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April 29, 2008

Children of One Revolution After Another

by Thomas A. Droleskey

The first rebel was Lucifer. He, a created being, wanted to be the object of adoration rather than to adore his Creator, God:

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in the morning? how art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound the nations? And thou saidst in thy heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High. But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the depth of the pit. (Is. 14: 12-15)

 

The devil has sought to foment rebellion ever since he was cast down into Hell by the power of God, exercised as it was by Saint Michael the Archangel:

And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels: And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world; and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Apoc. 12: 7-9.)

 

Adam and Eve fell under the devil's sway. King David, from whose very line the Messiah would be born, fell under the devil's sway for a time. Each of us, truth be told, falls under the adversary's sway to a greater or lesser extent when we forget to pray, when we forget to think supernaturally in light of the Deposit of Faith that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ entrusted exclusively to His Catholic Church for its eternal safekeeping and infallible explication, when we let our passions (pride, anger lust, envy, gluttony, etc.) get the better of us, when we think that we can "solve" our own problems and those of the world without having belief in, access to and cooperation with Sanctifying Grace. Our life here on earth as members of the Church Militant will involve a constant struggle between sin, if only Venial Sins, and grace. We will prove ourselves to be rebels after the devil himself is we relent in this battle, if we think and act in merely naturalistic terms, if we believe that we have some kind of inherent natural powers to drive the devil and his minions away:

Put you on the armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the deceits of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and power, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. Therefore take unto you the armour of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and to stand in all things perfect. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of justice, And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace:

In all things taking the shield of faith, wherewith you may be able to extinguish all the fiery darts of the most wicked one. And take unto you the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God). By all prayer and supplication praying at all times in the spirit; and in the same watching with all instance and supplication for all the saints: (Eph. 6: 11-18)

 

The massive disorder of the world in which we live is the product of the series of revolutions that have been wrought by the devil and his minions since the beginning of the Renaissance (the naturalistic revolution of humanism, which gave rebirth to the old moral relativism of the Sophists) in the Fifteenth Century. Just consider a thumbnail sketch of some of these revolutions, each of which is related to the others, each of which is but a variation on the same diabolical theme that man is more or less self-redemptive and that he does not need the teaching authority or the sanctifying offices of the Catholic Church to be saved or to know order in his own life or in that of society-at-large.

The Protestant Revolt was a rebellion against the Divine Plan that God Himself has instituted to effect man's return to Him through the Catholic Church, convincing those who followed its various leaders that the Catholic Church, she that is their very means of salvation, was not of God and that "liberation" from her was the path of salvation. The Protestant Revolt championed the separation of Church and State, making it possible for there to be the rise of unchecked monarchical absolutism in its wake and the abject statism, both of Communism in the East and of "democracy" in the West, that plagues the world today.

The philosophical revolt of the "Enlightenment," a logical successor in the Seventeenth Century of the Protestant Revolt of the Sixteenth Century, and the alliance made with it by the rise of Judeo-Masonry in the Eighteenth Century set the stage for the institutionalization of naturalism as the foundation of personal and social order, as Pope Leo XIII explained so cogently in just several brief passages found in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

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.

Amongst these principles the main one lays down that as all men are alike by race and nature, so in like manner all are equal in the control of their life; that each one is so far his own master as to be in no sense under the rule of any other individual; that each is free to think on every subject just as he may choose, and to do whatever he may like to do; that no man has any right to rule over other men. In a society grounded upon such maxims all government is nothing more nor less than the will of the people, and the people, being under the power of itself alone, is alone its own ruler. It does choose, nevertheless, some to whose charge it may commit itself, but in such wise that it makes over to them not the right so much as the business of governing, to be exercised, however, in its name.

The authority of God is passed over in silence, just as if there were no God; or as if He cared nothing for human society; or as if men, whether in their individual capacity or bound together in social relations, owed nothing to God; or as if there could be a government of which the whole origin and power and authority did not reside in God Himself. Thus, as is evident, a State becomes nothing but a multitude which is its own master and ruler. And since the people is declared to contain within itself the spring-head of all rights and of all power, it follows that the State does not consider itself bound by any kind of duty toward God. Moreover. it believes that it is not obliged to make public profession of any religion; or to inquire which of the very many religions is the only one true; or to prefer one religion to all the rest; or to show to any form of religion special favor; but, on the contrary, is bound to grant equal rights to every creed, so that public order may not be disturbed by any particular form of religious belief.

And it is a part of this theory that all questions that concern religion are to be referred to private judgment; that every one is to be free to follow whatever religion he prefers, or none at all if he disapprove of all. From this the following consequences logically flow: that the judgment of each one's conscience is independent of all law; that the most unrestrained opinions may be openly expressed as to the practice or omission of divine worship; and that every one has unbounded license to think whatever he chooses and to publish abroad whatever he thinks.

 

The American Revolution further institutionalized naturalism and indifferentism and semi-Pelagianism as the foundation of social order, contending that it was possible for men to know personal and social order absent a due subordination of men and nations to the teaching authority and sanctifying offices of the Catholic Church. It was possible for men to have a generic sense of "religiosity" without belonging to a specific religion. It was considered to be a protection for all religions for the state to favor none of them. The way was opened for the triumph of irreligion as the lowest common denominator. The American Revolution championed the cause of the confusion wrought by religious liberty, one of the hallmarks of the counterfeit church of conciliarism, and the pluralism it seeks to protect.

The anti-Incarnational violence wrought by the French Revolution introduced overt hostility to all religion, starting with the true Faith, as part of a policy of state-sponsored terrorism and open acts of blasphemy and sacrilege, paving the way for the rise of the various atheistic Communist revolutions, which themselves built on the foundation provided by the evolutionist revolution against the Catholic teaching on Origins and Special Creation.

Mind you, this is just a thumbnail review of a handful of the many, inter-related revolutions, each of which has been wrought in blood to a greater or lesser extent, that have produced the confusion of Modernity in the world and the apostasy of Modernism within the minds and hearts of so many Catholics, especially since the dawning of the age of conciliarism with the false pontificate of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII.

The world wrought by the revolutions of Modernity and Modernism has sown nothing but confusion in the minds of those who have been shaped, whether wittingly or unwittingly, by its nefarious consequences. Confusion is not of God, as the late Father Maximilian Mary Kolbe noted in a letter of spiritual direction to one of the brothers of the Conventual Franciscans:

So if anything stirs up confusion in your mind--all the more if, as you write, it leads you to negligence--then certainly this does not come from God. (Father Anselm W. Romb, O.F.M. Conv., ed., The Kolbe Reader, Franciscan Marytown Press, Libertyville, Illinois, 1987, p. 145.)

 

The rotten fruit of the confusion and disorder of Modernity, especially by means of pluralism and religious indifferentism and religious "freedom," are everywhere to behold. One does not have to look to the headlines of the invasion of a Mormon compound in West Texas or the speeches of a "Reverend" Jeremiah Wright to see this confusion. It is awash in the lives of the people we meet on a daily basis.

To wit, my dear wife Sharon told me the story yesterday of a woman who works in her brother's laundromat. The woman, who is a little younger than me, told Sharon that she was baptized a Catholic but that her father abandoned her mother, who them married a Greek Orthodox man, which is the false religion she has practiced to this day. The woman is married to a Russian Orthodox man. "Mixed marriages are such a blessing in this country," the woman told Sharon. "We would not know how to get along with others if we didn't learn to appreciate our differences and to live in peace with each other." Sharon gave her a Green Scapular and told her to visit with His Excellency Bishop Robert F. McKenna, O.P., at Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel in Monroe, Connecticut.

"Where do you begin with people?" Sharon asked rhetorically when she returned from the laundromat (in a borrowed vehicle as our Trail Blazer is undergoing massive repairs to its front end) as I was writing the article posted yesterday. "Where do you begin? This poor woman is a victim of one revolution after another. And she's watching Whoppi Goldberg on some television program to get 'information' about the world. Where do you begin?" As Sharon knew, of course, the Green Scapular is not a bad place to start.

This brief vignette, which is played out so repeatedly as we encounter lost souls in our travels around the nation and as we run errands wherever we happen to be for any extended period of time, demonstrates the confusion of a world lost in a sea of abject naturalism and religious indifferentism that are but the products of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King that was engineered by the devil as a result of the Protestant Revolt and then institutionalized by the rise of Judeo-Masonry. The horrible legacy of confusion produced by mixed marriages and by broken families continues to take its toll on the souls of so many millions of people, who muddle their ways through life without ever knowing the joy that could be theirs by embracing the Catholic Faith and by being totally consecrated to Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother.

Pope Pius XII, writing in Sertum Laetitiae, November 1, 1939, warned the bishops of the United States of America about these dangers, implying that some of them had grown very complacent to the dangers posed by a pluralistic society:

We desire, however, that this Our praise be salutary. The consideration of the good which has been done must not lead to slackening which might degenerate into sluggishness; it must not issue in a vainglorious pleasure which flatters the mind; it should stimulate renewed energies so that evils may be avoided and those enterprises which are useful, prudent and worthy of praise may more surely and more solidly mature. The Christian, if he does honor to the name he bears, is always an apostle; it is not permitted to the Soldier of Christ that he quit the battlefield, because only death puts an end to his military service.

You well know where it is necessary that you exercise a more discerning vigilance and what program of action should be marked out for priests and faithful in order that the religion of Christ may overcome the obstacles in its path and be a luminous guide to the minds of men, govern their morals and, for the sole purpose of salvation, permeate the marrow and the arteries of human society. The progress of exterior and material possessions, even though it is to be considered of no little account, because of the manifold and appreciable utility which it gives to life, is nonetheless not enough for man who is born for higher and brighter destinies. Created indeed to the image and likeness of God, he seeks God with a yearning that will not be repressed and always groans and weeps if he places the object of his love where Supreme Truth and the Infinite Good cannot be found.

Not with the conquest of material space does one approach to God, separation from Whom is death, conversion to Whom is life, to be established in Whom is glory; but under the guidance of Christ with the fullness of sincere faith, with unsullied conscience and upright will, with holy works, with the achievement and the employment of that genuine liberty whose sacred rules are found proclaimed in the Gospel. If, instead, the Commandments of God are spurned, not only is it impossible to attain that happiness which has place beyond the brief span of time which is allotted to earthly existence, but the very basis upon which rests true civilization is shaken and naught is to be expected but ruins over which belated tears must be shed. How, in fact, can the public weal and the glory of civilized life have any guarantee of stability when right is subverted and virtue despised and decried? Is not God the Source and the Giver of law? Is He not the inspiration and the reward of virtue with none like unto Him among lawgivers (Cf. Job xxxvi:22)? This, according to the admission of all reasonable men, is everywhere the bitter and prolific root of evils: the refusal to recognize the Divine Majesty, the neglect of the moral law, the origin of which is from Heaven, or that regrettable inconstancy which makes its victims waver between the lawful and the forbidden, between justice and iniquity.

Thence arise immoderate and blind egoists, that thirst for pleasure, the vice of drunkenness, immodest and costly styles in dress, the prevalence of crime even among minors, the lust for power, neglect of the poor, base craving for ill-gotten wealth, the flight from the land, levity in entering into marriage, divorce, the break-up of the family, the cooling of mutual affection between parents and children, birth control, the enfeeblement of the race, the weakening of respect for authority, or obsequiousness, or rebellion, neglect of duty towards one's country and towards mankind.

We raise Our voice in strong, albeit paternal, complaint that in so many schools of your land Christ often is despised or ignored, the explanation of the universe and mankind is forced within the narrow limits of materialism or of rationalism, and new educational systems are sought after which cannot but produce a sorrowful harvest in the intellectual and moral life of the nation.

Likewise, just as home life, when the law of Christ is observed, flowers in true felicity, so, when the Gospel is cast aside, does it perish miserably and become desolated by vice: "He that seeketh the law, shall be filled with it: and he that dealeth deceitfully, shall meet with a stumbling block therein" (Ecclesiasticus xxxii: 19). What can there be on earth more serene and joyful than the Christian family? Taking its origin at the Altar of the Lord, where love has been proclaimed a holy and indissoluble bond, the Christian family in the same love nourished by supernal grace is consolidated and receives increase.

There is "marriage honorable in all, and the [nuptial] bed undefiled" (Cf. Hebrews xiii: 4). Tranquil walls resound with no quarreling voices nor do they witness the secret martyrdom which comes when hidden infidelity is laid bare; unquestioning trust turns aside the slings of suspicion; sorrow is assuaged and joy is heightened by mutual affection. Within those sacred precincts children are considered not heavy burdens but sweet pledges of love; no reprehensible motive of convenience, no seeking after sterile pleasure, brings about the frustration of the gift of life nor causes to fall into disuse the sweet names of brother and sister. With what solicitude do the parents take care that the children not only grow in physical vigor but also that, following in the footsteps of their forbears whose memory is often recalled to them, they may shine with the light which profession of the pure faith and moral goodness impart to them. Moved by the numerous benefits received, such children consider it their paramount duty to honor their parents, to be attentive to their desires, to be the staff of their old age, to rejoice their gray hairs with an affection which, unquenched by death, will be made more glorious and more complete in the mansion of Heaven. The members of the Christian family, neither querulous in adversity nor ungrateful in prosperity, are ever filled with confidence in God to Whose sway they yield willing obedience, in Whose will they acquiesce and upon Whose help they wait not in vain.

That the family may be established and maintained according to the wise teachings of the Gospel, therefore, the faithful should be frequently exhorted by those who have the directive and teaching functions in the churches, and these are to strive with unremitting care to present to the Lord a perfect people. For the same reason it is also supremely necessary to see to it that the dogma of the unity and indissolubility of matrimony is known in all its religious importance and sacredly respected by those who are to marry.

That this capital point of Catholic doctrine is of great value for the solidity of the family structure, for the progress and prosperity of civil society for the healthy life of the people and for civilization that its light may not be false, is a fact recognized even by no small number of men who, though estranged from the Faith, are entitled to respect for their political acumen. Oh! If only your country had come to know from the experience of others rather than from examples at home of the accumulation of ills which derive from the plague of divorce; let reverence for religion, let fidelity towards the great American people counsel energetic action that this disease, alas so widespread, may be cured by extirpation.

The consequences of this evil have been thus described by Pope Leo XIII, in words whose truth is incisive: "Because of divorce, the nuptial contract becomes subject to fickle whim; affection is weakened; pernicious incentives are given to conjugal infidelity; the care and education of offspring are harmed; easy opportunity is afforded for the breaking up of homes; the seeds of discord are sown among families; the dignity of woman is lessened and brought down and she runs the risk of being deserted after she has served her husband as an instrument of pleasure. And since it is true that for the ruination of the family and the undermining of the State nothing is so powerful as the corruption of morals, it is easy to see that divorce is of the greatest harm to the prosperity of families and of states" (Encyclical Letter Arcanum).

With regard to those marriages in which one or the other party does not accept the Catholic teaching or has not been baptized, We are certain that you observe exactly the prescriptions of the Code of Canon Law. Such marriages, in fact, as is clear to you from wide experience, are rarely happy and usually occasion grave loss to the Catholic Church. A very efficacious means for driving out such grave evils is that individual Catholics receive a thorough training in the Divine truths and that the people be shown clearly the road which leads to salvation.

Therefore, We exhort the priests to provide that their own knowledge of things Divine and human be wide and deep; that they be not content with the intellectual knowledge acquired in youth; that they examine with careful scrutiny the Law of the Lord, Whose oracles are purer than silver; that they continually relish and enjoy the chaste charms of Sacred Scripture; that with the passing of the years they study more deeply the history of the Church, its dogmas, its Sacraments, its laws, its scriptures, its liturgy, its language, so that they may advance in grace, in culture and wisdom.

Let them cultivate also the study of letters and of the profane sciences, especially those which are more closely connected with religion, in order that they may be able to impart with clarity and eloquence the teaching of grace and salvation which is capable of bending even learned intellects to the light burden and yoke of the Gospel of Christ.

 

Let it not be said that Pope Pius XII was uncritical in his praise of Catholic life in the United States of America at the very beginning of his pontificate in 1939. He saw the problems that had been prophesied by his predecessors, choosing his language of admonition carefully while delivering a powerful admonition to the American bishops to combat with spiritual weapons the dangers that had arisen in their midst, dangers that were the direct result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen.

Pope Gregory XVI, who was much more direct and blunt in his condemnations of the very principles underlying Modernity, put the matter this way in Summo Iugiter Studio, May 27, 1832:

The Apostolic See has always ensured that the canons forbidding the marriages of Catholics with heretics have been observed religiously. Occasionally such marriages have been tolerated in order to avoid more serious scandals. But, even then, the Roman Pontiffs saw to it that the faithful were taught how deformed these marriages are and what spiritual dangers they present. A Catholic man or woman would be guilty of a great crime if he presumed to violate the canonical sanctions in this matter. And if the Roman Pontiffs themselves very reluctantly relaxed this same canonical prohibition in some serious cases, they always added to their dispensation a formal condition: that the Catholic party must not be perverted, but rather must make every effort to withdraw the non-Catholic party from error and that the offspring of both sexes must be educated entirely in the Catholic religion.

Therefore, guided by the example of Our predecessors, We are grieved to hear reports from your dioceses which indicate that some of the people committed to your care freely encourage mixed marriages. Furthermore, they are promoting opinions contrary to the Catholic faith: namely, they dare to affirm that a Catholic may freely and legally contract marriage with a heterodox party, not only without asking for a dispensation (which must be obtained from the Apostolic See in each individual case), but also without agreeing to the necessary obligations, especially the duty to educate all the offspring in the Catholic religion. Indeed it has even come to the point that these same persons insist that mixed marriages ought to be approved when the heretical partner is a divorced person whose former spouse is still alive. To this end they issue serious threats of punishments in order to induce priests to announce mixed marriages in the churches and, afterwards, to defend the act by which these marriages were contracted or, at least, to grant the contracting parties what they call dimissory letters. Finally some of these misguided people attempt to persuade themselves and others that men are not saved only in the Catholic religion, but that even heretics may attain eternal life.

Some circumstances, however, lighten Our grief which arises from this matter: namely, the constancy of most of the Bavarian people in holding fast to the Catholic faith, their sincere obedience to ecclesiastical authority, and the steadfastness of nearly all of their clergy in carrying out their ministry according to the canons. We know that, although you may not all hold the same opinion in this business of mixed marriages, all of you are resolved to hearken to the Apostolic See and, with its guidance, to protect the flocks entrusted to you, not even fearing to encounter dangers in order to safeguard the sheep.

Through these letters We hope to strengthen your fraternity so that in the matter under consideration you may continue to preach the unchangeable Catholic teachings and to safeguard the observance of the canons. Since Our opinion has been made known to you, We hope it will result in a more perfect agreement between all of you and the Holy See. We hope that Our dear son in Christ, Louis, the illustrious king of Bavaria, when he understands the present problem, may assist Us and you with his patronage because of his grandfather's zeal for the Catholic religion which Louis has inherited. If he toes, the evils which threaten the Catholic cause from this source may be prevented and our most holy religion may be restored and protected throughout Bavaria. Then Catholic clergy may enjoy complete liberty in carrying out their ministry, just as was provided for in the agreement entered into with the Apostolic See in 1817.

Next let Us start with the things which concern the faith which, as We mentioned above, some are endangering in order to introduce greater freedom for mixed marriages. You know how zealously Our predecessors taught that very article of faith which these dare to deny, namely the necessity of the Catholic faith and of unity for salvation. The words of that celebrated disciple of the apostles, martyred St. Ignatius, in his letter to the Philadelphians are relevant to this matter: "Be not deceived, my brother; if anyone follows a schismatic, he will not attain the inheritance of the kingdom of God." Moreover, St. Augustine and the other African bishops who met in the Council of Cirta in the year 412 explained the same thing at greater length: "Whoever has separated himself from the Catholic Church, no matter how laudably he lives, will not have eternal life, but has earned the anger of God because of this one crime: that he abandoned his union with Christ." Omitting other appropriate passages which are almost numberless in the writings of the Fathers, We shall praise St. Gregory the Great who expressly testifies that this indeed is the teaching of the Catholic Church. He says: "The holy universal Church teaches that it is not possible to worship God truly except in her and asserts that all who are outside of her will not be saved." Official acts of the Church proclaim the same dogma. Thus, in the decree on faith which Innocent III published with the synod of Lateran IV, these things are written: "There is one universal Church of all the faithful outside of which no one is saved." Finally the same dogma is also expressly mentioned in the profession of faith proposed by the Apostolic See, not only that which all Latin churches use, but also that which the Greek Orthodox Church uses and that which other Eastern Catholics use. We did not mention these selected testimonies because We thought you were ignorant of that article of faith and in need of Our instruction. Far be it from Us to have such an absurd and insulting suspicion about you. But We are so concerned about this serious and well known dogma, which has been attacked with such remarkable audacity, that We could not restrain Our pen from reinforcing this truth with many testimonies.

Strive to eradicate these slithering errors with all your strength. Inspire the populace of Bavaria to keep the Catholic faith and unity as the only way of salvation with an ever more ardent zeal, and, thus, to avoid every danger of forsaking it. Once the Bavarian faithful understands this necessity of maintaining Catholic unity, admonitions and warnings to them against joining in marriage with heretics will certainly not be in vain. If on occasion some grave cause should suggest such a mixed marriage, they will then apply for a dispensation from the Church and observe the conditions We mentioned above. You and their parents and others who have care of them are responsible for teaching them what the judgment of the canons is in this matter. They must be warned lest they should dare to break these canons and, thus, jeopardize their souls. Hence if the circumstances suggest it, it may be necessary to remind them of that wellknown precept of the natural and divine law, which commands us to avoid not only sins but the near occasion of sin as well. Remind them also of the other precept of the same law which enjoins parents to rear their children in the discipline and admonitions of the Lord (Eph 6.4). Therefore, they must instruct them in the true worship of God, which is unique to the Catholic religion. Hence, exhort your faithful to weigh seriously how great an offense they commit against the supreme Deity and how cruelly they act toward themselves and their future children when, by rashly contracting a mixed marriage, they may expose themselves and their children to the danger of perversion. So that the gravity of such danger may appear more clearly, recall for them those salutary admonitions of the Apostles, of the Fathers, and of the canons, which warn that familiar association with heretics is to be shunned.

But it may happen that these warnings and admonitions go unheeded and that some Catholic man or woman is unwilling to give up his perverse intention of entering upon a mixed marriage. If a dispensation is not requested or not obtained from the Church or if the necessary conditions or a certain one of them is not fulfilled, then it will be the duty of the priest to abstain not only from honoring the marriage itself with his presence, but also from announcing the marriage and from granting dimissory letters. You must admonish the priests and demand that they abstain from every such act. For one who has the care of souls and who acts differently, especially in the circumstances prevalent in Bavaria, would seem in some way to approve these illicit marriages by his actions. His works would encourage the liberty of those souls, a liberty which is pernicious to their salvation and even to the cause of faith.

 

Rather than warn against "mixed marriages," which are the result of the Protestant Revolution (certainly not a "reformation" as its apologists like to call it) and the rise of Judeo-Masonry, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI has actually approved them as "laboratories" of "unity" in advancement of "ecumenical dialogue:"

Benedict, noted, however, that Christian churches would become "more credible before the world" if they met "contemporary charitable challenges" together, and promoted marriage and family life across denominational boundaries.

"In today's world, in which international and inter-cultural relations are multiplying, it happens increasingly often that young people from different traditions, religions or Christian denominations decide to start a family," Benedict XVI told the meeting.

Present were Polish Christian leaders from the Autocephallous Orthodox, Evangelical Augsburg, Reformed and Methodist churches, as well as Baptists, Polish-Catholics and Old Catholic Mariavites.

"Thanks to the spread of ecumenical dialogue on a larger scale, the decision can lead to the formation of a practical laboratory of unity. For this to happen, there is a need for mutual goodwill, understanding and maturity in faith of both parties, and also of the communities from which they come," said Benedict. (Benedict tells Poles he backs stronger inter-church relations | Ekklesia; see also Issues & Reflections.)

 

How is it possible to explain to that woman in the laundromat that the very situation in which she grew up as a child and in which she now lives as a grown woman is the product of diabolical forces when the man perceived to be the "pope" praises such situations as "laboratories" of "unity"? Mixed marriages are the result of the existence of the pluralistic spirit of religious indifferentism, which is itself engendered by the heresy of "religious liberty" that was championed at every possible opportunity by Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI during his recent visit to the United States of America.

Indeed, it is that very spirit of "religious liberty" that makes it possible for a cult called Mormonism to be able to spread publicly and thus to create a condition wherein the civil state, separated as it is from the Catholic Church and committed to the promotion of a veritable panoply of evils in the curricula mandated in the "schools" under its direct control, can intervene monstrously in the name of "child protection" in order to place children in foster homes where their souls will be just as much under attack as they had been in the Mormon compound. Such a situation would not be allowed to occur in a Catholic state. Those who attempted to promote, no less practice polygamy, would be arrested and tried and punished as violators of the binding precepts of the Divine Positive Law and the Natural Law and that would be the end of the matter.

A nation that is founded on naturalistic, religiously indifferentist and semi-Pelagian principles, has no clear, consistent standard by which to judge one situation of genuine child abuse from another, resulting in the absolute and utter absurdity of deeming one situation, polygamy, to be harmful to children but deeming another, say, placing children in the care of "couples" engaged in sins of perversity against the Sixth and Ninth Commandments, to be acceptable. This is no secular, religiously indifferentist, inter-denominational or non-denominational way to combat this absurdity. Catholicism is the one and only antidote to such  madness, to say nothing of the madness of this or that Protestant "minister" (whether Jeremiah Wright or the late Jerry Falwell or Robert Schuller) frothing inanities as the fruit of the "glories" of "civil" and "religious" liberty.

Our Lady, whose month of May begins in less than two days from now, on the Feast of the Ascension of her Divine Son this year, is our sure refuge in the midst of the revolutions that shaped the world in which we live and have done so much damage to so many souls, including our own (as few of us have been immune to the ravages of the pestilences of Modernity and Modernism). We must make sure to pray as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit, offering up all of our trials and tribulations of the moment to the Most Sacred Heart of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Father Maximilian Mary Kolbe explained in "A Letter of Spiritual Direction to Brother Matthew" how much we must rely upon Our Lady:

"But if anything under any pretext, even that of a more elevated devotion, leads you away from our Lady, consider it as a sinister trap, even though it appears to you as the holiest of practices.

In her and through her we shall surely reach the Heart of Jesus, but without her (in the sense I explained above) everything is only a satanic illusion intended to lead souls to ruin. A fine illustration of this is the vision that our Father St. Francis had of the two ladders, one red and the other white, by which the friars were climbing to heaven.

[The Little Flowers of St. Francis, chapter 7: "How Bro. Leo saw a terrible vision in a dream." He saw the friars trying to reach paradise by means of a red ladder at the top of which was Jesus awaited them; but all of them, after mounting a few rungs, kept falling back to the ground. Then St. Francis encouraged the friars to climb up to heaven using a white ladder, on the top of which the most Blessed Virgin awaited them. "Without any trouble they entered into the eternal kingdom."

May the Immaculate always keep you closer and closer to her Immaculate Heart!

P. S. No matter what you find written in any wa and anywhere, be sure that whoever belongs to the Immaculate will not be lost. The more he belongs to her the more will he belong to Jesus and to the Father. (Father Anselm W. Romb, O.F.M. Conv., ed., The Kolbe Reader, Franciscan Marytown Press, Libertyville, Illinois, 1987, pp. 145-146.)

 

A slightly different message than that delivered by the antipope during his American visit, wouldn't you say?

We must belong to Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart during these times when civil and doctrinal and liturgical revolutionaries hold such sway with so many. Our Lady will enfold us under her loving mantle of her Brown Scapular as we seek the protection offered by true bishops and true priests who make no concessions to conciliarism or the nonexistent legitimacy of the false shepherds who spread error in the name of the Catholic Church and who dishonor her by refusing to exhort one and all to go to her Divine Son through her Immaculate Heart, especially by means of her being tenderly devoted to the faithful, daily recitation of her Most Holy Rosary.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

 

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?

Vivat Christus Rex! Viva Cristo Rey!

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

 

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

 

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Peter of Verona, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

 





© Copyright 2008, Thomas A. Droleskey. All rights reserved.