sorrow over the injuries done to the Faith of their fathers and to the liberty of divine worship. We, however, moved profoundly as We are by the consciousness of the duties imposed upon Us by our Apostolic office, will cry out to heaven, Venerable Brothers, so that the whole Catholic world may hear from the lips of the Common Father of all the story of the insane tyranny of the enemies of the Church, on the one hand, and on the other that of the heroic virtue and constancy of the bishops, priests, religious congregations, and laity to Mexico.

14. All foreign priests and religious men have been expelled from the country. Schools for the religious education of boys and girls have been closed, either because they are known publicly under a religious name or because they happen to possess a statue or some other religious object. Many seminaries likewise, schools, insane asylums, convents, institutions connected with churches have been closed. In practically all the states of the Republic the number of priests who may exercise the sacred ministry has been limited and fixed at the barest minimum. Even these latter are not allowed to exercise their sacred office unless they have beforehand registered with the civil authorities and have obtained permission from them so to function. In certain sections of the country restrictions have been placed on the ministry of priests which, if they were not so sad, would be laughable in the extreme. For example, certain regulations demand that priests must be of an age fixed by law, that they must be civilly married, and they are not allowed to baptize except with flowing water. In one of the states of the Confederation it has been decreed that only one bishop is permitted to live within the territory of said state, by reason of which law two other bishops were constrained to exile themselves from their dioceses. Moreover, because of circumstances imposed upon them by law, some bishops have had to leave their diocese, others have been forced to appear before the courts, several were arrested, and practically all the others live from day to day in imminent danger of being arrested.

15. Again, every Mexican citizen who is engaged in the education of children or of youth, or holds any public office whatsoever, has been ordered to make known publicly whether he accepts the policies of the President and approves of the war which is now being waged on the Catholic Church. The majority of these same individuals were forced, under threat of losing their positions, to take part, together with the army and laboring men, in a parade sponsored by the Regional Confederation of the Workingmen of Mexico, a socialist organization. This parade took place in Mexico City and in other towns of the Republic on the same day. It was followed by impious speeches to the populace. The whole procedure was organized to obtain, by means of these public outcries and the applause of those who took part in it, and by heaping all kinds of abuse on the Church, popular approval of the acts of the President.

16. But the cruel exercise of arbitrary power on the part of the enemies of the Church has not stopped at these acts. Both men and women who defended the rights of the Church and the cause of religion, either in speeches or by distributing leaflets and pamphlets, were hurried before the courts and sent to prison. Again, whole colleges of canons were rushed off to jail, the aged being carried there in their beds. Priests and laymen have been cruelly put to death in the very streets or in the public squares which front the churches. May God grant that the responsible authors of so many grave crimes return soon to their better selves and throw themselves in sorrow and with true contrition on the divine mercy; We are convinced that this is the noble revenge on their murderers which Our children who have been so unjustly put to death are now asking from God. (Pope Pius XI, Iniquis Afflictisque, November 18, 1926. The entirety of the encyclical will be appended below.)

Even though Vatican diplomacy failed the Cristeros and thus the cause of Cristo Rey and La Virgen de Guadalupe, Pope Pius XI cannot be faulted for being ill-informed about the extent of the persecution. He was very well informed of the facts of the situation in 1926. Indeed, it is said that he wept when learning of the results of the "agreement" that had resulted in the "cease" fire on June 21, 1929, learning that the Calles persecution had continued under his stooge Emilio Portes Gil even after most of the Cristeros had laid down their weapons.

Pietro Cardinal Gasparri just wanted there to be a "deal" so that the Sacraments could be offered once again to the Mexican people. Alas, that "deal" was based on the "word" of a professed atheist, a Freemason and a Socialist, Plutarco Elias Calles, who had shown himself to be a ruthless murderer of innocent human beings in his blind zeal to eradicate the "superstition" of Catholicism, which he called nothing other than a "political movement," off the face of Mexico once and for all.

Calles believed that the people would forget about the Faith once they did not have the Sacraments (go tell that to the Catholics in Japan who were without the sacraments for two hundred fifty years), seeming not to know anything about history as English Catholics hid priests, sometimes from their own closest friends so as not to betray the priest, in their own homes, after King Henry Tudor's Protestant Revolution began. And, quite indeed, many Mexican Catholics did exactly the same thing during the Cristeros War as they hid priests and kept to themselves in order to have the sacraments, just as faithful Catholics had done when refusing any association with the so-called "Constitutional Church" during the years of the French Revolution. Those steeped in a blind hatred for God and His Holy Church always think that they can wipe out that which is immortal: the Catholic Faith.

The six years between the time that the agreements were signed and the Calles Law repealed were ones of continued persecution against the Catholic Church on part of Plutarco Elias Calles and his stooges, Emilio Portes Gil (1928-1930), Pascual Ortiz Rubio (1930-1932) and Abelardo Rodriguez (1932-1934). They were summarized as follows by Father Brian Van Bove, S.J.:

The first things (sic) Calles did after peace had been made was to shoot down 500 Cristero leaders. The six years of the entente Cordiale between Calles and the Church have been the six bloodiest years in the history of Mexico.

Actually, Elizonde puts the figure at 400, but perhaps the exact number will never be known. Calles was responsible for the killing. Plutarco Elías Calles, President of Mexico from 1924 to 1928, was depicted in the "BCR" the way Nicolai Ceausescu was in the popular press of 1989. When Calles left office in 1928 he controlled the government from behind the scenes, and he dominated the life of the country until 1934 when his rival Lázaro Cárdenas won out. How did Calles control the whole country for so long? Very simple _ by owning the army. Cárdenas prevented him from making a final comeback in 1936. No one has ever been able to explain adequately Calles' extreme and irrational hatred for the Church. Perhaps it was a combination of greed and Jacobin ideology. In any case, Cárdenas also hated the Church, but his fanaticism was more pragmatic and times had changed by the mid-30s.

The "BCR" described the 1929 revenge upon the Catholic "freedom fighters" more fully by setting the figure at 500 leaders and 5,000 ordinary men who were shot, often in their homes in front of their families. Their property was then seized, leaving the survivors destitute. Elizonde clearly says that the obedience of the Mexican Catholics to the request of the Holy See was a disaster for the Church, and ended only in betrayal. The American Jesuit Wilfred Parsons, on the other hand, claims Archbishop Pascual Díaz, SJ, of Mexico City, disagreed with those of Elizonde's persuasion, and thought the decision to seek a military solution was mistaken in the first place (Father Brian Van Hove, S.J, Blood-Drenched Altars.)

Father Von Hove pointed out that Archbishop Diaz, who had given his "quasi-blessing" to the Cristeros although he forbade priests to take up arms, actually told Father John Burke of the National Catholic Welfare Conference during his exile in the United States of America that he did not want the conference to provide aid to the Cristeros, something that Archbishop Curley and Bishop Kelley believed was most mistaken. Archbishop Diaz's opposition to the rebellion, at least in principle, provided Father Burke, who had been given a carte blanche by Cardinal Gasparri through the papal delegate to negotiate terms of peace with Calles through the offices of American Ambassador Dwight Morrow, without anyone from the Cristeros being represented. An empty "peace" was the result, one that caused the Church in Mexico even more suffering after the church bells began to ring again in Our Lady's country ninety-three years ago.

Confronted with the facts of how Calles broke his worthless word, Pope Pius XI issued a mea culpa in Acerba Animi, September 29, 1932, explaining once again his support for the suffering Catholics of Mexico and his regret that the persecution had continued after the truce:

6. In the face of the firm and generous resistance of the oppressed, the Government now began to give indications in various ways that it would not be averse to coming to an agreement, if only to put an end to a condition of affairs which it could not turn to its own advantage. Whereupon, though taught by painful experiences to put scant trust in such promises, We felt obliged to ask Ourselves whether it was for the good of souls to prolong the suspension of public worship. That suspension had indeed been an effective protest against the arbitrary interference of the Government; nevertheless, its continuation might have seriously prejudiced civil and religious order. Of even greater weight was the consideration that this suspension, according to grave reports which We received from various and unexceptionable sources, was productive of serious harm to the faithful. As these were bereft of spiritual helps necessary for the Christian life, and not infrequently were obliged to omit their religious duties, they ran the risk of first remaining apart from and then of being entirely separated from the priesthood, and in consequence from the very sources of supernatural life. To this must be added the fact that the prolonged absence of almost all the Bishops from their dioceses could not fail to bring about a relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline, especially in times of such great tribulation for the Mexican Church, when clergy and people had particular need of the guidance of those "whom the Holy Ghost has placed to rule the Church of God."

7. When, therefore, in 1929 the Supreme Magistrate of Mexico publicly declared that the Government, by applying the laws in question, had no intention of destroying the "identity of the Church" or of ignoring the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, We thought it best, having no other intention but the good of souls, to profit by the occasion, which seemed to offer a possibility of having the rights of the Hierarchy duly recognized. Seeing, therefore, some hope of remedying greater evils, and judging that the principal motives that had induced the Episcopate to suspend public worship no longer existed, We asked Ourselves whether it were not advisable to order its resumption. In this there was certainly no intention of accepting the Mexican regulations of worship, nor of withdrawing Our protests against these regulations, much less of ceasing to combat them. It was merely a question of abandoning, in view of the Government's new declarations, one of the methods of resistance, before it could bring harm to the faithful, and of having recourse instead to others deemed more opportune.

8. Unfortunately, as all know, Our wishes and desires were not followed by the peace and favourable settlement for which We had hoped. On the contrary, to Bishops, priests, and faithful Catholics continued to be penalized and imprisoned, contrary to the spirit in which the modus vivendi had been established. To Our great distress We saw that not merely were all the Bishops not recalled from exile, but that others were expelled without even the semblance of legality. In several dioceses neither churches nor seminaries, Bishops' residences, nor other sacred edifices, were restored; notwithstanding explicit promises, priests and laymen who had steadfastly defended the faith were abandoned to the cruel vengeance of their adversaries. Furthermore, as soon as the suspension of public worship had been revoked, increased violence was noticed in the campaign of the press against the clergy, the Church, and God Himself; and it is well known that the Holy See had to condemn one of these publications, which in its sacrilegious immorality and acknowledged purpose of anti-religious and slanderous propaganda had exceeded all bounds.

9. Add to this that not only is religious instruction forbidden in the primary schools, but not infrequently attempts are made to induce those whose duty it is to educate the future generations, to become purveyors of irreligious and immoral teachings, thus obliging the parents to make heavy sacrifices in order to safeguard the innocence of their children. We bless with all Our heart these Christian parents and all the good teachers who help them, and We urge upon you, Venerable Brethren, upon the clergy secular and regular, and upon all the faithful, the necessity of giving their utmost attention to the question of education and the formation of the young, especially among the poorer classes, since they are more exposed to atheist, masonic, and communistic propaganda, persuading yourselves that your country will be such as you build it up in the children.

10. An effort has been made to strike the Church in a still more vital spot; namely, in the existence of the clergy and the Catholic hierarchy, by trying to eliminate it gradually from the Republic. Thus the Mexican Constitution, as We have several times deplored, while proclaiming liberty of thought and conscience, prescribes with the most evident contradiction that each State of the Federal Republic must determine the number of priests to whom the exercise of the sacred ministry is allowed, not only in public churches, but even within private dwellings. This enormity is further aggravated by the way in which the law is applied. The Constitution lays down that the number of priests must be determined, but ordains that this determination must correspond to the religious needs of the faithful and of the locality. It does not prescribe that the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy is to be ignored in this matter, and this point was explicitly recognized in the declarations of the modus vivendi. Now in the State of Michoacan one priest was assigned for every 33,000 of the faithful, in the State of Chiapas one for every 60,000, while in the State of Vera Cruz only one priest was assigned to exercise the sacred ministry for every 100,000 of the inhabitants. Everyone can see whether it is possible with such restrictions to administer the Sacraments to so many people, scattered for the most part over a vast territory. Indeed, the persecutors, as though sorry for having been too liberal and indulgent, have imposed further limitations. Some Governors closed seminaries, confiscated canonries, and determined the sacred buildings and the territory to which the ministry of the approved priest would be restricted.

11. The clearest manifestation of the will to destroy the Catholic Church itself is, however, the explicit declaration, published in some States, that the civil Authority, in granting the licence for priestly ministry, recognizes no Hierarchy; on the contrary, it positively excludes from the possibility of exercising the sacred ministry all of hierarchic rank namely, all Bishops and even those who have held the office of Apostolic Delegates.

12. We wished briefly to rehearse the salient points in the grievous condition of the Church in Mexico, so that all lovers of order and peace among nations, on seeing that such an unheard-of persecution differs but little, especially in certain States, from the one raging within the unhappy borders of Russia, may from this iniquitous similarity of purpose conceive fresh ardour to stem the torrent which is subverting all social order. At the same time it is Our intention to give a new proof to you, Venerable Brethren, and to all Our beloved sons of Mexico, of the paternal solicitude with which We follow you in your tribulation: the same solicitude that inspired the instructions which We gave you last January through Our Beloved Son the Cardinal Secretary of State, and which was communicated to you by Our Apostolic Delegate. In matters strictly connected with religion, it is undoubtedly Our duty and Our right to establish the reasons and norms that all who glory in the name of Catholics are under the obligation of obeying. In this connection We are anxious to recall to mind that when We issued these instructions We gave due consideration to all the reports and advices that came to Us either from the Hierarchy or the faithful. We say all, even those that appeared to counsel a return to a severer line of conduct, with the total suspension of public worship throughout the Republic, as in 1926. (Pope Pius XI, Acerba Animi, September 29, 1932.)

The Calles Law was not reversed until 1935. The persecution continued up to that time.

President Lazaro Cardenas hated the Catholic Church just as much as Plutarco Elias Calles. However, he was a more clever and subtle politician than Calles, from whose shackles he desired to break once and for all.

There is an old maxim that goes something along the lines of: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Cardenas knew that the repeal of the Calles Law would make Catholics grateful to him, gratitude that became even greater in 1936 when he exiled Calles to the United States of America in the belief that the former president turned political "Godfather" pulling the strings of one president after another was about to overthrow him.

Far from being a friend of the Catholic Church, Lazaro Cardenas was permitting her persecution up to the time he repealed the Calles Law, something that Dr. Michael Kenny documented in No God Next Door when detailing the terrible consequences of the "arreglos:"

No peace resulted. Within a week President Portes Gil declared at a Masonic banquet that he would see to it that the Constitution and laws were entirely and strictly enforced; and that as a Mason and as President he had yielded nothing. This was in fact true of the substance of the compact; but now he had publicly repudiated in word the good will he had expressed in it; and he and his fellows began at once to repudiate in deeds the amnesty he had definitely pledged.

Within a month five hundred surrendered Cristeros were shot, or murdered in their homes, their property seized, and their persecuted families left destitute; and altogether five thousand Cristeros and hundreds of priests shared the same fate. This, with the expulsion of the Episcopate and clergy and all sisterhoods, leaving but some two hundred registered priests--most of them fingerprinted like criminals--for over fifteen million people, and the stamping of the Moscow brand of atheizing communism on every school and office in the land, are now blazoning to the world the cost of compromise with irresponsible tyranny; and therewith the lesson, that no compact of liberty is possible unless tyranny first be uprooted.

Bishop Diaz' statement that no compromise with Mexico's tyranny is possible and the only way to mend it is to end it, prove true in the very year of the one-sided concordat, which precluded the Church's legal personality and permitted the state to prescribe the number of her ministers.

As the Pope's encyclical [Acerba Animi] stated, it had nothing but its promise of "good will" to recommend it; and this good will was at once disavowed by Congress and the Party and the President who pledged it, and by the vigorous renewal of countess acts of varied and universal persecution.

The armistice was broken by the slaughter of every Cristero fighter or suspect that could be reached; and the assaults that followed on priests, sisters, churches, schools, and Christian people were worse and more numerous than McCullogh's "Red Mexico" records for the previous decade. The country became more and more reddened with murdered blood as the Calles procedure took on the fullness of Moscow Red. I have a list of hundreds of outrages on churches and clergy and people, without a single instance of punishment for the perpetrators. These are news items culled from the daily papers, with date and place; and though they are but a fraction of the atrocities recorded, they cover some fifty pages.

Churches and shrines seized, desecrated, burned, or bombed; priests assaulted even during church services, injured, murdered, or expelled; states limiting the number of priests to one for fifty thousand or one hundred thousand people, or totally excluding them as in Tabasco since 1925 and in fifteen states at this writing [1935]; the accompanying sacrileges and outrages on person and property with the ever-increasing prevalence of de-religionizing and demoralization teachings in the schools after the Canabal fashion in Tabasco, and the expulsion of the protesting Apostolic Delegate and nearly all the Episcopate, prove the pledge of "good will" was but a trick.

Removing all armed opposition, this treacherous treaty left the Calles forces free to accomplish unrestricted the determined communist purpose to tear out religion, root and branch, from the hearts and homes as well and the schools and temples of Mexico.

This purpose, authoritatively stated within a week of the good will compact and many times since, is well expressed in the letter of Convocation to the Masonic Anti-Clerical Convention at Guadalajara, July 20, 1933, at which the present President Cardenas presided: "God is a myth, religion is a fable; the clergy are bureaucrats of the theological farce"; and on this basis they would operate "for the Emancipation of Human Thought."

Their most perfect emancipator, then and now, was the recent dominating member of the cabinet, Garrido Canabal, whose naked exemplifications of emancipating minds form morality were extended to all schools by Secretary of Education Bassols, also recent cabinet minister, and are now constitutionally authorized.

Canabal had other emancipating methods which were also copied widely. Their officials, like themselves, practice with immunity in the immoralities the preach, and brothers are an official industry. Such sources swell in the millionaire wealth of ex-President Rodriguez in Lower California and of Canabal in Tabasco, and they up hold their agents in like emancipatory methods.

Canabal had 85 villagers of Paraiso hanged in a body because some of them had lynched a municipal agent who had ravished and mortally wounded a girl of fourteen; and he sent his Red Shirts to executed some hundred others who were fleeing to another state for Christian security.

It is significant that two hundred of his Red Shirts proceeded recently on a similar mission to Jalisco; but none of them returned. Countless such instances of incredible barbarity illustrate the emancipating or "defanaticizing" methods which followed the 1929 covenant, and to which the recent government had given its highest sanction by raising the chief Exemplifiers, Canabal, Rodolfo Calles and Bassols, to cabinet rank.

The Apostolic Delegate and Archbishop Diaz have recently reaffirmed the conditions and accompaniments of persecution are immeasurably worse than in 1926, which is also evidenced in the atrocities recorded in the Mexican dailies, though these are heavily hampered by government censorship. The murderous assaults on worshippers at Coyoacan and Tacuabya and Santa Catalina, and the seizure and imprisonment of priests in the Federal District happen to reach us because witnessed by foreign reporters at the capital. But the government has taken measures to prevent such mistakes in the future, and hundreds of infamies throughout the nation wrought by Canabal's now official Red Shirts and other federal agents have not been permitted to leak out. Many of these are connected with the atheizing and sex teaching educational program, which has resulted in the almost universal boycotting of the state schools.

Police and soldiers have been sent out to seek the children on the streets and in the homes and force them into empty classrooms. The consequent outrages on resisting mothers and weeping children are numerously documented under "Leva de Ninos" (seizure of children) in the Mexican dailies; also such items as the savage beatings of children at Naco, Sonora, who objected to atheistic teachings, and, bidden to repeat: "No hay Dios" (There is no God) cried out, "Hay, Dios, hay Dios." (Dr. Michael Kenny, No God Next Door: Red Rule in Mexico and Our Responsibility, William J. Hirten Company, Inc., New York, 1935, republished by CSG and Associates Publishers, pp. 143-147.)

Astute readers can see quite readily that that are some parallels between Red Mexico in 1935 and Red America in 2022.

Having learned a bitter lesson about the experience in Mexico, Pope Pius XI was unstinting in opposition to the anti-Catholic schemes of the so-called “republicans” (Communists) in Spain:

6. But, returning to the deplorable laws regarding religious confessions and Congregations, We learned with great sorrow that therein, at the beginning, it is openly declared that the State has no official religion, thus reaffirming that separation of State from Church which was, alas, decreed in the new Spanish Constitution. We shall not delay here to repeat that it is a serious error to affirm that this separation is licit and good in itself, especially in a nation almost totally Catholic. Separation, well considered, is only the baneful consequence-as We often have declared, especially in the Encyclical Quas Primas-of laicism, or rather the apostasy of society that today feigns to alienate itself from God and therefore from the Church.

7. But if the pretension of excluding from public life God the Creator and Provident Ruler of that same society is impious and absurd for any people whatsoever, it is particularly repugnant to find this exclusion of God and Church from the life of the Spanish Nation, where the Church always and rightly has held the most important and most beneficially active part in legislation, in schools, and in all other private and public institutions. If such an attempt results in irreparable harm to the Christian conscience of the country, especially to its youth, whom they would educate without religion, and to families, profaned in the most sacred principles, no less harm befalls that same civil authority. When this loses the support that recommends it, nay sustains it, in the conscience of the people, namely the persuasion of its Divine origin, dependence and sanction, it loses at the same time its greatest power to obligate, and its highest title to be respected. That this inevitable damage follows a regime of separation is attested by not a few among the very nations that, after having introduced it in their regulations, very soon realized the necessity of remedying the error, either modifying, at least in their interpretation and application, the laws persecuting the Church, or endeavoring, in spite of separation, to come to a pacific plan of coexistence and cooperation with the Church.

8. The new Spanish legislators, indifferent to these lessons of history, wanted a form of separation hostile to the Faith professed by the great majority of citizens,-a separation so much more painful and unjust especially since it was advanced in the name of that liberty promised and assured to all without distinction. Thus they wished to subject the Church and her ministers to measures by which they sought to put her at the mercy of the civil power. In fact, while under the Constitution and successive laws all opinions, even the most erroneous, have wide fields in which to manifest themselves, the Catholic Religion alone, that of almost all of the citizens, see its teaching odiously watched, its schools and other institutions, so helpful for science and Spanish culture, restrained. (Pope Pius XI, Dilectissima Nobis, November 3, 1933.)

The first modern state to make no room for a state religion was, of course, the United States of America, and we are only witnessing the rotten fruit of what must happen over the course of time when men believe that they can be virtuous on their own powers without belief in, access to, and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace and that they can maintain social order without a due submission to Holy Mother Church in all that pertains to the good of souls.

However, what happened in Spain was particularly painful as the Faith was deeply implanted on its soil, which is why the adversary used the most violent means possible to uproot it from the hearts of Spanish Catholics, something that Pope Pius XI noted in great detail:

Very Exercise of Worship Limited

9. The very exercise of Catholic worship, in its most essential and traditional manifestations, is not exempt from limitations, since religious assistance in institutes is made dependent on the State, and religious processions are placed under the necessity of obtaining special authorization granted by the Government. Special clauses and restrictions apply even to administration of the Sacraments to the dying and funerals for the dead.

Even more manifest is the contradiction regarding property. The Constitution recognizes in all citizens the legitimate faculty of possession and, as is proper in all legislation of civilized countries, guarantees safeguards for the exercise of such important rights arising from nature itself. Nevertheless, even on this point, an exception was created to the detriment of the Catholic Church, depriving her, with open injustice, of all property. No regard is paid to the wishes of those making donations in wills; no account is taken of the spiritual and holy ends connected with such properties, and no respect is shown in any way to rights long ago acquired and founded on indisputable juridical titles. All buildings, episcopal residences, parish houses, seminaries and monasteries no longer are recognized as the free property of the Catholic Church, but are declared -with words that badly hide the nature of the usurpation of public and national property.

Unjust Taxation Noted

10. Moreover, while these buildings, the legitimate property of the various ecclesiastical bodies, are by law left only to the use of the Catholic Church and her ministers in accordance with their purpose of worship, they even go so far as to subject these same buildings to taxes for their use. Thus the Catholic Church is compelled to pay taxes on what was violently wrenched from her.

11. In this manner the civil power prepared the way to render even the precarious use of her property impossible to the Catholic Church. Since she is deprived of everything-deprived of every subsidy, and hindered in all her activities- how can she pay these taxes? Nor can one say that under the law the Catholic Church has the faculty to own at least some private property, because even the reduced right is almost nullified by a principle soon afterward enunciated, that those properties may only be held in the quantity necessary for religious services. In this way the Church is compelled to submit to examination by the civil power for the fulfillment of her divine mission, and the State has constituted itself judge of what is necessary for purely spiritual functions. Therefore, there is reason to fear such judgment as being in accordance with the laic intentions of the laws and their authors.

12. The usurpation does not stop at property. Chattles, also, are declared public property and are catalogued so that nothing may escape, even vestments, statues, pictures, vases, gems and similar objects expressly and permanently destined to Catholic worship, to its splendor and to necessities directly connected with such worship. While the Church is denied the right to dispose freely of what is hers by reason of having been legitimately purchased or donated by the pious faithful, to the State only is given to the power of disposing, for another purpose and without any limitation, of sacred objects-even those which with special consecration have been withdrawn from every profane use-removing every duty of the State to compensate the Church for such deplorable waste.

Not Even Churches Spared

13. Nor was all this sufficient to appease the anti-religious whims of the present legislators. Not even the churches were spared. Temples- splendors of art, rare monuments of glorious history and decorum which have been the pride of the nation throughout centuries-Houses of God and prayer over which the Catholic Church always had enjoyed the full right of ownership and which the Church by her magnificent title of particular merit had always preserved, embellished and adorned with loving care-even temples not a few of which were destroyed (and again We deplore it) by the impious mania of burning-were declared to property of the nation and placed under the control of the civil authorities who today rule the public destinies without any respect for the religious sentiments of the good people of Spain.

14. The condition created for the Catholic Church in Spain is, therefore, very sad. The clergy already were deprived, by an action totally foreign to the generous character of the chivalrous Spanish nation, of their incomes, thus violating a promise given in a concordatory pact and violating the strictest justice since the State, in fixing these allowances, had not done it through gratuitous concession but as indemnity for goods already taken from the Church.

Deplores Blow at Congregations

15. Even Religious Congregations are now stricken in an inhuman manner by these deplorable laws. The unjust suspicion was fomented that they might exercise political activity dangerous to the safety of the State, thus stimulating a passion hostile to them with every kind of denunciation and persecution to provide an open and easy way to arrive at more serious measures. They were subjected to many inquiries, registrations and inspections which constituted troublesome forms of fiscal oppression and finally, after they were deprived of the right of teaching and exercising any other activity from which they could obtain honest sustenance, they were placed under tributary laws, though it was well-known that, deprived of everything, they will not be able to pay taxes, which is another veiled manner of rendering their existence impossible.

Actually, with such legislation, not only the Religious but the whole Spanish people have been stricken, because there have been rendered impossible those great works of charity and of beneficence for the aid of the poor which always formed the magnificent glory of the Religious Congregations and the Catholic Spain.

16. Nevertheless, in the painful and straightened circumstances in which the secular and regular clergy find themselves in Spain, the thought comforts Us that the generous Spanish people, even in the present economic crisis, will worthily know how to repair such a pitiful situation, lessening the burden of real poverty which has overwhelmed their priests, so that, with renewed energy, they can provide for Divine Worship and pastoral ministry.

Offense to Divine Majesty

17. But if these grave injustices sadden Us, and with Us, you, Venerable Brothers, Beloved Sons, We feel even more strongly the offense committed against Divine Majesty. It was an expression of a soul deeply hostile to God and the Catholic Religion, to have disbanded the Religious Orders that had taken a vow of obedience to an authority different from the legitimate authority of the State. In this way means was ought to do away with the Society of Jesus-which can well glory in being one of the soundest auxiliaries of the Chair of Peter-with the hope, perhaps, of then being able with less difficulty to overthrow in the near future, the Christian Faith and morale in the heart of the Spanish Nation, which gave to the Church of God the grand and glorious figure of Ignatius Loyola.

18. In this manner they wished to strike fully, as We already have publicly declared, at the very Supreme Authority of the Catholic Church. They did not dare name explicitly the person of the Roman Pontiff, but, in fact, they have defined as extraneous to the Spanish Nation the authority of the Vicar of Christ, as if the authority of the Roman Pontiff, conferred by Jesus, Himself, could be called extraneous to any part of the world whatsoever; as if the recognition of the Divine Authority of Christ can minimize legitimate human authority; as if the spiritual and supernatural power could be in contrast with that of the State-a contrast that cannot exist except through the malice of those who desire and want it because they know that without the Shepherd little sheep would go astray and more easily become the prey of false shepherds.

19. If the offense inflicted on the authority of the Vicar of Christ deeply wounds Our paternal heart, never did We think for a moment it could even in the smallest way shake the traditional devotion of the Spanish people to the Chair of Peter. Rather, as has always been taught by experience and history, the more the enemies of the Church seek to alienate people from the Vicar of Christ, the more affectionately the latter, through the providential disposition of God, Who knows how to bring good out of evil, draw closer to him, proclaiming that from him alone is radiated that light which illuminates the way darkened by so many perturbations, and that from him alone, as from Christ, resounds the words of eternal life.

20. Nor were they satisfied when with the recent law they so much raged against the great and meritorious Society of Jesus; they wished to give another and very serious blow to all Religious Orders and Congregations by forbidding them to teach. Thus was accomplished a work of deplorable ingratitude and clear injustice. In fact, the liberty which is granted to all to exercise the right to teach is taken from one class of citizens guilty only of having embraced a life of renunciation and perfection. Did they perhaps wish to inflict upon the Religious, who have left and sacrificed everything to dedicate themselves only to teaching and the education of the young as an apostolic mission, the stigma of incapacity or inferiority in the teaching field? Nevertheless, experience has demonstrated with what care, with what competence, the Religious always have fulfilled their duty, with what magnificent results for the instruction of intellect as well as the education of heart they have crowned their patient labor. It is luminously proved by the number of persons, truly famous in all fields of human science and at the same time exemplary Catholics, who came forth from the schools of the Religious. It is shown by the great advances made in Spain by such schools, and by the record of students. Finally, it is confirmed by the confidence which they have enjoyed from parents, who, having received from God the right and duty of educating their own children, have also the sacrosanct liberty of choosing those who must efficaciously co-operate in their education.

Aim to Uproot Religion Seen

21. But this very serious act with regard to Religious Orders and Congregations was not enough. Indisputable rights of property also were oppressed. The free will of founders and benefactors was openly violated through the seizure of buildings with the object of creating lay schools that are Godless, although the generous donors had stipulated that strictly Catholic education should be imparted.

22. From all this, alas, appears too clearly the purpose they intend to achieve with such regulations, namely that of educating new generations in a spirit of religious indifference if not anticlericalism, tearing from the young souls the traditional Catholic sentiments so deeply rooted in the good people of Spain. Thus it is sought to make laic all teaching which hitherto was inspired by religion and Christian morality.

23. In the face of a law so injurious to ecclesiastical rights and liberties, rights that We must defend and preserve integrally, We believe that it is precisely the duty of Our Apostolic Ministry to reprove and condemn it. Therefore, We solemnly protest with all Our strength against the law itself, declaring that it cannot be invoked against the inalienable rights of the Church. And We wish here to reaffirm Our lively confidence that Our beloved children of Spain, understanding the injustice and harm of these provisions will bring to bear all legitimate means which, in view of the nature of the law and of its interpretation, rest in their power to induce these same legislators to reform these dispositions which are so contrary to the rights of every citizen and so hostile to the Church, substituting other laws reconcilable with Catholic conscience. (Pope Pius XI, Dilectissima Nobis, November 3, 1933.)

We know that Pope Pius XI’s words fell upon the deaf ears of men who were possessed of diabolically conceived falsehoods and that it was not until a Catholic general, Francisco Franco, rose to the defense of the Holy Faith and Catholic Spain, that the enemies of the Faith were vanquished until after his death on November 20, 1975. (Franco’s efforts to maintain the strength of Catholicism in Spain were undermined, especially after his death, by the ethos of conciliarism and the quisling “bishops” who believed in the spirit of the revolution and not the Social Reign of Christ the King.

While Pope Pius XI did authorize a Concordat with Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich, he did so to guarantee the life of the Church in Germany. As Dr. Robert Royal pointed out in Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, Pope Pius XI manfully expressed his regret about entering into the Concordat with the Third Reich when he issued Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937:

Not a few voices were raised early, if to little effect. One of the most remarkable and stunningly heroic was that of the German Jesuit Rupert Mayer. Father Mayer was a living refutation of the Nazi claim that the "negative Christianity" of the churches, with its humility, sense of simpleness and ascetic practice, was incompatible with the virtues Nazis admired, such as courage and boldness. Mayer was early attracted to the religious life in his native Bavaria. In World War I, as a chaplain to the German army, he distinguished himself by his fearless movements on battlefronts to administer the sacraments to the dying and in using his own body to shield wounded men. he was wounded so severely during a battle in Romania that he lost his left leg. Hans Carossa, an eyewitness to that event, was stunned by Mayer's courage as he lay bleeding: "The man lying there in his own blood maintained, even in the most wretched condition, the air of uncommon superiority over himself. . . . When people like us died, something not quite settled, not quite finished always remained. But this man floated like a sonata by Bach, conjured out of the darkness in clearly drawn lines and in a state of complete release." Mayer was the first priest to receive the Iron Cross, first class, as well as other medals for valor.

It comes as no surprise then that, as National Socialism began its rise to power in Germany, Mayer was one of the few with both the perspicacity and the courage to confront it head on. He spent long hours every day in a demanding round of hearing confessions, counseling the many people who came to him, and collecting large sums for the relief of the poor. Realizing that the new situation called for new pastoral strategies, he set up masses on Sundays in train stations so that the many people who wanted to spend the day in the country could hear Mass before they departed. Tens of thousands did so. But in the same pastoral vein, he also made it a point to attend political meetings that might have an impact on the faith in Germany. He did so not as a political activist but as a legendary, battle-tested priest who felt responsibility to be a pastor over all dimensions of the life of his flock and had an enormous following. When twenty-one young people of the Catholic Association of Saint Joseph were massacred by marauding bands, for example, he took to the pulpit, counseling a firm response animated not be revenge, but by Christian love. One of his constant themes was: "If they feel our love, they will believe what we say."

That Christian charity, however, did not prevent him from taking a firm line against all those then in Germany--Communists and National Socialists most prominently--who were preaching a different gospel. At a Communist meeting in 1919, Mayer bumped into Hitler, who was then merely a political agitator. The priest rose up to refute various points of the Communists speakers. Hitler stood up next and remarked that the priest had criticized Communism from a religious point of view; he, Hitler, wanted to do so from a political standpoint. That one and only meeting convinced Mayer that Hitler was a remarkably capable speaker. In subsequent meetings of the Nazis, which Mayer attended to offer a religious commentary, he became convinced that Hitler was "a fanatic of the first order."

Understanding the various moral threats that Nazi views on nationalism, race and the Bible represented, he became a tireless public exponents of the view that a Catholic could not in good conscience be a Nazi. At a political rally in Burgerbrau to discuss that question, the pro-Nazi audience got so agitated before Mayer had some more than a few words that he had to be taken out of the room surrounded by bodyguards. His prominence brought him to the attention of the Nazis even before they took power. After they were asked to form a government, Gestapo agents came to his sermons and took notes. Mayer was not the kind of man to be intimidated; he spoke out without the least hesitation even though friends warned him that he was under surveillance.

Given his fame, however, the Nazis had to be careful not make a martyr of him, which would be sparked a popular reaction in Bavaria. The German bishops, like the German political classes, were unsure how to deal with National Socialism. Some such as Cardinal Adolf Bertram of Breslau, remembering the persecution in the nineteenth century during Bismarck's Kulturkampf (culture war) against the Church, acted cautiously. Other such as Bishop Konrad von Preysing of Berlin and Bishop Clemens von Gale, known as the "Lion of Munster," believed that the threat warranted direct confrontation. Mayer was firmly in the later camp, and his judgment was that the Vatican should not have signed the Concordat in 1933 at least until the Nazis stopped their brutalities against the Church.

Pope Pius XI's 1937 encyclical on the German situation, Mit brennender Sorge, expressed regret that the Church had done so as well. Pius explained that he had signed the pact "despite many and grave misgivings" because he thought it would protect the Church and that the Church and an obligation to reach agreement with anyone who did not refuse a peaceful hand. By 1937, Pius said, it was clear that the Nazi regime had engaged in "intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination." Nazi interpretations of terms that had plainly different meanings in any other context had effectively abrogated the accord. In addition, Pius pointed out the absurdity of the national religion propounded by the Nazis, their racial theories, and their "aggressive paganism." Natural law with its universal norms governed all people could not be abrogated by special claims about the German soul. Positive Christianity was a contradiction in terms. "Nothing but ignorance and pride could blind one to the treasures hoarded in the Old Testament." "There is but one alternative left," wrote the pope, "that of heroism."

Pius's words were prophetic. The Nazis banned publication of the encyclical, which nevertheless was circulated in clandestine fashion in parishes. A wave of arrests, trials, and persecutions followed. The Nazis also intensified also intensified a campaign against the Church that used seemingly legal channels to harass. Religious orders and other church institutions were often accused of having complicated the currency laws when they sent monies to related institutions abroad. This was an unheard of change at any other time and, despite the complexities of the law, clearly aimed at curtailing religious work. Huge fines sometimes ruined the religious institutions targeted. And deaths also resulted. Dominican priest Titus Horton died from lack of medical attention in prison after a trumped-up currency case. His cause for beatification was presented in 1984.

An even more insidious campaign involved accusing religious of immorality, either in the corruption of children or in adultery. In Germany at the time, as there is at all times, there was of course a small group of clergy who could be justly accused of these failings. But the Nazi ones--to such an extent that in the daily press it began to appear as if priestly life were nothing but the corruption of youth and sly seduction. The first charge was clearly intended to help get young people out of Church schools and youth organizations and into the secular schools and Hitlerjugend that were inculcating Nazi ideology. Domination of the next generation through strictly regulated education was one of Hitler's strategies for breaking the hold of the Church on the people at that time. (Robert Royal, The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century, Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 2000, pp. 151-153.)

One can see that there were Catholics in Germany at the time who desire direct confrontation with the evils of the Third Reich. It was within the Providence of God that the Vicar of Christ, Pope Pius XI, chose a diplomatic course before issuing Mit Brennender Sorge, wherein he stated the following:

It is with deep anxiety and growing surprise that We have long been following the painful trials of the Church and the increasing vexations which afflict those who have remained loyal in heart and action in the midst of a people that once received from St. Boniface the bright message and the Gospel of Christ and God’s Kingdom.

2. And what the representatives of the venerable episcopate, who visited Us in Our sick room, had to tell Us, in truth and duty bound, has not modified Our feelings. To consoling and edifying information on the stand the Faithful are making for their Faith, they considered themselves bound, in spite of efforts to judge with moderation and in spite of their own patriotic love, to add reports of things hard and unpleasant. After hearing their account, We could, in grateful acknowledgment to God, exclaim with the Apostle of love: “I have no greater grace than this, to hear that my children walk in truth” (John iii. 4). But the frankness indifferent in Our Apostolic charge and the determination to place before the Christian world the truth in all its reality, prompt Us to add: “Our pastoral heart knows no deeper pain, no disappointment more bitter, than to learn that many are straying from the path of truth.”

3. When, in 1933, We consented, Venerable Brethren, to open negotiations for a concordat, which the Reich Government proposed on the basis of a scheme of several years’ standing; and when, to your unanimous satisfaction, We concluded the negotiations by a solemn treaty, We were prompted by the desire, as it behooved Us, to secure for Germany the freedom of the Church’s beneficent mission and the salvation of the souls in her care, as well as by the sincere wish to render the German people a service essential for its peaceful development and prosperity. Hence, despite many and grave misgivings, We then decided not to withhold Our consent for We wished to spare the Faithful of Germany, as far as it was humanly possible, the trials and difficulties they would have had to face, given the circumstances, had the negotiations fallen through. It was by acts that We wished to make it plain, Christ’s interests being Our sole object, that the pacific and maternal hand of the Church would be extended to anyone who did not actually refuse it.

4. If, then, the tree of peace, which we planted on German soil with the purest intention, has not brought forth the fruit, which in the interest of your people, We had fondly hoped, no one in the world who has eyes to see and ears to hear will be able to lay the blame on the Church and on her Head. The experiences of these last years have fixed responsibilities and laid bare intrigues, which from the outset only aimed at a war of extermination. In the furrows, where We tried to sow the seed of a sincere peace, other men — the “enemy” of Holy Scripture — oversowed the cockle of distrust, unrest, hatred, defamation, of a determined hostility overt or veiled, fed from many sources and wielding many tools, against Christ and His Church. They, and they alone with their accomplices, silent or vociferous, are today responsible, should the storm of religious war, instead of the rainbow of peace, blacken the German skies.

5. We have never ceased, Venerable Brethren, to represent to the responsible rulers of your country’s destiny, the consequences which would inevitably follow the protection and even the favor, extended to such a policy. We have done everything in Our power to defend the sacred pledge of the given word of honor against theories and practices, which it officially endorsed, would wreck every faith in treaties and make every signature worthless. Should the day ever come to place before the world the account of Our efforts, every honest mind will see on which side are to be found the promoters of peace, and on which side its disturbers. Whoever had left in his soul an atom of love for truth, and in his heart a shadow of a sense of justice, must admit that, in the course of these anxious and trying years following upon the conclusion of the concordat, every one of Our words, every one of Our acts, has been inspired by the binding law of treaties. At the same time, anyone must acknowledge, not without surprise and reprobation, how the other contracting party emasculated the terms of the treaty, distorted their meaning, and eventually considered its more or less official violation as a normal policy. The moderation We showed in spite of all this was not inspired by motives of worldly interest, still less by unwarranted weakness, but merely by Our anxiety not to draw out the wheat with the cockle; not to pronounce open judgment, before the public was ready to see its force; not to impeach other people’s honesty, before the evidence of events should have torn the mask off the systematic hostility leveled at the Church. Even now that a campaign against the confessional schools, which are guaranteed by the concordat, and the destruction of free election, where Catholics have a right to their children’s Catholic education, afford evidence, in a matter so essential to the life of the Church, of the extreme gravity of the situation and the anxiety of every Christian conscience; even now Our responsibility for Christian souls induces Us not to overlook the last possibilities, however slight, of a return to fidelity to treaties, and to any arrangement that may be acceptable to the episcopate. We shall continue without failing, to stand before the rulers of your people as the defender of violated rights, and in obedience to Our Conscience and Our pastoral mission, whether We be successful or not, to oppose the policy which seeks, by open or secret means, to strangle rights guaranteed by a treaty.

6. Different, however, Venerable Brethren, is the purpose of this letter. As you affectionately visited Us in Our illness, so also We turn to you, and through you, the German Catholics, who, like all suffering and afflicted children, are nearer to their Father’s heart. At a time when your faith, like gold, is being tested in the fire of tribulation and persecution, when your religious freedom is beset on all sides, when the lack of religious teaching and of normal defense is heavily weighing on you, you have every right to words of truth and spiritual comfort from him whose first predecessor heard these words from the Lord: “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not: and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren” (Luke xxii. 32). (Pope Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937.)

Pope Pius XI’s admission of a misplaced trust was a supreme example of papal humility, and his rejoinder to the “salvific” mission of Nazism is a rebuke as well to all forms of naturalism, religious indifferentism, and nationalism, including the lie of American “exceptionalism”:

Take care, Venerable Brethren, that above all, faith in God, the first and irreplaceable foundation of all religion, be preserved in Germany pure and unstained. The believer in God is not he who utters the name in his speech, but he for whom this sacred word stands for a true and worthy concept of the Divinity. Whoever identifies, by pantheistic confusion, God and the universe, by either lowering God to the dimensions of the world, or raising the world to the dimensions of God, is not a believer in God. Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, denies thereby the Wisdom and Providence of God who "Reacheth from end to end mightily, and ordereth all things sweetly" (Wisdom viii. 1). Neither is he a believer in God.

Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community -- however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things -- whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.

Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your influence on the Faithful, that they refuse to yield to this aberration. Our God is the Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, one in the Trinity of Persons, tri-personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all existence. Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the history of the world, who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival God by His side.

10. This God, this Sovereign Master, has issued commandments whose value is independent of time and space, country and race. As God’s sun shines on every human face so His law knows neither privilege nor exception. Rulers and subjects, crowned and uncrowned, rich and poor are equally subject to His word. From the fullness of the Creators’ right there naturally arises the fullness of His right to be obeyed by individuals and communities, whoever they are. This obedience permeates all branches of activity in which moral values claim harmony with the law of God, and pervades all integration of the ever-changing laws of man into the immutable laws of God.

11. None but superficial minds could stumble into concepts of a national God, of a national religion; or attempt to lock within the frontiers of a single people, within the narrow limits of a single race, God, the Creator of the universe, King and Legislator of all nations before whose immensity they are “as a drop of a bucket” (Isaiah xI, 15).

12. The Bishops of the Church of Christ, “ordained in the things that appertain to God (Heb. v, 1) must watch that pernicious errors of this sort, and consequent practices more pernicious still, shall not gain a footing among their flock. It is part of their sacred obligations to do whatever is in their power to enforce respect for, and obedience to, the commandments of God, as these are the necessary foundation of all private life and public morality; to see that the rights of His Divine Majesty, His name and His word be not profaned; to put a stop to the blasphemies, which, in words and pictures, are multiplying like the sands of the desert; to encounter the obstinacy and provocations of those who deny, despise and hate God, by the never-failing reparatory prayers of the Faithful, hourly rising like incense to the All-Highest and staying His vengeance.

13. We thank you, Venerable Brethren, your priests and Faithful, who have persisted in their Christian duty and in the defense of God’s rights in the teeth of an aggressive paganism. Our gratitude, warmer still and admiring, goes out to those who, in fulfillment of their duty, have been deemed worthy of sacrifice and suffering for the love of God.

14. No faith in God can for long survive pure and unalloyed without the support of faith in Christ. “No one knoweth who the Son is, but the Father: and who the Father is, but the Son and to whom the Son will reveal Him” (Luke x. 22). “Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent” (John xvii. 3). Nobody, therefore, can say: “I believe in God, and that is enough religion for me,” for the Savior’s words brook no evasion: “Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father. He that confesseth the Son hath the Father also” (1 John ii. 23).

15. In Jesus Christ, Son of God made Man, there shone the plentitude of divine revelation. “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets last of all, in these days hath spoken to us by His Son” (Heb. i. 1). The sacred books of the Old Testament are exclusively the word of God, and constitute a substantial part of his revelation; they are penetrated by a subdued light, harmonizing with the slow development of revelation, the dawn of the bright day of the redemption. As should be expected in historical and didactic books, they reflect in many particulars the imperfection, the weakness and sinfulness of man. But side by side with innumerable touches of greatness and nobleness, they also record the story of the chosen people, bearers of the Revelation and the Promise, repeatedly straying from God and turning to the world. Eyes not blinded by prejudice or passion will see in this prevarication, as reported by the Biblical history, the luminous splendor of the divine light revealing the saving plan which finally triumphs over every fault and sin. It is precisely in the twilight of this background that one perceives the striking perspective of the divine tutorship of salvation, as it warms, admonishes, strikes, raises and beautifies its elect. Nothing but ignorance and pride could blind one to the treasures hoarded in the Old Testament.

16. Whoever wishes to see banished from church and school the Biblical history and the wise doctrines of the Old Testament, blasphemes the name of God, blasphemes the Almighty’s plan of salvation, and makes limited and narrow human thought the judge of God’s designs over the history of the world: he denies his faith in the true Christ, such as He appeared in the flesh, the Christ who took His human nature from a people that was to crucify Him; and he understands nothing of that universal tragedy of the Son of God who to His torturer’s sacrilege opposed the divine and priestly sacrifice of His redeeming death, and made the new alliance the goal of the old alliance, its realization and its crown.

17. The peak of the revelation as reached in the Gospel of Christ is final and permanent. It knows no retouches by human hand; it admits no substitutes or arbitrary alternatives such as certain leaders pretend to draw from the so-called myth of race and blood. Since Christ, the Lord’s Anointed, finished the task of Redemption, and by breaking up the reign of sin deserved for us the grace of being the children God, since that day no other name under heaven has been given to men, whereby we must be saved (Acts iv. 12). No man, were every science, power and worldly strength incarnated in him, can lay any other foundation but that which is laid: which is Christ Jesus (1 Cor. iii 11). Should any man dare, in sacrilegious disregard of the essential differences between God and His creature, between the God-man and the children of man, to place a mortal, were he the greatest of all times, by the side of, or over, or against, Christ, he would deserve to be called prophet of nothingness, to whom the terrifying words of Scripture would be applicable: “He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them” (Psalms ii. 3). (Pope Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937.)

This is a stunning refutation of not only Nazism but of all political ideologies. Pope Pius XI dared to call Adolph Hitler a prophet of nothingness, and this applies to all “liberals,” “socialists,” “conservatives.” It applies equally to Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., and to the man he is persecuting fiercely and unreservedly, Donald John Trump.

I have said the following consistently in the past forty-five years dating back to the first years of my college teaching career: There is no salvation in politics. None. When are Catholics going to get that right?

Pope Pius XI went on to explain that the reform societies is premised upon the reform of the lives of men by means of Sanctifying Grace:

18. Faith in Christ cannot maintain itself pure and unalloyed without the support of faith in the Church, “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim. iii. 15); for Christ Himself, God eternally blessed, raised this pillar of the Faith. His command to hear the Church (Matt. xviii. 15), to welcome in the words and commands of the Church His own words and His own commands (Luke x. 16), is addressed to all men, of all times and of all countries. The Church founded by the Redeemer is one, the same for all races and all nations. Beneath her dome, as beneath the vault of heaven, there is but one country for all nations and tongues; there is room for the development of every quality, advantage, task and vocation which God the Creator and Savior has allotted to individuals as well as to ethnical communities. The Church’s maternal heart is big enough to see in the God-appointed development of individual characteristics and gifts, more than a mere danger of divergency. She rejoices at the spiritual superiorities among individuals and nations. In their successes she sees with maternal joy and pride fruits of education and progress, which she can only bless and encourage, whenever she can conscientiously do so. But she also knows that to this freedom limits have been set by the majesty of the divine command, which founded that Church one and indivisible. Whoever tampers with that unity and that indivisibility wrenches from the Spouse of Christ one of the diadems with which God Himself crowned her; he subjects a divine structure, which stands on eternal foundations, to criticism and transformation by architects whom the Father of Heaven never authorized to interfere.

And today we again repeat with all the insistency We can command: it is not enough to be a member of the Church of Christ, one needs to be a living member, in spirit and in truth, i.e., living in the state of grace and in the presence of God, either in innocence or in sincere repentance. If the Apostle of the nations, the vase of election, chastised his body and brought it into subjection: lest perhaps, when he had preached to others, he himself should become a castaway (1 Cor. ix. 27), could anybody responsible for the extension of the Kingdom of God claim any other method but personal sanctification? Only thus can we show to the present generation, and to the critics of the Church that "the salt of the earth," the leaven of Christianity has not decayed, but is ready to give the men of today -- prisoners of doubt and error, victims of indifference, tired of their Faith and straying from God -- the spiritual renewal they so much need. A Christianity which keeps a grip on itself, refuses every compromise with the world, takes the commands of God and the Church seriously, preserves its love of God and of men in all its freshness, such a Christianity can be, and will be, a model and a guide to a world which is sick to death and clamors for directions, unless it be condemned to a catastrophe that would baffle the imagination.

20. Every true and lasting reform has ultimately sprung from the sanctity of men who were driven by the love of God and of men. Generous, ready to stand to attention to any call from God, yet confident in themselves because confident in their vocation, they grew to the size of beacons and reformers. On the other hand, any reformatory zeal, which instead of springing from personal purity, flashes out of passion, has produced unrest instead of light, destruction instead of construction, and more than once set up evils worse than those it was out to remedy. No doubt "the Spirit breatheth where he will" (John iii. 8): "of stones He is able to raise men to prepare the way to his designs" (Matt. iii. 9). He chooses the instruments of His will according to His own plans, not those of men. But the Founder of the Church, who breathed her into existence at Pentecost, cannot disown the foundations as He laid them. Whoever is moved by the spirit of God, spontaneously adopts both outwardly and inwardly, the true attitude toward the Church, this sacred fruit from the tree of the cross, this gift from the Spirit of God, bestowed on Pentecost day to an erratic world. (Pope Pius XI, Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937.)

Thus stands condemned the ridiculous notion of a generic “Christian Church” and the absurd contention that Protestantism is a form of “Christianity” when it is nothing other than a heresy that is offensive to God, incapable of sanctifying souls, teaches falsehoods as “Gospel truths” and is fatal to men and their societies. Protestantism leads directly to atheistic totalitarianism over time.

In condemning Nazism, Pope Pius XI also condemned the commonly expressed belief in this country that Americans are “great” on their own, that they can do anything they set their minds to doing. Such is the talk of Pelagianism, which, truth to be told, is the great-grandfather of all political ideology as it is the heresy that contends that men are, in essence, self-redemptive, that they can save themselves by their own unaided powers by stirring up graces within themselves to do what they desire to achieve.

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 builded 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 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 Faitih can draw “men’s eyes, fascinated by and wholly fixated on the changing things of the world, and raise them toward Heaven.” Unfortunately, most men today, including many Catholics, do indeed deny that human society is in urgent need of the remedy that only Holy Mother Church can provide. Men who believe that they are descended from apes will come to act like them over the course of time. The ideology of biological evolutionism leads inexorably to the devolution of men and their societies into conditions of chaos, violence and the worst kind of self-seeking that the world has ever seen.

Pope Pius XI also explained in the degree of degradation to which men must fall once they are fixed on temporal goals to the exclusion of all supernatural considerations.

131. We, made Shepherd and Protector by the Prince of Shepherds, Who Redeemed them by His Blood, of a truly innumerable flock, cannot hold back Our tears when contemplating this greatest of their dangers. Nay rather, fully mindful of Our pastoral office and with paternal solicitude, We are continually meditating on how We can help them; and We have summoned to Our aid the untiring zeal of others who are concerned on grounds of justice or charity. For what will it profit men to become expert in more wisely using their wealth, even to gaining the whole world, if thereby they suffer the loss of their souls?[64] What will it profit to teach them sound principles of economic life if in unbridled and sordid greed they let themselves be swept away by their passion for property, so that "hearing the commandments of the Lord they do all things contrary."[65]

32. The root and font of this defection in economic and social life from the Christian law, and of the consequent apostasy of great numbers of workers from the Catholic faith, are the disordered passions of the soul, the sad result of original sin which has so destroyed the wonderful harmony of man's faculties that, easily led astray by his evil desires, he is strongly incited to prefer the passing goods of this world to the lasting goods of Heaven. Hence arises that unquenchable thirst for riches and temporal goods, which has at all times impelled men to break God's laws and trample upon the rights of their neighbors, but which, on account of the present system of economic life, is laying far more numerous snares for human frailty. Since the instability of economic life, and especially of its structure, exacts of those engaged in it most intense and unceasing effort, some have become so hardened to the stings of conscience as to hold that they are allowed, in any manner whatsoever, to increase their profits and use means, fair or foul, to protect their hard-won wealth against sudden changes of fortune. The easy gains that a market unrestricted by any law opens to everybody attracts large numbers to buying and selling goods, and they, their one aim being to make quick profits with the least expenditure of work, raise or lower prices by their uncontrolled business dealings so rapidly according to their own caprice and greed that they nullify the wisest forecasts of producers. The laws passed to promote corporate business, while dividing and limiting the risk of business, have given occasion to the most sordid license. For We observe that consciences are little affected by this reduced obligation of accountability; that furthermore, by hiding under the shelter of a joint name, the worst of injustices and frauds are penetrated; and that, too, directors of business companies, forgetful of their trust, betray the rights of those whose savings they have undertaken to administer. Lastly, We must not omit to mention those crafty men who, wholly unconcerned about any honest usefulness of their work, do not scruple to stimulate the baser human desires and, when they are aroused, use them for their own profit. (Pope Pius XI, Quadregesimo Anno, May 15, 1931.)

The world us continues to fall deeper and deeper into the abyss because most men alive today are controlled by the forces of the world, the flesh and the devil, ignoring any thought of divinely-revealed truths and a single means by which their actions may be rendered meritorious in the sight of God and thus redound to their eternal salvation. Even most Catholics rush headlong to one side or the other of the false opposites of naturalism and refuse to consider the simple truth that to see the world as it truly as it is we must see it exclusively through the eyes of the Holy Faith. The only kind of “realism” is Catholic realism, Catholic truth. Everything else is but an illusion, a mirage.

Pope Pius XI’s Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, continued the fifty-nine year-old papal condemnation of socialism that began with Pope Leo XIII in 1878 and explained yet again that socialism and communism are but the products of failure of liberalism and laicism. Indeed, the social consequences of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King are vast, starting with the destruction of the family, which has been rent asunder by divorce and contraception and feminism and materialism and positivism and utilitarianism and the organized forces of naturalism. The atomistic individualism of Calvinist capitalism and Lockean liberalism thus produce the same sort of societies as that produced by all forms Socialism, including that wrought by Bolshevism:

Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man's relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement .

Refusing to human life any sacred or spiritual character, such a doctrine logically makes of marriage and the family a purely artificial and civil institution, the outcome of a specific economic system. There exists no matrimonial bond of a juridico-moral nature that is not subject to the whim of the individual or of the collectivity. Naturally, therefore, the notion of an indissoluble marriage-tie is scouted. Communism is particularly characterized by the rejection of any link that binds woman to the family and the home, and her emancipation is proclaimed as a basic principle. She is withdrawn from the family and the care of her children, to be thrust instead into public life and collective production under the same conditions as man. The care of home and children then devolves upon the collectivity. Finally, the right of education is denied to parents, for it is conceived as the exclusive prerogative of the community, in whose name and by whose mandate alone parents may exercise this right.

What would be the condition of a human society based on such materialistic tenets? It would be a collectivity with no other hierarchy than that of the economic system. It would have only one mission: the production of material things by means of collective labor, so that the goods of this world might be enjoyed in a paradise where each would "give according to his powers" and would "receive according to his needs." Communism recognizes in the collectivity the right, or rather, unlimited discretion, to draft individuals for the labor of the collectivity with no regard for their personal welfare; so that even violence could be legitimately exercised to dragoon the recalcitrant against their wills. In the Communistic commonwealth morality and law would be nothing but a derivation of the existing economic order, purely earthly in origin and unstable in character. In a word. the Communists claim to inaugurate a new era and a new civilization which is the result of blind evolutionary forces culminating in a humanity without God. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)

A world devoid of God and of submission to His true Church is the only possible consequence of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ King. Naturalist liberals disagree with naturalist socialists, including communists, only about a few details. All forms of naturalism produce the godless world, which makes possible barbarism in "liberal" states and totalitarianism in "socialist" states. Indeed, the degree to which men fall into the naturalist trap will be the degree to which all states, liberal and socialist, get to increase their power over the lives of ordinary citizens in the name of "law and order" and "national security," you understand. The heresy of religious liberty makes it impossible for anyone to find any one overarching means by which social evils can be retarded, resulting in a new caste of dictators whose "infallible" pronouncements must be accepted without criticism or dissent. The First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, for example, eviscerates the First Commandment by stating unequivocally that no religion, including the Catholic Faith, must be recognized by the civil state as indispensable for personal and social order, thus resulting in the triumph of the false religion of statism. A neat little trick of the devil, wouldn't you say?

Pope Pius XI alluded to some of these points in Divini Redemptoris:

But the enemies of the Church, though forced to acknowledge the wisdom of her doctrine, accuse her of having failed to act in conformity with her principles, and from this conclude to the necessity of seeking other solutions. The utter falseness and injustice of this accusation is shown by the whole history of Christianity. To refer only to a single typical trait, it was Christianity that first affirmed the real and universal brotherhood of all men of whatever race and condition. This doctrine she proclaimed by a method, and with an amplitude and conviction, unknown to preceding centuries; and with it she potently contributed to the abolition of slavery. Not bloody revolution, but the inner force of her teaching made the proud Roman matron see in her slave a sister in Christ. It is Christianity that adores the Son of God, made Man for love of man, and become not only the "Son of a Carpenter" but Himself a "Carpenter."[19] It was Christianity that raised manual labor to its true dignity, whereas it had hitherto been so despised that even the moderate Cicero did not hesitate to sum up the general opinion of his time in words of which any modern sociologist would be ashamed: "All artisans are engaged in sordid trades, for there can be nothing ennobling about a workshop."

Faithful to these principles, the Church has given new life to human society. Under her influence arose prodigious charitable organizations, great guilds of artisans and workingmen of every type. These guilds, ridiculed as "medieval" by the liberalism of the last century, are today claiming the admiration of our contemporaries in many countries who are endeavoring to revive them in some modern form. And when other systems hindered her work and raised obstacles to the salutary influence of the Church, she was never done warning them of their error. We need but recall with what constant firmness and energy Our Predecessor, Leo XIII, vindicated for the workingman the right to organize, which the dominant liberalism of the more powerful States relentlessly denied him. Even today the authority of this Church doctrine is greater than it seems; for the influence of ideas in the realm of facts, though invisible and not easily measured, is surely of predominant importance.

It may be said in all truth that the Church, like Christ, goes through the centuries doing good to all. There would be today neither Socialism nor Communism if the rulers of the nations had not scorned the teachings and maternal warnings of the Church. On the bases of liberalism and laicism they wished to build other social edifices which, powerful and imposing as they seemed at first, all too soon revealed the weakness of their foundations, and today are crumbling one after another before our eyes, as everything must crumble that is not grounded on the one corner stone which is Christ Jesus.

This, Venerable Brethren, is the doctrine of the Church, which alone in the social as in all other fields can offer real light and assure salvation in the face of Communistic ideology. But this doctrine must be consistently reduced to practice in every-day life, according to the admonition of St. James the Apostle: "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." The most urgent need of the present day is therefore the energetic and timely application of remedies which will effectively ward off the catastrophe that daily grows more threatening. We cherish the firm hope that the fanaticism with which the sons of darkness work day and night at their materialistic and atheistic propaganda will at least serve the holy purpose of stimulating the sons of light to a like and even greater zeal for the honor of the Divine Majesty. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)

There can be room for compromise: socialism is as antithetical to a just order on true Christian principles as are all forms of political ideology, including liberalism and conservatism.

Yet it is that the conciliar “popes,” starting with Angelo Roncalli/John XIII in Pacem in Terris, April 11, 1963, who, without precisely saying so, backed away from Pope Pius XI’s statement that no one could a sincere Catholic and a true socialist and from Pope Pius XI’s 1937 admonition against all association and cooperation with communism that was reiterated by the Holy Office under Pope Pius XII in 1949 (see Appendix A below):

159. It is, therefore, especially to the point to make a clear distinction between false philosophical teachings regarding the nature, origin, and destiny of the universe and of man, and movements which have a direct bearing either on economic and social questions, or cultural matters or on the organization of the state, even if these movements owe their origin and inspiration to these false tenets. While the teaching once it has been clearly set forth is no longer subject to change, the movements, precisely because they take place in the midst of changing conditions, are readily susceptible of change. Besides, who can deny that those movements, in so far as they conform to the dictates of right reason and are interpreters of the lawful aspirations of the human person, contain elements that are positive and deserving of approval?

160. For these reasons it can at times happen that meetings for the attainment of some practical results which previously seemed completely useless now are either actually useful or may be looked upon as profitable for the future. But to decide whether this moment has arrived, and also to lay down the ways and degrees in which work in common might be possible for the achievement of economic, social, cultural, and political ends which are honorable and useful: these are the problems which can only be solved with the virtue of prudence, which is the guiding light of the virtues that regulate the moral life, both individual and social. Therefore, as far as Catholics are concerned, this decision rests primarily with those who live and work in the specific sectors of human society in which those problems arise, always, however, in accordance with the principles of the natural law, with the social doctrine of the church, and with the directives of ecclesiastical authorities. For it must not be forgotten that the Church has the right and the duty not only to safeguard the principles of ethics and religion, but also to intervene authoritatively with Her children in the temporal sphere, when there is a question of judging the application of those principles to concrete cases.[67] (Angelo Roncalli/John XIII, Pacem in Terris, April 11, 1963.)

Roncalli/John XXIII’s handpicked successor, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Montini/Paul VI, began the push in the direction of socialism and a “World Fund” in its infamous “encyclical” letter of March 25, 1967, Populorum Progressio, which is a magna carta, if you will, for Jorge the Red, and endorsed what he called the "preferential option for the poor" when addressing the CELAM conference on August 24, 1968, in Medellin, Colombia and when he issued Octagesima Adveniens, May 15, 1971:

23. Through the statement of the rights of man and the seeking for international agreements for the application of these rights, progress has been made towards inscribing these two aspirations in deeds and structures (16). Nevertheless various forms of discrimination continually reappear-ethnic cultural, religious, political and so on. In fact, human rights are still too often disregarded, if not scoffed at, or else they receive only formal recognition. In many cases legislation does not keep up with real situations. Legislation is necessary, but it is not sufficient for setting up true relationships of justice and equity. In teaching us charity, the Gospel instructs us in the preferential respect due to the poor and the special situation they have in society: the more fortunate should renounce some of their rights so as to place their goods more generously at the service of others. If, beyond legal rules, there is really no deeper feeling of respect for and service to others, then even equality before the law can serve as an alibi for flagrant discrimination, continued exploitation and actual contempt. Without a renewed education in solidarity, an overemphasis of equality can give rise to an individualism in which each one claims his own rights without wishing to be answerable for the common good.

In this field, everyone sees the highly important contribution of the Christian spirit, which moreover answers man's yearning to be loved. "Love for man, the prime value of the earthly order" ensures the conditions for peace, both social peace and international peace, by affirming our universal brotherhood (17). (Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI, Octagesima Adveniens, May 15, 1971.)

This was nothing other than an attempt to graft a Marxist diatribe onto the Gospel of the Divine Redeemer, Christ the King, and it had nothing to do with commemorating the eightieth anniversary of Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, May 15, 1891.

Love for "man, the prime value of the earthly order," not love of Christ the King as He has revealed Himself to us exclusively through His true Church, the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

"Love for man," of course is one of the chief tenets of Marxism, something that the late Dr. Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn noted at his famous commencement address at Harvard University on June 8, 1978, just fifty-nine days before the earthly demise of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI:

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

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

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

Solzhenitsyn, who is should be pointed out, was a Russian nationalist and thus had a bias against the Catholic Church and her teaching authority, especially as pertains to Papal Primacy and to her constant condemnation of contraception, which he, Solzhenitsyn supported in the name of “population control,” explained forty-one years that his condemnation of socialism did not mean that he could recommend the Western culture of consumerism and materialism as the model for his own country should Communism end there (as it supposedly did on December 25, 1992, as the flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was lowered and the tri-color flag of Russia was raised up a flagpole in its place):

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.

The “squad” in the United States of America and their compatriots around the world, including the Argentine Apostate who is an occupant of the Casa Santa Marta, are but the product of a false conflict between different sides of the same anti-Incarnational, naturalistic and Pelagian coin, something that has been noted several times previously in this commentary and touched upon by Father Edward Leen, S.J., in The Holy Ghost:

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

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

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

Father Leen was overly optimistic about the ability of Catholics to reject the effects of Bolshevism, which have indeed made their way to our own shores (have you noticed?), as he could never have envisioned that Modernists would come up from the underground after the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958, and effect a coup against the Catholic Church while representing themselves to be Catholics despite the fact that they had expelled themselves from the bosom of Holy Mother Church by their embrace, no less public promotion of, one heretical proposition after another, including an overt "reconciliation" with the principles of Marxism-Leninism. Father Leen did, of course, see very well the dangers in a world shaped by naturalism as it is very easy for Catholics to become so immersed in the world and its distractions and agitations as to lose the sensus Catholicus over the course of time. Thanks to the conciliar revolutionaries, of course, the genuine sensus Catholicus has been destroyed by the effects of the "reconcilation" between Modernism and Modernity.

The very basis of the “reconciliation between the conciliar revolutionaries and “the world” was condemned by Pope Saint Pius X in his encyclical letter condemning The Sillon, August 15, 1910, that prophesied socialism as the only end that could come from the principles that were admired by Father Angelo Roncalli at the time even after their condemnation and were later incorporated into Gaudium et Spes, December 7, 1965, and the “magisteria” of the postconciliar antipopes:

Alas! yes, the double meaning has been broken: the social action of the Sillon is no longer Catholic. The Sillonist, as such, does not work for a coterie, and “the Church”, he says, “cannot in any sense benefit from the sympathies that his action may stimulate.” A strange situation, indeed! They fear lest the Church should profit for a selfish and interested end by the social action of the Sillon, as if everything that benefited the Church did not benefit the whole human race! A curious reversal of notions! The Church might benefit from social action! As if the greatest economists had not recognized and proved that it is social action alone which, if serious and fruitful, must benefit the Church! But stranger still, alarming and saddening at the same time, are the audacity and frivolity of men who call themselves Catholics and dream of re-shaping society under such conditions, and of establishing on earth, over and beyond the pale of the Catholic Church, "the reign of love and justice" with workers coming from everywhere, of all religions and of no religion, with or without beliefs, so long as they forego what might divide them - their religious and philosophical convictions, and so long as they share what unites them - a "generous idealism and moral forces drawn from whence they can" When we consider the forces, knowledge, and supernatural virtues which are necessary to establish the Christian City, and the sufferings of millions of martyrs, and the light given by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the self-sacrifice of all the heroes of charity, and a powerful hierarchy ordained in heaven, and the streams of Divine Grace - the whole having been built up, bound together, and impregnated by the life and spirit of Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God, the Word made man - when we think, I say, of all this, it is frightening to behold new apostles eagerly attempting to do better by a common interchange of vague idealism and civic virtues. What are they going to produce? What is to come of this collaboration? A mere verbal and chimerical construction in which we shall see, glowing in a jumble, and in seductive confusion, the words Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Love, Equality, and human exultation, all resting upon an ill-understood human dignity. It will be a tumultuous agitation, sterile for the end proposed, but which will benefit the less Utopian exploiters of the people. Yes, we can truly say that the Sillon, its eyes fixed on a chimera, brings Socialism in its train.

We fear that worse is to come: the end result of this developing promiscuousness, the beneficiary of this cosmopolitan social action, can only be a Democracy which will be neither Catholic, nor Protestant, nor Jewish. It will be a religion (for Sillonism, so the leaders have said, is a religion) more universal than the Catholic Church, uniting all men become brothers and comrades at last in the "Kingdom of God". - "We do not work for the Church, we work for mankind."

And now, overwhelmed with the deepest sadness, We ask Ourselves, Venerable Brethren, what has become of the Catholicism of the Sillon? Alas! this organization which formerly afforded such promising expectations, this limpid and impetuous stream, has been harnessed in its course by the modern enemies of the Church, and is now no more than a miserable affluent of the great movement of apostasy being organized in every country for the establishment of a One-World Church which shall have neither dogmas, nor hierarchy, neither discipline for the mind, nor curb for the passions, and which, under the pretext of freedom and human dignity,would bring back to the world (if such a Church could overcome) the reign of legalized cunning and force, and the oppression of the weak, and of all those who toil and suffer. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)

Human dignity?

What about the sacred rights of the Social Reign of Christ the King?

The world has heard enough of the so-called "rights of man." Let it hear something of the rights of God. That the time is suitable is proved by the very general revival of religious feeling already referred to, and especially that devotion towards Our Saviour of which there are so many indications, and which, please God, we shall hand on to the New Century as a pledge of happier times to come. But as this consummation cannot be hoped for except by the aid of divine grace, let us strive in prayer, with united heart and voice, to incline Almighty God unto mercy, that He would not suffer those to perish whom He had redeemed by His Blood. May He look down in mercy upon this world, which has indeed sinned much, but which has also suffered much in expiation! And, embracing in His loving-kindness all races and classes of mankind, may He remember His own words: "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to Myself" (John xii., 32). (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

Most of the people who are alive today do indeed want to hear about the “rights of man,” and most of those others who profess some kind of generic or inchoate belief in God have no understanding that His own Divine Son made Incarnate in the Virginal and Immaculate Womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary must reign over men and their nations and that every religion other than Catholicism is false and is loathsome in His sight. Moreover, anyone who believes that there can be some “shortcut” to a respite from the conflicts that are taking place in the United States of America are badly mistaken as those conflicts are but the logical consequence of the needless divisions among men and nations engendered by the Protestant Revolution’s overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and the subsequent rise of Judeo-Masonry and all of its naturalist errors, including liberalism and socialism.

Mit Brennender Sorge could have been the capstone of Pope Pius XI’s pontificate. However, quite unlike the conciliar “popes,” Pope Pius Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937, became the ultimate means to directly confront evils that his successor, Pope Pius XII, would continue to condemn until his own death on October 9, 1958.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio indemnifies all manner of evil-doers in public life because he is a naturalist of the “leftist” variety, and although this wretched apostate has no use for the Ten Commandments, aping Martin Luther’s own hatred of them, it can be said that the octogenarian heretic from Argentina has an Eleventh Commandment: “Thou shalt never speak ill of any Communist.”

We do no lose heart in the midst of the circumstances in which we live. God will never desert the cause of His Holy Church. Pope Leo XIII was very clear on this one point:

The Church, it is certain, at no time and in no particular is deserted by God; hence, there is no reason why she should be alarmed at the wickedness of men; but in the case of nations falling away from Christian virtue there is not a like ground of assurance, "for sin maketh nations miserable." If every bygone age has experienced the force of this truth, wherefore should not our own? There are, in truth, very many signs which proclaim that just punishments are already menacing, and the condition of modern States tends to confirm this belief, since we perceive many of them in sad plight from intestine disorders, and not one entirely exempt. But, should those leagued together in wickedness hurry onward in the road they have boldly chosen, should they increase in influence and power in proportion as they make headway in their evil purposes and crafty schemes, there will be ground to fear lest the very foundations nature has laid for States to rest upon be utterly destroyed. Nor can such misgivings be removed by any mere human effort, especially as a vast number of men, having rejected the Christian faith, are on that account justly incurring the penalty of their pride, since blinded by their passions they search in vain for truth, laying hold on the false for the true, and thinking themselves wise when they call "evil good, and good evil," and "put darkness in the place of light, and light in the place of darkness." It is therefore necessary that God come to the rescue, and that, mindful of His mercy, He turn an eye of compassion on human society. (Pope Leo XIII, Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890.)

Men today, blinded and made miserable by their own sins, do indeed lay hold on the false for the true and consider themselves very wise when they call "evil good, and good evil" and "put darkness in the place of light, and light in the place of darkness.”

Total trust in the Mother of God and her Fatima Message as we pray as many Rosaries each day as our state-in-life permits to console the good God and to make reparation for our own sins, each of which has worsened both the state of the world-at-large and the state of the Church Militant here on earth in this time of apostasy and betrayal.

This time of chastisement will pass. The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary will be made manifest.

True, we may not be alive to witness this triumph. We can, however, plant the seeds for it by our patient endurance of the crosses of the moment as we make whatever sacrifice necessary and endure whatever calumny, humiliation and hardship that is required in order to make no concessions to falsehoods, whether of Modernity or Modernism, of any kind at any time for any reason.

Let us lift high the Cross of Christ the King, He Who is the King of men and their nations even though most men do not realize this and even though most nations seek to suppress all mention of His Holy Name and mock any possibility that He is their King, the King Who will come in glory to judge the living and dead.

PART FOUR

Although Jorge Mario Bergoglio continues to throw Catholics suffering at the hands of Communist regimes under the bus by implying in no so subtle terms that they are responsible for their persecution because they chose the path of “confrontation” rather than “dialogue,” our true popes rose in defense of persecuted Catholics nor did they shrink from their solemn duty to denounce evil and defend truth when the need arose for them to do so.

The previous three parts of this series have focused on how Popes Pius VI, VII, IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, and Pius XI denounced various evils in their own day, including the persecution of Catholics. This concluding commentary will focus on various aspects of Pope Pius XII’s very eventful pontificate, the entirety of which (1939-1958) was spent during the turbulent era of World War II and its aftermath during the start of the Cold War.

Praised During World War II but Calumniated Two Decades Later

As was the case with most of his immediate predecessors, save for Pope Saint Pius X, Pope Pius XI (Eugenio Pacelli) was trained in the diplomatic service of the Holy See and became a protégé of his predecessor as the Holy See’s Secretariat of State, Pietro Cardinal Gasparri, who had negotiated the Lateran Concordat with Italian Premier Benito Mussolini in 1929 while ignoring the pleas of the Cristeros in Mexico following the ill-advised Vatican-approved ceasefire accord with the regime of Plutarco Elias Calles’s puppet successor, Emilio Portes Gil.

The Lateran Concordat of 1929 was signed on February 11, 1929, and it created the State of Vatican City and gave the Holy See extra-territorial rights along the Via della Conciliazione, built by Mussolini to commemorate the resolution of the "Roman Question," and in the Trastevere district of Rome and at Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of the popes. In return for the ending the self-imposed "imprisonment" of the popes in the Vatican since 1870, therefore, Cardinal Gasparri agreed to pledge Vatican neutrality in world conflicts.

Nevertheless, however, despite all the efforts to calumniate him in the 1960s and thereafter, Pope Pius XII spoke with courage as he defended the rights of all innocent human beings in Europe and was praised for it by the editorial writers of The New York Times:

The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas. The Pope reiterates what he has said before. In general, he repeats, although with greater definiteness, the five-point plan for peace which he first enunciated in his Christmas message after the war broke out in 1939. His program agrees in fundamentals with the Roosevelt-Churchill eight-point declaration. It calls for respect for treaties and the end of the possibility of aggression, equal treatment for minorities, freedom from religious persecution. It goes farther than the Atlantic Charter in advocating an end of all national monopolies of economic wealth, and so far as the eight points, which demands complete disarmament for Germany pending some future limitation of arms for all nations.

The Pontiff emphasized principles of international morality with which most men of good-will agree. He uttered the ideas a spiritual leader would be expected to express in time of war. Yet his words sound strange and bold in the Europe of today, and we comprehend the complete submergence and enslavement of great nations, the very sources of our civilization, as we realize that he is about the only ruler left o the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all. The last tiny islands of neutrality are so hemmed in and overshadowed by war and fear that no one but the Pope is still able to speak aloud in the name of the Prince of Peace. This is indeed a measure of the "moral devastation" he describes as the accompaniment of physical ruin and inconceivable human suffering.

In calling for a "real new order" based on "liberty, justice and love," to be attained only by a "return to social and international principles capable of creating a barrier against the abuse of liberty and the abuse of power," the Pope put himself squarely against Hitlerism. Recognizing that there is no road open to agreement between belligerents "whose reciprocal war aims and programs seem to be irreconcilable," he left no doubt that the Nazi aims are also irreconcilable with his own conception of a Christian peace. "The new order which must arise out of this war," he asserted, "must be based on principles." And that implies only one end to the war. (The New York Times, December 25, 1941.)

No Christmas sermon reaches a larger congregation than the message Pope Pius XII addresses to a war-torn world at this season. This Christmas more than ever he is a lonely voice crying out of the silence of a continent. The Pulpit whence he speaks is more than ever like the Rock on which the Church was founded, a tiny island lashed and surrounded by a sea of war. In these circumstances, in any circumstances, indeed, no one would expect the Pope to speak as a political leader, or a war leader, or in any other role than that of a preacher ordained to stand above the battle, tied impartially, as he says, to all people and willing to collaborate in any new order which will bring a just peace.

But just because the Pope speaks to and in some sense for all the peoples at war, the clear stand he takes on the fundamental issues of the conflict has greater weight and authority. When a leader bound impartially to nations on both sides condemns as heresy the new form of national state which subordinates everything to itself: when he declares that whoever wants peace must protect against "arbitrary attacks" the "juridical safety of individuals:" when he assails violent occupation of territory, the exile and persecution of human beings for no reason other than race or political opinion: when he says that people must fight for a just and decent peace, a "total peace" — the "impartial judgment" is like a verdict in a high court of justice.

Pope Pius expresses as passionately as any leader on our side the war aims of the struggle for freedom when he says that those who aim at building a new world must fight for free choice of government and religious order. They must refuse that the state should make of individuals a herd of whom the state disposes as if they were a lifeless thing. (The New York Times, December 25, 1942. The Christmas Editorials on Pope Pius XII.)

These editorials in The New York Times in 1941 and 1942 expressed beliefs that were held by many in the Talmudic Jewish community during and immediately after World War II, long before The Deputy began to propagandize lies against Pope Pius XII. Further Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir praised Pope Pius XII after his death in 1958 for what he had done to helped Jews during World War II. This article, written by Sister Margherita Marchione, Ph.D., contains a brilliant refutation of the baseless charges still being made by Talmudic Jews that have been responsible, at least in part, for the conciliar Vatican's decision to "slow down" its bogus "canonization" process:

Pope Pius XII was not a German collaborator nor was he pro-Nazi. Neither was he inactive nor silent. As a member of the Catholic Church, I resent the blatant accusations against the diplomacy of the Pope and the Church during World War II. This is not only indecent journalism but it also an injustice toward a man who saved more Jews than any other person, including Oscar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg. Unfortunately even in the new Holocaust Museum at Battery Park in New York City the Pope is unjustly criticized. It is historically inaccurate to charge him with "silence."

Should the media be allowed to perpetuate such falsehoods? Documents prove that these misrepresentations are untrue. Pius XII spoke out as much as he could, and was able to do more with actions than with words. To the very end, he was convinced that, should he denounce Hitler publicly, there would be retaliation. And there was. Whenever protests were made, treatment of prisoners worsened immediately. Robert Kempner, the American who served as deputy chief of the Nuremburg war-crimes tribunal, wrote: "All the arguments and writings eventually used by the Catholic Church against Hitler only provoked suicide; the execution of Jews was followed by that of Catholic priests."

Pius XII—through his public discourses, his appeals to governments, and his secret diplomacy—was engaged more than any other individual in the effort to curb the war and rebuild the peace. Documents show that Pius XII was in contact with the German generals who sought to overthrow Hitler. Documents also show that the Jewish community received enormous help: Pius XII’s personal funds ransomed Jews from Nazis. Papal representatives in Croatia, Hungary, and Romania intervened to stop deportations. The Pope called for a peace conference involving Italy, France, England, Germany, and Poland in 1939, in a last-minute bid to avert bloodshed.

An interesting document is the testimony of Albert Einstein who, disenchanted by the silence of universities and editors of newspapers, stated in Time magazine (December 23, 1940): "Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth. …The Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom." Indeed, executing the directives of Pope Pius XII, religious men and women opened their doors to save the Jews.

Never were the Jews and the Vatican so close as during World War II. The Vatican was the only place on the continent where they had any friends. Pope Pius XII’s response to the plight of the Jews was to save as many as possible. Yet little has been done to stop the criticism of Pius XII that began in 1963, when Rolf Hochhuth portrayed him as a Nazi collaborator in the play "The Deputy." In contrast to the image suggested by this play, Vatican records indicate that the Church operated an underground railroad that rescued 800,000 European Jews from the Holocaust. After a careful study of available documents, whoever is interested in the truth will no longer condemn the actions of Pope Pius XII’s words and the Catholic Church during this tragic period.

An honest evaluation of Pope Pius XII’s words and actions will exonerate him from false accusations and show that he has been unjustly maligned. The Pope neither favored nor was favored by the Nazis. The day after his election (March 3, 1939), the Nazi newspaper, Berliner Morganpost stated its position clearly: "the election of Cardinal Pacelli is not accepted with favor in Germany because he was always opposed to Nazism."

The New York Times editorial (December 25, 1942) was specific: "The voice of Pius XII is a lonely voice in the silence and darkness enveloping Europe this Christmas...He is about the only ruler left on the Continent of Europe who dares to raise his voice at all." The Pope’s Christmas message was also interpreted in the Gestapo report: "in a manner never known before...the Pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order [Nazism]. It is true, the Pope does not refer to the National Socialists in Germany by name, but his speech is one long attack on everything we stand for. …Here he is clearly speaking on behalf of the Jews." Perhaps the rest of the world should interpret the Pope’s words as they were meant and, undoubtedly, correctly understood by the Nazis, i.e.: POPE PIUS XII WAS ALWAYS OPPOSED TO NAZISM.

The Jewish Community publicly acknowledged the wisdom of Pope Pius XII’s diplomacy. In September 1945, Dr. Joseph Nathan—who represented the Hebrew Commission—stated "Above all, we acknowledge the Supreme Pontiff and the religious men and women who, executing the directives of the Holy Father, recognized the persecuted as their brothers and, with great abnegation, hastened to help them, disregarding the terrible dangers to which they were exposed." In 1958, at the death of Pope Pius XII, Golda Meir sent an eloquent message: "We share in the grief of humanity. …When fearful martyrdom came to our people, the voice of the Pope was raised for its victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out about great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace." (The Truth About Pope Pius XII.)

The Talmudists and other “experts” know something that Golda Meir did not know or understand over sixty years ago now?

Nonsense.

Admitting that the remote causes for the unrelenting nature of the Talmudic attacks upon the memory of Pope Pius XII stems from a hatred of the Faith and Talmudic Judaism's alliances with all other naturalist and anti-Theistic forces imaginable, including Bolshevism, there is a proximate reason for the calumnies that have been aimed at Pope Pius XII: this Successor of Saint Peter is directly, personally responsible for the conversion to the Catholic Faith of the Grand Rabbi of Rome, Israel Zolli, on February 13, 1945.

Rabbi Zolli converted to the true Faith at the hands of Pope Pius XII, taking the baptismal name of Eugenio Maria after the former Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli himself. The fact that a man who came from a long line of Talmudic rabbis dared to convert to the hated Catholic Faith in the final months of World War II in Europe infuriated the devil, who used his legions in the ranks of Talmudic Judaism to make war upon Pope Pius XII after his death and when they knew that his very enemies inside of the conciliar Vatican itself, men whom, most ironically, that Pope Pius XII had appointed and promoted, would do nothing to stop.

Here is Eugenio Maria Zolli's account of his conversion as contained in his autobiography, Before the Dawn:

Rabbi Zolli, did you become a convert out of gratitude towards the Pope, who did so much for the Jews of Italy during the Nazi persecution?

This question was addressed to me, and still is, by reporters. In many interviews (inaccurate or invented) they describe me as answering in the affirmative. Why? I suppose to please readers by providing them with a precise and pleasing explanation. In reality my reply has always been in the negative, but this ought not to be interpreted as a lack of gratitude. ...At the very hour in which the terrible sacrificial rite of blood was initiated, the destruction en masse in the name of race, of nation, of the state, concentrating the three into one factor: blood precisely then, in the midst of so many fanatics, the great Pontiff, unique, serene and wise, exclaims: But the legitimate and just love towards one's own country must not close the eyes to the universality of Christian charity which also considers others and their prosperity in the pacifying light of love! ...Volumes could be written on the multiform works of succour of Pius XII... Who could ever tell what has been done? The rule of severe enclosure falls, everything and all things are at the service of charity. As the sufferings grow, so grows the light from the heart of Christ, and from His Vicar: more vigilant and ready for sacrifice and martyrdom are his sons and daughters in Christ. Young Levites and white-haired priests, religious of alt orders, in all lands, dedicated Sisters, all in quest of good works and ready for sacrifice. There are no barriers, no distinctions. All sufferers are children of God in the eyes of the Church, children in Christ, for them and with them all suffer and die. No hero in history has commanded such an army; none is more militant, more fought against, none more heroic than that conducted by Pius XII in the name of Christian charity. An old priest, who could do nothing further, gathered around him in the church the women and children of the village (the men had been slaughtered outside the village) so that they might die together in the presence of the crucifix. His dead body is thrown upon the altar, where once he celebrated the Holy Sacrifice, and there he lies, himself sacrificed. An army of priests works in cities and small towns to provide bread for the persecuted and passports for the fugitives. Sisters go into unheated canteens to give hospitality to women refugees. Orphans of all nations and religions are gathered together and cared for. No economic sacrifice is considered too great to help the innocent to flee to foreign lands from those who seek their death. A religious, a most learned man, works incessantly to save Jews, and himself dies a martyr. Sisters endure hunger to feed the refugees. Superiors go out in the night to meet strange soldiers who demand victims. They manage, at the risk of their lives, to convey the impression that they have none they, who have several in their care. The attic of one of the great churches in the center of Rome is divided into many sections, each bearing the name of the saint in whose honor the altar below is dedicated. The refugees are divided for the distribution of food into groups according to the names of these saints. Must not the soul of the saint rejoice in such a tribute? Schools, administrative offices, churches, convents all have their guests....

At the first hour of his pontificate Pius XII said: Exactly in times like these, he who remains firm in his faith and strong in his heart, knows that Christ the King is never so near as in trial, which is the hour of fidelity. With a heart broken by the suffering of so many of her children, but with the courage and firmness that come from faith in the Lord's promises, the Spouse of Christ [the Church], advances towards the approaching storm. She knows that the truth she announces, the charity she teaches, and its practice will be the unique counsellors and collaborators of men of good will in the reconstruction of a new world, in justice and love, after humanity, weary of running in the way of error, will have tasted the bitter fruit of hatred and of violence.

Many are the books by statisticians, generals, journalists, and many are the memoirs of individuals concerning this great war. The archives hold quantities of material for future historians. But who, outside of God in heaven, has gathered into his heart the sorrows and the groans of all the injured? Like a watchful sentinel before the sacred inheritance of human pain stands the angelic Pastor, Pius XII. He has seen the abyss of misfortune towards which humanity is advancing. He has measured and foretold the greatness of the tragedy. He has made himself the herald of the serene voice of justice and the defender of true peace.... I did not hesitate to give a negative answer to the question whether I was converted in gratitude to Pius XII for his numberless acts of charity. Nevertheless, I do feel the duty of rendering homage and of affirming that the charity of the Gospel was the light that showed the way to my old and weary heart. It is the charity that so often shines in the history of the Church and which radiated fully in the actions of the reigning Pontiff.

- from Before the Dawn, Chapter 17 (The book is available from Inside the Vatican) Inside the Vatican, Martin de Porres Lay Dominican Community, 3050 Gap Knob Road, New Hope, KY 40052, 800-789-9494. Before the Dawn.)

How many conciliar officials write or speak about the Faith in the moving terms that Eugenio Maria Zolli did in his autobiography?

Not many.

Not many at all.

The attacks upon Pope Pius XII by Talmudists after his death were fueled in large part by a desire to create a sense of “collective guilt” during the ongoing proceedings of the “Second” Vatican Council in order to produce a “new springtime” of “understanding” between the counterfeit church of conciliarism and Talmudism and thus end all talk of Judaism’s having been superseded by the New and Eternal Covenant instituted by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ at the Last Supper and ratified by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday as the curtain in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom, signifying the end of the Old Dispensation and the beginning of the New Dispensation.

Despite all that Pope Pius XII did to help the Jews during World War II, though, Talmudists were determined to besmirch his name because His Holiness reminded the world of truth about Judaism as a dead religion in the following passages of Mystici Corporis Christi, June 29, 1943:

28.That He completed His work on the gibbet of the Cross is the unanimous teaching of the holy Fathers who assert that the Church was born from the side of our Savior on the Cross like a new Eve, mother of all the living. [28] "And it is now," says the great St. Ambrose, speaking of the pierced side of Christ, "that it is built, it is now that it is formed, it is now that is .... molded, it is now that it is created . . . Now it is that arises a spiritual house, a holy priesthood." [29] One who reverently examines this venerable teaching will easily discover the reasons on which it is based.

29. And first of all, by the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ. For, while our Divine Savior was preaching in a restricted area -- He was not sent but to the sheep that were lost of the house of Israel [30] -the Law and the Gospel were together in force; [31] but on the gibbet of his death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees, [32] fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, [33] establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race. [34] "To such an extent, then," says St. Leo the Great, speaking of the Cross of our Lord, "was there effected a transfer from the Law to the Gospel, from the Synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to one Victim, that, as our Lord expired, that mystical veil which shut off the innermost part of the temple and its sacred secret was rent violently from top to bottom." [35]

30. On the Cross then the Old Law died, soon to be buried and to be a bearer of death, [36] in order to give way to the New Testament of which Christ had chosen the Apostles as qualified ministers; [37] and although He had been constituted the Head of the whole human family in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, it is by the power of the Cross that our Savior exercises fully the office itself of Head in His Church. "For it was through His triumph on the Cross," according to the teaching of the Angelic and Common Doctor, "that He won power and dominion over the gentiles"; [38] by that same victory He increased the immense treasure of graces, which, as He reigns in glory in heaven, He lavishes continually on His mortal members it was by His blood shed on the Cross that God's anger was averted and that all the heavenly gifts, especially the spiritual graces of the New and Eternal Testament, could then flow from the fountains of our Savior for the salvation of men, of the faithful above all; it was on the tree of the Cross, finally, that He entered into possession of His Church, that is, of all the members of His Mystical Body; for they would not have been united to this Mystical Body. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

Not even the defense of Pope Pius XII by a number of prominent Jewish rabbis has been able to overcome the calumnies that have been directed at Pope Pius XII by Talmudic Jews since 1963. A defector from Romania under the late dictator Nicolai Ceausescu, Ion Mihai Pacepa, claimed in 2013 that The Deputy and the propaganda that stemmed from it was encouraged by the K.G.B. of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in order to defame Pope Pius XII, a firm anti-Communist (in stark contrast to Angelo Roncalli, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini and Jorge Mario Bergoglio himself), as a sympathizer of the Adolf Hitler's Third Reich:

In “Disinformation” – subtitled “Former Spy Chief Reveals Secret Strategies for Undermining Freedom, Attacking Religion, and Promoting Terrorism” – Pacepa reveals the thinking and approach behind Soviet bloc disinformation operations. He also provides new details about Romania under Ceauşescu, Soviet efforts to implicate the CIA in the Kennedy assassination and Kremlin-directed efforts to frame the Catholic leader during World War II, Pope Pius XII, as being “Hitler’s pope.” (Ion Mihai Papcepa: Hero to the West and Romania.)

Shouldn't this be proof enough?

The Bolshevik Revolution was launched with the financial help of Talmudists seeking to end the hold of Russian Orthodoxy on Russia, and Marxism-Leninism has always had the support of a large, although not exclusive, number of Jewish financiers, academics and fellow travelers because it has been seen as the means to eradicate Christianity from public view and then to criminalize those who profess the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, something that has been occurring in the midst of the so-called “civilized” West for decades and is now part of official state-sponsored programs of support of the “woke” agenda of those whose brains are truly dead to the truth because they are in utter captivity to the devil himself. It is because Pope Pius XII firmly denounced Communism throughout his pontificate that he was later subjected to calumnious attacks from the very Talmudists whose co-religionists His Holiness had expended efforts to save that earned him the plaudits of their very own within during and after World War II. It was only after his death that the Judaizing Angelo Roncalli and Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini winked as the pope of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was calumniated by Soviet propaganda marketed in the West by means of theatrical productions and alleged works of “scholarship.” Roncalli and Montini winked because their openness to the “world” included an openness to Communism and to Communist regimes throughout the world, which is why Pope Pius XII and his opposition to Communism had to be eclipsed by all means possible.

The lesson here is inescapable: The leaders of the counterfeit church of conciliarism will brook no opposition to their rapprochement with all the errors of Judeo-Masonry, including Communism in all its many forms and varieties, which is why Pope Pius XII’s sterling record of firm opposition to Communism must not only be flushed down the Orwellian memory hole but supplanted by Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Pietro Parolin’s obsequiousness towards the likes of Daniel Ortega and Xi Jinping that makes a mockery of the concept of Catholic martyrdom as to denounce the courage of Catholics resisting evil contemporaneously as nothing other than egotistic acts of “confrontation” is to imply that all those in the past who stood up to anti-Catholic tyrants brought their deaths upon themselves needlessly by refusing to engage in “dialogue.” Yet is that Catholics do not “dialogue” with the devil or his associates in this passing, mortal vale of tears.

Pope Pius XII Defended Catholics Being Persecuted by Communist Regimes

Contrast Pietro Parolin’s mild statement of regret about “Cardinal” Zen’s arrest with the indignation of Pope Pius XII upon learning the news of the arrest of the Primage of Hungary, Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty by the Communist authorities there:

ROME, Dec. 27 — Pope Pius was said today to have been profoundly grieved and shocked at news of the arrest of Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, Primate of Hungary. Confirmation of the arrest with no details was received by the papal Secretary of State late tonight. (Pope Pius is Profoundly Shocked by the Arrest of Cardinal Mindszenty and also Cardinal Mindzsenty Seized by Red Regime in Hungary. That last link is an actual headline from The New York Times!)

Cardinal Midszenty’s show trial prompted His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, to deliver an allocution on February 14, 1949, the Feast of Saint Valentine, that was published in total by The New York Times:

Venerable Brethren, we have convoked this extraordinary consistory today in order to unfold to you our soul, which is crushed with most bitter grief. You will readily understand the reason of our sorrow: it concerns a most serious outrage which inflicts a deep wound not only on your distinguished colleague and on the church, but also on every upholder of the dignity and liberty of man. As soon as ever we knew that our beloved son, Joseph Cardinal Midszenty, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Archbishop of Estergrom, was cast into prison due to religion we sent a loving message to the Hungarian hierarchy in which we publicly and solemnly protest, our duty demanded, against the injury done to the church.

These are the words we wished to speak in this illustrious assembly to you who are so closely associated with us in the government of the universal church and assist us with your zeal, your prudence and your wisdom. (Pope Pius XII, Allocution on the Cardinal Mindszenty, as found at: New York Times, February 15, 1949. Let me, Thomas Droleskey, add at this juncture that I followed events of Cardinal Mindszenty’s being released from prison during the Hungarian Revolution October of 1956 and his then having to take refuge in the American Embassy in Budapest. This was big news, and it was the news, not the lives of the saints, unfortunately, that was discussed at our dinner table each night. Additionally, I had the privilege of serving as the altar boy for Monsignor Bela Varga, who was the Speaker of the Hungarian Assembly from 1945 to 1947, who had worked with His Eminence for many years before he, Varga, fled to the United States in 1947, when he has the chaplain aboard the S.S. France on a Caribbean cruise from December 20, 1963, to January 4, 1965, and I was taught by no less than three Hungarian refugees in college and graduate school, including Dr. Stephen Kertesz, who resigned his post as the Hungarian Ambassador to Italy following the arrest of Cardinal Mindszenty. Monsignor Bela Varga gave an interview on March 22, 1979, to a professor at Columbia University. Those conversant in the Hungarian language can listen to this interview at: Oral history with Monsignor Bela Varga.)

While admitting full well that that the arrest of “Cardinal” Zen is not quite the same thing that happened to Cardinal Mindszenty as Zen was participating in a “pro-democracy” rally, it is nevertheless true that Pietro Parolin’s very impassive response to Zen’s arrest and Bergoglio’s silence about it stand in sharp contrast to Pope Pius XII’s consistent denunciations of the Communist persecution of Catholic prelates and clergy during the last thirteen years of his pontificate during the beginning of the Cold War. Pope Pius XII did not mince words, and he did not seek to curry any favor with Communist authorities while making all the proper distinctions between respecting those governments that respect the liberties of Holy Mother Church and those, such as Communist regimes, who do not.

Pope Pius XII was equally outspoken following the arrest and subsequent imprisonment of the Primate of Poland, Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, in 1953, and the arrest, trial, and imprisonment of Joseph Cardinal Kung three years later. (A summary of the sufferings of Cardinals Mindszenty and Wyszynski, can be found at: Mindszenty and Wyszynski.)

Flushing the Memory of the Catholic Martyrs of Red China Down the Orwellian Memory Hole

Pope Pius XII firmly opposed the Communist persecution of Catholics by the Red Chinese authorities even more the formation of the so-called Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. He noted the following in Ad Sinarum Gentes, October 7, 1954:

23. We want to repeat here the words that We have written on the same argument in the letter already cited: “The Church does not single out a particular people, an individual nation, but loves all men, whatever be their nation or race, with that supernatural charity of Christ, which should necessarily unite all as brothers, one to the other.

24. “Hence it cannot be affirmed that she serves the interests of any particular power. Nor likewise can she be expected to countenance that particular churches be set up in each nation, thus destroying that unity established by the Divine Founder, and unhappily separating them from this Apostolic See where Peter, the Vicar of Jesus Christ, continues to live in his successors until the end of time.

25. “Whatever Christian community were to do this, would lose its vitality as the branch cut from the vine (Cf. John 15. 6) and could not bring forth salutary fruit” (AAS, 44: p. 135).

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.)

What does this matter to Jorge Mario Bergoglio?

Why, nothing at all, of course. He wants his “bishops” and priests/presbyters to be collaborators with Communist regimes. Bergoglio is an apologist for everything that Bishop James Walsh and Bishop Ignatius Kung opposed by sacrificing their liberty and against which Bishop Francis Ford gave up his life after being worn out by Communist torturers.

It is often the case in the history of Holy Mother Church during times of persecutions that her martyrs suffer together. Such continues to be the case in Red China today just as much as it was sixty-two years ago during the Chicom show trials that sentenced Bishops James Edward Walsh and Ignatius Kung to prison. How sad it is the evangelizing efforts and sufferings of these two great Catholic heroes have been considered by Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio as part of a “memory of the past” that needs to be “purified.”

The official biography of Bishop Ignatius Kung found on the Cardinal Kung Foundation website provides us with a glimpse of the sort of Catholic heroism that means nothing to Jorge Mario Bergoglio:

Bishop Kung had been Bishop of Shanghai and Apostolic Administrator of two other dioceses for only five years before he was arrested by the Chinese government. In just 5 short years, Bishop Kung became one of the most feared enemies of the Chinese Communists - a man who commanded both the attention and devotion of the country's then three million Roman Catholics and the highest respect of his brother bishops in China, and inspired thousands to offer their lives up to God. In defiance of the communist created and sanctioned Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, Bishop Kung personally supervised the Legion of Mary, a religious organization of the laity dedicated to the veneration of the Blessed Mother Mary. As the result, many members of the Legion of Mary chose to risk arrest in the name of their God, of their Church and of their bishop. Hundreds of Legion of Mary members, including many students, were arrested and sentenced to 10, 15, or 20 years or more of hard labor.

In the midst of persecutions, Bishop Kung declared 1952 the Marian Year in Shanghai. During that year, there was to be uninterrupted 24 hours-daily recitation of the rosary in front of a statue of Our Lady of Fatima, which toured all the parishes of Shanghai. The Holy Statue finally arrived at Christ the King Church where a major arrest of the priests had just taken place only a month ago. Bishop Kung visited that church and personally led the rosary while hundreds of the armed police looked on. At the end of the rosary, leading the congregation, Bishop Kung prayed: "Holy Mother, we do not ask you for a miracle. We do not beg you to stop the persecutions. But we beg you to support us who are very weak."

Knowing that he and his priests would soon be arrested, Bishop Kung trained hundreds of catechists to pass on the Roman Catholic faith in the diocese to future generations.

The heroic efforts of these catechists, their martyrdom and that of many faithful and clergy contributed to the vibrant underground Roman Catholic Church in China today. Bishop Kung's place in the hearts of his parishioners was very well summed up by the Shanghai youth group in a 1953 New Year youth rally when they said: "Bishop Kung, in darkness, you light up our path. You guide us on our treacherous journey. You sustain our faith and the traditions of the Church. You are the foundation rock of our Church in Shanghai."

On September 8, 1955, the press around the world reported in shock the overnight arrest of Bishop Kung along with more than 200 priests and Church leaders in Shanghai. Months after his arrest, he was taken out to a mob "struggle session" in the old Dog Racing stadium in Shanghai. Thousands were ordered to attend and to hear the Bishop's public confession of his "crimes." With his hands tied behind his back, wearing a Chinese pajama suit, the 5-foot tall bishop was pushed forward to the microphone to confess. To the shock of the security police, they heard a righteous loud cry of "Long live Christ the King, Long live the Pope" from the Bishop. The crowd responded immediately, "Long live Christ the King, Long live Bishop Kung". Bishop Kung was quickly dragged away to the police car and disappeared from the world until he was brought to trial in 1960. Bishop Kung was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The night before he was brought to trial, the Chief Prosecutor asked once again for his cooperation to lead the independent church movement and to establish the Chinese Patriotic Association. His answer was: "I am a Roman Catholic Bishop. If I denounce the Holy Father, not only would I not be a Bishop, I would not even be a Catholic. You can cut off my head, but you can never take away my duties."

Bishop Kung vanished behind bars for thirty years. During those thirty years, he spent many long periods in isolation. Numerous requests to visit Bishop Kung in prison by international religious and human rights organizations and senior foreign government officials were rejected. He was not permitted to receive visitors, including his relatives, letters, or money to buy essentials, which are rights of other prisoners.

The efforts for his release by his family, led by his nephew, Joseph Kung, by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Red Cross, and the United States Government, never ceased. In 1985, he was released from jail to serve another term of 10 years of house arrest under the custody of those Patriotic Association bishops who betrayed him and betrayed the Pope and who usurped his diocese. In an article immediately after his release from jail, the New York Times said that the ambiguous wording of the Chinese news agency suggested that the authorities, not the bishop, might have relented. After two and one-half years of house arrest, he was officially released. However, his charge of being a counterrevolutionary was never exonerated. In 1988, his nephew, Joseph Kung, went to China twice and obtained permission to escort him to America for receiving proper medical care.

Shortly before Bishop Kung was released from jail, he was permitted to join a banquet organized by the Shanghai government to welcome His eminence Cardinal Jaime Sin, Archbishop of Manila, Philippines on a friendship visit. This was the first time that Bishop Kung had met a visiting bishop from the universal Church since his imprisonment. Cardinal Sin and Bishop Kung were seated on opposite ends of the table separated by more than 20 Communists, and had no chance to exchange words privately. During the dinner, Cardinal Sin suggested that each person should sing a song to celebrate. When the time came for Bishop Kung to sing, in the presence of the Chinese government officials and the Patriotic Association bishops, he looked directly at Cardinal Sin and sang "Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam" (You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church), a song of faith proclaiming the supreme authority of the Pope. Bishop Kung conveyed to Cardinal Sin that in all his years of captivity he remained faithful to God, to his Church and to the Pope.

After the banquet, Aloysius Jin, the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association's Bishop of Shanghai, rebuked Cardinal Kung, "What are you trying to do? Showing your position?" Cardinal Kung quietly answered, "It is not necessary to show my position. My position has never changed."

Cardinal Sin immediately carried Cardinal Kung's message to the Holy Father and announced to the world: this man of God never faltered in his love for his Church or his people despite unimaginable suffering, isolation and pain. (Biography of Cardinal Kung.)

Bishop Kung's nephew, Joseph Kung, who is now eighty-nine years of age, was kind enough to have invited us to a luncheon at his house in Stamford, Connecticut, in June of 2003, I believe, and he showed us the room where his courageous uncle had died. Joseph also showed us a diary in which Bishop Kung wrote the Ordinary of the Immemorial Mass of Tradition while in prison in Red China. His jailers kept taking away the book from him, but Bishop Kung always seemed to find the paper that he needed to write the Ordinary of the Mass in exquisite handwriting. Bishop Kung won this contest of wills as he was aided by Our Lady's intercession in his behalf. The jailers finally relented and let him continue his work without any further efforts to confiscate it. Bishop Kung was dedicated to the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is always mocking, including in a children's book in 2016 (see Jorge's Wall of Unbelief.)

Now, leaving aside the fact that Jaimie Sin was no "cardinal," Bishop Ignatius Kung suffered for his fealty to the Throne of Saint Peter. He had no way of knowing that a revolution that had much in common with Marxism had created a counter church with false liturgical rites as he was imprisoned, and he was so grateful to the third in the current line of antipopes that he never understood what had happened while he was held incommunicado for over thirty years. Bishop Kung, however, was courageous in his steadfast defense of the Catholic Faith and of Papal Primacy in the face of vicious Communist persecution against him. He lived for Christ the King just as much as had Padre Miguel Agustin Pro, S.J., and the Cristeros in Mexico (as well as the Spanish Cristeros who died at the hands of Communists, many of whom had the support of American celebrities, including author Ernest Hemmingway, between 1936 and 1939). He did not accord the schismatic and heretical rump church created by the Red Chinese government, the so-called Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, as having any legitimacy whatsoever. He was a true son of Holy Mother Church who always denounced falsehood when he saw it, never failing to call it by its proper name.

A “reconciliation” with the Red Chinese butchers, however, has been a goal of the conciliar revolutionaries for over fifty years now.

Indeed, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul the Sick tried such a ~~reconciliation~~ surrender as early as January 6, 1967, the Feast of the Epiphany of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, when used the fortieth anniversary of the consecration of the first bishops to serve China to remind the Chinese people of the Catholic Church’s love for them. While he took note generally of the sufferings of the faithful Catholics in Red China, he also made it clear that he wanted to extend his Ostpolitik that made the Catholic hierarchy of Eastern Europe answerable to their Communist minders all the way to Red China itself. What follows is a computer translation of the relevant passages Montini/Paul VI’s sermon dealing with China:

Yes, you know. We have chosen this moment, this place, this assembly and this feast to remember, with celebratory joy and with antiseptic hope, a double anniversary: that of the consecration of the first six Chinese bishops, which took place forty years ago, on October 28, 1926, in this same basilica, by the hand of Our predecessor of venerated and great memory, Pius XI, and that of the canonical institution, normal of the sacred Hierarchy in China, decreed twenty years ago, in 1946, by another Our no less venerated and great predecessor, Pius XII.

Why celebrate these anniversaries? Because the two facts, which We want to remember with religious and collected solemnity, are great facts, they are historical facts, they are facts full of human and spiritual significance, and because they are facts that postulate their regular and happy following, which instead meets in these last few years have had serious and painful difficulties. The facts are known to you. Religious freedom in mainland China faces serious obstacles; Our communications are completely prevented; the Ecumenical Council did not see any member of that Hierarchy present; all the Missionaries were expelled; the Catholic Church, this same Apostolic See is accused of being contrary to the Chinese people. Now all this has no reason to exist; and we could prove it with many arguments. The Catholic Church, everyone knows, he has always looked upon China with immense sympathy; a long and dramatic history of her relations with the Chinese people says with what esteem, with what dedication she wished to know him, without any temporal interest of her own; she wished to serve him, trying to help him develop his intrinsic moral riches and offering the best she possesses to contribute to the education, assistance and prestige of the people themselves. It is well known how in that resurgent country Catholic life - especially by virtue of the events we are commemorating - has completely renounced being and appearing a paracolonial phenomenon, and how it is and wants to be an authentic expression of the Chinese soul, which he can find in the Christian faith the respect for his noble traditions and the fullness of his deep spiritual aspirations.

What then would we want? We say it simply: resume contacts, as we already maintain them with that portion of the Chinese people with whom we have friendly relations. Indeed, we must recognize that among the many Chinese residing outside the continental state, the Catholic Church is pleased to include, in the Far East and in every part of the world, many excellent and faithful children, and fervent and thriving communities, well assisted by Chinese Bishops and Clergy. Chinese; the Chinese students present at this rite, like the other Chinese Catholics, who also attend it, are for us a dear sign of the persistent vitality of the Chinese Church and are a source of great comfort and great hope.

However, we would now like to resume contact with the Chinese people of the continent; contacts not interrupted voluntarily by Us, to tell all those Chinese Catholics, who have remained faithful to the Catholic Church, that We have never forgotten them, and that we will never give up the hope of rebirth, indeed of the development of the Catholic religion in that Nation. Reconnect to let the Chinese youth know with what trepidation and affection We consider your present exaltation towards the ideals of a new, industrious, prosperous and concordant life. And we would also like to discuss peace with those who preside over Chinese life today on the Continent, knowing how this supreme human and civil ideal is intimately congenial with the spirit of the Chinese people.

These are Our wishes, Our vows. But we know the difficulties of the present hour. However, they do not prevent us from making Our thoughts for China particularly vigilant, loving and caring. And that's what we're doing. If anything, it is practically not given to us to do this, not only is it allowed to us, but it is more strongly imposed on us: to remember and pray. This is what we are doing: we remember and pray. This is why we are gathered here to commemorate two facts in the religious history of China, which seem symbolic and decisive to us. And all present We invite, indeed all those who are in communion with Us, to remember and pray. ("Homily" of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI, January 6, 1967.)

Montini/Paul VI made it clear that he did not consider the Communist regime of Red China to be illegitimate and welcomed the opportunity to establish “friendly” relations in the name of “peace.” However, the only kind of “peace” that Communists desire is total capitulation to whatever they want at any given time. As I told my students during my college teaching days, “The Soviets say they want peace, which is true. They want a piece of Virginia, a piece of New York, a piece of California, etc.” Peace for Communist regimes means total surrender.

Contrast Montini/Paul VI’s with Pope Pius XI’s absolute ban of cooperating with Communist regimes, a prohibition that was reaffirmed by the Holy Office in 1949 under Pope Pius XII:

See to it, Venerable Brethren, that the Faithful do not allow themselves to be deceived! Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever. Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of their error. And the greater the antiquity and grandeur of the Christian civilization in the regions where Communism successfully penetrates, so much more devastating will be the hatred displayed by the godless. (Pope Pius XI, Divini Redemptoris, March 19, 1937.)

This Sacred Supreme Congregation has been asked:

1. whether it is lawful to join Communist Parties or to favour them;
2. whether it is lawful to publish, disseminate, or read books, periodicals, newspapers or leaflets which support the teaching or action of Communists, or to write in them;
3. whether the faithful who knowingly and freely perform the acts specified in questions 1 and 2 may be admitted to the Sacraments;
4. whether the faithful who profess the materialistic and anti-Christian doctrine of the Communists, and particularly those who defend or propagate this doctrine, contract ipso facto excommunication specially reserved to the Apostolic See as apostates from the Catholic faith.

The Most Eminent and Most Reverend Fathers entrusted with the supervision of matters concerning the safeguarding of Faith and morals, having previously heard the opinion of the Reverend Lords Consultors, decreed in the plenary session held on Tuesday (instead of Wednesday), June 28, 1949, that the answers should be as follows:

To 1. in the negative: because Communism is materialistic and anti-Christian; and the leaders of the Communists, although they sometimes profess in words that they do not oppose religion, do in fact show themselves, both in their teaching and in their actions, to be the enemies of God, of the true religion and of the Church of Christ; to 2. in the negative: they are prohibited ipso iure (cf. Can. 1399 of the Codex Iuris Canonici); to 3. in the negative, in accordance with the ordinary principles concerning the refusal of the Sacraments to those who are not disposed; to 4. in the affirmative.

And the following Thursday, on the 30th day of the same month and year, Our Most Holy Lord Pius XII, Pope by the Divine Providence, in the ordinary audience, granted to the Most Eminent and Most Reverend Assessor of the Sacred Office, approved of the decision of the Most Eminent Fathers which had been reported to Him, and ordered the same to be promulgated officially in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis.

Given at Rome, on July 1st, 1949. (As found at Decree Against Communism.)

Pope Pius XII issued his last encyclical letter, Ad Apostolorum Principis, June 29, 1958, to condemn what Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul VI, Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio have never condemned, the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association:

8. In these days, however, We have to draw attention to the fact that the Church in your lands in recent years has been brought to still worse straits. In the midst of so many great sorrows it brings Us great comfort to note that in the daily attacks which you have met neither unflinching faith nor the most ardent love of the Divine Redeemer and of His Church has been wanting. You have borne witness to this faith and love in innumerable ways, of which only a small part is known to men, but for all of which you will someday receive an eternal reward from God.

9. Nevertheless We regard it as Our duty to declare openly, with a heart filled to its depths with sorrow and anxiety, that affairs in China are, by deceit and cunning endeavor, changing so much for the worse that the false doctrine already condemned by Us seems to be approaching its final stages and to be causing its most serious damage.

10. For by particularly subtle activity an association has been created among you to which has been attached the title of "patriotic," and Catholics are being forced by every means to take part in it. This association - as has often been proclaimed - was formed ostensibly to join the clergy and the faithful in love of their religion and their country, with these objectives in view: that they might foster patriotic sentiments; that they might advance the cause of international peace; that they might accept that species of socialism which has been introduced among you and, having accepted it, support and spread it; that, finally, they might actively cooperate with civil authorities in defending what they describe as political and religious freedom. And yet - despite these sweeping generalizations about defense of peace and the fatherland, which can certainly deceive the unsuspecting - it is perfectly clear that this association is simply an attempt to execute certain well defined and ruinous policies.

11. For under an appearance of patriotism, which in reality is just a fraud, this association aims primarily at making Catholics gradually embrace the tenets of atheistic materialism, by which God Himself is denied and religious principles are rejected.

12. Under the guise of defending peace the same association receives and spreads false rumors and accusations by which many of the clergy, including venerable bishops and even the Holy See itself, are claimed to admit to and promote schemes for earthly domination or to give ready and willing consent to exploitation of the people, as if they, with preconceived opinions, are acting with hostile intent against the Chinese nation.

13. While they declare that it is essential that every kind of freedom exist in religious matters and that this makes mutual relations between the ecclesiastical and civil powers easier, this association in reality aims at setting aside and neglecting the rights of the Church and effecting its complete subjection to civil authorities.

14. Hence all its members are forced to approve those unjust prescriptions by which missionaries are cast into exile, and by which bishops, priests, religious men, nuns, and the faithful in considerable numbers are thrust into prison; to consent to those measures by which the jurisdiction of many legitimate pastors is persistently obstructed; to defend wicked principles totally opposed to the unity, universality, and hierarchical constitution of the Church; to admit those first steps by which the clergy and faithful are undermined in the obedience due to legitimate bishops; and to separate Catholic communities from the Apostolic See.

15. In order to spread these wicked principles more efficiently and to fix them in everyone's mind, this association - which, as We have said, boasts of its patriotism - uses a variety of means including violence and oppression, numerous lengthy publications, and group meetings and congresses.

16. In these meetings, the unwilling are forced to take part by incitement, threats, and deceit. If any bold spirit strives to defend truth, his voice is easily smothered and overcome and he is branded with a mark of infamy as an enemy of his native land and of the new society.

17. There should also be noted those courses of instruction by which pupils are forced to imbibe and embrace this false doctrine. Priests, religious men and women, ecclesiastical students, and faithful of all ages are forced to attend these courses. An almost endless series of lectures and discussions, lasting for weeks and months, so weaken and benumb the strength of mind and will that by a kind of psychic coercion an assent is extracted which contains almost no human element, an assent which is not freely asked for as should be the case.

18. In addition to these there are the methods by which minds are upset - by every device, in private and in public, by traps, deceits, grave fear, by so-called forced confessions, by custody in a place where citizens are forcibly "reeducated," and those "Peoples' Courts" to which even venerable bishops are ignominiously dragged for trial.

19. Against methods of acting such as these, which violate the principal rights of the human person and trample on the sacred liberty of the sons of God, all Christians from every part of the world, indeed all men of good sense cannot refrain from raising their voices with Us in real horror and from uttering a protest deploring the deranged conscience of their fellow men. (Pope Pius XII, Ad Apostolorum Principis, June 29, 1958.)

The conciliar revolutionaries have not ignored these truths, they have actively sought to disparage them by always seeking a “reconciliation” with the enemies of Christ the King and His true Church—and thus the enemies of human salvation—on the enemies’ terms. Always. Unfailingly. This total capitulation to the enemies characterizes false ecumenism as one concession after another is made to Protestant sects and to various schismatic and heretical Orthodox churches, and it particularly characterizes conciliarism’s relations with Talmudists. The lords of conciliarism are only too willing to deny Christ the King before men after having denied his Social Reign over men and their nations both in theory and in practice, and they are ever so eager to avoid “offending” Jews, Mohammedans, Jainists, Taoists, Shintoists, Animists, Buddhists, Hindus, Yazidis, Theosophists and outright atheists by hiding Christian symbolism when in their presence and speaking in Judeo-Masonic terms about “God” while also esteeming their symbols of idolatry and terming their places of devil worship” as “sacred” and “holy.”

Pope Pius XII urged the suffering Catholics in Red China to maintain the Holy Faith unblemished, and what he wrote to them fifty-eight years ago applies to us now. We must maintain the Holy Faith unblemished and without making any compromise with the nonexistent legitimacy of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his false religious sect, the counterfeit church of conciliarism.

Pope Pius XII was equally firm in his denunciations of Communist aggression against Catholics in Eastern Europe in 1956 during the uprisings again that took place in Poland and Hungary in 1956, writing the following in the immediate aftermath of the Hungarian Revolution's liberation of Josef Cardinal Mindszenty in late-October of 1956:

We are most pleased to learn that the Consecrated Shepherds of the Catholic world and the rest of the clergy and faithful have responded with generosity and enthusiasm to the paternal entreaty of Our recent Encyclical Letter by supplicating Heaven in public prayers. And so We give unceasing thanks to God from Our heart that He has heard so many prayers, especially of innocent boys and girls, and a new dawn of peace based on justice seems to be breaking at long last for the people of Poland and Hungary.

2. With no less joy have We learned that Our beloved sons, Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Stefan Wyszynski, Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw, and Jozef Mindszenty, Archbishop of Esztergom, who had both been expelled from their Sees, are acknowledged to be innocent men, unjustly accused of crime, and as such have already been restored to their positions of honor and responsibility and welcomed in triumph by rejoicing multitudes.

3. We are confident that this event will prove a happy omen for the restoration and pacification of these two countries on a basis of sounder principle and nobler law, and, above all, with proper respect for God's rights and those of His Church.

4. Wherefore We call again and again upon all the Catholics of those countries to unite themselves about their lawful shepherds with massed force and drawn ranks, and thus apply themselves diligently to the advancement and strengthening of this holy cause. For it is a cause which cannot be abandoned or neglected without making true peace an impossibility.

5. But even while Our heart still fears on this account, We behold the threat of another frightening crisis. As you know, Venerable Brothers, the flames of another war are being fanned menacingly in the Near East, not far from that holy land where angels descended from Heaven and hovered over the crib of the Divine Child, announcing peace to men of good will. (Luke 2. 14).

6. What else can We do, who embrace all peoples with a father's affection, but raise suppliant prayers to the Father of Mercies and God of all comfort (cfr. 11 Cor. 1. 3), and urge all of you to join in them with Us? For "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but powerful before God." (11 Cor. 10. 4)

7. We trust solely in Him Who can illuminate the minds of men with His heavenly light and incline their incited wills to those more temperate counsels by which right order among nations may be established, to their common advantage and with certainty that the legitimate rights of all interested parties are being secured.

8. May all men, especially those who hold the destinies of nations in their hands, remember that war brings no lasting benefit, but a host of misfortunes and disasters. Differences among men are not resolved by arms, bloodshed, or destruction, but only by reason, law, prudence, and justice.

9. When wise men who are motivated by a desire for lasting peace meet to discuss such differences, they should certainly feel obliged to enter upon the ways of justice rather than the rash road of violence if they reflect upon the grave dangers of a war which may start as a tiny spark, but can burst into an enormous conflagration.

10. Amidst these dangerous crises We wish especially to convince the heads of governments. We cannot possibly doubt their realization that no other interest motivates Us but the common good and prosperity of all, which can never be achieved by the massacre of one's brothers.

11. And since, as We have said, We place Our hope above all in the providence and mercy of God. We repeatedly, urge you, Venerable Brothers, not to cease encouraging and promoting this zealous crusade of prayer. Through it -- with the intercession of His Mother, the Virgin Mary -- may Almighty God in His goodness grant an end to the threat of war, a happy solution to the conflicting claims of nations, and assurance everywhere, to the common benefit of all, of those rights granted the Church by her Divine Founder. Thus may "the whole human family, which has been rent asunder by sin's wound, be brought under the sway of His most sweet rule." (Prayer for the Feast of Christ the King) (Pope Pius XII, Laetamur Admodum, November 1, 1956.)

Although his joy was quickly turned into sorrow following the Soviet invasion of Hungary after he issued Laetamar Admodum, Pope Pius XII was truly relieved that two imprisoned bishops, Stefan Wyszynski, Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw and the Primate of Poland, and Jozef Mindszenty, the Primate of Hungary had been returned to their sees. Bergoglio is now accepting rump "bishops" as legitimate governors of Catholic sees in Red China, which makes perfect sense if one understands the fact that he thinks that Justin Welby is truly the "archbishop of Canterbury." A true pope, Pope Pius XII, gave no quarter to falsity. A false "pope" embraces falsity with enthusiasm as he believes that the only thing that is "false" is "old-fashioned" Catholicism.

It was only four days afer he issued Laetamar Admodum that Pope Pius XII forcefully condemned the Soviet invasion of Hungary that resulted in Cardinal Mindszenty’s taking refuge in the American Embassy in Budapest for the next decade prior to his betrayal at the hands of Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/Paul the Sick:

Venerable Brethren, Greetings and Apostolic Benediction.

In the Encyclical Letter which We recently wrote you, Consecrated Shepherds of the Catholic world, We expressed Our hope that a new day of peace based on justice and liberty might be dawning upon the noble people of Hungary. For conditions in that country seemed to be improving.

2. But tidings have reached Us lately which fill Our heart with pain and sorrow. There is being shed again in the cities, towns, and villages of Hungary the blood of citizens who long with all their hearts for their rightful freedom. National institutions which had just been restored have been overthrown again and violently destroyed. A blood-drenched people have been reduced once more to slavery by the armed might of foreigners.

3. We cannot help but deplore and condemn (for so Our consciousness of Our office bids Us) these unhappy events which fill all Catholics and all free peoples with deepest sorrow and indignation. May those whose commands have caused these tragic events come to realize that the rightful freedom of a people cannot be extinguished by the shedding of human blood..

4. We who watch over all peoples with a father's concern assert that any violence and any bloodshed which anyone unjustly causes is never to be tolerated. On the contrary, We exhort all people and all classes of society to that peace which finds its basis and nurture in justice, liberty, and love.

5. The words which "the Lord said to Cain. . . 'The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth'," (Gen. 4, 10) are relevant today. For so the blood of the Hungarian people cries out to God. And even though God often punishes private individuals for their sins only after death, nonetheless, as history teaches, He occasionally punishes in this mortal life rulers of people and their nations when they have dealt unjustly with others. For He is a just judge.

6. May our merciful Redeemer, We suppliantly pray, move the hearts of those upon whose decisions these matters depend, that an end may be put to injustice and a finish to violence, that all nations, being at peace with one another, may be united in peaceful and tranquil harmony.

7. Meanwhile, We implore a most merciful God on behalf especially of all those who have been tragically slain in the course of these unhappy events. May they find eternal life and unending peace in heaven. We desire that all Christians join Us in praying to God for them.

8. And as We address these words to you, We lovingly impart Our Apostolic Benediction to each and every one of you, Venerable Brethren, and to your flocks, and in a very special way to Our beloved Hungarian people. May it be a pledge of heavenly graces and a witness to Our paternal love. (Pope Pius XII, Datis Nuperimme, November 5, 1956.)

No, true popes never speak like leftists. True popes speak as Catholics, and there has not been a true pope on the Throne of Saint Peter, since the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958.

Bookended by Two Encyclical Letters

Pope Pius XII’s opposed the evils of the day at the beginning of his pontificate in 1939 and as he neared his death nineteen years later.

His Holiness’s first encyclical letter, Summi Pontificatus, October 20, 1939, discussed world events during the onset of World War II in light of the Holy Faith and it sought to assure Catholics of Christ the King’s beneficent care for them at all times but especially in those when they are asked to bear heavy crosses, which he said should be the impetus for a greater vigilance and a more determined resistance to the enemies of the Holy Faith:

7. Who among “the Soldiers of Christ” — ecclesiastic or layman — does not feel himself incited and spurred on to a greater vigilance, to a more determined resistance, by the sight of the ever-increasing host of Christ’s enemies; as he perceives the spokesmen of these tendencies deny or in practice neglect the vivifying truths and the values inherent in belief in God and in Christ; as he perceives them wantonly break the Tables of God’s Commandments to substitute other tables and other standards stripped of the ethical content of the Revelation on Sinai, standards in which the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount and of the Cross has no place? (Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, October 20, 1939.)

Interjection:

This description of how both the leaders of Nazism and Bolshevism were attacking the truths of the Faith in order to substitute their own utopian fantasies place of everything contained within the Sacred Deposit of Faith, including the Ten Commandments, that reduce men to the point of state servitude is more relevant now in the so-called “civilized” West than it was even eighty-three years ago.

His Holiness went on to emphasize his own commitment to Christ the King and to His Most Sacred Heart that were the keynotes of Pope Pius XI’s pontificate that immediately preceded his own:

8. Who could observe without profound grief the tragic harvest of such desertions among those who in days of calm and security were numbered among the followers of Christ, but who — Christians unfortunately more in name than in fact — in the hour that called for endurance, for effort, for suffering, for a stout heart in face of hidden or open persecution, fell victims of cowardice, weakness, uncertainty; who, terror-stricken before the sacrifices entailed by a profession of their Christian Faith, could not steel themselves to drink the bitter chalice awaiting those faithful to Christ?

9. In such dispositions of time and temperament, Venerable Brethren, may the approaching Feast of Christ the King, on which this, Our first Encyclical, will reach you, be a day of grace and of thorough renewal and revival in the spirit of the Kingdom of Christ. May it be a day when the consecration of the human race to the Divine Heart, which should be celebrated in a particularly solemn manner, will gather the Faithful of all peoples and all nations around the throne of the Eternal King, in adoration and in reparation, to renew now and forever their oath of allegiance to Him and to His law of truth and of love.

10. May it be for the Faithful a day of grace, on which the fire that Our Lord came to cast upon the earth will kindle with ever greater light and purity. May it be a day of grace for the lukewarm, for the weary, for the afflicted, that their heads, which have become faint, may give proofs of interior renewal and regeneration of spirit. May it be a day of grace also for those who have not known Christ or who have lost Him; a day when from millions of faithful hearts will rise to Heaven the prayer that “the Light which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world” (Saint John i. 9) may make clear to them the way of salvation, that His grace may stir in the “troubled heart” of the wanderers a homesickness for things eternal, a homesickness that impels them to return to Him, Who from His sorrowful throne of the Cross thirsts for their souls also and Who is consumed by a desire to become for them, too, “the Way, and the Truth and the Life” (Saint John xiv. 6).

11. As, with a heart full of confidence and hope, We place this first Encyclical of Our Pontificate under the Seal of Christ the King, We feel entirely assured of the unanimous and enthusiastic approval of the whole flock of Christ. The difficulties, anxieties and trials of the present hour arouse, intensify and refine, to a degree rarely attained, the sense of solidarity in the Catholic family. They make all believers in God and in Christ share the consciousness of a common threat from a common danger. (Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, October 20, 1939.)

Interjection:

Like Pope Pius XI before him, who had instituted the Feast of Christ the King when he issued Quas Primas on December 11, 1922, Pope Pius XII urged Catholics to make good use of a liturgical feast that was designed to remind them of the Sovereignty of Our Divine Redeemer over all men, including the potentates of the world who were threatening the very life of Holy Mother Church and engaged in a fearsome series of attacks upon Catholics. This exhortation included a not-so-subtle condemnation of both the Nazis and Soviets when His Holiness noted that the “difficulties, anxieties and trials of the present hour arouse, intensify and refine, to a degree rarely attained, the sense of solidarity in the Catholic family” because they shared “the consciousness of a common threat from a common danger.

Pope Pius XII also spoke of the how the errors of Modernity, including those of Protestantism, created a world of amorality where people no longer see each in each other the Divine impress and are thus prone to dehumanize others on grounds of racial, philosophical, political, and/or ideological differences. The Protestant Revolution against the Divine Plan that God instituted to effect man’s return to Him through His Catholic Church was the proximate cause by which darkness had descended upon the world when Pope Pius XII issued Summi Pontificatus. Untethered from their mater and magister, Holy Mother Church, fallen men, devoid of Sanctifying Grace, must return to states of barbarism to such an extent that they come to dehumanize those who disagree with them.

Pope Pius XII made this clear in the following passages of Summi Pontifactus as he stated clearly that men must become the slaves of error once they dethrone Christ the King and put themselves and their falsehoods in His place and that of Holy Mother Church. The Protestant Revolution’s dethroning of Christ the King led directly to atheism and to the dehumanization of those who dare to hold fast to the truths of the Holy Faith:

21. At the head of the road which leads to the spiritual and moral bankruptcy of the present day stand the nefarious efforts of not a few to dethrone Christ; the abandonment of the law of truth which He proclaimed and of the law of love which is the life breath of His Kingdom.

22. In the recognition of the royal prerogatives of Christ and in the return of individuals and of society to the law of His truth and of His love lies the only way to salvation.

23. Venerable Brethren, as We write these lines the terrible news comes to Us that the dread tempest of war is already raging despite all Our efforts to avert it. When We think of the wave of suffering that has come on countless people who but yesterday enjoyed in the environment of their homes some little degree of well-being, We are tempted to lay down Our pen. Our paternal heart is torn by anguish as We look ahead to all that will yet come forth from the baneful seed of violence and of hatred for which the sword today ploughs the blood-drenched furrow.

24. But precisely because of this apocalyptic foresight of disaster, imminent and remote, We feel We have a duty to raise with still greater insistence the eyes and hearts of those in whom there yet remains good will to the One from Whom alone comes the salvation of the world — to One Whose almighty and merciful Hand can alone calm this tempest — to the One Whose truth and Whose love can enlighten the intellects and inflame the hearts of so great a section of mankind plunged in error, selfishness, strife and struggle, so as to give it a new orientation in the spirit of the Kingship of Christ.

25. Perhaps — God grant it — one may hope that this hour of direct need may bring a change of outlook and sentiment to those many who, till now, have walked with blind faith along the path of popular modern errors unconscious of the treacherous and insecure ground on which they trod. Perhaps the many who have not grasped the importance of the educational and pastoral mission of the Church will now understand better her warnings, scouted in the false security of the past. No defense of Christianity could be more effective than the present straits. From the immense vortex of error and anti-Christian movements there has come forth a crop of such poignant disasters as to constitute a condemnation surpassing in its conclusiveness any merely theoretical refutation.

26. Hours of painful disillusionment are often hours of grace — “a passage of the Lord” (cf. Exodus xii. 11), when doors which in other circumstances would have remained shut, open at Our Savior’s words: “Behold, I stand at the gate and knock” (Apocalypse iii. 20). God knows that Our heart goes out in affectionate sympathy and spiritual joy to those who, as a result of such painful trials, feel within them an effective and salutary thirst for the truth, justice and peace of Christ. But for those also for whom as yet the hour of light from on high has not come, Our heart knows only love, Our lips move only in prayer to the Father of Light that He may cause to shine in their hearts, indifferent as yet or hostile to Christ, a ray of that Light which once transformed Saul into Paul; of that Light which has shown its mysterious power strongest in the times of greatest difficulty for the Church.

27. A full statement of the doctrinal stand to be taken in face of the errors of today, if necessary, can be put off to another time unless there is disturbance by calamitous external events; for the moment We limit Ourselves to some fundamental observations.

28. The present age, Venerable Brethren, by adding new errors to the doctrinal aberrations of the past, has pushed these to extremes which lead inevitably to a drift towards chaos. Before all else, it is certain that the radical and ultimate cause of the evils which We deplore in modern society is the denial and rejection of a universal norm of morality as well for individual and social life as for international relations; We mean the disregard, so common nowadays, and the forgetfulness of the natural law itself, which has its foundation in God, Almighty Creator and Father of all, supreme and absolute Lawgiver, all-wise and just Judge of human actions. When God is hated, every basis of morality is undermined; the voice of conscience is stilled or at any rate grows very faint, that voice which teaches even to the illiterate and to uncivilized tribes what is good and what is bad, what lawful, what forbidden, and makes men feel themselves responsible for their actions to a Supreme Judge.

29. The denial of the fundamentals of morality had its origin, in Europe, in the abandonment of that Christian teaching of which the Chair of Peter is the depository and exponent. That teaching had once given spiritual cohesion to a Europe which, educated, ennobled and civilized by the Cross, had reached such a degree of civil progress as to become the teacher of other peoples, of other continents. But, cut off from the infallible teaching authority of the Church, not a few separated brethren have gone so far as to overthrow the central dogma of Christianity, the Divinity of the Savior, and have hastened thereby the progress of spiritual decay.

30. The Holy Gospel narrates that when Jesus was crucified “there was darkness over the whole earth” (Matthew xxvii. 45); a terrifying symbol of what happened and what still happens spiritually wherever incredulity, blind and proud of itself, has succeeded in excluding Christ from modern life, especially from public life, and has undermined faith in God as well as faith in Christ. The consequence is that the moral values by which in other times public and private conduct was gauged have fallen into disuse; and the much vaunted civilization of society, which has made ever more rapid progress, withdrawing man, the family and the State from the beneficent and regenerating effects of the idea of God and the teaching of the Church, has caused to reappear, in regions in which for many centuries shone the splendors of Christian civilization, in a manner ever clearer, ever more distinct, ever more distressing, the signs of a corrupt and corrupting paganism: “There was darkness when they crucified Jesus” (Roman Breviary, Good Friday, Response Five).

31. Many perhaps, while abandoning the teaching of Christ, were not fully conscious of being led astray by a mirage of glittering phrases, which proclaimed such estrangement as an escape from the slavery in which they were before held; nor did they then foresee the bitter consequences of bartering the truth that sets free, for error which enslaves. They did not realize that, in renouncing the infinitely wise and paternal laws of God, and the unifying and elevating doctrines of Christ’s love, they were resigning themselves to the whim of a poor, fickle human wisdom; they spoke of progress, when they were going back; of being raised, when they groveled; of arriving at man’s estate, when they stooped to servility. They did not perceive the inability of all human effort to replace the law of Christ by anything equal to it; “they became vain in their thoughts” (Romans i. 21).

32. With the weakening of faith in God and in Jesus Christ, and the darkening in men’s minds of the light of moral principles, there disappeared the indispensable foundation of the stability and quiet of that internal and external, private and public order, which alone can support and safeguard the prosperity of States. (Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, October 20, 1939.)

Interjection:

This is very similar to what Pope Leo XIII wrote in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885, and in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900:

23. But that harmful and deplorable passion for innovation which was aroused in the sixteenth century threw first of all into confusion the Christian religion, and next, by natural sequence, invaded the precincts of philosophy, whence it spread amongst all classes of society. From this source, as from a fountain-head, burst forth all those later tenets of unbridled license which, in the midst of the terrible upheavals of the last century, were wildly conceived and boldly proclaimed as the principles and foundation of that new conception of law which was not merely previously unknown, but was at variance on many points with not only the Christian, but even the natural law. . . .

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

32. So, too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing, whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrance, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountain-head and origin of many evils. Liberty is a power perfecting man, and hence should have truth and goodness for its object. But the character of goodness and truth cannot be changed at option. These remain ever one and the same, and are no less unchangeable than nature itself. If the mind assents to false opinions, and the will chooses and follows after what is wrong, neither can attain its native fullness, but both must fall from their native dignity into an abyss of corruption. Whatever, therefore, is opposed to virtue and truth may not rightly be brought temptingly before the eye of man, much less sanctioned by the favor and protection of the law. A well-spent life is the only way to heaven, whither all are bound, and on this account the State is acting against the laws and dictates of nature whenever it permits the license of opinion and of action to lead minds astray from truth and souls away from the practice of virtue. To exclude the Church, founded by God Himself, from life, from laws, from the education of youth, from domestic society is a grave and fatal error. A State from which religion is banished can never be well regulated; and already perhaps more than is desirable is known of the nature and tendency of the so-called civil philosophy of life and morals. The Church of Christ is the true and sole teacher of virtue and guardian of morals. She it is who preserves in their purity the principles from which duties flow, and, by setting forth most urgent reasons for virtuous life, bids us not only to turn away from wicked deeds, but even to curb all movements of the mind that are opposed to reason, even though they be not carried out in action. (Pope Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885.)

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. (Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900.)

Popes Leo XIII and Pius XII accurately described the state of the world at the time they issued their respective encyclical letters, but they also prophetically predicted the plight of the world in which we live long after their deaths. The teleology of error is such that men who formed in the crucible of error and nourished by hatred throughout their lives will seek to eradicate all notion of even natural, no less supernatural, truth, from the minds of men and to make war upon those who explain that the only unifying force on the face of this earth is Catholicism. Nothing else.

Pope Pius XII noted that, fallen human nature being what it is, there were certainly divisions, wars, and ruin during the thousand-year epoch of Christendom in Europe. However, His Holiness noted that there had never been a time of hatred such as existed in 1939 at the outbreak of World War II. Catholics in the Middle Ages had belief in and access to the Sacraments. They sinned but they went to Confession and tried to amend their lives. They adored the Most Blessed Sacrament and were devoted to the Mother of God. They saw in each other the Divine impress. They did not live in the darkness of modern times, a darkness produced by the adversary’s own anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity:

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

34. Among the many errors which derive from the poisoned source of religious and moral agnosticism, We would draw your attention, Venerable Brethren, to two in particular, as being those which more than others render almost impossible or at least precarious and uncertain, the peaceful intercourse of peoples.

35. The first of these pernicious errors, widespread today, is the forgetfulness of that law of human solidarity and charity which is dictated and imposed by our common origin and by the equality of rational nature in all men, to whatever people they belong, and by the redeeming Sacrifice offered by Jesus Christ on the Altar of the Cross to His Heavenly Father on behalf of sinful mankind.

36. In fact, the first page of the Scripture, with magnificent simplicity, tells us how God, as a culmination to His creative work, made man to His Own image and likeness (cf. Genesis i. 26, 27); and the same Scripture tells us that He enriched man with supernatural gifts and privileges, and destined him to an eternal and ineffable happiness. It shows us besides how other men took their origin from the first couple, and then goes on, in unsurpassed vividness of language, to recount their division into different groups and their dispersion to various parts of the world. Even when they abandoned their Creator, God did not cease to regard them as His children, who, according to His merciful plan, should one day be reunited once more in His friendship (cf. Genesis xii. 3).

37. The Apostle of the Gentiles later on makes himself the herald of this truth which associates men as brothers in one great family, when he proclaims to the Greek world that God “hath made of one, all mankind, to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, determining appointed times, and the limits of their habitation, that they should seek God” (Acts xvii. 26, 27).

38. A marvelous vision, which makes us see the human race in the unity of one common origin in God “one God and Father of all, Who is above all, and through all, and in us all” (Ephesians iv. 6); in the unity of nature which in every man is equally composed of material body and spiritual, immortal soul; in the unity of the immediate end and mission in the world; in the unity of dwelling place, the earth, of whose resources all men can by natural right avail themselves, to sustain and develop life; in the unity of the supernatural end, God Himself, to Whom all should tend; in the unity of means to secure that end.

39. It is the same Apostle who portrays for us mankind in the unity of its relations with the Son of God, image of the invisible God, in Whom all things have been created: “In Him were all things created” (Colossians i. 16); in the unity of its ransom, effected for all by Christ, Who, through His Holy and most bitter passion, restored the original friendship with God which had been broken, making Himself the Mediator between God and men: “For there is one God, and one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (I Timothy ii. 5).

40. And to render such friendship between God and mankind more intimate, this same Divine and universal Mediator of salvation and of peace, in the sacred silence of the Supper Room, before He consummated the Supreme Sacrifice, let fall from His divine Lips the words which reverberate mightily down the centuries, inspiring heroic charity in a world devoid of love and torn by hate: “This is my commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you” (Saint John xv. 12).

41. These are supernatural truths which form a solid basis and the strongest possible bond of a union, that is reinforced by the love of God and of our Divine Redeemer, from Whom all receive salvation “for the edifying of the Body of Christ: until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians iv. 12, 13).

42. In the light of this unity of all mankind, which exists in law and in fact, individuals do not feel themselves isolated units, like grains of sand, but united by the very force of their nature and by their internal destiny, into an organic, harmonious mutual relationship which varies with the changing of times.

43. And the nations, despite a difference of development due to diverse conditions of life and of culture, are not destined to break the unity of the human race, but rather to enrich and embellish it by the sharing of their own peculiar gifts and by that reciprocal interchange of goods which can be possible and efficacious only when a mutual love and a lively sense of charity unite all the sons of the same Father and all those redeemed by the same Divine Blood.

44. The Church of Christ, the faithful depository of the teaching of Divine Wisdom, cannot and does not think of deprecating or disdaining the particular characteristics which each people, with jealous and intelligible pride, cherishes and retains as a precious heritage. Her aim is a supernatural union in all-embracing love, deeply felt and practiced, and not the unity which is exclusively external and superficial and by that very fact weak.

45. The Church hails with joy and follows with her maternal blessing every method of guidance and care which aims at a wise and orderly evolution of particular forces and tendencies having their origin in the individual character of each race, provided that they are not opposed to the duties incumbent on men from their unity of origin and common destiny. (Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, October 20, 1939.)

Interjection:

This dehumanization is the cornerstone of all anti-Theistic political movements, starting with the French Revolution, and it was especially the foundation of both Nazism and Bolshevism. It is also the cornerstone of the programs of the utilitarian social Darwinists who spawned the eugenics movement in the late Nineteenth Century, the Sangerite program of “more from the fit, less from the unfit,” including state-mandated sterilization, the work of the Rockefeller Foundation and its Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the social engineers of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal and Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society, and the so-called “woke movement” at this time.

To refuse to see the Divine impress in others is the sure path to violence, and it is no accident that the systematic efforts on the part of so-called educators, politicians, entertainers, entertainment producers, authors, journalists, commentators, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists and professional victimologists to castigate their opponents and then to justify violent attacks upon them has manifested itself with particular vengeance since the decriminalization of the surgical execution of the innocent preborn. The dehumanization of innocent babies has led logically to the dehumanization of anyone considered to be “unwanted,” “useless,” “hateful,” or “bigoted” because they dissent from the “received teaching” of those who adhere to the latest currents that hold sway in the gutters within the ever-evolving naturalist precepts of the false opposite of the naturalist “left.”

Pope Pius XII explained that is only the Catholic Faith that infallibly guides and sanctifies men, and he was careful to express his solicitude for Catholic Poland, which was being partitioned by both the Nazis and the Soviets at the time Summi Pontificatus was issued:

99. These last are recognizing in the Catholic Church principles of belief and life that have stood the test of 2,000 years; the strong cohesion of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, which in union with the Successor of Peter spends itself in enlightening minds with the teaching of the Gospel, in guiding and sanctifying men, and which is generous in its material condescension towards all, but firm when, even at the cost of torments or martyrdom, it has to say: “Non licet; it is not allowed!”

100. And yet, Venerable Brethren, the teaching of Christ, which alone can furnish man with such solid bases of belief as will greatly enlarge his vision, and divinely dilate his heart and supply an efficacious remedy to the very grave difficulties of today — this and the activity of the Church in teaching and spreading that Doctrine, and in forming and modeling men’s minds by its precepts, are at times an object of suspicion, as if they shook the foundations of civil authority or usurped its rights.

101. Against such suspicions We solemnly declare with Apostolic sincerity that — without prejudice to the declarations regarding the power of Christ and of His Church made by Our predecessor, Pius XI, of venerable memory, in his Encyclical Quas Primas of December 11, 1925 — any such aims are entirely alien to that same Church, which spreads it maternal arms towards this world not to dominate but to serve. She does not claim to take the place of other legitimate authorities in their proper spheres, but offers them her help after the example and in the spirit of her Divine Founder Who “went about doing good” (Acts x. 38).

102. The Church preaches and inculcates obedience and respect for earthly authority which derives from God its whole origin and holds to the teaching of her Divine Master Who said: “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” (Saint Matthew xxii. 21); she has no desire to usurp, and sings in the liturgy: “He takes away no earthly realms who gives us the celestial” (hymn for Feast of Epiphany). She does not suppress human energies but lifts them up to all that is noble and generous and forms characters which do not compromise with conscience. Nor has she who civilizes the nations ever retarded the civil progress of mankind, at which on the contrary she is pleased and glad with a mother’s pride. The end of her activity was admirably expressed by the Angels over the cradle of the Word Incarnate, when they sang of glory to God and announced peace to men of good will: “Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will” (Saint Luke ii. 14).

103. This peace, which the world cannot give, has been left as a heritage to His disciples by the Divine Redeemer Himself: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (Saint John xiv. 27); and thus following the sublime teaching of Christ, summed up by Himself in the twofold precept of love of God and of the neighbor, millions of souls have reached, are reaching and shall reach peace. History, wisely called by a great Roman “The Teacher of Life,” has proved for close on two thousand years how true is the word of Scripture that he will not have peace who resists God (cf. Job ix. 4). For Christ alone is the “Corner Stone” (Ephesians ii. 20) on which man and society can find stability and salvation.

104. On this Corner Stone the Church is built, and hence against her the adversary can never prevail: “The gates of hell shall not prevail” (Saint Matthew xvi. 18), nor can they ever weaken her! Nay, rather, internal and external struggles tend to augment the force and multiply the laurels of her glorious victories.

105. On the other hand, any other building which has not been founded solidly on the teaching of Christ rests on shifting sands and is destined to perish miserably (cf. Saint Matthew vii. 26, 27).

106. Venerable Brethren, the hour when this Our first Encyclical reaches you is in many respects a real “Hour of Darkness” (cf. Saint Luke xxii. 53), in which the spirit of violence and of discord brings indescribable suffering on mankind. Do We need to give assurance that Our paternal heart is close to all Our children in compassionate love, and especially to the afflicted, the oppressed, the persecuted? The nations swept into the tragic whirlpool of war are perhaps as yet only at the “beginnings of sorrows” (Saint Matthew xxiv. 8), but even now there reigns in thousands of families death and desolation, lamentation and misery. The blood of countless human beings, even noncombatants, raises a piteous dirge over a nation such as Our dear Poland, which, for its fidelity to the Church, for its services in the defense of Christian civilization, written in indelible characters in the annals of history, has a right to the generous and brotherly sympathy of the whole world, while it awaits, relying on the powerful intercession of Mary, Help of Christians, the hour of a resurrection in harmony with the principles of justice and true peace.

107. What has already happened and is still happening, was presented, as it were, in a vision before Our eyes when, while still some hope was left, We left nothing undone in the form suggested to us by Our Apostolic office and by the means at Our disposal, to prevent recourse to arms and to keep open the way to an understanding honorable to both parties. Convinced that the use of force on one side would be answered by recourse to arms on the other, We considered it a duty inseparable from Our Apostolic office and of Christian Charity to try every means to spare mankind and Christianity the horrors of a world conflagration, even at the risk of having Our intentions and Our aims misunderstood. Our advice, if heard with respect, was not however followed and while Our pastoral heart looks on with sorrow and foreboding, the Image of the Good Shepherd comes up before Our gaze, and it seems as though We ought to repeat to the world in His name: “If thou . . . hadst known . . . the things that are to thy peace; but now they are hidden from thy eyes” (Saint Luke xix. 42).

108. In the midst of this world which today presents such a sharp contrast to “The Peace of Christ in the Reign of Christ,” the Church and her faithful are in times and in years of trial such as have rarely been known in her history of struggle and suffering. But in such times especially, he who remains firm in his faith and strong at heart knows that Christ the King is never so near as in the hour of trial, which is the hour for fidelity. With a heart torn by the sufferings and afflictions of so many of her sons, but with the courage and the stability that come from the promises of Our Lord, the Spouse of Christ goes to meet the gathering storms. This she knows, that the truth which she preaches, the charity which she teaches and practices, will be the indispensable counselors and aids to men of good will in the reconstruction of a new world based on justice and love, when mankind, weary from its course along the way of error, has tasted the bitter fruits of hate and violence.

109. In the meantime however, Venerable Brethren, the world and all those who are stricken by the calamity of the war must know that the obligation of Christian love, the very foundation of the Kingdom of Christ, is not an empty word, but a living reality. A vast field opens up for Christian Charity in all its forms. We have full confidence that all Our sons, especially those who are not being tried by the scourge of war, will be mindful in imitation of the Divine Samaritan, of all these who, as victims of the war, have a right to compassion and help.

110. The “Catholic Church, the City of God, whose King is Truth, whose law love and whose measure eternity” (Saint Augustine, Ep. CXXXVIII. Ad Marcellinum, C. 3, N. 17), preaching fearlessly the whole truth of Christ and toiling as the love of Christ demands with the zeal of a mother, stands as a blessed vision of peace above the storm of error and passion awaiting the moment when the all-powerful Hand of Christ the King shall quiet the tempest and banish the spirits of discord which have provoked it. (Pope Pius XII, Summi Pontificatus, October 20, 1939.)

Interjection:

The Lateran Concordat of 1929 may have pledged the Holy See to neutrality in international conflicts. However, this did not stop Pope Pius XII from defending the honor of Catholic Poland as it was being partitioned, occupied and terrorized by twin, related forces of evil German National Socialism and Russian Marxist-Leninism while reminding Catholics that Holy Mother church stans “above the storm of error and passion” as Holy Mother Church awaits “the moment when the all-powerful Hand of Christ the King shall quiet the tempest and banish the spirits of discord which have provoked it,” an exhortation that applies to the storm of errors in the world and in the counterfeit church of conciliarism that are besieging us in these our troubled times.

Summi Pontificatus during the first year of Pope Pius XII’s pontificate. It was eighteen years, nine months later that, following the events of World War II and their aftermath as most of Eastern and Central Europe fell under the iron hand of the Soviet Union’s puppet regimes and as Catholics in Red China were subjected to the horrors of Mao Zedong and his rump Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association with which Jorge Mario Bergoglio has made his peace, our last true pope thus far issued his last encyclical letter, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958, just two weeks after he had enounced the Red Chinese rump church in Ad Apostolorum Principis. Meminisse Iuvat was His Holiness’s valedictory encyclical letter, if you will, in which he gave Catholics encouragement to carry on in the midst of all the dangers and difficulties that afflicted Holy Mother Church at the time.

Meminisse Iuvat was Pope Pius XII’s review of his pontificate, which began with the reminder that he had attempted to engage in a holy crusade of prayer by seeking the intercession of the Mother of God in all the dangers of the moment, dangers that were only exacerbated, not resolved by the ineffectiveness of human plans and resources:

1. It is helpful to recall, when new dangers threaten Christians and the Church, the Spouse of the Divine Redeemer, that We — like Our Predecessors in bygone days — have turned in prayer to the Virgin Mary, our loving Mother, and have urged the whole flock entrusted to Our care to place itself confidently under her protection.

2. Thus, when the world was rocked by a terrible war, We did not simply preach peace to citizens, peoples, and nations, nor did We merely work to restore to mutual agreement — under the standard of truth, justice, and love — those whom strife had divided. On the contrary, when all human resources and human plans proved ineffective, in many letters of exhortation and in a holy crusade of prayer We invoked heaven’s help through the mighty intercession of the great Mother of God, to whose Immaculate Heart We consecrated Ourselves and the whole human race.[1]

3. By now, of course, that war is over, but a just peace does not yet prevail, nor do men live in concord founded on brotherly understanding. For the seeds of war either lurk in hiding or — from time to time — erupt threateningly and hold the hearts of men in frightened suspense, especially since human ingenuity has devised weapons so powerful that they can ravage and sink into general destruction, not only the vanquished, but the victors with them, and all mankind. (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

Interjection:

Consider how this lament is similar to that of Pope Pius XI when he issued Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, at the beginning of his pontificate just four years after the end of World War I and three years after the Paris Peace Treaty negotiated at Versailles by the Judeo-Masonic agents of the New World Order had taken effect:

20. Peace indeed was signed in solemn conclave between the belligerents of the late War. This peace, however, was only written into treaties. It was not received into the hearts of men, who still cherish the desire to fight one another and to continue to menace in a most serious manner the quiet and stability of civil society. Unfortunately the law of violence held sway so long that it has weakened and almost obliterated all traces of those natural feelings of love and mercy which the law of Christian charity has done so much to encourage. Nor has this illusory peace, written only on paper, served as yet to reawaken similar noble sentiments in the souls of men. On the contrary, there has been born a spirit of violence and of hatred which, because it has been indulged in for so long, has become almost second nature in many men. There has followed the blind rule of the inferior parts of the soul over the superior, that rule of the lower elements “fighting against the law of the mind,” which St. Paul grieved over. (Rom. vii, 23) (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

The words of our last true Successors of Saint Peter thus far describe the world in which we live presently just as much as they did when they were written, respectively, eighty-nine and sixty-four years ago. Men must fall into states of abject barbarism when their hearts do not beat as one with the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary to which Pope Pius XII had been so dedicated as to establish a fast in its honor as a direct response to Our Lady’s Fatima Message.

Pope Pius XII’s unalterable opposition to Communism, which is diabolical in its origins and, as such, aims at setting class against class, brother against brother, race against race, faction against faction, stands in sharp contrast to Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s efforts to blame believing Catholics for resisting Communist persecutions and thus, Jorge believes, of bringing problems needlessly on themselves on others:

Bergoglio: Qualifying China as undemocratic, I do not identify with that, because it's such a complex country ... yes, it is true that there are things that seem undemocratic to us, that is true. Cardinal Zen is going to trial these days, I think. And he says what he feels, and you can see that there are limitations there. More than qualifying, because it is difficult, and I do wish to qualify, they are impressions, and I try to support the path of dialogue.

Then, in the dialogue you clarify many things and not only about the Church, also about other areas; for example the extent of China, the governors of the provinces who are all diverse. There are different cultures within China, it is a giant, and understanding China is an enormous thing. But you do not have to lose patience, it takes a lot, but we have to go with dialogue, I try to refrain from qualifying it... but let us go forward.

Elise Allen: “What about Xi Jinping?”

Bergoglio: He had a State visit there, but I did not see him.

Maria Angeles Conde Mir, ROME REPORTS
“In the Declaration they signed [at the Congress, ed.], all leaders underscored an appeal to governments and international organizations to protect people who are persecuted because of their ethnicity or religion. Unfortunately, this is what is happening in Nicaragua. We know that you spoke about this on 21 August during the Angelus. But maybe you can add something more for the Catholic people, especially in Nicaragua. Also another question. We have seen you doing well on this trip. We would like to know if after this journey you will be able to take up again the one to Africa that you postponed, and if there are other journeys planned.”

Bergoglio: Regarding Nicaragua, the news is clear. There is dialogue. There have been talks with the government; there is dialogue. That doesn't mean you approve of everything the government does or you disapprove of everything. It does not. There is dialogue and there is a need to solve problems.

Right now there are problems. I at least expect the sisters of Mother Teresa to be able to return. These women are good revolutionaries, but of the Gospel! They do not make war on anyone. Rather, we all need these women. This is a gesture that is difficult to understand... But hopefully they will return.

And may the dialogue continue. But never stop the dialogue. There are things you do not understand. To send a nuncio away to the border is a serious diplomatic matter. The nuncio is a good person who has now been appointed somewhere else. These things are hard to understand and also hard to swallow. But in Latin America, there are situations like that in various places. (Jorge: ‘Difficult to dialogue with those who start wars.)

Interjection:

Unlike Pope Pius XII, Jorge Mario Bergoglio would have thrown Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty, Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, Aloysius Cardinal Stepinac, and Bishop Ignatius King under the bus without batting an eyelash.

As a true utopian child who came to age in in the 1960s when he was in his middle to late twenties before turning thirty on December 16, 1966, Jorge Bergoglio, who like Angelo Roncalli before him, sees good intentions in Communism, believes that Communists and other persecutors of Holy Mother Church and her children negotiate in good faith. They do not. Communism is a lie. Communists are liars. Negotiating with Communists always results in the further persecution of Catholics, something that Pope Pius XI found out very bitterly when he trusted the “good intentions” Plutarco Elias Calles and his stooge, Emilio Portes Gil, after the ill-advised peace accord in Mexico in 1939. It is a lesson being taught to the conciliar revolutionaries today, but it is a lesson they do not want to learn as they believe that Catholics should accommodate themselves to Communism, which Jorge Mario Bergoglio has told us in his own words is “not undemocratic.”

Writing in Meminisse Iuvat, Pope Pius XII reminded Catholics that human plans, human, resourcs, and human endeavors are futile and will fail when Almighty God is esteemed little, denied His proper place, or even completely disregarded:

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.)

Interjection:

One will note that Pope Pius XII was careful to make the same distinctions as had been made by previous popes concerning the fact that Christianity and the Catholic Church are coextensive. This is a distinction made by Pope Leo XIII in his own last encyclical letter and by Pope Pius XII himself in Mystici Corporis Christi, June 29, 1943:

Just as Christianity cannot penetrate into the soul without making it better, so it cannot enter into public life without establishing order. With the idea of a God Who governs all, Who is infinitely Wise, Good, and Just, the idea of duty seizes upon the consciences of men. It assuages sorrow, it calms hatred, it engenders heroes. If it has transformed pagan society--and that transformation was a veritable resurrection--for barbarism disappeared in proportion as Christianity extended its sway, so, after the terrible shocks which unbelief has given to the world in our days, it will be able to put that world again on the true road, and bring back to order the States and peoples of modern times. But the return of Christianity will not be efficacious and complete if it does not restore the world to a sincere love of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. In the Catholic Church Christianity is Incarnate. It identifies Itself with that perfect, spiritual, and, in its own order, sovereign society, which is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ and which has for Its visible head the Roman Pontiff, successor of the Prince of the Apostles. It is the continuation of the mission of the Savior, the daughter and the heiress of His Redemption. It has preached the Gospel, and has defended it at the price of Its blood, and strong in the Divine assistance and of that immortality which has been promised it, It makes no terms with error but remains faithful to the commands which it has received, to carry the doctrine of Jesus Christ to the uttermost limits of the world and to the end of time, and to protect it in its inviolable integrity. Legitimate dispenser of the teachings of the Gospel it does not reveal itself only as the consoler and Redeemer of souls, but It is still more the internal source of justice and charity, and the propagator as well as the guardian of true liberty, and of that equality which alone is possible here below. In applying the doctrine of its Divine Founder, It maintains a wise equilibrium and marks the true limits between the rights and privileges of society. The equality which it proclaims does not destroy the distinction between the different social classes. It keeps them intact, as nature itself demands, in order to oppose the anarchy of reason emancipated from Faith, and abandoned to its own devices. The liberty which it gives in no wise conflicts with the rights of truth, because those rights are superior to the demands of liberty. Not does it infringe upon the rights of justice, because those rights are superior to the claims of mere numbers or power. Nor does it assail the rights of God because they are superior to the rights of humanity. (Pope Leo XIII, A Review of His Pontificate, March 19, 1902.)

If we would define and describe this true Church of Jesus Christ — which is the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church— we shall find nothing more noble, morre sublime, or more divine than the expression “the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ” – an expression which springs from and is, as it were, the fair flowering of the repeated teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the holy Fathers. . . .

Actually only those are to be included as members of the Church who have been baptized and profess the true faith, and who have not been so unfortunate as to separate themselves from the unity of the Body, or been excluded by legitimate authority for grave faults committed. "For in one spirit" says the Apostle, "were we all baptized into one Body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free." As therefore in the true Christian community there is only one Body, one Spirit, one Lord, and one Baptism, so there can be only one faith. And therefore, if a man refuse to hear the Church, let him be considered - so the Lord commands - as a heathen and a publican. It follows that those who are divided in faith or government cannot be living in the unity of such a Body, nor can they be living the life of its one Divine Spirit. (Pope Pius XII, Mystici Corporis, June 29, 1943.)

Moreover, Pope Pius XII’s discussion of the futility of human actions to resolve the problems caused by sinful men who are intent on persevering in their sins of one kind or another was identical to what Pope Pius XI had written in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio:

24. The inordinate desire for pleasure, concupiscence of the flesh, sows the fatal seeds of division not only among families but likewise among states; the inordinate desire for possessions, concupiscence of the eyes, inevitably turns into class warfare and into social egotism; the inordinate desire to rule or to domineer over others, pride of life, soon becomes mere party or factional rivalries, manifesting itself in constant displays of conflicting ambitions and ending in open rebellion, in the crime of lese majeste, and even in national parricide.

25. These unsuppressed desires, this inordinate love of the things of the world, are precisely the source of all international misunderstandings and rivalries, despite the fact that oftentimes men dare to maintain that acts prompted by such motives are excusable and even justifiable because, forsooth, they were performed for reasons of state or of the public good, or out of love for country. Patriotism -- the stimulus of so many virtues and of so many noble acts of heroism when kept within the bounds of the law of Christ -- becomes merely an occasion, an added incentive to grave injustice when true love of country is debased to the condition of an extreme nationalism, when we forget that all men are our brothers and members of the same great human family, that other nations have an equal right with us both to life and to prosperity, that it is never lawful nor even wise, to dissociate morality from the affairs of practical life, that, in the last analysis, it is "justice which exalteth a nation: but sin maketh nations miserable." (Proverbs xiv, 34)

26. Perhaps the advantages to one's family, city, or nation obtained in some such way as this may well appear to be a wonderful and great victory (this thought has been already expressed by St. Augustine), but in the end it turns out to be a very shallow thing, something rather to inspire us with the most fearful apprehensions of approaching ruin. "It is a happiness which appears beautiful but is brittle as glass. We must ever be on guard lest with horror we see it broken into a thousand pieces at the first touch." (St. Augustine de Civitate Dei, Book iv, Chap. 3)

27. 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.)

That last paragraph, number twenty-eight, says it all. The gist of the two hundred thirty-seven articles linked at the top of this article can be summarized in the following words written by Pope Pius XI nearly one hundred years ago:

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.)

Pope Pius XII went on to explain in his last encyclical letter how great numbers of citizens, especially the uneducated, are won over by errors, something that applies very much in our world today because even those who believe they are “educated” are not truly such as they have brainwashed into believing every ideological “ ‘ism” imaginable, including being trained today to believe that there are more than two genders and that those of a certain race should feel guilty for the past injustices done those of different races and, quite indeed, should understand when they and “their kind” are subjected to violent assaults, which their masters have taught them, are fully justifiable and to be encouraged. Pope Pius XII’s prophetic insight in this regard has been ignored even by most fully traditional Catholics:

7. As a matter of fact, religion contributes more to good, just, and orderly life than it could if it had been conceived for no other purpose than to supply and augment the necessities of mortal existence. For religion bids men live in charity, justice, and obedience to law; it condemns and outlaws vice; it incites citizens to the pursuit of virtue and thereby rules and moderates their public and private conduct. Religion teaches mankind that a better distribution of wealth should be had, not by violence or revolution, but by reasonable regulations, so that the proletarian classes which do not yet enjoy life’s necessities or advantages may be raised to a more fitting status without social strife.

8. As We reflect on this subject, from a vantage point that enables Us to transcend the tides of human passion and to love as a father the people of every race, two matters come to mind which cause Us great worry and anxiety.

9. The first of these is that there are some countries in which Christian principles and the Catholic religion are not given their proper place. Great numbers of the citizens, especially from the ranks of the uneducated, are easily won over by widely published errors, particularly since these are often colored with the appearances of truth. The seductive allurements of vice, which tend to corrupt minds through all sorts of publications, motion pictures, and television performances, are a special menace to unsuspecting young people.

10. There are writers and publishers whose goal is not to turn their readers to truth, virtue, and wholesome entertainment, but to stir up vicious and violent appetites solely for the sake of gain, and even to assail and defile with lies, calumnies, and accusations all that is holy, beautiful, and noble. Unfortunately, the truth is often distorted; lies and scandals are published abroad. The obvious result is damage to civil society and harm to the Church. (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

Interjection:

Pope Pius XII was referring specifically to countries such as the United States of America and elsewhere in the supposedly civilized “West” that specialized in the dissemination of error and vice, and there are more relevant today than they were sixty-four years ago given the complete descent of motion pictures and television programs into an abyss of licentiousness and amorality that entice people to live in a debauched, depraved manner while their legitimate liberties are being stripped away by the modern caesars intent on distracting the masses with bread and circuses.

Pope Pius XII went on to explain how Communist authorities were persecuting Catholics in Eastern and Central Europe and Red China by repressing them, imprisoning them, taking away their newspapers, and deny even the practice of the Holy Faith:

11. And secondly, We are aware — to the great sorrow of Our fatherly heart — that the Catholic Church, in both its Latin and Oriental rites, is beset in many lands by such persecutions that the clergy and faithful, if not in so many words, certainly in fact, are confronted with this dilemma: to give up public profession and propagation of their faith, or to suffer penalties, even very serious ones. As a result, many bishops have been driven from their sees or so impeded that they cannot freely exercise their ministry; they have even been cast into prison or exiled. And so with rash daring men undertake to fulfill the words: “I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.”[3]

12. In addition, newspapers, magazines, and other publications put out by Catholics have been almost completely silenced, as if truth were subject to the exclusive control and discretion of political rulers, and as though divine and human learning and the liberal arts need not be free if they are to flourish for the public and common good.

13. Schools once conducted by Catholics have been interdicted and closed; those that replace them either teach nothing at all of God and religion, or — as is more common — expound and popularize the lethal tenets of atheism.

14. Missionaries who have left their homes and dear native lands and suffered many serious discomforts in order to bring the light and the strength of the gospel to others, have been driven from many regions as menaces and evil-doers, so that the clergy who remain, since they are too few in relation to the region’s population, and are also hated and persecuted in their turn, cannot adequately provide for the needs of the faithful.

15. The Church’s rights, including the right, under the mandate of the Holy See, to choose and consecrate bishops who will lawfully govern the Christian flock, have been trod under foot, to the great loss of the faithful, as if the Catholic Church were a creature of a single nation, dependent on its civil authority, and not a divine institution extending to all peoples.

16. But despite these grave and distressing problems, a thought comes to Us which gives Our paternal heart great comfort. It is this: We know that most of the faithful, of both the Latin and the Oriental rites, are practicing and defending their ancestral faith tenaciously — despite the fact that they have not the help and assistance which their lawful pastors could give them, were they not far away or otherwise impeded. These Christians hold fast to the faith with courage, and place their hope in Him who knows well the tears and suffering of those “who suffer persecution for justice’ sake,”[4] in Him who “does not delay in his promises”[5] but will some day comfort his children with the reward they have earned.

17. In a particular way, therefore, We exhort with paternal affection those of Our Venerable Brothers and beloved children who are under many dangerous and deceitful pressures — pressures which would urge them to stop supporting the firm, solid, and constant unity of the Church and that close union with the Apostolic See without which this unity cannot have a sure foundation. (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

Interjection:

The brute force methods that were used in the Soviet Union and its satellite states behind the Iron Curtain in Europe and behind the Bamboo Curtain in Red China have been refined somewhat over the last six decades, although it is increasingly the case where brute force against those who oppose the prevailing evils of the day is being used in the name of fighting “domestic extremism.” Here is a case-in-point:

BUCKS COUNTY, Pennsylvania (LifeSiteNews) – A well-known pro-life author, sidewalk counselor, and father of seven was the latest victim of a U.S. Department of Justice-sponsored SWAT raid and arrest — for supposed “FACE Act” violations — at his rural home as his children looked on “screaming.”

Mark Houck is the founder and president of The King’s Men, which promotes healing for victims of pornography addiction and promotes Christian virtues among men in the United States and Europe.

According to his wife Ryan-Marie, who spoke with LifeSiteNews, he also drives two hours south to Philadelphia every Wednesday to sidewalk counsel for six to eight hours at two different abortion centers.

Ryan-Marie, who is a homeschooling mother, described how the SWAT team of 25 to 30 FBI agents swarmed their property with around 15 vehicles at 7:05 a.m. this morning. Having quickly surrounded the house with rifles in firing position, “they started pounding on the door and yelling for us to open it.”

Before opening the door, she explained, her husband tried to calm them, saying, “‘Please, I’m going to open the door, but, please, my children are in the home. I have seven babies in the house.’ But they just kept pounding and screaming,” she said.

When he opened the door, “they had big, huge rifles pointed at Mark and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house,” Ryan-Marie described.

When they came in, they ordered the kids to stay upstairs. “Our staircase is open, so [the kids] were all at the top of the stairs which faces the front door, and I was on the stairs as well, coming down.”

“The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic,” she explained.

After asking them why they were at the house, the agents said they were there to arrest Mark. When Ryan-Marie asked for their warrant, “they said that they were going to take him whether they had a warrant or not.”

When Ryan-Marie protested, saying that is kidnapping, “you can’t just come to a person’s house and kidnap them at gunpoint,” they agreed to get the warrant for her from one of their vehicles.

At this point, Mark asked her to get him a sweatshirt and his rosaries, but when she returned, they already had loaded him into a vehicle.

They provided the first page of the warrant and said they were taking him to “the federal building in downtown Philadelphia.”

“After they had taken Mark, and the kids were all screaming that he was their best friend, the [FBI agents on her porch] kind of softened a bit. I think they realized what was happening. Or maybe they actually looked at the warrant,” Ryan-Marie explained. “They looked pretty ashamed at what had just happened.”

As a result, the homeschool mother said her kids were “really sad and stressed. So, I’ve already reached out to some psychiatrists or psychologists to try and help us through this. I don’t really know what’s going to come of it when you see guns pointed at your dad and your mom in your house when you first wake up in the morning,” she lamented.

The warrant charged Mark with violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, due to a claimed “ATTACK OF A PATIENT ESCORT.”

Ryan-Marie stated this charge comes from an incident that had already been thrown out of the District Court in Philadelphia but was somehow picked up by Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice.

On several occasions when Mark went to sidewalk counsel last year, he took his eldest son, who was only 12 at the time, she explained. For “weeks and weeks,” a “pro-abortion protester” would speak to the boy saying “crude … inappropriate and disgusting things,” such as “you’re dad’s a fag,” and other statements that were too vulgar for her to convey.

Repeatedly, Mark would tell this pro-abortion man that he did not have permission to speak to his son and please refrain from doing so. And “he kept doing it and kind of came into [the son’s] personal space” obscenely ridiculing his father. At this point, “Mark shoved him away from his child, and the guy fell back.”

“He didn’t have any injuries or anything, but he tried to sue Mark,” and the case was thrown out of court in the early summer.

Since the Biden administration has taken power in January 2021, Garland’s Department of Justice and the FBI have committed dozens of SWAT team raids that have been characterized as a political “weaponization” of the federal agencies against pro-lifers, Trump supporters, conservative Christians, and medical freedom advocates.

For example, in contrast to left-wing rioters who caused enormous damage in cities across the nation in 2020, and the vandals who have attacked dozens of pro-life centers this year with little or no legal ramifications, the Department of Justice implemented the harshest of consequences for those they identified as having anything to do with the disturbance at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. These actions have included early morning SWAT team arrests, ransacked homes, confiscation of property, indefinite pre-trial solitary confinement without bail in a dedicated D.C. prison, significant physical abuse, and the violation of the Constitutional right to a speedy trial.

In March, the FBI rounded up 10 pro-life activists, including Joan Andrews Bell, with SWAT team raids that serve to intimidate and humiliate the accused through an exercise of excessive force.

A surfaced video of one of these raids shows armed agents holding pro-lifers at gunpoint and ordering them to put their hands up, drop to their knees and scoot backward out their front door in the middle of the night. The pro-lifers are respectful and compliant throughout.

After the FBI’s unprecedented August 8 raid on President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called it “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents.”

Soon after Joe Biden’s September 1 speech where he declared war on conservative Christians, dozens of Trump allies had their homes raided by the FBI, which Steve Bannon referred to as “a Gestapo tactic,” and said it was “all about intimidation.”

In response to the raid on the Houck residence this morning, however, local pro-life advocates don’t seem to be intimidated, but energized. In addition to sponsoring a fundraiser for this family, they will be holding a prayer rally at the “Philadelphia Women’s Center” abortion facility at 777 Appletree St. from 10:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday, September 24. All are invited to come and pray peacefully and make a financial donation as well. (FBI raids home of Catholic pro-life speaker, author with guns drawn as his terrified kids watch.)

One will never hear a word from Jorge Mario Bergoglio condemning this raid. He will not lift a finger in support of Mark Houck. The same man who denounced the storming of Capitol Hill by a motley group of people, most of whom had no idea what they were doing other than engaging in some kind of inchoate protest, on January 6, 2021 (see Capitol riot: Pope Francis says violence in DC must be 'condemned'), will say noting to condemn the Biden administration’s war on political and religious dissent from its unbridled agenda of evil. The very same Bolshevik and Maoist tactics that Pope Pius XII condemned are being used in the West while the supposed “pope” worries about “sustainable development goals” and commits acts of apostasy with leaders of false religions in Kazakhstan.

Pope Pius XII’s Meminisse Iuvat, which was certainly written while the pontiff was aware that his death was imminent, contained a denunciation of false doctrines and defended Holy Mother Church as the sole repository of the Sacred Deposit Faith by adhering loyally to the Vicar of Our Lord Jesus Christ on earth, the Roman Pontiff:

18. This unity is, indeed, being attacked by false doctrines and by a variety of insidious strategems. But all should remember that the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, the Church, must be “closely joined and knit together through every joint of the system according to the function in due measure of each single part,”[6] “until We all attain to the unity of the faith and of the deep knowledge of the Son of God, to perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ,”[7] whose Vicar on earth is — by divine appointment — the Roman Pontiff, as successor of Peter.

19. They should recall and meditate upon the wise words of Saint Cyprian, bishop and martyr: “The Lord spoke thus to Peter: I say to thee, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church. . .[8] On Peter alone He raised His Church. . . We must all resolutely preserve and defend this unity, but especially we bishops who govern the Church. . .

20. “For the Church is one, although she embraces greater and greater multitudes in the course of her prolific growth. So the sun has many rays, but one light; a tree has many branches, but one trunk rooted firmly in the ground; and when many streams issue from a single source, though their number seems to come directly from the abundance of flowing water, still there is only one source. Shut out a ray of the sun: the unity of its light has not been sundered; tear a branch from a tree: that branch no longer puts forth shoots; block a stream from its source: that stream dries up.

21. “In like manner, the Church is steeped in the Lord’s light and spreads the rays of that light through the world: but it is one light and its unity is not several. The Church extends her branches over the whole world in rich profusion; her full, flowing streams spread everywhere: but there is only one trunk, only one source. . .

22. “And He who does not have the Church as his mother, cannot have God as his father. . . He who does not uphold this unity does not uphold the law of God, does not uphold the faith of the Father and the Son, and has neither life nor salvation.”[9]

23. These words of the saintly martyr and bishop afford comfort, encouragement, and a shield of strength — especially since they cannot maintain communication with the Holy See (or cannot easily do so) and are in serious peril, since they must surmount many obstacles and deceits. Those in such a plight should rely upon God’s help, which they must never cease to implore in humble prayer. They must remember that all who persecute the Church — as history shows — have passed like shadows, but the sun of God’s truth never sets, because “the word of the Lord endures forever.” (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

Interjection:

This was an admonition to civil rulers in Communist lands seeking to divide Catholics from their Holy Father. However, it was also an admonition against the Modernists and New Theologians whose false beliefs His Holiness had condemned in Humani Generis, August 12, 1950, and whom he knew to have taken over large sections of the world’s Catholic colleges, universities, and seminaries and who, truth be told, even he had appointed to the highest positions of trust during his pontificate. It is not without reason that Pope Pius XII is reported to have said before he died, “After me, the deluge.” Indeed.

In particular, though, the state of the Church Militant in Red China was fresh on His Holiness’s mine just two weeks after he had issued Ad Apostolorum Principis. He knew what had happened to Bishop Francis Ford and he was painfully aware that the courageous Bishop Ignatius Kung of Shanghei had been sentenced to prison just two years previously. Unlike Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Pope Pius XII had a paternal concern for his bishops, priests, religious, and laity who were being persecuted by Communist authorities. He knew Communism to be evil. Jorge Mario Bergoglio believes that only American “conservatives” and Catholic traditionalists, whom he believes cling to a “religion of the dead,” are committed to evil, not Xi Jinping and not Daniel Ortega.

Pope Pius XII went to great lengths in Meminisse Iuvat to remind Catholics not to lose heart in the midst of the difficulties that plagued Holy Mother Church and her children in so many places around the world, stressing the fact that Our Lord told us to expect persecutions, each of which are the Divinely chosen means by which we can grow in holiness and demonstrate genuine apostolic courage to our persecutors, calumniators, detractors, jailers, torturers, and executioners. Even if it is not God’s Holy Will for us to conquer these enemies of the Holy Faith in this passing, mortal vale of tears, the only conquest that matters if that over the devil, who prowls about the world like a roaring lion seeking the ruin of souls, by means of begging Our Lady to send us the graces of final penitence so that we can be every ready for the fearful moment of our Particular Judgment.

The battle we fight is to not to be fear in a spirit of fear or agitation. The battle we fight against the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil is supernatural in nature as we pray for all those who persecute us and seek their conversion to the true Faith before they die

God has appointed us from all eternity to live in these particular times, which means that the graces His Divine Son won for us during His Passion and Death on the wood of the Holy Cross on Good Friday and that flow into our souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces, are more than sufficient to thrive supernaturally. Our Lord told us that His yoke is sweet, and His burden is light. Why do not take Him at His Holy Word?

This is how Pope Pius XII phrased these truths as he specifically noted the sufferings of Catholics in Eastern Europe and Asia, Catholics who were suffering, of course, under the thumb of Communist oppression:

24. The society which Christ founded can be attacked, but not defeated, for she draws her strength from God, not from man. And yet, there is no doubt that she will be harassed through the centuries by persecutions, by contradictions, by calumnies — as was the lot long ago of her Divine Founder — for He said: “If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you also.”[11] But it is equally certain that, just as Christ our Redeemer rose in triumph, so the Church shall someday win a peaceful victory over all her enemies.

25. Have confidence, therefore; be brave and steadfast soldiers. We wish to counsel you in the words of St. Ignatius, martyr, although We know you do not require such counsel: “Serve Him for whom you fight. . . May none of you desert Him! Your baptism must be a shield; your faith a helmet; your charity a lance; your patience a suit of armor. Your works should be your credentials, so that you may be worthy to receive your reward.”[12]

26. And the beautiful words of Bishop St. Ambrose should give you sure hope and unwavering courage: “Hold on to the tiller of faith so that the rough winds of this world may not bandy you. The sea is vast and large, but do not fear; for he has established it (the earth) upon the water, and set it firmly upon the rivers.[13] And so it is understandable that the Lord’s Church stands unmoved among the waves of this world, for she is built on the apostolic rock and holds fast to her foundation, unmoved by the onslaughts of the raging sea.[14] She is battered by the surf, but is not shaken. The physical elements of this world crash with thunder about her, but she provides a safe port for those who toil on the deep.”[15]

27. In the apostolic age, when the Christians of a particular region were suffering unusual hardship, all the others — united with them by the bonds of charity — raised suppliant prayers to God, the Father of mercies, with the one accord of brothers, that He might deign in His goodness to strengthen the hearts of their brothers and might cause better times to come quickly upon the whole Church.

28. So too today, Venerable Brothers, We pray that God’s comfort may descend, in answer to their brothers’ prayers, upon all in Eastern Europe and in Asia who are oppressed by a wretched and inimical state of affairs. (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

Interjection:

What applied to Eastern Europe and Asia sixty-four years ago applies to us all now as the “pandemic” was used by elected officials and unelected apparatchiks to be the means by which the so-called “civilized” West could be transformed into a mirror image of the Communist China’s system of social credits, thought control, censorship, surveillance—including neighbor spying upon neighbor in the name of “public health,” and mandatory vaccination programs designed to maximize profits for the Chicom’s stooges in the West’s Big Pharma while killing off people aplenty and sterilizing women as part of Klaus Schwab’s Global Reset.

Pope Pius XII defended Catholics when they were undergoing persecution by the Soviets and the Red Chinese. Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his Chief Appeaser, Pietro Parolin, have been steadily reliable agents of the lockdown state's new red dawn.

The Pope of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pope Pius XII, exhorted Catholics to have great confidence in the August Queen of Heaven, Our Lady, and in her intercessory power:

29. And since We have great confidence in the intercessory power of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, it is Our ardent wish that, during the novena customarily held before the Feast of the Assumption, all Catholics throughout the world raise public prayers to heaven for the Church, which is — as We have said — afflicted and harassed in certain lands.

30. We confidently hope that Mary will not refuse or leave unfilled Our entreaties and the unanimous prayers of all Catholics — she whom We, with divine approval, decreed and proclaimed, in the Holy Year of 1950, to have been taken up, body and soul, into the abode of blessedness in heaven;[16] she whom We solemnly declared and ordained to be properly venerated by all mankind as the Queen of Heaven;[17] she, finally, whose maternal graces We invited a multitude to enjoy on the centenary of her appearances, as a gracious giver of gifts, in the grotto of Lourdes to an innocent girl.[18]

31. By your entreaties and your example, Venerable Brothers, may the flocks entrusted to you approach the altars of the Mother of God prayerfully and in great numbers on the days named. May they pray with one voice and one spirit that she who “became a cause of salvation to the whole human race”[19] might obtain for the Church the freedom she needs if she is to bring men to eternal salvation, reenforce just laws with the mandates of conscience, and bolster the bases of civil society.

32. Through Mary’s maternal intercession, they should pray particularly that shepherds kept far from their flocks, or otherwise restrained from the free exercise of their ministry, may be restored as speedily as possible to the positions they formerly, and properly, held; that the faithful who are beset by intrigues, falsehoods, and dissension, might find strength in the full light of truth and in unqualified union and charity; that the wavering and weak might be so strengthened by God’s grace that they will be ready and able to bear up under any hardship without abandoning Christian faith and Christian unity. (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

Interjection:

We are lost without Our Lady. Lost. Doomed. Damned.

Anyone who thinks that the problems which beset the world-at-large and the Church Militant on earth at this time can be ameliorated without a firm reliance upon, confidence in, and an unapologetic public proclamation of devotion to her and her intercessory power, and by this I means to call out all “conservative” Catholics in public life who write as naturalists (Americanists, American exceptionalists, founderologists, libertarians) and who refuse to make any public reference to Our Lady, her Most Holy Rosary, and to the fact that no one can save their souls without being devoted to her and cooperating with the graces she sends to them to do so.

Pope Pius XII called upon Catholics to pray to Our Lady so that all Catholics could have their lawful shepherds again, and we should do so now so that we can have a true pope restored to the Throne of Saint Peter to which each of us will readily and humbly submit in all of his decisions and declarations without a moment’s hesitation:

33. We ardently pray that every diocese might soon have its lawful shepherd again. May Christian principles be taught freely in all lands and among all classes of citizens.

34. May the young, in grade schools and high schools, in workshops and on farms, escape the snares of materialistic, atheistic, and hedonistic doctrines, which cripple the wings of the mind and cut the sinews of virtue. May they rather be illumined with the light of the wisdom of God’s gospel, which will rouse, raise, and direct them to what is best.

35. May the gates of truth be everywhere unobstructed; may no one bar those gates unjustly. May all men realize that nothing can withstand for long the force of truth or charity.

36. And, finally, may the heralds of the gospel soon seek out again the peoples whom they once led to Christ with apostolic zeal and exhausting toil, and whom they ardently desire to raise to a richer Christian and civil culture, even at the cost of difficulty, toil, and adversity.

37. May all the faithful ask these favors of the dear Mother of God; and for those who persecute the Christian religion may the faithful implore forgiveness in that spirit of charity which led the Apostle of the Gentiles to say, “Bless those who persecute you.”[20] They should also be mindful to pray that these men be given God’s grace and heavenly light, which alone can scatter the shadows of error and set consciences aright. (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

Interjection:

Yes, we must forgive others as we are forgiven.

The life of a Catholic is not that of revenge and hatred. It is not that of willing ham to those who persecute us. It is about forgiving others and seeing in our persecutors our best friends as they have been chosen by God to be the means by which we may humbled, brought low before men, made the laughingstock of all, and to be held contemptibly even by complete strangers. This is, after all, what Our Blessed Lord and Saviour chose to do when He effected our Redemption during His Passion and Death:

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? [2] And he shall grow up as a tender plant before him, and as a root out of a thirsty ground: there is no beauty in him, nor comeliness: and we have seen him, and there was no sightliness, that we should be desirous of him: [3] Despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity: and his look was as it were hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed him not. [4] Surely he hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows: and we have thought him as it were a leper, and as one struck by God and afflicted. [5] But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.

[6] All we like sheep have gone astray, every one hath turned aside into his own way: and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. [7] He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth. [8] He was taken away from distress, and from judgment: who shall declare his generation? because he is cut off out of the land of the living: for the wickedness of my people have I struck him. [9] And he shall give the ungodly for his burial, and the rich for his death: because he hath done no iniquity, neither was there deceit in his mouth. [10] And the Lord was pleased to bruise him in infirmity: if he shall lay down his life for sin, he shall see a long-lived seed, and the will of the Lord shall be prosperous in his hand.

[11] Because his soul hath laboured, he shall see and be filled: by his knowledge shall this my just servant justify many, and he shall bear their iniquities. [12] Therefore will I distribute to him very many, and he shall divide the spoils of the strong, because he hath delivered his soul unto death, and was reputed with the wicked: and he hath borne the sins of many, and hath prayed for the transgressors. (Isaias 53: 1-12.)

We cannot imitate Our Lord’s self-abnegation without Our Lady’s help and without imploring her to be virtuous as we climb the heights of personal sanctity, something that Pope Pius XII emphasized as he concluded his last encyclical letter, Meminisse Iuvat:

38. But, as you well know, Venerable Brothers, a renewal of Christian life must accompany these public petitions. Otherwise such prayers are idle words, which cannot be wholly pleasing to God.

39. And so, out of that ardent and zealous charity with which all Christians are bound to love the Catholic Church, they should address their prayers to heaven, but they should also offer interior acts of penance, works of virtue, sacrifices, inconveniences, and all the pains and hardships under which we labor, of necessity, in this mortal life, but which we should occasionally, take upon ourselves voluntarily, in a spirit of generosity.

40. Through this sound renewal of their way of life, joined with suppliant prayers, they will win God’s favor for themselves and for holy Church, whom they must embrace as they would a loving mother.

41. The faithful should present the sort of picture — as often as circumstances require — which is described so wonderfully, beautifully, and meaningfully in the Letter to Diognetus: “The Christians . . . are in the flesh, but do not live by the flesh. They dwell on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey valid laws, and even go beyond the demands of law in the conduct of their lives. They love all men, and yet all men persecute them. They are not understood, and yet they are condemned; they are put to death, and yet their life is quickened. . . They are dishonored, and yet in the midst of dishonor they find honor. Their good name is railed at, and yet is presented as evidence of their justice. . . When they conduct themselves like honest men, they are punished like criminals; while they are being punished, they rejoice as though they are being exalted…[21]

42. “To express all this briefly: what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world.”[22]

43. If a Christian way of life flourishes again, as it did in the age of the Apostles and martyrs, then we can reasonably hope that the Blessed Virgin Mary — who longs with a mother’s heart that all her sons should live virtuously — will graciously heed our prayers and will soon grant, in response to our petitions, happier and more peaceful times for the Church of her Only Begotten Son and for the whole human society.

44. We wish, Venerable Brothers, that you will make Our wishes and exhortations known on Our behalf, in the way you think best, to the faithful entrusted to your care. Meanwhile, as a pledge of heaven’s blessing and a witness of Our paternal good will, We lovingly impart Our Apostolic Benediction to each of you, to the flocks entrusted to you, and individually to each of those who suffer persecution and torment because they defend the rights of the Church and give evidence of the love they bear her.

45. Written at Rome, in Saint Peter’s, on the fourteenth day of July, in the year 1958, the twentieth of Our Pontificate. (Pope Pius XII, Meminisse Iuvat, July 14, 1958.)

We need to give a Catholic witness at all times. We cannot live in fear nor can we permit ourselves to be agitated by the babbling, blathering ignoramuses of naturalism who know nothing of First and Last Things and believe in the “salvific” nature of politics and elections despite all the evidence that things always get worse no matter how elections turn out as those of the “left” and the “right” continue to sin unrepentantly and put material prosperity above all things. No one can enjoy physical safety when God’s Holy Laws are ignored or derided and when men make war upon their own souls by their persistence in sins of one kind or another.

Blasphemy, impurity, indecency, immodesty, reveling, quarreling, heresy, indifferentism, relativism, positivism, pragmatism, materialism, secularism, Machiavellianism, utilitarianism, and every other “ ‘ism” abounds while men are either ignorant of the true Faith, Catholicism, or, if they are Catholic, are too ashamed, too fearful of losing human respect to proclaim the true Faith as the foundation of order within the soul and order within society. Men will always seek “solutions” to social problems in all the wrong places when they forget the reality of Original Sin, the horror of their own Actual Sins and refuse to seek out the ineffable mercy of the Divine Redeemer in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance.

Yes, we need Our Lady’s help to live virtuously and to grow in holiness. It is holiness that we need, not stratagems of supposed electoral “success.” The only success that matters to Our Lord is that we save our souls by means of the graces He has won for us on the wood of the Holy Cross and that He chooses to send to us through the loving hands of the Mediatrix of All Graces, His Most Blessed Mother.

Concluding Remarks

As I have noted in the past, Pope Pius XII’s legacy is complex as he gave a truly mystifying talk to Italian liturgists endorsing the study of “depth psychology,” a term that had been originated with none other than the atheist named Sigmund Freud and another fraud named Eugen Bleuler in Switzerland before being developed more by others, especially the anti-Catholic cult-leader and quack named Dr. Carl Jung, in the Sacred Liturgy (see Dr. Carol A. Byrne’s scholarly discussion of Pope Pius XII’s address at: Pope Pius XII's 1956 Address to Italian Liturgists ). It is also not to dismiss Pope Pius XII’s personal sanctity to state firmly that he was a terrible judge of character and put into place each of the key figures that would lead the conciliar revolution after his death, including Angelo Roncalli, Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini and, among so many others, the two men whose multiple misrepresentations of fact concerning the nature of the liturgical reforms instituted at their behest from 1951 to the time of Pope Pius XII’s death on October 9, 1958, Annibale Bugnini and Ferdinando Antonelli. Many saints were bad judges of character and/or poor administrators. Indeed, Pope Saint Peter Celestine resigned the papacy because he did not believe himself up to the task of papal administration and dealing with the conflicts of his day.

This having been noted, however, it is vitally necessary to state that Pope Pius XII, to whom Our Lord gave an apparition of His Most Sacred Heart and who, as mentioned before in this commentary, was devoted to Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary and her Immaculate Heart. Pope Pius XII solemnly defined the doctrine of Our Lady’s Assumption into Heaven, and he consecrated the world and Russia, although not collegially, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in whose honor he established a liturgical feast day in 1944.

The following words of his 1942 consecration of the world to the Immaculate Heart of Mary should be prayed every First Saturday of the month as they remind us of the fact that the world is the victims of its own iniquities and is need of Our Blessed Mother’s maternal protection and intercession:

Queen of the most holy Rosary, help of Christians, refuge of the human race, victorious in all the battles of God, we prostrate ourselves in supplication before thy throne, in the sure hope of obtaining mercy and of receiving grace and timely aid in our present calamities, not through any merits of our own on which we do not rely, but only through the immense goodness of thy mother’s Heart. In Thee and in thy Immaculate Heart, at this grave hour of human history, do we put our trust; to thee we consecrate ourselves, not only with all of Holy Church, which is the mystical body of thy Son Jesus, and which is suffering in so many of her members, being persecuted, but also with the whole world, torn by discords, agitated with the hatred, the victim of its own iniquities. Be thou moved by the sight of such material and moral degradation, such sorrows, such anguish, so many tormented souls in danger of eternal loss! Do thou, O Mother of mercy, obtain for us from God a Christ-like reconciliation of the nations, as well as those graces which can convert the souls of men in an instant, those graces which prepare the way and make certain the long desired coming of peace on earth. O Queen of peace, pray for us, and grant unto the world in the truth, the justice, and the charity of Christ. Above all, give us peace in our hearts, so that the kingdom of God, may spread it the tranquility of order. Accord thy protection to unbelievers and to all those who lie in the shadow of death; cause the Sun of Truth to rise upon them; may they enabled to join with us in repeating before the Saviour of the world: “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to men of good will.” Give peace to the nations that are separated us from error or discord, and in a special manner to those peoples who profess a singular devotion toward thee; bring them back to Christ’s one fold, under the one true Shepherd. Obtain full freedom for the holy Church of God; defend her from her enemies; check the ever-increasing torrent of immorality; arouse in the faithful a practical love of purity, a practical Christian life, and an apostolic zeal, so that the number of those who serve God may increase in merit and in number. Finally, even as the Church and all mankind were once consecrated to the Heart of thy Son Jesus, because He was for all those who put their hope in Him an inexhaustible source of victory and salvation, so in like manner do we consecrate ourselves forever to thee also and to thy Immaculate Heart, Of Mother us and Queen of the world; may thy love and patronage hasten the day when the kingdom of God shall be victorious and all the nations, at peace with God and with one another, shall call thee blessed and intone with thee, from the rising of the sun to its going down, the everlasting “Magnificat” of glory, of love, of gratitude to the Heart of Jesus in which we alone can find truth, life, and peace. (Pope Pius XII, Rescript from the Secretariat of State, November 17, 1942, document exhibited, November 19, 1942, The Raccolta: A Manual of Indulgences, Prayers and Devotions Enriched with Indulgences, approved by Pope Pius XII, May 30, 1951, and published in English by Benziger Brothers, New York, 1957, pp. 345-347.)

The world is more a victim of its own iniquities, more torn with discords and more agitated by hatreds than it was when seventy-five years ago during the height of World War II when Pope Pius XII wrote his prayer of consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Men and their nations are adrift as they become more and more divided as a result of the proliferation of errors that receive the sanction the civil law and the applause of “opinion makers” and as men, steeped in a variety of what Mortal Sins in the objective order things, run amok in the belief that living as beasts will not hurt themselves and their nations, no less the entire world.

Whatever Pope Pius XII’s shortcomings may have been concerning the personnel he put in place who later revealed their full agenda to the Catholic world at the “Second” Vatican Council, His Holiness was a courageous and unstinting foe of Communism and rose manfully to the defense of Catholics who were being persecuted by it in Eastern Europe and Asia.

Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII agreed to refrain from criticizing Communism at the “Second” Vatican Council in the Metz Accord with officials of the heretical and schismatic Russian Orthodox Church in exchange for their participation as “observers” at the robber council.

Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria Montini/Paul VI sold out priests behind the Iron Curtain during Pope Pius XII’s pontificate and then sold-out Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty of Hungary in 1966 so that he, Montini, could engage in his policy of Ostpolik that gave Communist officials a virtual blank check to nominate and/or veto episcopal candidates to their liking.

Karol Josef Wojtyla/John Paul II began the process of selling out the suffering underground Catholics in Red China in the 1980s.

Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI provided the blueprint for a “reconciliation” between those suffering Catholics who thought they were being faithful to true and legitimate Successors of Saint Peter with the so-called Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, a blueprint that was used by Pietro Parolin at the behest of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to complete the sell-out in 2018 (see Bergoglio the Red Surrenders Faithful Catholics to Their Persecutors, Neville Bergoglio's Appeasement of the Chicom Monsters, and Doubly Betrayed by Jorge and His False Church).

Pope Pius XII’s defense of Catholics suffering under the yoke of Communism was capped by his institution in May of 1958 just five months before his death of a Votive Mass in honor of the Holy Face of Jesus that priests may celebrate or commemorate on Shrove Tuesday. However, a Votive Mass may offered albeit judiciously and not indiscriminately, on any ferial day that the Ordo specifies is permitted, and it is with this in mind that I make a modest suggestion to all fully traditional Catholic priests that they consider offering the Votive Mass of the Holy Face of Jesus on the next free liturgical day, which is Wednesday, October 12, 2022, to honor the intention of our last true Holy Father thus far to combat Communism, Protestantism, blasphemy, and heresy with public devotion to Our Lord’s Most Holy Face.

Thus, apart from Holy Mass and Our Lady’s Most Holy Rosary, one of the chief ways that we can remain faithful is to make reparation for the crimes of communists and blasphemers according to the devotions revealed to Saint Mary of Saint Peter by Our Lord.

Dorothy Scallan provided an account of the origin of the Holy Face devotion and of the Golden Arrow Prayer in her book on the life of the Venerable Leo Dupont, a layman who was known in his lifetime as The Holy Man of Tours:

Then a change occurred her mystical life. The Saviour made known to the Carmelite that he wanted something more from her than her own personal sanctification through prayer and penance. The day was August 26, 1843. Sister Marie Pierre had been at Carmel about four years. When she knelt down for the regular prayer in choir at five o'clock in the evening, the Saviour revealed to her the first of a series of communications pertaining to a special mission with which He intended to entrust her. As usual, Sister Marie Pierre set this message down in writing and turned in in to the prioress who, preoccupied with other matters, gave it but slight attention.

However, a few days later when Sister Marie Pierre returned with more written accounts of further communications on the same subject, Mother Mary of the Incarnation realized that she was faced with something that was meant to reach beyond the confines of the cloister. She therefore decided to consult some reliable person outside the convent, and turned to Leo in her difficulty. “Mr. Dupont, in the last few days something quite unusual has taken place in our Carmel. Sister Marie Pierre tells me that our Lord has given her a special assignment. He told her that He was being gravely insulted by the sin of blasphemy and that He wanted reparation.”

“Blasphemy!” repeated Leo, thoughtfully. “What exactly did our Lord say?” he asked interested.

“Let me read you that written account which Sister Marie Pierre gave me, explaining precisely what transpired,” the prioress said, reaching for a sheet of paper.

“Yes, Reverend Mother, I am listening,” said Leo on the other side of the iron grating.

“Here is what the sister writes: 'Gathering the powers of my soul, Our Lord addressed me in these words: My name is everywhere blasphemed! Even children blaspheme! He made me understand that this frightful sin more than any other grievously wounds Him. By blasphemy the sinner curses Him to His Face, attacks Him openly, annuls redemption, and pronounces his own condemnation.'”

The prioress paused for a moment and then asked, “Mr. Dupont, what do you think of this? To us the very word blasphemy, is frightful!”

“Yes, Mother, but there is no running away from the fact that blasphemy is rife in our midst,” replied Leo.

“Of course, you would know better than any of us in the cloister who are shut off from worldly contact. But let me read you the rest of the written account Sister Marie Pierre has given me,” the prioress said and then began to read further, “to heal the wound inflicted on the heart of the Saviour by the poisoned arrow of blasphemy, the Master offered me a prayer which He called the Golden Arrow.

The words of this short act of praise are as follows: May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible ad ineffable name of God be praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified in heaven and on earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in the most Holy Sacreament of the Altar. Amen. What do you think about this, Mr. Dupont?”

“I think the prayer is a striking act of praise to the Holy Name of God,” at once answered Leo who saw in the Golden Arrow a fitting reparation for the outrages of modern free thinkers, anarchists, atheists, and fallen-away Catholics.

“But let me tell you the rest, Mr. Dupont. According to Sister Marie Pierre, our Lord charges her to see to it that news of this revelation be given out to the public and that the 'Golden Arrow' be printed on leaflets and distributed so that people can recite this prayer in reparation for blasphemy.” explained the prioress.

“Well, in a case of that kind,” replied Leo, thoughtfully, “where distribution of printed prayers is involved, we shall need the approval of His Excellency, Archbishop Morlot. There may be delays and difficulties . . . “

Precisely, and according to Sister Marie Pierre, our Saviour already warned her that she would have a great deal to suffer in this work entrusted to her that the more agreeable anything is to God the more bitter does Satan try to make it, that thereby the soul may be disgusted and give way to discouragement.”

Leo listened attentively but said nothing, and the prioress went on, “But our Lord also assure Sister Marie Pierre that although Satan would do everything in his power to annihilate the work, his efforts would be in vain.”

“Mother, it seems you kept the most consoling part for the end,” Leo said cheerfully, but the prioress pressed on for a conclusion.

“Mr. Dupont, how shall we commence? Would you have some sort of plan?”

“Plan? But Mother, don't you see that deciding on a plan in this Work has not been left to our individual choice?”

“What do you mean?”

“Simply that our Lord Himself outlined a plan. He designated the press to be the means of establishing the Work! Isn't that right?”

“Yes, Sister said that our Lord told her expressly to have the prayers of reparation printed and distributed!” agreed the prioress.

“But to print and distribute these leaflets, we must first secure the Archbishop's permission,” countered Leo.

“Why do you think so?”

“I think it will be difficult because I know that the world loves flattery and dislikes correction. Because Sister Marie Pierre's revelation point a finger of blame at the sins of our modern society, it will require a good deal of fortitude not to shy away from making this message known.”

“Yet, we must do it. Mr. Dupont, do you think you could lay the matter before the Archbishop at your convenience?” the prioress asked hestitatingly.

“Well, Mother, I may as well tell you that I'm not accustomed to paying visits to bishops. However, if in the last resort it should devolve on me to make this errand, I will certainly not refuse. But if I may say so, I think the convent's spiritual director ought to be the person to carry this matter to His Excellency.”

In the three months that followed nothing was done to further the work of reparation. The matter was kept secret inside and outside the convent. Only the religious superiors and a few intimate friends of Carmel knew anything about it. However, Sister Marie Pierre in the meantime plunger herself deeply in the new Work.

“Since that communication, my soul is completely changed, she wrote in her diary. “Our Lord has inspired me to add to the 'Golden Arrow” some other prayers of reparation, and He has condescended to let me know that He accepted this exercise . . . “

Then, after Communion on the Feast of St. Jon of the Cross, November 24, Sister Marie Pierre received another revelation concerning the new Work. As soon as Jesus had entered my soul, He made me hear these words: Until now, I have shown you only in part the designs of My Heart, but today I will reveal them to you in in all their fulness. The earth is covered with crimes, this violation of the First Three Commandments of God has irritated My Father; the Holy Name of God blasphemed, and the Holy Day of the Lord profaned fills up the measure of iniquities; these sins have risen unto the Throne of God and provoked His wrath, which will soon burst forth, if His justice be not appeased; at no time have these crimes reached such a pitch! I desire and most ardently, that there be formed, to honor the Name of My Father, and Association, properly approved and organized. Your superiors are right in not wishing to take any steps concerning this devotion but such as are well based, for otherwise My designs would not be fulfilled. Then I said; 'Ah, if I did but know beyond a doubt that it was Thyself who has spoken to me, it would not be so difficult to lay these things before my superiors.' He answered me: “It is for them and not for you to make this examination. To who should I address Myself it not to a Carmelite, whose very vocation enjoins upon her the duty of unceasingly glorifying My Name.” (Dorothy Scallan, The Holy Man of Tours, republished by TAN Books and Publishers, 1990, pp. 119-123.)

Sister Mary of Saint Peter was given the following revelation by Our Lord on March 29, 1847, which was Monday of Holy Week that year:

The Saviour enjoins Sister Mary through her prayers and the instruments of His Passion to make was on the Communists who are the enemies of the Church and her Christ. He tells her that whereas the weapons of the enemy inflict death, the weapons of His Passion restore life. This revelation strikes an unprecedented peak stressing the militancy of the Church on earth, as it demonstrates the power of the individual soul to forge her WILL against the powers of evil through prayer. It must be so for, after all the battle real and actual which goes on between the Church and hell is not a battle of guns and mobilized divisions in uniform, for Satan has none of these at his disposal, but he employs only his formidable WILL of evil to spread disaster. Coping with this force, the Church's militant members forge their WILLS of good, through Christ, to defeat the powers of the infernal regions.

Today after Holy Communion our Lord gave me a new mission, one which ought to frighten me, yet since I know I am nothing but a weak instrument in His hands, I am perfectly at peace.

Our Lord commanded me to make war on the Communists because He said they were the enemies of the Church and of her Christ. He told me also that most of these wolfish men who are now Communists had been born in the Church whose bitter enemies they now openly declare themselves to be. Then our Saviour added:

“I have already told you that I hold you in My hands as an arrow. I now want to hurl this arrow against My enemies. To arm you for the battle ahead, I give you the weapons of My Passion, that is My Cross which these enemies dread and also the other instruments of My tortures. Go forward to meet these foes with the artlessness of a child, and the bravery of a courageous soldier. Receive for this mission the benediction of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Having been favored with this communication, I frequently call on the Blessed Virgin to be the depository of these sacred weapons which her Divine Son gave me since she is called the Tower of David on which hang a thousand bucklers.

Since our Saviour continued to grant me further lights on this subject I now said to Him. “Lord, give me a skillful hand and train me to use well these weapons which You have entrusted to me for the combat. “To this our Lord answered:

“The weapons of My enemies inflict death but My weapons give life.”

"Following is the prayer I frequently recite to fulfill the mission entrusted to me:

“Eternal Father, I offer You the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and all the other instruments of His Holy Passion, that You may put division in the camp of Your enemies, for as Your Beloved Son has said. 'A kingdom divided against itself shall fall.'” (The Golden Arrow: The Autobiography of and Revelation of Sister Mary of Saint Peter (1816-1848): On Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, edited by Dorothy Scallan and translated by Father Emeric B. Scallan, S.T.B., published originally by William Frederick Press, New York, New York, 1954, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, Charlotte, North Carolina, 2012, pp. 202-203.).

As has been demonstrated amply since March 13, 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is among the world’s foremost transgressors of the Ten Commandments, for which he has as much contempt as Martin Luther himself.

The conciliar authorities have used their usurped offices to will the spread of that which our true popes have declared to be evil by condemning it solemnly. They have been and continue to be singular instruments of perdition to divide believing Catholics against themselves. Alas, their kingdom of evil shall fall, and it is doing so right now in many ways.

It was eight days later, on Easter Tuesday, April 6, 1847, that Saint Mary of Saint Peter was visited by Our Lord again:

Sister Mary of St. Peter is encouraged by our Lord to continue her valiant battle against Communism and she is promised the reward of Heaven itself for her faithful conduct in this war.

I have entered the arena to battle with the enemies of God, and since I am engaged in this war under the banner of obedience, if I may so express myself, my soul is at peace. Fighting under this banner I feel safe, and I no longer fear the demon. Our Lord has given me the grace to launch an offensive warfare.

Today, after Holy Communion, He inspired me to be brave in the encounter, promising me that as a reward for my faithful conduct in these battles, He would give me a Cross of Honor, which would have the power of opening Heaven to me. He also promised me the gold of charity by which I understood that I would be granted all the graces needed to triumph patiently and lovingly over any obstacles that would come my way.

Have fought the enemies of God during these past three solemn feast days (The three days of Holy Week) and that with all my strength, I must explain that since I have uttered many imprecations against them, I am not somewhat saddened for having done so. I well know that the holy King David has done as much, as for example in his Psalm 108 (They have spoken against me with a lying tongue; and they have attacked me without cause. Let these my accusers be converted with shame and let them be wrapt with the mantle of their own confusion. From PSALM 108) yet I am not certain whether the same course is allowed me. Nevertheless, everything that I said during the prayer was inspired by our Lord, and should it turn out that I have been mistaken, I will, of course, do this no more. The following is the formula of my militant procedure.

I begin by placing my soul in our Lord's hands, after which I beg Him to use my soul as He would a bow, urging Him to bend it so that the arrows would fly directly towards his enemies.

After doing this I proceed to enter the battlefield, fortified with the Cross and the other instruments of our Lord's tortures as my weapons of war, leveling their infinite conquering power against the military entrenchments of the enemy, in the way He has taught me. Then I say:

“May God arise and let His enemies be scattered and let all those who hate Him flee before His Face!

“May the thrice Holy Name of God overthrow all of their plans!

“May the thrice Holy Name of the Living God split them up by disagreements!

“May the terrible Name of the God of Eternity stamp out all their godlessness!

Repeating other similar ejaculations, I continue to level these rounds of ammunition at God's enemies, and after I have beaten them down I add:

“Lord, I do not desire the death of the sinner, but I want him to be converted and to live. 'Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.'”

Feeling disturbed about uttering these imprecations, I sometimes worry but I must make it clear that never do I have the intention to wish evil to the enemy. I desire only to oppose their wickedness and their passions. In short, what I want is to kill not them but the “evil spirit” within them.

Such is the spiritual exercise which I perform without any mental effort and with great ease, because I simply allow myself to be led by the grace given me, but I fully believe that there is someone very anxious to alarm me, this being the general of the opposing side, the devil. (The Golden Arrow: The Autobiography of and Revelation of Sister Mary of Saint Peter (1816-1848): On Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, edited by Dorothy Scallan and translated by Father Emeric B. Scallan, S.T.B., published originally by William Frederick Press, New York, New York, 1954, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, Charlotte, North Carolina, 2012, pp. 206-208.)

Our Lord was not only referring to the revolutionaries at work in Europe at the time. He, Who is outside of time and space, was referring also to all subsequent revolutionaries, including those of conciliarism, a and He wants us to kill the evil spirit that is within them by making use of the Holy Face devotion as best as is possible.

A further motivation for us to do so can be found in a revelation given to Saint Peter of Saint Mary on October 4, 1846, that indicated much worse chastisements lay ahead, especially for the performance of unnecessary work Sundays:

Herewith our Saviour complains of the desecration of Sundays and He urges Sister Mary to pray for the cessation of forbidden labor on Sundays. Later He also threatens to punish the world for these crimes against God's Majesty not by the elements but by the “malice of revolutionary men.”

Several months have passed since I experienced anything extraordinary. Our Lord during this time of trial, deigned however to purify my soul by great interior sufferings, as all consciousness of His Presence was withdrawn from me.

But on the morning, as soon as I had received Holy Communion, He intimated to me that He wanted to keep me at His feet and I obeyed. He then made me hear these sad and frightful words:

“My justice is irritated on account of the profanations of the holy day of Sunday. I see a victim.”

I answered, “Lord, You know that my superior have given me permission to abandon myself into Your divine hands. Therefore do with me whatever may please You, although, I must indeed add, 'What am I, anyhow?' Oh Lord,” I further said to Him, “is it indeed You Yourself Who speaks in these revelations to me?”

Our Lord answered me:

“You shall not remain long in this doubt.”

Thereupon it seemed to me that our Saviour accepted the Act of self-oblation which I had just made Him, and He told me that He would in a new way take possession of my whole being, so that in a certain manner He Himself would suffer within me, in order to appease the Divine Justice, aroused by reason of the desecration of Sunday.

After that our Lord commanded me to receive Holy Communion every Sunday for these three particular intentions:

1^st In a spirit of atoning for all forbidden works done on Sundays, which as holy days are to be sanctified.

2^nd To appease Divine Justice which was on the very verge of striking on account of the profanations of holy days.

3^rd To implore the conversion of those sinners who desecrate Sundays, and to succeed in obtaining the cessation of forbidden Sunday labor.

Following this revelation, our Lord invited me to offer His Holy Face to His Eternal Father as a means of obtaining these gifts of mercy.

Such are the communications which for more than three years I have received from our Lord, all of which are repeatedly directed towards the same end, as our Divine Saviour continues to complain of these two crimes, the profanation of Sundays and the blaspheming of God's Holy Name.

Remark – Soon I received proof of that which He told me in this last communication when He said that He would not leave me long in doubt as to whether it was indeed He who foretold to me what chastisements of God's Justice would be felt because of the profanation of Sunday. For there occurred so frightful and so unprecedented an overflowing of the River Loire as had not been seen in centuries. The whole city of Tours was in imminent danger as terror and confusion gripped the citizens. Everywhere people acknowledged that an Omnipotent Hand was wielding the elements at will and even those persons who professed hardly any religious belief whatsoever now openly admitted that it was only through a miracle that the whole city of Tours did not perish. But the real case that provoked God to send this punishment on the city was the profanation of Sunday, as our Lord Himself told me, yet this principal fact was and continues to be ignored.

But what filled my soul with sadness was an interior light which our Lord granted me by which I saw that God's Justice was preparing to send us still other chastisements. Our Lord communicated to me that this time He would use as the instruments of punishment, not the elements, but “the malice of revolutionary men.” (The Golden Arrow: The Autobiography of and Revelation of Sister Mary of Saint Peter (1816-1848): On Devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, edited by Dorothy Scallan and translated by Father Emeric B. Scallan, S.T.B., published originally by William Frederick Press, New York, New York, 1954, and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, Charlotte, North Carolina, 2012, pp. 175-177.)

This is interesting when one considers the fact that Our Lady herself had wept over the profanation of Sundays when she had appeared to Maximim Giraud and Melanie Calvat on September 19, 1846, just fifteen days before Our Lord spoke to Sister Mary of Saint Peter. We have much work to do to make reparation for our own sins, no less those of others, including the conciliar revolutionaries, and it is thus urgent to make use of the means given to us in these latter times to do so.

Communism may seem to have the upper hand now here in the United States and in many places in once proudly Catholic Europe, to say nothing of Red China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Vietnam, North Korea, and a few other places in the world where it represses the masses formally.

However, calling to mind the courage of Pope Pius XII in denouncing Communism and defending Catholics suffering under it, we call upon Our Lady in her Most Holy Rosary to fortify us in our resolution to spread public devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus.

Our Lady’s Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart will triumph in the end. May it be our privilege to be as courageous as Saints Cosmas and Damian, whose feast we celebrate today, Tuesday, September 27, 2022, and as were the Catholics who suffered under Communism during the pontificate of the Holy Father who defended them with valor and pattern above as we seek to be holy with the help of Our Lady so that we can ready whenever we might be called upon to defend the Holy Faith and, of course, to defend against the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil so that we can save our souls and gain an eternal crown of glory in Heaven and be as close to Our Lady there as we have striven to be as members of the Church Militant on earth.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

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.

Saints Cosmas and Damian, pray for us.

Appendix A

Pope Pius IX, Etsi Multa, November 21, 1873

It has been Our lot from the very beginning of Our Pontificate to suit many grievous and painful occurrences from various causes, which We have often explained to you in encyclical letters; in we would be all but overwhelmed. Indeed things have reached such a point that death itself would seem preferable to life tossed about by so many waves; with eyes lifted to heaven, we are compelled to cry out from time to time: “it is better for us to die, than to witness the ruin of our sanctuary.”[1] Forsooth, from the time when this Our beloved city was forcibly captured and subjected to the rule of men who are disdainers of right and enemies of religion, men to whom all things human and divine are one and the same, scarcely no day has gone by without some new wound beings invited on Our already wounded heart.

Evils Which Have Befallen Catholicism

2. We still hear lamentations of men and women of religious congregations, who driven from their houses and in need, are dispersed in a hostile manner; this usually happens when the dominating faction has as its aim the perversion of the social order. As the great St. Anthony, on the testimony of Athanasius, says, “The devil hates all Christians indeed, but cannot tolerate in any way upright monks and virgins of Christ.” We have also seen recently something We never expected would happen, namely Our Gregorian University has been suppressed and abolished. It was instituted for this purpose: that to it would come (in the words of an ancient author writing for Anglo-Saxons about the Roman School) young clerics, even from distant regions, to be educated in Catholic doctrine and faith, so nothing contrary to Catholic unity would be taught in their Churches. Thus strengthened in firm faith, they might return to their own people. Little by little all defenses and instruments by which We are able to rule and direct the universal Church are nefariously taken away from Us. It was aimed that once the city was taken from Us, the Roman Pontiff would still have complete freedom in the exercise of spiritual ministry and in carrying out religious matters. This is far from true. As we predicted, the purpose of the sacrilegious usurpation of Our rule is the destruction of the force and efficacy of the papal primacy and eventually the Catholic religion itself.

3. However, it was not Our intention to write to you concerning these evils by which this Our city and all of Italy as well is infested; indeed, We would perhaps have suppressed these Our troubles in mournful silence, if it were permitted by divine clemency that We could lessen the bitter sorrows by which so many venerable brothers, bishops, and laity are tortured in other regions.

Problems in Switzerland

4. For you are well aware, that certain cantons of the Swiss Federation have perverted all order and have undermined the very foundation of the constitution of the Church of Christ. This was brought about not so much by heterodox men, some of whom even find fault with the crime, as by followers of sects who today have gained power far and wide. They not only subvert all of justice and reason, but they even go against their publicly declared trust as well. For it was solemnly pledged, with the approval and authority of the laws of the Federation as well, that religious liberty for Catholics would remain safe and sound. We deplored, indeed, in Our allocution of last 23 December the force applied to the religious situation by the government of those cantons “whether in decisions about dogmas of the Catholic faith or by the favoring of apostates or by interfering with the exercise of episcopal power.” We made these just complaints known when We sent Gestore to the Federal Council as Our negotiator, but they were wholly neglected. Nor were protests from Catholics of all ranks nor those repeatedly sent from the Swiss episcopacy treated any better; indeed the earlier injuries inflicted were greatly increased by worse ones.

New Laws Promulgated

5. The violent banishment of Our venerable brother Gaspar, bishop of Hebron and Vicar Apostolic of Geneva took place as decorously and gloriously for him who endured it as it was foul and indecorous for those who ordered and carried it out. After this banishment the government of Geneva on 12 March and 27 August of this year promulgated two laws fully in keeping with the edict proposed the previous October, the one with which We found fault in Our allocution mentioned previously. In effect the same government arrogated the right to itself of refashioning in that canton the constitution of the Catholic Church and of conforming it to the democratic form. This subjects the bishop, both in the exercise of his proper jurisdiction and administration and in the delegation of his power, to the civil authority. It forbids him to live in the canton and defines the number and limit of parishes. It also proposes the conditions for the election of pastors and vicars and the method of their recall or suspension from office. Furthermore it grants to laics the right of nominating them, entrusting to the same laity the temporal administration of cult and in general setting them in charge, as if inspectors, of ecclesiastical affairs.

Why the Laws Are Invalid

6. These same laws provide that without the government’s favor, which is revocable, the pastors and vicars could not exercise any functions and could not accept any office more extensive than those which they received through popular election. Furthermore, they are compelled by the civil power to take an oath, the words of which denote apostasy. Everyone sees that laws of this nature are void and useless because lay legislators, who are for the most part heterodox men, do not have the power to make such laws. They are also invalid because in what they teach, they are opposed to dogmas of the Catholic faith and ecclesiastical discipline sanctioned by the Ecumenical Council of Trent and by pontifical constitutions. We must therefore condemn and disapprove them.

Condemnation of the New Laws

7. Therefore as is required by the duty of Our offices, with Our Apostolic authority We solemnly condemn them, declaring at the same time that the oath they impose is illicit and clearly sacrilegious; therefore all those who in Geneva or elsewhere are elected according to the decrees of these laws or in a similar way, by the vote of the people and with the confirmation of the civil power, and who subsequently dare to undertake the tasks of ecclesiastical ministry incur a major excommunication reserved specially to this Holy See and also incur other canonical penalties. Furthermore, they must all be avoided by the faithful according to the divine admonition, as aliens and thieves who come only to rob, kill, and destroy.[2]

Other Adversities

8. Sad and calamitous as these events are which We have just recounted, more dreadful things have happened in five of the seven cantons which constitute the diocese of Basel, namely Solothurn, Bern, Basel-Landschaft, Aargau, and Zurich. Laws have also been passed there concerning parishes, the election of pastors, and vicars and their recall. These laws overturn the rule of the Church and its divine institution, subjugating ecclesiastical ministry to secular power. One of them, that passed by the Governor of Solothurn on 23 December 1872, is completely schismatical. We condemn it and decree that it be forever considered condemned. Indeed Our venerable brother, Eugene, Bishop of Basel, with just indignation and apostolic constancy, rejected certain articles drawn up and presented to him in his meeting. They call said meeting a diocesan conference, to which delegates of the five aforesaid cantons came. In rejecting the articles, he said that they were harmful to episcopal authority, subversive of hierarchical rule, and openly favorable to heresy. For this reason he was deprived of his bishopric, taken from his residence, and violently driven into exile. After this they omitted no type of fraud or vexation to lead the clergy and faithful in the previously mentioned cantons into schism. They forbade the clergy to have any communication with the exiled bishop. Additionally, they ordered the cathedral chapter of Basel to convene for the election of a vicar or administrator of the diocese, just as if the episcopal see were really vacant. The chapter strenuously rejected this proposal.

Difficulties in the Territory of Jura

9. Meanwhile by a decree and vote of the civil magistrates of Bern, sixtynine pastors of the territory of Jura were first forbidden to carry out the functions of their ministry and then deprived of office. This was because they had openly attested that they recognized only Eugene as legitimate bishop and pastor, or were unwilling to separate themselves dishonorably from Catholic unity. This whole territory, has constantly held onto the Catholic faith and was earlier joined to the canton of Bern under the legal stipulation and agreement that it preserve the exercise of its religion free and inviolate. But now it is deprived of parish sermons, solemn baptisms, weddings, and funerals. The multitude of the faithful is protesting in vain that on account of consummate injury done to them, they are compelled either to accept schismatic and heretical pastors forced on them by the political authority or else be deprived of any priestly ministry and aid.

10. We, for Our part, give thanks to God who, with the same grace with which He formerly strengthened and confirmed martyrs, sustains and strengthens that select part of the Catholic flock which courageously supports their bishop as he builds a wall in defense of the house of Israel that it may stand in battle the day of the Lord.[3] Without fear they follow in the footsteps of the head of the martyrs of Jesus Christ; while offering the gentleness of the lamb to the ferocity of wolves, they constantly and readily fight for their faith.

11. This noble constancy of the faithful Swiss is emulated with no less commendation by the clergy and faithful in Germany, who themselves follow the illustrious example of their ecclesiastical leaders. The Germans, assuming the shield of Catholic truth and the helms of salvation, fight the battles of the Lord and are a wonder to the world, to the angels, and to men who look on them from every side. All the more is their fortitude of spirit and unbroken constancy admired and extolled with outstanding praise as the bitter persecution set in motion against them in the German Empire and especially in Prussia increases with each day.

Unwarranted Power Given to Laity

12. In addition to many grave injuries inflicted on the Catholic Church last year, the government of Prussia with harsh, iniquitous laws totally different from previous ones have subjected the whole institution and education of clerics to lay power. One can now legitimately ask how clerics are to be educated and formed for the priestly and pastoral life. Going further still, the government grants to the same lay power the right to bestow any office or ecclesiastical benefice and even the right to deprive sacred pastors of office and benefice.

13. Moreover so that the ecclesiastical government and the hierarchical order of subordination constituted by Christ Himself may be more quickly and fully subverted, these same laws impose many obstacles on bishops so that they cannot provide, through canonical censures and punishments, for the salvation of souls, the soundness of doctrine in Catholic schools, and the obedience due them from clerics. These same laws forbid bishops to do these things unless they are in accord with the wishes of the civil authority and the norms proposed by it. And so that nothing be lacking in the total oppression of the Catholic Church, a royal tribunal for ecclesiastical affairs has been instituted. Bishops and holy pastors can be summoned before it, both by private individuals and by public magistrates, so as to stand trial like criminals and be coerced in the exercise of their spiritual functions

Existence of Church Threatened

Harassing of the Church

20. What We have recounted so far is common knowledge. Monks and virgins devoted to God are deprived of the common liberty of ordinary citizens and ejected with enormous cruelty, Catholic schools are daily being taken away from the care of the Church, and sodalities for pious works and even seminaries are dissolved. Additionally, the liberty of evangelical preaching is interfered with, hindered, teaching religion in the native language is forbidden in certain parts of the kingdom. Curates are withdrawn from their parishes, and prelates themselves are deprived of revenues coerced in many ways, and frightened with threat of imprisonment. While Catholics are vexed with all kinds of harassment such as these, how can We possibly acquiesce to what is suggested and not invoke the religion of Jesus Christ and the truth?

Government Support for Heretics

21. Nor is this the limit of the injuries which are committed against the Catholic Church. In addition the Prussian and other governments of the German Empire openly support those recent heretics who call themselves Old Catholics. Their abuse of such a name would be plainly ridiculous if it were not for the fact that so many monstrous errors of this sect against the principal teachings of the Catholic faith, so many sacrileges in divine service and the administration of the sacraments, so many grave scandals, and so much ruin of souls redeemed by the blood of Christ did not force tears from Our eyes.

Further Heresies

22. And surely what these sons of perdition intend is quite clear from their other writings, especially that impious and most imprudent one which has only recently been published by the person whom they recently constituted as a pseudo-bishop. For these writings attack and pervert the true power of jurisdiction of the Roman Pontiff and the bishops, who are the successors of blessed Peter and the apostles; they transfer it instead to the people, or, as they say, to the community. They obstinately reject and oppose the infallible magisterium both of the Roman Pontiff and of the whole Church in teaching matters. Incredibly, they boldly affirm that the Roman Pontiff and all the bishops, the priests and the people conjoined with him in the unity of faith and communion fell into heresy when they approved and professed the definitions of the Ecumenical Vatican Council. Therefore they deny also the indefectibility of the Church and blasphemously declare that it has perished throughout the world and that its visible Head and the bishops have erred. They assert the necessity of restoring a legitimate episcopacy in the person of their pseudo-bishop, who has entered not by the gate but from elsewhere like a thief or robber and calls the damnation of Christ upon his head.

23. These unhappy men undermine the foundations of religion, overturn all its marks and properties, and invent so many foul errors, or rather, draw forth from the ancient store of heretics and gather them together and publish them. Yet they do not blush to call themselves Catholics and Old Catholics, while in their doctrine, novelty, and number they show themselves in no way to be either old or Catholic. Certainly the Church rises up with greater right against them than it once did through Augustine against the Donatists. Diffused among all people, the Church was built by Christ the Son of the living God upon the rock, against which the gates of Hell will not prevail, and with which He Himself, to Whom all power in heaven and on earth is given, said He would be with until the consummation of the world. “The Church cries to her Spouse: Why do certain men withdrawing from me murmur against me? Why do these lost men claim that I have perished? Announce to me the length of my days, how long I will be in this world? Tell me on account of those who say: it was and is no longer; on account of those who say: the scriptures have been fulfilled, all nations have believed, but the Church has apostatized and perished from all nations. And He announced and the voice was not vain. What did He announce? ‘Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world.’ Moved by your voices and your false opinions, it asked of God that He announce to it the length of its days and it found that God said ‘Behold I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world.’ Here you will say: He spoke about us; we are as we will be until the end of the world. Christ Himself is asked; He says ‘and this gospel will be preached in the whole world, in testimony to all nations, and then will come the end.’ Therefore the Church will be among all nations until the end of the world. Let heretics perish as they are, and let them find that they become what they are not.”[8]

Pseudo-bishop

24. But these men having progressed more boldly in the ways of wickedness and destruction, as happens to heretical sects from God’s just judgment, have wished to create a hierarchy also for themselves, as we have intimated. They have chosen and set up a pseudo-bishop, a certain notorious apostate from the Catholic faith, Joseph Hubert Reinkens. So that nothing be lacking in their impudence, for his consecration they have had refuge to those very Jansenists of Utrecht, whom they themselves, before they separated from the Church, considered as heretics and schismatics, as do all other Catholics. However, this Joseph Hubert dares to say that he is a bishop, and, what passes belief, he is recognized and named in an explicit decree by the most serene Emperor of Germany and is proposed to all his subjects as a lawful bishop. But as even the rudiments of Catholic faith declare, no one can be considered a bishop who is not linked in communion of faith and love with Peter, upon whom is built the Church of Christ; who does not adhere to the supreme Pastor to whom the sheep of Christ are committed to be pastured; and who is not bound to the confirmer of fraternity which is in the world. And indeed “the Lord spoke to Peter; to one person therefore, so that He might found unity from one”;[9] to Peter, “the divine dignity granted a great and wonderful consortium of his power, and if He wished anything to be common with him and the rest of the princes, He never gave, except through him, what He did not deny to the others.”[10] Hence it is from this Apostolic See, where blessed Peter “lives and presides and grants the truth of faith to those seeking it,” that the rights of venerable communion flow to all”;[12] and this same See “for the Churches spread throughout the whole world is certainly the head, as it were, of their members, from which if one cuts himself off, he becomes an exile from the Christian religion, as soon as he begins not to belong to its structure.”[13]

25. Therefore the holy martyr Cyprian, writing about schism, denied to the pseudobishop Novatian even the title of Christian, on the grounds that he was cut off and separated from the Church of Christ. “Whoever he is,” he says, “and whatever sort he is, he is not a Christian who is not in the Church of Christ. Let him boast and preach his philosophy and eloquence with a proud voice; he who does not have fraternal charity and does not retain ecclesiastical unity, loses also what he previously had. Since by Christ one Church was founded divided into many members throughout the world, so likewise one episcopate, diffused in the harmonious multiplicity of many bishops. Subsequent to the teaching of God and the conjoined unity of the Catholic Church, he attempts to build a human church. Therefore, he who does not retain unity of spirit nor communion of peace and thus separates himself from the bond of the Church and the college of the priesthood cannot have the power nor the honor of a bishop because he kept the unity or the peace of the episcopacy.[14]

Excommunication

26. We have been undeservingly placed on this supreme seat of Peter to preserve the Catholic faith and the unity of the universal Church. Therefore following the custom and example of Our Predecessors and of holy legislation, by the power granted to Us from heaven, We declare the election of the said Joseph Hubert Reinkens, performed against the sanctions of the holy canons to be illicit, null, and void. We furthermore declare his consecration sacrilegious. Therefore, by the authority of Almighty God, We excommunicate and hold as anathema Joseph Hubert himself and all those who attempted to choose him, and who aided in his sacrilegious consecration. We additionally excommunicate whoever has adhered to them and belonging to their party has furnished help, favor, aid, or consent. We declare, proclaim, and command that they are separated from the communion of the Church. They are to be considered among those with whom all faithful Christians are forbidden by the Apostle to associate and have social exchange to such an extent that, as he plainly states, they may not even be greeted.[15]

27. From these matters We have touched upon more by way of deploring than narrating them, venerable brothers, you understand how sad and full of danger is the condition of Catholics in those regions of Europe which We indicated. Nor, truly, are things much better or more peaceful in America, several of whose regions are so hostile to Catholics that their governments seem to deny in deeds their Catholic faith. For there, some years past, a most severe war was begun against the Church, its institutions, and the rights of this Apostolic See. If We were to pursue these matters, We would find much to say; since, however, because of the gravity of the situation, they cannot be touched on in passing, We will treat them more thoroughly at another time and place.

28. Some of you may perchance wonder that the war against the Catholic Church extends so widely. Indeed each of you knows well the nature, zeal, and intention of sects, whether called Masonic or some other name. When he compares them with the nature, purpose, and amplitude of the conflict waged nearly everywhere against the Church, he cannot doubt but that the present calamity must be attributed to their deceits and machinations for the most part. For from these the synagogue of Satan is formed which draws up its forces, advances its standards, and joins battle against the Church of Christ.

29. Our Predecessors, as watchers in Israel, denounced these forces from the very beginnings to rulers and nations. Against them they have struck out again and again with their condemnations. We Ourselves have not been deficient in Our duty. Would that the Pastors of the Church had more loyalty from those who could have averted such a pernicious plague! But, creeping through sinuous openings, never stinting in toil, deceiving many by clever fraud, it has reached such an outcome that it has burst forth from its hiding places and boasts itself lord and master. Grown immense by a multitude of followers, these nefarious bands think that they have been made masters of their desire and have all but achieved their goal. The have at last achieved what they have so long desired, that is, that in many places they obtained supreme power and won for themselves bulwarks of men and authority. Now they boldly turn to this, to hand over the Church of God to a most harsh servitude, to tear up the supports on which it rests, and to attempt to distort the marks by which it stands out gloriously. What more? They would, if possible, completely wipe it out from the world after they had shaken it with frequent blows, ruined it, and overturned it.

Efforts to Defeat Heresies

30. Since these things are so, venerable brothers, apply all your effort to protect the faithful committed to your care against the snares and contagion of these sects. Bring back those who have unhappily joined these sects. Expose especially the error of those who have been deceived or those who assert now that only social utility, progress, and the exercise of mutual benefits are the intention of these dark associations. Explain to them often and fix deeper in their minds the pontifical decrees on this matter. Teach them that these decrees refer not only to Masonic groups in Europe, but also those in America and in other regions of the world.

31. As for the rest since we have fallen on these evil times let us take care first and foremost, as good soldiers of Christ, not to lose heart. Indeed, in the very storms in which we are tossed, there is a certain hope of achieving future tranquility and greater serenity in the Church. So let us arouse ourselves and the toiling clergy and laity, propped up by divine help and inspired by that most noble statement of Chrysostom: “Many waves and dire storms, press on but we do not fear lest we be submerged, for we stand on a rock. Let the sea rage, it cannot dissolve the rock. Let the waves rise, they cannot sink the bark of Christ. Nothing is stronger than the Church. The Church is stronger than the heavens. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words will not pass away. What words? Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it. If you do not trust the words, trust the deeds. How many tyrants have tried to oppress the Church! How many cauldrons, furnaces, teeth of beasts, sharp swords! They have accomplished nothing. Where are those enemies? They are handed over to silence and forgetfulness. Where is the Church? It shines brighter than the sun. Their deeds are extinct, its deeds are immortal. If when they were few, the Christians were not conquered, how can you conquer them when the whole world is full of this holy religion? Heaven and earth will pass, my words will not pass away.[16] Therefore not moved by any danger and not hesitating at all, let us persevere in prayer. Let us all strive to placate the celestial anger provoked by the sins of mankind so that the Almighty will rise up and command the winds and bring about tranquility.

32. In the meantime, We lovingly grant the apostolic blessing as a testimony of the special benevolence We have to you all, venerable brothers, and the clergy and the entire people committed to the care of each of you. (Pope Pius IX, Esti Multa, November 21, 1873.)

Appendix B

Pope Leo XIII’s Dall’Alto Dell’Apostolico Seggio, October 15, 1890

The war began by the overthrow of the civil power of the Popes, the downfall of which, according to the secret intentions of the real leaders, afterwards openly avowed, was, under a political pretext, to be the means of enslaving at least, if not of destroying the supreme spiritual power of the Roman Pontiffs. — That no doubt might remain as to the true object of this warfare, there followed quickly the suppression of the Religious Orders; and thereby a great reduction in the number of evangelical laborers for the propagation of the faith amongst the heathens, and for the sacred ministry and religious service of Catholic countries. — Later, the obligation of military service was extended to ecclesiastics, with the necessary result that many and grave obstacles were put to the recruiting and due formation even of the secular Clergy. Hands were laid upon ecclesiastical property, partly by absolute confiscation, and partly by charging it with enormous burdens, so as to impoverish the Clergy and the Church, and to deprive the Church of what is necessary for its temporal support and for carrying on institutions and works in aid of its divine apostolate. This the sectaries themselves have openly declared. To lessen the influence of the Clergy and of clerical bodies, one only efficacious means must be employed: to strip them all their goods, and to reduce them to absolute poverty. So also the action of the State is of itself all directed to efface from the nation its religious and Christian character. From the laws, and from the whole of official life, every religious inspiration and idea is systematically banished, when not directly assailed. Every public manifestation of faith and of Catholic piety is either forbidden or, under vain pretenses, in a thousand ways impeded.-From the family are taken away its foundation and religious constitution by the proclaiming of civil marriage, as it is called; and also by the entirely lay education which is now demanded, from the first elements to the higher teaching of the universities, so that the rising generations, as far as this can be effected by the State, have to grow up without any idea of religion, and without the first essential notions of their duties towards God. This is to put the ax to the root. No more universal and efficacious means could be imagined of withdrawing society, and families, and individuals, from the influence of the Church and of the faith. To lay Clericalism (or Catholicism) waste in its foundations and in its very sources of life, namely, in the school and in the family: such is the authentic declaration of Masonic writers.

5. It will be said that this does not happen in Italy only, but is a system of government which States generally follow. — We answer, that this does not refute, but confirms what We are saying as to the designs and action of Freemasonry in Italy. Yes, this system is adopted and carried out wherever Freemasonry uses its impious and wicked action; and, as its action is widespread, so is this anti-Christian system widely applied. But the application becomes more speedy and general, and is pushed more to extremes, in countries where the government is more under the control of the sect and better promotes its interest.-Unfortunately, at the present time the new Italy is of the number of these countries. Not today only has it become subject to the wicked and evil influence of the sects; but for some time past they have tyrannized over it as they liked, with absolute dominion and power. Here the direction of public affairs, in what concerns religion, is wholly in conformity with the aspirations of the sects; and for accomplishing their aspirations, they find avowed supporters and ready instruments in those who hold the public power. Laws adverse to the Church and measures hostile to it are first proposed, decided, and resolved, in the secret meetings of the sect; and if anything presents even the least appearance of hostility or harm to the Church, it is at once received with favor and put forward. — Amongst the most recent facts We may mention the approval of the new penal code, in which what was most obstinately demanded, in spite of all reasons to the contrary, were the articles against the Clergy, which form for them an exceptional law, and even condemn as criminal certain actions which are sacred duties of their ministry. — The law as to pious works, by which all charitable property, accumulated by the piety and religion of our ancestors under the protection and guardianship of the Church, was withdrawn altogether from the Church’s action and control, had been for some years put forward in the meetings of the sect, precisely because it would inflict a new outrage on the Church, lessen its social influence, and suppress at once a great number of bequests made for divine worship. — Then came that eminently sectarian work, the erection of the monument to the renowned apostate of Nola, which, with the aid and favor of the government, was promoted, determined, and carried out by means of Freemasonry, whose most authorized spokesmen were not ashamed to acknowledge its purpose and to declare its meaning. Its purpose was to insult the Papacy; its meaning that, instead of the Catholic Faith, must now be substituted the most absolute freedom of examination, of criticism, of thought, and of conscience: and what is meant by such language in the mouth of the sects is well known. — The seal was put by the most explicit declarations made by the head of the government, which were to the following effect: — That the true and real conflict, which the government has the merit of understanding, is the conflict between faith and the Church on one side and free examination and reason on the other. That the Church may try to act as it has done before, to enchain anew reason and free-thought, and to prevail; but the government in this conflict declares itself openly in favor of reason as against faith, and takes upon itself the task of making the Italian State the evident expression of this reason and liberty: a sad task, which has just now been boldly reaffirmed on a like occasion.

6. In the light of such facts and such declarations as these, it is more than ever clear that the ruling idea which, as far as religion is concerned, controls the course of public affairs in Italy, is the realization of the Masonic program. We see how much has already been realized; we know how much still remains to be done; and we can foresee with certainty that, so long as the destinies of Italy are in the hands of sectarian rulers or of men subject to the sects, the realization of the program will be pressed on, more or less rapidly according to circumstances, unto its complete development. — The action of the sects is at present directed to attain the following objects, according to the votes and resolutions passed in their most important assemblies, — votes and resolutions inspired throughout by a deadly hatred of the Church. The abolition in the schools of every kind of religious instruction, and the founding of institutions in which even girls are to be withdrawn from all clerical influence whatever it may be; because the State, which ought to be absolutely atheistic, has the inalienable right and duty to form the heart and the spirit of its citizens, and no school should exist apart from its inspiration and control. — The rigorous application of all laws now in force, which aim at securing the absolute independence of civil society from clerical influence. — The strict observance of laws suppressing religious corporations, and the employment of means to make them effectual. — The regulation of all ecclesiastical property, starting from the principle that its ownership belongs to the State, and its administration to the civil power. — The exclusion of every Catholic or clerical element from all public administrations, from pious works, hospitals, and schools, from the councils which govern the destinies of the country, from academical and other unions, from companies, committees, and families, — an exclusion from everything, everywhere, and forever. Instead, the Masonic influence is to make itself felt in all the circumstances of social life, and to become master and controller of everything. — Hereby the way will be smoothed towards the abolition of the Papacy; Italy will thus be free from its implacable and deadly enemy; and Rome, which in the past was the center of universal Theocracy will in the future be the center of universal secularization, whence the Magna Charta of human liberty is to be proclaimed in the face of the whole world. Such are the authentic declarations, aspirations, and resolutions, of Freemasons or of their assemblies.

7. Without exaggeration, this is the present condition and the future prospect of religion in Italy. To shrink from seeing the gravity of this would be a fatal error. To recognize it as it is, to confront it with evangelical prudence and fortitude, to infer the duties which it imposes on all Catholics, and upon us especially who as Pastors have to watch over them and guide them to salvation, is to enter into the views of Providence, to do a work of wisdom and pastoral zeal. — As far as We are concerned, the Apostolic office lays upon Us the duty of protesting loudly once more against all that has been done, is doing, or is attempted in Italy to the harm of religion. Defending and guarding the sacred rights of the Church and of the Pontificate, We openly repel and denounce to the whole Catholic world the outrages which the Church and the Pontificate are continually receiving, especially in Rome, and which hamper Us in the government of the Catholic Church, and add difficulty and indignity to Our condition. We are determined not to omit anything on Our part which can serve to maintain the faith lively and vigorous amidst the Italian people, and to protect it against the assaults of its enemies. We, therefore, make appeal, Venerable Brethren, to your zeal and your great love for souls, in order that, possessed with a sense of the gravity of the danger which they incur, you may apply the proper remedies and do all you can to dispel this danger.

8. No means must be neglected that are in your power. All the resources of speech, every expedient in action, all the immense treasures of help and grace which the Church places in your hands, must be made use of, for the formation of a Clergy learned and full of the spirit of Jesus Christ, for the Christian education of youth, for the extirpation of evil doctrines, for the defense of Catholic truths, and for the maintenance of the Christian character and spirit of family life.

9. As to the Catholic people, before everything else it is necessary that they should be instructed as to the true state of things in Italy with regard to religion, the essentially religious character of the conflict in Italy against the Pontiff, and the real object constantly aimed at, so that they may see by the evidence of facts the many ways in which their religion is conspired against, and may be convinced of the risk they run of being robbed and spoiled of the inestimable treasure of the faith. — With this conviction in their minds, and having at the same time a certainty that without faith it is impossible to please God and to be saved, they will understand that what is now at stake is the greatest, not to say the only interest, which every one on earth is bound before all things, at the cost of any sacrifice, to put out of danger, under penalty of everlasting misery. They will, moreover, easily understand that, in this time of open and raging conflict, it would be disgraceful for them to desert the field and hide themselves. Their duty is to remain at their post, and openly to show themselves to be true Catholics by their belief and by actions in conformity with their faith. This they must do for the honor of their faith, and the glory of the Sovereign Leader whose banner they follow; and that they may escape that great misfortune of being disowned at the last day, and of not being recognized as His by the Supreme Judge who has declared that whosoever is not with Him is against Him. — Without ostentation or timidity, let them give proof of that true courage which arises from the consciousness of fulfilling a sacred duty before God and men. To this frank profession of faith Catholics must unite a perfect docility and filial love towards the Church, a sincere respect for their Bishops, and an absolute devotion and obedience to the Roman Pontiff. In a word, they will recognize how necessary it is to cease from everything that is the work of the sects, or that receives impulse or favor from them, as being undoubtedly infected by the anti-Christian spirit; and they will, on the contrary, devote themselves with activity, courage and constancy, to Catholic works, and to the associations and institutions which the Church has blessed, and which the Bishops and the Roman Pontiff encourage and sustain.-Moreover, seeing that the chief instrument employed by our enemies is the press, which in great part receives from them its inspiration and support, it is important that Catholics should oppose the evil press by a press that is good, for the defense of truth, out of love for religion, and to uphold the rights of the Church. While the Catholic press is occupied in laying bare the perfidious designs of the sects, in helping and seconding the action of the sacred Pastors, and in defending and promoting Catholic works, it is the duty of the faithful efficaciously to support this press,-both by refusing or ceasing to favor in any way the evil press; and also directly, by concurring, as far as each one can, in helping it to live and thrive: and in this matter We think that hitherto enough has not been done in Italy.-Lastly, the teaching addressed by Us to all Catholics, especially in the Encyclicals “Humanum genus” and “Sapientiae Christianae,” should be particularly applied to the Catholics of Italy, and be impressed upon them. If they have anything to suffer or to sacrifice through remaining faithful to these duties, let them take courage in the thought that the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and is gained only by doing violence to ourselves; and that he who loves himself and what is his own more than Jesus Christ, is not worthy of Him. The example of the many invincible champions who, throughout all time, have generously sacrificed everything for the faith, and the special helps of grace which make the yoke of Jesus Christ sweet and His burden light, ought to animate powerfully their courage and to sustain them in the glorious contest. (Pope Leo XIII, Dall’Alto Dell’Apostolico Seggio, October 15, 1890.)

Appendix C

Pope Leo XIII’s Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892

Guardians of that faith to which the Christian nations owe their morality and civil redemption, We must dutifully discharge each one of Our supreme tasks. Therefore We must raise Our voice in loud protestations against the impious war which tries to take such a precious treasure away from you, beloved children. Already taught by long and sorrowful experience, you know well the terrible trials of this war, you who deplore it in your hearts as Catholics and as Italians. Can one be Italian in name and sentiment and not resent these continual offenses against divine beliefs? These beliefs are the most beautiful of our glories, for they gave to Italy its primacy over the other nations and to Rome the spiritual scepter of the world. They likewise made the wonderful edifice of Christian civilization rise over the ruins of paganism and barbarism.

Can we be Catholic in mind and heart and gaze with dry eyes on that land where our wondrous Redeemer deigned to establish the seat of His kingdom? Now We see His teachings attacked and His reverence outraged, His Church embattled and His Vicar opposed. So many souls redeemed by His blood are now lost, the choicest portion of His flock, a people faithful to Him for nineteen centuries. How can We bear to look upon His chosen people exposed to a constant and ever-present danger of apostasy, pushed toward error and vice, material miseries, and moral degradation?

2. This war is directed at the same time against the heavenly and the earthly kingdoms, against the faith of our ancestors and the culture which they handed on to us. It is thus doubly evil, being guilty of a divine offense no less than a human one. Is its chief source not that very masonic sect which We discussed at length in the encyclical “Humanum genus” of April 20, 1884, and in the more recent one of October 15, 1890, addressed to the bishops, the clergy and the Italian people? With these two letters We tore from the face of masonry the mask which it used to hide itself and We showed it in its crude deformity and dark fatal activity.

3. We shall restrict Ourselves now to its deplorable effects on Italy. For a long time now it has bored its way under the deceitful guise of a philanthropic society and redeemer of the Italian people. By way of conspiracies, corruptions, and violences, it has finally come to dominate Italy and even Rome. To what troubles, to what calamities has it opened the way in a little more than thirty years?

4. Our country has seen and suffered great evils in such a short span of time, for the faith of our fathers has been made a sign for persecutions of every sort. The satanic intent of the persecutors has been to substitute naturalism for Christianity, the worship of reason for the worship of faith, so-called independent morality for Catholic morality, and material progress for spiritual progress. To the holy maxims and laws of the Gospel, they have imposed laws and maxims which can be called the code of revolution. They have also imposed an atheistic doctrine and a vile realism to school, science, and the Christian arts. Having invaded the temple of the Lord, they have squandered the booty of the Church’s goods, the greatest part of the inheritance necessary for the ministers, and reduced the number of priests by the conscription of clerics beyond the limits of extreme need. If the administration of the sacraments could not be impeded, they sought nonetheless to introduce and promote civil marriages and funerals. If they have not yet succeeded in seizing control of education and the direction of charitable institutions, they always aim with perseverance to laicize everything, which is to remove the mark of Christianity from it. If they could not silence the voice of the Catholic press, they made every effort to discredit and revile it.

5. In this battle against the Catholic religion, what partiality and contradictions there are! They closed monasteries and convents, but they let multiply at will masonic lodges and sectarian dens. They proclaimed the right of association, while the legal rights which all kinds of organizations use and abuse are denied to religious societies. They proclaim freedom of religion and reserve odious intolerance and vexations precisely for the religion of the Italians — which, for that reason, should be assured respect and a special protection. They made protests and great promises for the protection of the dignity and independence of the pope, but you see their daily contempt of Our person. All kinds of public shows find an open field; yet this or that Catholic demonstration is either prohibited or disturbed. They encourage schisms, apostasies, and revolts against legitimate superiors in the Church. Religious vows and especially religious obedience are rebuked as contrary to human dignity and freedom, while impious associations which bind their followers by wicked oaths and demand blind, absolute obedience in crime are allowed to flourish with impunity.

8. Such are the fruits which the masonic sect has borne to us Italians. And after that it yearns to come before you, extolling its merits towards Italy. It likewise yearns to give Us and all those who, heeding Our words, remain faithful to Jesus Christ, the calumnious title of enemies of the state. The facts reveal the merits of this guilty sect toward our peninsula, “merits” which bear repeating. The facts say that masonic patriotism is no less than sectarian egotism which yearns to dominate everything, particularly the modern states which unite and concentrate everything in their hands. The facts say that in the plans of masonry, the names of political independence, equality, civilization, and progress aimed to facilitate the independence of man from God in our country. From them, license of error and vice and union of faction at the expense of other citizens have grown. The easy and delicious enjoyment of life by the world’s fortunate is nurtured in the same source. A people redeemed by divine blood have thus returned to divisions, corruptions, and the shames of paganism.

9. That does not surprise Us. — After nineteen centuries of Christian civilization, this sect tries to overthrow the Catholic Church and to cut off its divine sources. It absolutely denies the supernatural, repudiating every revelation and all the means of salvation which revelation shows us. Through its plans and works, it bases itself solely and entirely on such a weak and corrupt nature as ours. Such a sect cannot be anything other than the height of pride, greed, and sensuality. Now, pride oppresses, greed plunders, and sensuality corrupts. When these three concupiscences are brought to the extreme, the oppressions, greed, and seductive corruptions spread slowly. They take on boundless dimensions and become the oppression, plundering and source of corruption of an entire people.

10. Let Us then show you masonry as an enemy of God, Church, and country. Recognize it as such once and for all, and with all the weapons which reason, conscience, and faith put in your hands, defend yourselves from such a proud foe. Let no one be taken in by its attractive appearance or allured by its promises; do not be seduced by its enticements or frightened by its threats. Remember that Christianity and masonry are essentially irreconcilable, such that to join one is to divorce the other. You can no longer ignore such incompatibility between Catholic and mason, beloved children: you have been warned openly by Our predecessors, and We have loudly repeated the warning.

11. Those who, by some supreme misfortune, have given their name to one of these societies of perdition should know that they are strictly bound to separate themselves from it. Otherwise they must remain separated from Christian communion and lose their soul now and for eternity. Parents, teachers, godparents, and whoever has care of others should also know that a rigorous duty binds them to keep their wards from this guilty sect or to draw them from it if they have already entered.

12. In a matter of such importance and where the seduction is so easy in these times, it is urgent that the Christian watch himself from the beginning. He should fear the least danger, avoid every occasion, and take the greatest precautions. Use all the prudence of the serpent, while keeping in your heart the simplicity of the dove, according to the evangelical counsel. Fathers and mothers should be wary of inviting strangers into their homes or admitting them to domestic intimacy, at least insofar as their faith is not sufficiently known. They should try to first ascertain that an astute recruiter of the sect does not hide himself in the guise of a friend, teacher, doctor or other benefactor. Oh, in how many families has the wolf penetrated in sheep’s clothing!

13. It is beautiful to see the varied groups which arise everywhere today in every order of social life: worker groups, groups of mutual aid and social security, organizations to promote science, arts, letters, and other similar things. When they are inspired by a good moral and religious spirit, these groups certainly prove to be useful and proper. But because the masonic poison has penetrated and continues to penetrate here also, especially here, any groups that remove themselves from religious influence should be generally suspect. They can easily be directed and more or less dominated by masons, becoming the sowingground and the apprenticeship of the sect in addition to providing assistance to it.

14. Women should not join philanthropic societies whose nature and purpose are not well-known without first seeking advice from wise and experienced people. That talkative philanthropy which is opposed to Christian charity with such pomp is often the passport for masonic business.

17. In addition, since we are dealing with a sect which has pervaded everything, it is not enough to remain on the defensive. We must courageously go out into the battlefield and confront it. That is what you will do, beloved children, opposing press to press, school to school, organization to organization, congress to congress, action to action.

18. Masonry has taken control of the public schools, leaving private schools, paternal schools, and those directed by zealous ecclesiastics and religious of both sexes to compete in the education of Christian youth. Christian parents especially should not entrust the education of their children to uncertain schools. Masonry has confiscated the inheritance of public charity; fill the void, then, with the treasure of private relief. It has placed pious works in the hands of its followers, so you should entrust those that depend on you to Catholic institutions. It opens and maintains houses of vice, leaving you to do what is possible to open and maintain shelters for honesty in danger. An anti-Christian press in religious and secular matters militates at its expense, so that your effort and money are required by the Catholic press. Masonry establishes societies of mutual help and credit unions for its partisans; you should do the same not only for your brothers but for all the indigent. This will show that true and sincere charity is the daughter of the One who makes the sun to rise and the rain to fall on the just man and sinner alike.

19. May this struggle between good and evil extend to everything, and may good prevail. Masonry holds frequent meetings to plan new ways to combat the Church, and you should hold them frequently to better agree on the means and order of defense. It multiplies its lodges, so that you should multiply Catholic clubs and parochial groups, promote charitable associations and prayer organizations, and maintain and increase the splendor of the temple of God. The sect, having nothing to fear, today shows its face to the light of day. You Italian Catholics should also make open profession of your faith and follow the example of your glorious ancestors who confessed their faith bravely before tyrants, torture, and death. What more? Does the sect try to enslave the Church and to put it at the feet of the state as a humble servant? You must then demand and claim for it the freedom and independence due it before the law. Does masonry seek to tear apart Catholic unity, sowing discord even in the clergy itself, arousing quarrels, fomenting strife, and inciting insubordination, revolt, and schism? By tightening the sacred bond of charity and obedience, you can thwart its plans, bring to naught its efforts, and disappoint its hopes. Be all of one heart and one mind, like the first Christians. Gathered around the See of Peter and united to your pastors, protect the supreme interests of Church and papacy, which are just as much the supreme interests of Italy and of all the Christian world. The Apostolic See has always been the inspirer and jealous guardian of Italian glory. Therefore, be Italians and Catholics, free and non-sectarian, faithful to the nation as well as to Christ and His visible Vicar. An anti-Christian and antipapal Italy would truly be opposed to the divine plan, and thus condemned to perish. (Pope Leo XIII, Custodi di Quella Fede, December 8, 1892.)

Appendix D

Devotions to the Holy Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ

(As found at: Holy Face Devotion.)

PRAYERS OF REPARATION TO THE HOLY FACE OF JESUS

As requested by Our Lord Jesus Christ. These prayers are to be said on Sundays and the Holy Days of Obligation, publicly (if possible), and preferably before the Blessed Sacrament or before the picture of the Holy Face.

Dear Lord, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, I (we) offer You these prayers in reparation for the sins which offend God the most in these modern times--the sins of BLASPHEMY and the PROFANATION OF SUNDAY and Your Holy Days of Obligation:

One Our Father, Hail Mary,
and Glory Be To The Father

THE "GOLDEN ARROW" PRAYER
dictated by Our Lord to Sister Mary of St. Peter

May the most holy, most sacred, most adorable, most incomprehensible and unutterable Name of God be always praised, blessed, loved, adored and glorified, in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth, by all the creatures of God, and by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen.

After receiving this prayer, Sister Mary of St. Peter was given a vision in which she saw the Sacred Heart of Jesus delightfully wounded by this "Golden Arrow", as torrents of graces streamed from It far the conversion of sinners.

LITANY OF THE HOLY FACE OF JESUS

    I salute Thee, I adore Thee and I love Thee, O adorable Face of Jesus, my Beloved, noble Seal of the Divinity! Outraged anew by blasphemers. I offer Thee, through the heart of Thy blessed Mother, the worship of all the Angels and Saints, most humbly beseeching Thee to repair and renew in me and in all men Thy Image disfigured by sin.

    O adorable Face which was adored, with profound respect, by Mary and Joseph when they saw Thee for the first time, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which did ravish with joy, in the stable of Bethlehem, the Angels, the shepherds and the magi, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which did transpierce with a dart of love in the Temple, the saintly old man Simeon and the prophetess Anna, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which filled with admiration the Doctors of the law when Thou didst appear in the Temple at the age of twelve years, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which possesses beauty always ancient and always new, have mercy...
    O adorable Face which is the masterpiece of the Holy Ghost, in which the Eternal Father is well pleased, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which is the ineffable mirror of the divine perfection, have mercy on us.

Adorable Face of Jesus which was so mercifully bowed down on the Cross, on the day of Thy Passion, for the salvation of the world! Once more today in pity bend down towards us poor sinners. Cast upon us a glance of compassion and give us Thy peace.

     O adorable Face which became brilliant like the sun and radiant with glory, on the Mountain of Tabor, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which wept and was troubled at the tomb of Lazarus, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which was rendered sad at the sight of Jerusalem, and shed tears on that ungrateful city, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which was bowed down to the ground in the Garden of Olives, and covered with confusion for our sins, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which was covered with the sweat of blood, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which was struck by a vile servant, covered with a veil of shame, and profaned by the sacrilegious hands of Thy enemies, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which by Its divine glance, wounded the heart of St. Peter with a dart of sorrow and love, have mercy on us.

Be merciful to us, O my God! Do not reject our prayers, when in the midst of our afflictions, we call upon Thy Holy Name and seek with love and confidence Thy adorable Face.

    O adorable Face which was washed and anointed by Mary and the holy women and covered with a shroud, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which was all resplendent with glory and beauty on the day of the Resurrection, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which is hidden in the Eucharist, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which will appear at the end of time in the clouds with great power and great majesty, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which will make sinners tremble, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which will fill the just with joy for all eternity, have mercy on us.
    O adorable Face which merits all our reverence, our homage and our adoration, have mercy on us.
    O Lord, show us Thy Face, and we shall be saved!
    O Lord, show us Thy Face, and we shall be saved!
    O Lord, show us Thy Face, and we shall be saved!

Note: The Litany of the Holy Face above, and the same Litany in our pamphlets, is the abridged version, as the full version is quite lengthy. Here is the full-length Litany of the Holy Face.

PRAYER TO OFFER THE HOLY FACE OF JESUS TO GOD THE FATHER TO APPEASE HIS JUSTICE AND DRAW DOWN MERCY UPON US

Almighty and Eternal Father, since it has pleased Our Divine Savior to reveal to mankind in modern times the power residing in His Holy Face, we now avail ourselves of this Treasure in our great need. Since our Savior Himself promised that by offering to You His Holy Face disfigured in the Passion we can procure the settlement of all the affairs of our household, and that nothing whatsoever will be refused to us, we now come before Your throne.

Eternal Father, turn away Your angry gaze from our guilty people whose face has become unsightly in Your eyes. Look instead upon the Face of Your Beloved Son; for this is the Face of Him in whom You are well pleased. We now offer You His Holy Face covered with blood, sweat, dust, spittle and shame, in reparation for the worst crimes of our age, which are atheism, blasphemy, and the desecration of Your holy days. We thus hope to appease Your anger justly provoked against us. The All-Merciful Advocate opens His mouth to plead our cause; listen to His cries, behold His tears, O God, and through the merits of His Holy Face hearken to Him when He intercedes for us poor miserable sinners. (As found at: Holy Face Devotion.)

You are here

Republished: Jorge Mario Bergoglio Would Have Urged Catholics to "Dialogue" with Diocletian

Support Christ or Chaos