Grace Does Not Flow From "Freedom of the Press"

by Thomas A. Droleskey

Americanism influences so many Catholics in so many ways. Its naturalistic spirit of individualism and egalitarianism convinces even well-meaning people that "anything goes" insofar written or oral communications are concerned. The false ethos of "freedom of the press" has given rise to the belief everything that makes its way into the public domain is a fit subject for further commentary, a problem that has become a modern-day plague as a result of the internet, e-mail, chat rooms, and forums of various types. Silence and circumspection about the lives and internal dispositions of private people have become things so unknown to most Catholics that they recoil in indignation when they are reminded that we are supposed to believe in censorship, starting with the self-censorship we impose upon ourselves as we refrain from discussing the events of the lives of others, no less attempting to pass definitive judgments on the subjective state of their immortal souls in the eyes of God.

It is not at all uncommon for various lay or other "experts" (including the self-professed "brothers" who are no gems at all) to deem various persons to be on the sure path to Hell, convincing many others to adopt their presumptuous arrogation of powers that belong to God alone. Catholics are never indifferent to the salvation of the souls of others, being careful never to reaffirm anyone in a false religion, but they must be careful also to understand that the final judgment on souls belongs to God, Who alone understands the subjective state of souls, as Pope Pius IX noted in Singulari Quadam, December 8, 1854:

It must, of course, be held as a matter of faith that outside the apostolic Roman Church no one can be saved, that the Church is the only ark of salvation, and that whoever does not enter it will perish in the flood. On the other hand, it must likewise be held certain that those who are affected by ignorance of the true religion, if it is invincible ignorance, are not subject to any guilt in this matter before the eyes of the Lord. Now, then, who could presume in himself an ability to set the boundaries of such ignorance, taking into consideration the natural differences of peoples, lands, native talents, and so many other factors? Only when we have been released from the bonds of this body and see God just as he is (see 1 John 3:2) shall we really understand how close and beautiful a bon joins divine mercy with divine justice. But as long as we dwell on earth, encumbered with this soul-dulling mortal body, let us tenaciously cling to the Catholic doctrine that there is one God, one faith, one baptism (see Eph. 4:5). To proceed with further investigation is wrong.

Nevertheless, as charity demands, let us pray continually for the conversion to Christ of all nations everywhere. Let us devote ourselves to the salvation of all men as far as we can, for the hand of the Lord is not shortened (see Isa. 59:1). The gifts of heavenly grace will assuredly not be denied to those who sincerely want and pray for refreshment by the divine light. These truths need to be fixed deeply in the minds of the faithful so that they cannot be infected with doctrines tending to foster the religious indifferentism which We see spreading widely, with growing strength, and with destructive effect upon souls.

 

We pray and work for the conversion of all men and nations with great urgency as far as we are able. We leave the matter of the subjective state of individual souls to God. Go tell that to the omniscient "experts" whose every word (or ellipsis) is followed with great loyalty by their sycophantic followers. One word of condemnation about a fellow Catholic from these "experts" is enough for their followers to consider the condemned man to be irretrievably lost and unworthy of anyone's prayers, a "heretic" to be shunned because of the "definitive" judgment pronounced by said "experts." This is a perversion of the use of the means of modern communications.

Sadly, it is also not uncommon for private communications, which must be considered confidential unless permission is sought from a living person for their dissemination, to make their way into the public venue without even so much as a simple effort being made to ask the author of a particular piece of communication if he has any objection to its being printed. While this is a matter of strict justice in the moral realm as one must ascertain if the copy of a particular letter or note is authentic and contains no alterations from the way in which it was written originally and make an honest effort to secure the author's comments as part of the necessary fact-finding that goes into weighing a consideration of even to publish a particular news story, it is also something that used to be standard fare in the merely naturalistic realm of secular journalism.

To wit, it used to be a standard practice in the annals of secular journalism that one had to do his due diligence before writing a particular news story or commentary. One made telephone calls to secure comment about a particular story. If the subject of a news story is unavailable for comment, one is to leave a message for that person to respond by such and such a date or such and such a time, making sure to provide a reasonable amount of time for a response before proceeding with publication. I am sure that most of you have read news stories containing sentences such as, "Repeated efforts to reach so-and-so were unsuccessful" or "so-and-so did not return messages left for him by this reporter." One must do his due diligence before even starting to write a news story or commentary. Anything less than that used to be considered a violation of the canons of the naturalistic ethics of secular journalism.

The Faith imposes higher standards on us. Indeed, the Faith imposes the highest standards upon us.

Catholics must understand that there is no such thing as "freedom of the press." "Freedom of the press" is a lie of Americanism. Even the Russian Orthodox writer Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn noted this in his commencement address, "A World Split Apart," at Harvard University, June 8, 1978:

The press too, of course, enjoys the widest freedom. (I shall be using the word press to include all media). But what sort of use does it make of this freedom?

Here again, the main concern is not to infringe the letter of the law. There is no moral responsibility for deformation or disproportion. What sort of responsibility does a journalist have to his readers, or to history? If they have misled public opinion or the government by inaccurate information or wrong conclusions, do we know of any cases of public recognition and rectification of such mistakes by the same journalist or the same newspaper? No, it does not happen, because it would damage sales. A nation may be the victim of such a mistake, but the journalist always gets away with it. One may safely assume that he will start writing the opposite with renewed self-assurance.

Because instant and credible information has to be given, it becomes necessary to resort to guesswork, rumors and suppositions to fill in the voids, and none of them will ever be rectified, they will stay on in the readers' memory. How many hasty, immature, superficial and misleading judgments are expressed every day, confusing readers, without any verification. The press can both simulate public opinion and miseducate it. Thus we may see terrorists heroized, or secret matters, pertaining to one's nation's defense, publicly revealed, or we may witness shameless intrusion on the privacy of well-known people under the slogan: "everyone is entitled to know everything." But this is a false slogan, characteristic of a false era: people also have the right not to know, and it is a much more valuable one. The right not to have their divine souls stuffed with gossip, nonsense, vain talk. A person who works and leads a meaningful life does not need this excessive burdening flow of information.

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic disease of the 20th century and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press. In-depth analysis of a problem is anathema to the press. It stops at sensational formulas. (Solzhenitsyn's Harvard Address.)

 

Catholics are supposed to realize that not everything that happens in the lives of our chapels or our fellow parishioners is "fair game" for comment and analysis. We are supposed to exercise self-restraint and circumspection before we believe that "we" have the "facts" and "run" with those "facts." It is usually the case, my friends, that pastoral matters are far, far more complex that any one party to a given controversy makes it out to be. And we must be content to recognize that not everything that happens is our business. We must not go out of our way to make the events of the lives of those around our business. We must be content to wait until the Last Day, at which point the specific circumstances and events of each of own lives--and of everyone who has ever lived--will be made manifest.

To disseminate, whether by speech or the printed word, one side of a complex pastoral situation without even making an effort to secure a "for-the-record" set of comments from the other side of that situation is nothing other than a glorified form of backbiting. Presenting a one-sided view of a situation, no less one that should never see the light of day at all, causes needless scandal, incites people to anger, induces untold numbers of people to make rash judgments, and could lead in our present times to people abandoning chapels where their souls are given the true Sacraments by true bishops or true bishops who spend themselves tirelessly in behalf of souls. Leaving aside all subjective culpability, something that is known to God alone, it is nevertheless true that those who publicize one-sided reports of complex pastoral situations are doing the devil's work of agitating people to rebel against their pastors and to consider themselves "experts" in areas in which they have zero--as in no--formal classroom training.

Father Belet noted what happens when backbiters bit as they fail to weigh the proportionate harm that will be caused by their words as they convince themselves that they "must" report something about the lives of others:

Other people do not only listen to backbiters, they spur them on to continue their stories by their eagerness in hearing them. They say, "Finish relating the details of what your started saying about that person; I'm anxious to hear the truth. I had already heard something about it, but it was a bit vague. Tell me everything!"

Still others softly entice and incite backbiters, saying, "People are saying such things about you, and you remain silent? How strange!" This provides a perfect occasion for the backbiter to freely give vent to all the bile that is in his heart. Those people are the guiltiest of all, for they take delight in the evil they hear spoken about others.

Thus, both the backbiter and his listener have got the devil in them, one in his mouth and the other in his ear.

Normally, people who are so credulous as to believe all they hear spoken in this manner will quickly manifest anger and impatience, hearing word upon word, insult upon insult, outrage upon outrage. From this stem unending arguments and enmities: the bonds that hold men together are broken, charity is snuffed out, sincere affection and mutual trust vanish. From this also stems an unbridled desire to do harm, urging us to reveal the weaknesses of others. Hidden beneath a cloak of kindness, we disguise vice with a semblance of honesty and start thinking that it is no longer vice. (Father Belet, The Sins of the Tongue: The Backbiting Tongue, pp. 64-65.)

 

Lay Catholics must understand that they are not the equal of their true shepherds in the Order of Grace (the Order of Redemption) and that it is a grave sin to treat them as some underling who must "answer" to our "demands" in public. Although such a spectacle has become commonplace in the past forty years as "conservative" Catholics (and I used to be one) complained loud and long about this or that bad "bishop" while indemnifying the "pope" who appointed him, this phenomenon in and of itself is one of the corroborative proofs of the counterfeit nature of conciliarism as our sensus Catholicus is supposed to instill within us a deep sense of reverence for the person of our bishops, men who have the fullness of the Priesthood and the Victimhood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and to never strike them publicly. Whatever pastoral disagreements we have with our shepherds must be discussed privately lest we cause scandal to others and send them back into the waiting arms of the merchants of eternal death in the counterfeit church of conciliarism, and those doctrinal or moral disagreements we may have with our shepherds in this time of a papal vacancy may be discussed publicly only after consulting them and seeking their permission for us to bring a certain matter, sent to them beforehand for their considered review, into print.

Furthermore, many Catholics today have lost sight of the fact that the laity, though they can work in conjunction with their shepherds and as they are obedient to them, are not to undertake apostolates such as newspapers or colleges or other apostolic enterprises without first seeking the approval of ecclesiastical officials and understanding that their work is subject to the censorship of those officials. Many of the articles that appear on this site, such as this one, are submitted to one or more of our true shepherds for their review prior to publication. And it was the case even in my "resist and recognize" days that my work was submitted to men who had priestly training (although I recognize now that most of them were not validly ordained priests). Although we live in a time of apostasy and betrayal and lack the normal processes to secure ecclesiastical permission for our work, it is nevertheless true that we must act in conjunction with and under the supervision of those who are our superiors in the Order of Grace (the Order of Redemption).

Pope Leo XIII emphasized the necessity of working with and under our shepherds in Officiorum ac Munerum, January 25, 1897:

All the faithful are bound to submit to preliminary Ecclesiastical Censorship at least those books which treat of Holy Scripture, Sacred Theology, Ecclesiastical History, Canon Law, Natural Theology, Ethics, and other Religious or Moral subjects of this character; and in general all writings specially concerned with Religion and Morality.

The Secular Clergy, in order to give an example of respect towards their Ordinaries, ought not to publish books, even when treating of merely natural arts and Sciences, without their knowledge.

They are also prohibited from undertaking the management of newspapers or periodicals without the previous permission of their Ordinaries.

 

Pope Leo XIII had explained in Sapientiae Christianae, January 10, 1890, that the work is the laity is to be commended to ward off the errors of the day. That work must echo that of the shepherd and work in conjunction with him:

No one, however, must entertain the notion that private individuals are prevented from taking some active part in this duty of teaching, especially those on whom God has bestowed gifts of mind with the strong wish of rendering themselves useful. These, so often as circumstances demand, may take upon themselves, not, indeed, the office of the pastor, but the task of communicating to others what they have themselves received, becoming, as it were, living echoes of their masters in the faith. Such co-operation on the part of the laity has seemed to the Fathers of the Vatican Council so opportune and fruitful of good that they thought well to invite it. "All faithful Christians, but those chiefly who are in a prominent position, or engaged in teaching, we entreat, by the compassion of Jesus Christ, and enjoin by the authority of the same God and Savior, that they bring aid to ward off and eliminate these errors from holy Church, and contribute their zealous help in spreading abroad the light of undefiled faith.'' Let each one, therefore, bear in mind that he both can and should, so far as may be, preach the Catholic faith by the authority of his example, and by open and constant profession of the obligations it imposes. In respect, consequently, to the duties that bind us to God and the Church, it should be borne earnestly in mind that in propagating Christian truth and warding off errors the zeal of the laity should, as far as possible, be brought actively into play.

The faithful would not, however, so completely and advantageously satisfy these duties as is fitting they should were they to enter the field as isolated champions of the faith. Jesus Christ, indeed, has clearly intimated that the hostility and hatred of men, which He first and foremost experienced, would be shown in like degree toward the work founded by Him, so that many would be barred from profiting by the salvation for which all are indebted to His loving kindness. Wherefore, He willed not only to train disciples in His doctrine, but to unite them into one society, and closely conjoin them in one body, "which is the Church,'' whereof He would be the head. The life of Jesus Christ pervades, therefore, the entire framework of this body, cherishes and nourishes its every member, uniting each with each, and making all work together to the same end, albeit the action of each be not the same. Hence it follows that not only is the Church a perfect society far excelling every other, but it is enjoined by her Founder that for the salvation of mankind she is to contend "as an army drawn up in battle array.'' The organization and constitution of Christian society can in no wise be changed, neither can any one of its members live as he may choose, nor elect that mode of fighting which best pleases him. For, in effect, he scatters and gathers not who gathers not with the Church and with Jesus Christ, and all who fight not jointly with him and with the Church are in very truth contending against God.

 

The laity must work with their true shepherds in this time of apostasy, not arrogating upon themselves "rights" that are but the figment of the heresies of Modernity, including those proper to the heresy of "freedom of the press" as enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. There is no"right" to publish whatever one wants whenever one sees fit to do so. There is no "right" to call into question publicly decisions of our shepherds concerning matters of canon law about which we in the laity are not trained by means of years of formal classroom study. Anyone who believes such a "right" exists ought to check into the nearest conciliar parish for membership as conciliarism embraces the errors of the "freedoms" of Modernity.

Pope Gregory XVI, writing in Mirari Vos, August 15, 1832, explained this quite fully, and no Catholic is free to dissent from these stirring words:

Here We must include that harmful and never sufficiently denounced freedom to publish any writings whatever and disseminate them to the people, which some dare to demand and promote with so great a clamor. We are horrified to see what monstrous doctrines and prodigious errors are disseminated far and wide in countless books, pamphlets, and other writings which, though small in weight, are very great in malice. We are in tears at the abuse which proceeds from them over the face of the earth. Some are so carried away that they contentiously assert that the flock of errors arising from them is sufficiently compensated by the publication of some book which defends religion and truth. Every law condemns deliberately doing evil simply because there is some hope that good may result. Is there any sane man who would say poison ought to be distributed, sold publicly, stored, and even drunk because some antidote is available and those who use it may be snatched from death again and again?"

 

We are not free to publish the private correspondence of others without their permission. Just because a private communication has been placed in the "public domain" does not mean that any Catholic has the moral right to compound the matter and continue its dissemination, especially when the party whose correspondence is being disseminated has not even been contacted before its use to at least secure comments about its contents, no less to actually use the correspondence in print.

Many were the "hard news" stories I wrote for The Wanderer between 1992 and 2000 that were researched carefully before their publication with efforts made to speak to various conciliar "bishops" (or their communications flacks). It was often the case that "conservative conciliar "bishops" or priests were contacted during this process to secure their unofficial, back-channel reviews of articles about their conciliar confreres before these articles saw the light of day. Even if one is convinced that it is a matter of moral obligation to publish a certain story, a decision that is never to be made lightly, one must do his due diligence and then consider the rational good to be accomplished by such a publication. I wrote many detailed, documented "hard news" stories that never saw the light of day as a decision was made that no rational good would be accomplished.

Insofar as The Four Marks is concerned, suffice it to say that Mrs. Kathleen Plumb, its editor, is in no position whatsoever to comment on the scholarly issues raised by Father Anthony Cekada in his "A Grain of Incense" article last year. She is not a trained canon lawyer. The issues raised by Father Cekada, which are serious and not trivial in the slightest, are to be discussed amongst the shepherds as the laity in their respective chapels simply go about their business as sheep and obey the policies as announced by their shepherds. His Excellency Bishop Dolan has pointed out--with great patience and over a long period of time--to the parishioners at Saint Gertrude the Great Church the reasons why Catholics must not associate with the arch-heretic and deceiver in Rome named Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI. He has asked for compliance with his policies from the sheep who have sought out his wonderful pastoral care during this time, pointing out that those who do not agree are free to associate themselves with the false "pontiff" as they see fit to do so.

It is without the least bit of personal invective or the slightest trace of any comment on her subjective intentions to point out that Mrs. Plumb, who has suffered so very much in the past few years and who is certainly a daughter of the Church who wants to be of assistance to souls in this time of apostasy and betrayal, was wrong to use the instance of a specific pastoral situation, the complexity of which she did not bother to inform herself about by doing His Excellency Bishop Dolan the simple justice of telephoning him for an interview on the matter, to pontificate on a matter about which she is not an expert in the slightest. She has scandalized the faithful by continuing to publicize a matter that should never have been publicized by anyone.

Look, my little family has not gone about publicizing some of the difficulties we have had here and there in various chapels in the past two and one-half years. We are grateful to have the Sacraments in this time of apostasy and betrayal, and we will accept whatever measure of discipline and/or humiliation is meted out to us, whether justly or unjustly, in reparation for our sins and those of the whole world. To attempt to undermine the priestly work being done for souls by a true shepherd at a time we need to be especially humble and docile is nothing other than amazing in its boldness.

Mrs. Plumb has taken great umbrage at His Excellency Bishop Dolan's withdrawal of support for The Four Marks. It is His Excellency, not Mrs. Plumb, a Successor of the Apostles, who has the right to take umbrage at Mrs. Plumb's refusal to do him the courtesy of contacting him before she decided to write the story, no less to write it as she did. Mrs. Plumb's actions make it appear as though she did not want to interview Bishop Dolan, that to do so would interfere with her sanctimonious and ill-informed "conclusions" that she has now proffered for other untrained lay "experts" to consider as some kind of "guide" to assess the issues raised by Father Cekada in "A Grain of Incense," compounding her initial offense with a terribly angry screed aimed at His Excellency in response to his statement of withdrawal of support for her newspaper.

What Mrs. Plumb fails to realize is that The Four Marks is not essential for the salvation of our souls, that none of the articles carried therein can compare to even one snowflake of Sanctifying Grace that has flowed out of even one Mass offered at the priestly hands of Bishop Daniel L. Dolan these past thirty-two years. Grace does not flow from the "freedom of the press."

No one is under any compulsion to support the work of any of us who write on the events of our times. My former colleagues at The Wanderer and The Remnant and Catholic Family News and Latin Mass: A Journal of Catholic Culture have made their criticism and/or non-support of my work rather well known. So what? My work is not the standard of Catholicism. Although I'd like to think that my writing has helped some souls to see the world more clearly through the eyes of the true Faith and to accept the fact that those who defect the Faith cannot hold ecclesiastical office legitimately, no one but absolutely no one is required to support it. Many former supporters have left us over the years. So what? We continue to pray for them and for the people with whom we used to be associated in the publications listed above.

The existence of any publication or website can never be put above the good work of any of our chapels. His Excellency Bishop Dolan is completely free to withdraw his support, and given Mrs. Plumb's insolence in her "open letter" to His Excellency, one can see that His Excellency was most correct in his judgment, which does not even get into the issue of the links to horrific conciliar websites to be found on The Four Marks website, including one that links to an "institute" that supports the hideous, obscene work of Christopher West's "theology of the body" (the link is entitled "Gospel of the Body"), that have the potential to lead souls into error, if not the near occasion of sin. Saint Augustine noted that "The death of the soul is worse than the freedom of error," a point that Mrs. Plumb should take to heart as she issues an immediate and unconditional apology for her abject refusal to treat His Excellency Bishop Dolan with the dignity that his episcopal office demands.

Saint Catherine of Siena, O.P., to whom some might be tempted to compare themselves in this most unfortunate turn of events, pleaded on her knees with Pope Gregory XI to return from Avignon to Rome. She did not make public demands of His Holiness. She wrote to him at length to beg him to undertake certain measures. She did not publish these letters in her lifetime. She was a humble daughter of the Church, gifted with special favors by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and Our Lady, given by God the character to read souls. One should tread most lightly before comparing himself with any saint, including Saint Catherine of Siena, who would never have been so rash to as "demand" publicly that a bishop respond to her as an underling.  Saint Catherine, though she could read souls and knew that some of the bishops she dealt with were very sinful men, kissed the ground on which these bishops walked as she respected the dignity of their office and the fact that they possessed the fullness of the Priesthood and Victimhood of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Can we do any less?

There are differences amongst the shepherds on the issues raised by Father Cekada's article. All well and good. As a sheep who wants to protect his family from the arch-heretic and blasphemer in Rome, I'm going to continue to err on the side of a complete and total obedience to the simple pastoral advice given me by Bishop Dolan on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on September 8, 2006, namely, to avoid any Mass that is offered "una cum Benedictus." This has made for fewer chapels for us to assist at Holy Mass. Then again, the path to Heaven is supposed to be narrow and rocky. We gladly obey our shepherd and are most glad that we are not subjecting our daughter to the confusion found in places where Ratzinger/Benedict is "recognized" as "pope" but disobeyed in practically everything, thereby undermining the nature of papal infallibility in the name of a false ecclesiology that was condemned by Pope Pius VI in Auctorem Fidei on August 28, 1794. 

Screeds directed against true bishops and true priests who have given us the fullness of the Faith and have given us the Sacraments in this time when the Church Militant on earth is undergoing her Mystical Passion, Death and Burial serve only to inflame and confuse the faithful when it's very simple as to how we conduct ourselves: obey, respect and pray for our shepherds, letting them guide us home to Heaven as the consecrated slaves of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ through Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

His Excellency Bishop Donald Sanborn was kind enough to take the time to review this article after it was posted, offering the following comments for publication that should be taken to heart by each of us, including this writer himself!

I have read your article, and of course I agree with it.  I would just caution you to be careful about playing the "authority" card too much, because that could get everyone into trouble. The objection to it is that the lay person must "do theology" in these days in order to protect himself from the errors of the clergy.  To a certain extent, that is absolutely true.  It is the very reason why we write articles and distribute them among the lay people, and not merely the clergy.

To make an objection to a priest or bishop about a theological matter is in no way improper, provided that it is done with the proper attitude and in the proper manner. The proper attitude consists in humility and reverence — humility in understanding that the priest, if properly trained, knows a great deal more than you, and more importantly, knows the rules of theology and canon law,  that is, he knows where to find the answers and how theologizing works.  Lay people, no matter how intelligent or well-educated, often err in this regard. They are ignorant of the general rules of these sciences. The lay person exercises reverence by revering, first of all,  the graces of the priest's state, but as well the fact that his whole life is sacred theology and the things of God, that he touches God every day at the altar, that he prays a great deal, does much spiritual reading and sermon preparation, discusses theological matters with other priests very often. In short, he has a familiarity with the things of God which the lay person cannot achieve. His celibacy also detaches him from material things, and places him in a world of silence and recollection, which disposes him to discover the things of God more directly and clearly. One could compare it to astronomy: the professional astronomer and the amateur both look at the same star.  But the astronomer does so having a deep knowledge of astronomy, as well as the experience of his life as an astronomer.  He also has access to enormous telescopes and sophisticated computers. The amateur astronomer may have read a few books, and may even have a fairly good telescope, but these things cannot compare to the knowledge, clarity, and facilities of the professional astronomer.

The lay person must also make his disagreement with the priest in the proper manner,  that is, with respect and discretion, always ready to learn and not to teach.  

If the lay person observes these things, no priest will be angered by his objections. But in most cases, lay "theologians" fail in both of these areas, thereby causing the priest to have strong reactions to them.

I always tell my seminarians that I consider the seminary to be a success if, after six years of training, they realize how much they do not know, and that it vastly exceeds how much they have learned.  The lay person must approach sacred theology and its ancillary sciences with an ever greater dread of erring, based on a holy and reverential fear for the enormity and complexity of the theological sciences.

 

I thank Bishop Sanborn for taking the time offer these most pertinent comments.

Let us pray a Rosary right now so that we in the laity will respect our shepherds and to make reparation for all offenses that we may have given to them, including our ingratitude for their sacrifices to us as they have been calumniated by the conciliarists. Let us aim our fire at the apostates in Rome who celebrate Martin Luther and permit adherents of the Talmud to speak at synods of "bishops." And let us forgive each other as Our Lord forgives us in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance, making sure to remember each other in our prayers each day no matter the disagreements of the moment.

Father Jeremias Drexelius, S.J., provided us with a bit of perspective in his Heliotropium on what is happening to His Excellency Bishop Daniel L. Dolan at the present time:

Saint Remigius, Bishop of Reims, foresaw that there would be great scarcity of corn the next year; and accordingly he collected a large supply of grain for the support of the people. But some of the very persons for whose benefit the holy man had resolved to do this were men of drunken and reckless habits, who said over their cups,--"What is our old Jubilee about? (for he had already been a priest for more than fifty years). What does he intend to do? Is he going to build a new city? What do so many heaps of corn mean? He seems to wish to monopolize the market. Come and let us lay a trap for the old man, and play off a trick upon him." It was easy enough to stimulate men whose evil feelings were roused, and who were already hurrying on too fast. And so these madmen rushed headlong from the house, and one of them exclaimed, while applying a lighted torch to the measures of corn,--"Let us see how fast hungry Vulcan will devour Ceres!" The act of wanton daring was soon told to Remigius the Bishop, and he at once mounted his horse, and hastened with all speed to the burning heaps of corn. But when he arrived the flames had already forced their way through the whole of the wheat, and could not be extinguished by any amount of labour. And what could the sorrowful Bishop now do? Should he kill himself with grief, and either give way to wild lamentations, or utter all kinds of curses against the doers of the mischief? He did this,--he dismounted from his horse, and, because it was winter, he approached as close as he could to the conflagration, as if to warm himself, remarking at the same time,--"A fire is always pleasant, particularly to an old man." Behold, then, the soul of a perfect man, entirely devoted to the Divine Will, and therefore enjoying supreme tranquility in every condition of life! (Father Jeremias Drexelius, S.J., Heliotropium, published in 1912 and republished by TAN Books and Publishers, pp. 239-240.)

 

This is the same spirit of tranquility with which His Excellency Bishop Dolan, who has given us the true Sacraments only to have his worked singed by ill-considered screeds, has received the insulting insolence of Mrs. Kathleen Plumb in The Four Marks, and nothing else needs to be said, and it would be tragic to continue this matter indefinitely, ad infinitum, ad nauseam when the Faith is being attacked by conciliar Rome every single day.

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Our Lady of Ransom, pray for us!

 

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, 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.

Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?