There was a time when there were real, honest-to-goodness Catholic Archbishops of Canterbury.

Let's see here, that would be from the time of Saint Augustine of Canterbury in 597 A.D. to the time of Reginald Cardinal Pole in 1558, a period of nearly a millennium.

The fortieth legitimate Archbishop of Canterbury is the saint whose feast we celebrate today, Saint Thomas a Becket, who was indeed a martyr for the Church's liberties. Saint Thomas a Becket asserted the rights of Christ the King as the Archbishop of Canterbury, insisting that clerics accused of civil crimes be tried in ecclesiastical, not civil, courts. This led him to clash with his onetime friend, King Henry II of the House of Plantagenet. Prefiguring another English king named Henry (this one, number The Eighth, from the House of Tudor), Henry II could not abide his former friend's resistance to his, Henry's attempt to assert royal power over the Church, leading him to uttering the words that would inspire three of his barons to murder the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a Becket, on this date in 1170, eight hundred forty-seven years ago now. The latter Henry, the one called "The Eighth," had Saint Thomas a Becket's relics destroyed as his martyrdom was a reminder to one and all that the Church has Divine Rights superior to those of the civil state.

King Henry II had to do public penance for uttering the words that resulted in the martyrdom of Saint Thomas a Becket. His son, King John I, having been slow to learn the lessons of his public penance, was forced by his barons and noblemen in the year 1215 to sign the Magna Carta to guarantee the rights of the Church under civil law in England. This was a victory for the liberties of the Catholic Church that had been won by the blood of this great champion of the Social Reign of Christ the King, Saint Thomas a Becket, whose intercession we seek this day and every day for the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King in all nations, including the United States of America. Indeed, the situation we face in the United States of America today is the direct result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought by the Protestant Revolt and the rise of Judeo-Masonry.

Nations founded in the belief that men can pursue the common temporal good without subordinating themselves to the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for Its eternal safekeeping and infallible explications who believe that they can be "good" and "virtuous" on their own powers without belief in, access to or cooperation with Sanctifying Grace--are bound to degenerate over the course of time.

Statism is the only end result of the process of decay that must occur when nations reject the simple truth that Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. And it is the statists of the present moment, enabled as they are at this time by Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his band of conciliar revolutionaries, who sacrifice the legitimate national sovereignty and national security of their own nations in order to demonstrate their "solidarity" with "bettering" the world on a "global" basis.

A continued blessed Christmas and a blessed Feast of Saint Thomas a Becket to you all!

A new article was published in the latter part of the afternoon on the Feast of the Holy Innocents: Mazie Hirono and Kamala Harris: Epic Haters of Catholicism.

Our Lady, Mother of God, pray for us.

Saint Thomas a Becket, pray for us.

Today’s Feast of the Holy Innocents is very appropriate to post this commentary about anti-Catholic haters such as United States Senators Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Kamala Harris (D-People’s Republic of California). Haters Hirono and Harris are part of the unending crusade against believing Catholics in public life so that the decriminalized slaughter of the innocent preborn can continue unabated.

The spirits of Herod the Great, Herod the Tetrarch, Nero, Trajan, Valerian, Diocletian, Julian the Apostate, Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Elizabeth I, Oliver Cromwell, Robespierre, Hitler, Lenin, Stain, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Ho Chi Minh and other notorious haters of the true Faith, Catholicism, are alive and well in the Congress of the United States of America, the mainslime media, “entertainment” and academics and even within the walls of the Occupied Vatican at this time of apostasy and betrayal.

Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, pray for us.

The Holy Innocents, pray for us.

Today, the Fourth Day within the Octave of Christmas, is the Feast the Holy Innocents, the children who were put to death at the orders of the jealous titular King of Judea who had been installed by the Roman occupiers to pacify resistance to their unjust occupation of the Holy Land.

King Herod the Great, whose sons Herod and Philip were no less corrupt and violent than he was, wanted to kill the Baby King Whom he thought to be a threat to his own political suzerainty, such as it was as a puppet ruler under the Roman occupiers. It meant nothing to him to wipe out so many innocent children in his quest to kill the Baby King, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Who was born in Bethlehem to save, his, Herod the Great's, own immortal soul by the shedding of every single drop of His Most Precious Blood on the wood of the Holy Cross.

There have been imitators of Herod the Great throughout history who have sought to put to death the followers of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in an insane effort to wipe the Faith off of the face of this earth. The names of these imitators are legion. Their likes are to be found in our own midst today as politicians of both major organized crime families of naturalism in the United States of America, the Democrat Party and the Republican Party, believe that a just social order can be established and maintained while innocent preborn human beings are slaughtered under cover of law and while the Sovereignty of Christ the King is denied in favor of the sovereignty of men and their false, naturalistic, semi-Pelagian and anti-Incarnational ideas.

That having been noted, however, it is important to point out that the Holy Innocents are honored as saints because they died in the place of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as a political potentate drunk with his own self-importance sought to kill the Newborn Baby King with a furious rage. The slaughter of the innocent preborn today, as horrible as it is and as deserving of our attention especially by means of praying Our Lady's Most Holy Rosary and by means of sidewalk counseling, is different in that the children being killed today are not being targeted specifically in the place of Our Lord.

Unlike the speculative conclusions offered by the "International Theological Commission" of the counterfeit church of conciliarism in 2007, the Catholic Church has never held out "hope" that the souls of unbaptized infants go to Heaven, which is why the crime of the killing of the preborn is so monstrous as it kills the souls of those involved in the execution and denies the slaughtered babies the glory of the Beatific Vision. The Holy Innocents are saints because they were targeted quite specifically because of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and thus shed their blood on His account.

We need to invoke the intercession of the Holy Innocents today and every day to stop the shedding of the blood of the innocent under cover of law, praying to them especially that Catholics blinded by the allure of various naturalistic "strategies" to end the social evils of the day will be reminded of this truth stated by Pope Saint Pius X in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:

For there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact. (Pope Saint Pius X, Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910.)
Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ must reign as King of men and nations, my friends. Accept no naturalistic substitutes from the "Herods" of this world and their enablers in the counterfeit church of conciliarism who reject the Social Reign of the Newborn King, Our Divine Redeemer Whom Herod the Great sought to kill.

My next article, which is related to today's feast day, requires about two more hours of work before completion. Although I did work on it for a while before taking Chase to be euthanized yesterday afternoon (yes, a sixty-seven year-old man bawled like a baby) and upon my return thereafer, the hour is too late to complete it. This is one instance, however, when I can truly assure readers that an article will be published late on the same day of another posting! Thanks for your patience.

Finally, several readers have been kind enough in the past few days to send non-tax-deductible financial gifts. Others who have not done so recently are invited to join their ranks. Please consider doing so at this time. Thank you.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

The Holy Innocents, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, a son of Zebedee, was the youngest of the twelve Apostles. He was a virgin, a man who offered to His Divine Master, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, pure love in a heart that was not sullied by the world, the flesh and the devil.

This youngest Apostle with the purest heart was permitted to lean on Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's chest, wherein beat His Most Sacred Heart, at the Last Supper. And it was this purity of heart possessed by Saint John the Evangelist that led him to be present at the foot of the Holy Cross and to be given the singular privilege by Our Divine Redeemer of caring for His own Most Blessed Mother until the time of her death and bodily Assumption into Heaven.

Despite what the now retired Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI contended blasphemously in his Jesus of Nazareth book concerning the "disputed" nature of the human authorship of the Fourth Gospel, Saint John the Evangelist is indeed the human author of the Fourth Gospel and of his epistles and the Book of the Apocalypse.

Saint John is the Evangelist of the Incarnation of the Word whose Gospel provides us with Scriptural proofs for the doctrine of the Eucharist and for the Sacrament of Penance. And the Charity preached by Saint John the Evangelist was no exercise in empty sentimentality. For it was Saint John himself who wrote:

"Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. And every one that loveth him who begot, loveth him also who is born of him. In this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the charity of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not heavy. " (1 John 5: 1-3.)

This reflection has been revised and expanded in several places over the years.

The next original article for this site should be published at some point tomorrow, the Feast of the Holy Innocents. An effort will be made to finalize the article on the morning and early afternoon today before having to take Chase, our beagle, to the veterinarian to be euthanized as he is in the final stages of dying from a sarcoma that is the result of a rabies vaccination in January of 2014. Although I will write a reflection about the role of animals in the lives of those who choose to have them as pets at some point in the next week, suffice it for the moment that animals have mortal, not immortal souls, and that we give thanks to the good God for giving them to us and we give to thanks to Him for the time we have with them after they are dead. All things work for the honor and glory of the Most Blessed Trinity if we accept the events of our lives with perfect equanimity and acceptance of the Divine Will without hesitation or complaint. Deo gratias!

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us to remain faithful to the Catholic Faith.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

The shadow of the Holy Cross hung over the cave in Bethlehem even as the shepherds who had been called by angels from the nearby fields adored the Infant King alongside the Mother of God and her Most Chaste Spouse, Saint Joseph.

Holy Mother Church directs our attention to this fact today as we focus on the truth that the Birth of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in Bethlehem on Christmas Day was to make possible our own spiritual rebirth in the Baptismal font and our birth unto eternal life at the moment of our deaths if we persist to the very end in states of Sanctifying Grace. The path to our salvation runs directly through the Holy Cross and it requires us to be willing to sacrifice riches and honors and pleasures and human respect and even our very lives to bear witness to Christ the King as He has revealed Himself to men exclusively through the Catholic Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr was willing to lay down his life as he preached the Gospel of the Divine Redeemer in an attempt to convert the Jews who were listening to him and engaging him in disputation. He exhibited the Virtue of Fortitude as he proclaimed the Gospel in the midst of insults an threats. And Saint Stephen the Protomartyr exhibited the Virtue of Charity as he prayed for his executioners, one of whom was the fire-breathing anti-Catholic zealot named Saul of Tarsus.

Saint Stephen's prayers at the time of his martyrdom and from eternity thereafter won the conversion of Saul, who became the Apostle to the Gentiles, Saint Paul the Apostle. Saint Stephen wanted to effect the conversion of his executioners. He did not seek to reaffirm them in their act of murder or to reaffirm them in the practice of Judaism. Saint Stephen did not dismiss or denigrate the gravity of their crimes. He simply did not hold those crimes against his persecutors as he prayed for their conversion.

We must pray always for those who hate us, for those who calumniate us, for those who have done us some injury in the past, for those who have rejected us for one reason or another. Praying for and forgiving those from whom we are estranged is not an option for a Catholic. It is an obligation of the interior life imposed directly by the God-Man Himself in the Sermon on the Mount.

If He forgives us so readily in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, why are we so slow to forgive others who owe us but an infinitesimally small portion of what we owe Him for our own forgiven sins?

As the late Father John Hardon, S.J., noted in a 1996 conference in Sterling Heights, Michigan, at which I gave two presentations, "God permits us to sin so that we can forgive each other. Let me repeat myself here: God permit us to sin so that we can forgive each other."

A sinner who is contrite and thankful to God never withholds forgiveness from his fellow sinner. Saint Stephen teaches us that lesson today.

Are we going to learn it once and for all?

A continued merry and most blessed Christmas to you all.

[A new article should be ready for posting by tomorrow, the Feast of Saint John the Evangelist.]

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Stephen the Protomartyr, pray for us.

This is the last of four republished reflections on the Nativity of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ this day, Christmas Day 2018, and it relies very heavily upon The New English Edition of The Mystical City of God.

A  blessed Christmas to you all.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saint Anastasia, pray for us.

The conception and birth of a child changes the life of his parents forever. The death of a husband or a wife ends the sacramental bond of Holy Matrimony. Neither the death of a parent or his child ends the bonds between them that were forged at the moment of the child's conception.

Rejoice!

Venite Adoremus!

Our Saviour has been born for us of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Midnight in piercing cold.

Venite Adoremus!

Surrounded by the host of Heavenly angels, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity Who was made Man in His Most Blessed Mother's Virginal and Immaculate Womb by the power of the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, at the Annunciation nine months before is born for us this night. The long awaited Messiah comes as a helpless Infant, born in anonymity, poverty and humility. Bright radiant beams shine forth from His Holy Face, a Face that would be marred beyond all recognition by our sins as He walked on the Via Dolorosa on Good Friday to redeem us on the wood of the Holy Cross and thus make possible for us eternal life in Heaven in the glory of the Beatific Vision of God the Father, Himself, the God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

Those bright beams that shone forth from the Newborn Baby Jesus this morning are meant to shine forth from our own souls as we grow in the graces that He won for us on 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.

There is no Holy Mass, where Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is born under the appearances of bread and wine every time a true bishop or a true priest utters the terrible words of Consecration, without this holy night. Just as Our Lord obeyed His Heavenly Father to become Man, so does He obey mere men when they, whose immortal souls have been conformed to His Priesthood and Victimhood, utter the words of Consecration over the mere elements of this earth, making Him Incarnate to feed our bodies and souls unto eternal life.

There is no regeneration of souls in the Baptismal font or in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance without this holy night.

There is no hope for mankind without this holy night. There is, as the first Pope, Saint Peter, teaches us, no "salvation in any other. For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be saved." (Acts 4: 12.)

Only Christ the King is God. None other.

Catholicism is the one and only foundation of personal and social order. None other.

We gather around Our Lady, out of whose Virginal and Immaculate Womb the Newborn Babe passed as light through crystal this morning, and her Most Chaste Spouse, Good Saint Joseph, to adore Our Saviour, the very Lamb of God Who takest away the sins of the world, including yours and, most especially, mine!

May the Joyful Mysteries we continue to pray during this Octave of Christmas help us to be ever thankful for the great, incomparable gift that Our Lady gave to us this night as she brought forth her Divine Son so that He, Who stretched out His holy arms in the Crib this night, could stretch out this holy arms on the wood of the Cross to embrace all men to lift them up to the Heavenly Father in Spirit and in Truth.

On behalf of my wife Sharon and our daughter Lucy, I wish each of you a most Blessed and Joyous Christmas. This greeting is extended to all who access this site.

No matter the difficulties of the present moment as false ecclesiastical officials deny the Sacred Rights of the Social Reign of Christ the King and esteem the symbols of false religions that are hideous and loathsome in His sight, the peace of Christ the King that He has entrusted to the Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother is something that a believing Catholic must will for everyone, praying fervently for all whom God's Holy Providence has placed in his path over the years, including those, of course, from whom various events have estranged us.

May each of us, united to the Merciful Heart of the Divine Redeemer that was formed out of us and is united yet to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, help us to pray for each other as we pray for the day with all Catholics will speak with one voce (una voce) and will think with but one mind, that of the Catholic Church, she who teaches the unchanging truths of the Immutable Triune God.

In addition, to this republished article for Christmas Day 2018, the following articles are reflections that have been written over the years. "Born to Give Birth to Us All "is a variation of a "homily" I wrote for a conciliar "bishop" thirty years ago and has gone through various redactions in The Wanderer, the printed pages of Christ or Chaos and on this website. Each of the reflections repeat similar themes, which is why I decided that any effort of mine to write a new article would produce something similar to these three.

None of my own poor articles, however, compares to the work of gifted authors who probe the depths of the Sacred Mysteries. Even none of the work of such gifted authors, though, captures the inexpressible joy and peace and glory of his holy night and season. That can be done only in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Venite Adoremus!

A blessed Christmas to you.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Saint Anastasia, pray for us.

Most of the known world was under the control of the pagan Romans at the time of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s Nativity 2018 years ago. Paganism is on the rise again, and Jorge Mario Bergoglio—and those who preceded him in the seat of the conciliar presidency—have enabled paganism and every other kind of ‘ism and except Catholicism with gleeful abandon.

Four people have responded to the appeal that I made two days ago for non-tax-deductible financial gifts. It would be terrific if a few more readers of this site who are able to provide such gifts can do so at this time. Thank you.

A republished reflection on this day, the Vigil of Christmas, can be found by scrolling below.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.