Do Not Defend a Serial Blasphemer

by Thomas A. Droleskey

As noted a few days ago, radio personality Don Imus is a serial blasphemer. One reader of this site from Rome, New York, wrote to me a few days ago to state that he once timed Imus's blasphemous use of the Holy Name of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, finding that it was a little less than five minutes between such blasphemous exclamations. How any believing Catholic can defend the "right" of a blasphemer to influence others to blaspheme and/or to reaffirm fellow unrepentant, serial blasphemers in their sins against the Second Commandment by remaining on the airwaves just boggles my little pea brain. How can anyone call a serial blasphemer a "good and decent man." This is absurd. It is a mockery of God Himself and the reverence with which His Holy Name must be kept at all times, both privately and publicly, personally and socially.

Thus, I want to reiterate a basic point that seems to elude the grasp of some "conservatives" who do not seem to be at all concerned with the spiritual welfare of a Mr. Iimus's immortal soul: it is a relatively easy thing to utter caustic remarks about people one does not know, in this case the members of the Rutgers University women's basketball team, when one takes the Holy Name of the Divine Redeemer in vain on a regular basis. What's the big deal about insulting mere creatures when one insults the Divine Redeemer every five minutes while on the airwaves? There is a direct connection here.

If this is not a big issue, you see, then Saint Bernardine of Siena was wrong to have sought to stop offenses against the Holy Name of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and to make acts of reparation for said offenses. Father Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto was wrong to have sought to stamp our blaspheme in the cow town of Tombolo, Italy, when he was a nearly-ordained priest in 1858. No Catholic can come to the "defense" of a serial blasphemer. Blasphemy needs to be condemned. Blasphemy needs to be corrected. Acts of reparation need to be made for blasphemy, which has no "civil rights" in the slightest, as I pointed out four days ago in Par for the Course in the Land of Pluralism: A Serial Blasphemer. Unrepentant, serial blasphemy leads to other sins of the tongue.

Indeed, even the naturalists kept blasphemy off of the air in the not-too-distant past. The Catholic Legion of Decency saw to this. Broadcasters were forced to adhere to a code of standards that prevented them from using swear words or from using the Holy Name of God and the Holy Name of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in profane, sacrilegious, blasphemous ways. Alas, a nation that rejects the Divinely-instituted authority of the Catholic Church to exercise the Social Reign of Christ the King after the exhausting of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation is defenseless to prevent the gradual decline of "social standards," powerless to prevent an eclipse of even natural reason by the forces of unbridled passion, which need to be restrained by the teaching authority and sanctifying offices of the Catholic Church. The loose tongue of the likes of Don Imus is but a product of the abject lie that is American pluralism, which asserts that error has "civil rights" and that no one religion can lay claim to the civil state's official recognition and submission. This is the path to social anarchy, as the popes of the Nineteenth and early-Twentieth Centuries consistently and prophetically reminded us.

Once again, let us turn to Pope Leo XIII, writing in Immortale Dei, November 1, 1885:

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.

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 the business of life, from the making of 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.

 

I defy any Roman Catholic to say that this is untrue. I defy any Roman Catholic to assert that Catholicism and Catholicism alone is the sole foundation of personal and social order. Anyone who believes otherwise, including Joseph Ratzinger and his band of conciliarist revolutionaries, falls under condemnation of Pope Pius XI in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922, that was included in Sed Libera Nos a Malo this very day:

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.

 

Catholics do not demonstrate their support for one who persists in serial blasphemy by overlooking it or minimizing it. Saint Louis IX, King of France, wrote to his son, the future Philip III, to seek root out all sin from the land, especially blasphemies and heresies. Why?  Because those who can blaspheme the Holy Name of God and put into question the Sacred Truths He has revealed exclusively to the Catholic Church are ultimately far more dangerous to civil society than those who commit physical crimes against property and persons. The great exemplar of Catholic civil rule wrote the following:

15. Let no one be so bold as to say, in your presence, words which attract and lead to sin, and do not permit words of detraction to be spoken of another behind his back.

16. Suffer it not that any ill be spoken of God or His saints in your presence, without taking prompt vengeance. But if the offender be a clerk or so great a person that you ought not to try him, report the matter to him who is entitled to judge it.. . .

32. Dear son, freely give power to persons of good character, who know how to use it well, and strive to have wickednesses expelled from your land, that is to say, nasty oaths, and everything said or done against God or our Lady or the saints. In a wise and proper manner put a stop, in your land, to bodily sins, dicing, taverns, and other sins.

 

No one is a friend to anyone if he reaffirms him in his sins and tolerates things that are repulsive to God and lead others to commit sins against Him and the sacredness of His Holy Name. No amount of ostentatious fund-raising for various causes redeems blasphemy, which can be forgiven only in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance that was instituted in the very Gospel passage from the Gospel according to Saint John that was read yesterday, Low Sunday. Pope Saint Pius X , yes the former Father Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto who fought blasphemy in Tombolo, Italy, noted the falsity of tolerating error as he condemned the philosophy of the Sillon in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910:

The same applies to the notion of Fraternity which they found on the love of common interest or, beyond all philosophies and religions, on the mere notion of humanity, thus embracing with an equal love and tolerance all human beings and their miseries, whether these are intellectual, moral, or physical and temporal. But Catholic doctrine tells us that the primary duty of charity does not lie in the toleration of false ideas, however sincere they may be, nor in the theoretical or practical indifference towards the errors and vices in which we see our brethren plunged, but in the zeal for their intellectual and moral improvement as well as for their material well-being. Catholic doctrine further tells us that love for our neighbor flows from our love for God, Who is Father to all, and goal of the whole human family; and in Jesus Christ whose members we are, to the point that in doing good to others we are doing good to Jesus Christ Himself. Any other kind of love is sheer illusion, sterile and fleeting.

Indeed, we have the human experience of pagan and secular societies of ages past to show that concern for common interests or affinities of nature weigh very little against the passions and wild desires of the heart. No, Venerable Brethren, there is no genuine fraternity outside Christian charity. Through the love of God and His Son Jesus Christ Our Saviour, Christian charity embraces all men, comforts all, and leads all to the same faith and same heavenly happiness.

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.

 

Once again, I defy any Catholic to say that these words are untrue, that they do not apply at all times in all circumstances until the end of time without any exception whatsoever.Oh, how the heresies of naturalism, including Americanism, have taken such hold of the hearts and minds of otherwise intelligent men to convince them that it is not absolutely necessary to promote the Catholic Faith with ever fiber of their being in all of their public utterances at all times, fulfilling the injunction issued by Pope Leo XIII in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890:

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

The chief elements of this duty consist in professing openly and unflinchingly the Catholic doctrine, and in propagating it to the utmost of our power. For, as is often said, with the greatest truth, there is nothing so hurtful to Christian wisdom as that it should not be known, since it possesses, when loyally received, inherent power to drive away error. So soon as Catholic truth is apprehended by a simple and unprejudiced soul, reason yields assent.

 

It is really superfluous to point out that the "Reverend" Al Sharpton, who sought to get Don Imus off of the airwaves as a result of the latter's offensive comments of April 4, 2007, has uttered racist comments in the past and helped to perpetrate the Tawana Brawley hoax twenty years ago this very year, resulting in the defamation of the character of prosecutor Steven Pagones, who won a defamation suit in 1998 against Sharpton and Alton Maddox and C. Vernon Mason. That Al Sharpton has any credibility at all to speak any issue speaks volumes about the sort of characters that are considered acceptable in our rotten world of naturalism and pluralism.

Al Sharpton's hypocritical criticism of Don Imus, though, is completely beside the point. Don Imus would have been taken off of the air fifty years ago until he corrected his blasphemous language. Could you imagine Don Imus hosting the old NBC Radio network's Monitor weekend program in the 1950s and being permitted to use blasphemy? (Indeed, as one reader informed me, Imus did host Monitor once a month on Saturday nights for a period of three months in 1973, without, it should be noted, the blasphemies that he began to spout on air when "broadcast standards" were relaxed over the course of time.) Come on, no one should be defending Don Imus. Any Catholic worth his salt ought to be calling for his conversion to the true Catholic Faith, mindful that each of us must make reparation for our own sins and that many of us, myself included, as I noted a few days ago, have fallen prey at one point or another in our lives of using loose talk to get a cheap laugh out of others.

It is one thing, however, to sin and to be sorry, seeking out the ineffable Mercy of the Most Sacred Heart in the hospital of Divine Mercy that is the confessional and to reform one's life once and for all in cooperating with the graces won for us on Calvary and that flow into our hearts and souls through the loving hands of Our Lady, the Mediatrix of All Graces. It is quite another to persist in sin unrepentantly. It is really inexcusable for any Catholic to refuse to exercise the Spiritual Works of Mercy (two of which are to instruct the ignorant and to admonish the sinner) with those, whether in or out of the Faith, who blaspheme the Holy Name of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. How can any Catholic claim to love Our Blessed Mother while turing a blind eye and a deaf eyes to blasphemies committed against her Divine Son.

A reader of this site from Idaho really summarize this whole business rather well when she quoted from the Book of Exodus:

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain: for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain. (Exodus 20: 7)

 

The reader wrote as follows:

Maybe Imus is getting what he deserves, hopefully someone will point out this passage to him for a good reflection on what may be the real source of his problems.

 

Well, Mrs. Adams, consider this done, at least as far as I can do it. Yes, it is really, really easy to let your tongue go rather mindlessly in all different directions, including making off-handed comments that are made to get the cheap laugh, when one blasphemes God unrepentantly and serially, when one has never been told that there is an all-merciful God Who wants him to know, love and serve Him as He has revealed Himself exclusively through the Catholic Church. It is also easier, admitting that anyone can sin with the tongue at any time, for one to sin against others when one does not see the Divine impress of the God-Man in the souls of all people, starting with innocent preborn children in their mothers' wombs.

All the more reason, ladies and gentlemen, for us to offer acts of reparation to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary as her consecrated slaves. We must make reparation for our own sins as well as those of others, imitating the holy simplicity of Francisco Marto in praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit. If Francisco Marto, a mere child, had to pray many Rosaries before going to Heaven, my friends, imagine how many Rosaries us worldlings, us "Magdalene souls" as Bishop Daniel Dolan so eloquently expressed it a few days ago, have to pray before we can make it to Purgatory, no less get into Heaven itself!

Let us be earnest about our Catholic duties as the consecrated slaves of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Send Mr. Imus a Green Scapular and a blessed Miraculous Medal. Pray for his conversion. For the strengthening of the Faith of those Catholics in public life who refuse to speak as Catholics, those men and women who refuse to denounce blasphemy for what it is, preferring to let the emotion of the false god of human respect and friendship stand in the way of showing themselves to be friends of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, friends of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

 

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Jude, pray for us.

Saint John the Beloved, pray for us.

Saint Francis Solano, pray for us.

Saint John Bosco, pray for us.

Saint Dominic Savio, pray for us.

Saint Justin the Martyr, pray for us.

Saint  Scholastica, pray for us.

Saint Benedict, pray for us.

Saint Anthony of Padua, pray for us.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Saint Bonaventure, pray for us.

Saint Augustine, pray for us.

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, pray for us.

Saint Francis Xavier, pray for us.

Saint Peter Damian, pray for us.

Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, pray for us.

Saint Lucy, pray for us.

Saint Monica, pray for us.

Saint Agatha, pray for us.

Saint Philomena, pray for us.

Saint Cecilia, pray for us.

Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Athanasius, pray for us.

Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.

Saint Isaac Jogues, pray for us.

Saint Rene Goupil, pray for us.

Saint John Lalonde, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel Lalemont, pray for us.

Saint Noel Chabanel, pray for us.

Saint Charles Garnier, pray for us.

Saint Anthony Daniel, pray for us.

Saint John DeBrebeuf, pray for us.

Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.

Saint Dominic, pray for us.

Saint Hyacinth, pray for us.

Saint Basil, pray for us.

Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.

Saint Sebastian, pray for us.

Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.

Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.

Saint Gerard Majella, pray for us.

Saint John of the Cross, pray for us.

Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.

Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.

Saint Genevieve, pray for us.

Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.

Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us

Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.

Saint Rita of Cascia, pray for us.

Venerable Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.

Venerable Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.

Father Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.

Francisco Marto, pray for us.

Jacinta Marto, pray for us.

Juan Diego, pray for us.

 

The Longer Version of the Saint Michael the Archangel Prayer, composed by Pope Leo XIII, 1888

O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.  Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.  Fight this day the battle of our Lord, together with  the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in heaven.  That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels.  Behold this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage.  Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the Name of God and of His Christ, to seize upon, slay, and cast into eternal perdition, souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.  That wicked dragon pours out. as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity.  These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the Immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on Her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck the sheep may be scattered.  Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory.  They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious powers of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude.  Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church.  Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the Lord; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations.  Amen.

Verse: Behold the Cross of the Lord; be scattered ye hostile powers.

Response: The Lion of the Tribe of Juda has conquered the root of David.

Verse: Let Thy mercies be upon us, O Lord.

Response: As we have hoped in Thee.

Verse: O Lord hear my prayer.

Response: And let my cry come unto Thee.

Verse: Let us pray.  O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon Thy holy Name, and as suppliants, we implore Thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin, immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of our souls. 

Response:  Amen.