Modernity and Modernism: Warring on Truth
by
Thomas A. Droleskey
Although I never thought it would happen to me, a former news hound who used to pore over three newspapers a day and watched all of the "talking head" programs to find fodder for commentary about this or that burning issue of the day, I am pretty much detached from the minute-to-minute, all-news-all-the-time mentality that I must admit finding myself quite attracted to when WINS Radio (1010 AM), the flagship of the Westinghouse Broadcast System, in New York went to a continuous all news format in 1966. WCBS Radio (880 AM) went to an almost all-news format in 1967, the sole exception until 1972 being Arthur Godfrey's half-hour radio show at 1:30 p.m. during the week. Other radio stations around the nation followed in the wake of WINS and WCBS, including WBBM (780 AM) in Chicago and KNX (1070 AM) in Los Angeles and KCBS (740 AM) in San Francisco. All news-all-the-time hit television by means of the Satellite News Network and its eventually successfully competitor, Ted Turner's Cable News Network by 1980. I can't tell you how much time I wasted listening to and watching all of the blather.
Oh, I manage to keep fairly well informed of the headlines that are sent to me each day from The New York Times even though I no longer watch television or even listen to the news on the radio. I will peruse the headlines in the daily e-mail from Pravda, that is, The Times, before I start my writing for the evening. However, I have pretty much withdrawn from the world of being a newsaholic. Thus, I did not realize that El Presidente, George W. Bush, addressed the nation last night on the fifth anniversary of the killings that took place on September 11, 2001. We were driving from the Cincinnati, Ohio, area, to Florida at the time. I was just totally oblivious to the matter at the hour we drove past Turner Stadium in Altanta, Georgia, where the Altanta Braves are about to be dethroned as the champions in perpetuity of the National League Eastern Division.
It was not until I checked the headlines from The Times this afternoon that I realized President Bush had made yet another effort to tie his perpetual"War on Terror," which should be labeled "War on Truth," to the tragic events that unfolded on September 11, 2001. As a New York, my particular nature is to respond in an excited way to nonsense. Little aphorisms such as "You moron! Shut up!" were not unusual in my former life. I am more cautious in the presence of my wife and daughter. Nevertheless, I would have had a few choice things to say had I been listening to the text of Mr. Bush's address, which I read online on the White House's thought-control room, er, website. I am thankful, though, that I did not know about the speech in advance and thus was not even tempted to turn on the radio in our travels to listen to it.
One of the most striking things about Bush is utter obliviousness to the evils of the day in which we live. Taking nothing away from the evil perpetrated on September 11, 2001, some aspect of which we may never learn fully until the Last Day, evil did not visit the "homeland" of the United States of America for the first time on that date five years ago. Evil has been part and parcel of this country from its inception, starting with the fallacious belief on the part of the Founding Fathers that it would be possible for men of "good will" to organize themselves by means of a written Constitution that did not acknowledge the Sovereignty of Christ the King as He has revealed Himself exclusively through the Catholic Church.
As I have written about endlessly on this site (and in the old printed pages of Christ or Chaos), a written document designed to institute a particular form of governance, any one of which, as Pope Leo XIII noted in Immortal Dei could be reconciled to the Faith, without acknowledging the Catholic Church as the one and only true Church will find itself being as defenseless in the hands of positivist judges and politicians as the Bible is in the hands of Protestants and Modernist Catholics. Written words mean nothing to men who admit that God Himself has instituted a Divine Plan for man's return to Him, including the recognition of Christ as King and the recognition of Catholic Church as the true religion by every nation on earth. A nation that makes no provision for the exercise of the Social Reign of Christ the King by the Catholic Church is founded in evil. The "best intentions" of those who were steeped objectively in errors that they could not see or admit do not redeem evil ideas. And the belief that man can govern himself, whether personally or socially, without the Catholic Church is an evil idea that leads to the enthronement of Satan as the king of men and nations.
Harsh? Once again, I bid you to consider once again the words of Father Denis Fahey from The Kingship of Christ and the Conversion of the Jewish Nation:
Satan aims at preventing the acknowledgement by States and Nations of the Catholic Church as the One Way established by God for ordered return to Him. When this acknowledgement has been brought about in spite of his efforts and those of his satellites, he strives to get it undone and to induce the State to persecute the Catholic Church. The first step towards this is to get all religions, including the Jewish religion, put on the same level as the Catholic Church. The granting of full citizenship to the Jews, who as a nation are engaged in preparing for the Natural Messiah, tends in the same direction. This putting of all religious on the same level is usually called in the newspapers separation of Church and State. (Cf. Accounts of Revolutions from the French Revolution of 1789 to the Spanish Revolution of 1931).
Satan spreads perplexity and disorder in minds by confusing the false tolerance of Liberalism, by which equal rights are granted to truth and error, with the true tolerance of the Catholic Church. “As to tolerance,” writes Leo XIII (Encyclical Letter, Libertas, On Human Liberty), “it is surprising how far removed from the equity and prudence of the Church are those who profess what is called Liberalism. For, in allowing that boundless licence of which we have spoken, they exceed all limits and end at last by making no apparent distinction between truth and error, honesty and dishonesty . . . it is contrary to reason that error and truth should have equal rights . . . For right is a moral power which it is absurd to suppose that nature has accorded indifferently to truth and falsehood, justice and injustice.”
“The Church,” writes the same learned Pontiff (Encyclical Letter, Immortale Dei, On the Christian Constitution of States), “deems it unlawful to place the various forms of divine worship on the same footing as the true religion, but does not on that account, condemn those rulers who for the sake of securing some great good or of hindering some great evil, patiently allow custom or usage to be a kind of sanction for each kind of religion having its place in the State. And, in fact, the Church is wont to take earnest heed that no one shall be forced to embrace the Catholic Faith against his will.”
Satan also spreads perplexity and disorder in minds by introducing confusion between Anti-Semitism, which is the detestable hatred of the Jews as a race, and the duty incumbent upon Catholics of combating valiantly for the integral rights of Christ the King and opposing Jewish Naturalism. We see this clearly in the following quotation from the Jewish writer Bernard Lazare: “The Jew is the living testimony of the disappearance of the State based on theological principles, that state which the Anti-Semites hope to restore. From the day a Jew first occupied a public position, the Christian State was in danger. That is perfectly accurate and the Anti-Semites who say that the Jews have destroyed the correct idea of the State could more justly assert that the entrance of the Jews into Christian Society has symbolized the destruction of the State, I mean, of course, the Christian State” (L’Antisémitisme, p. 361).
Satan wants us to forget that there is one True Religion, the Supernatural Religion established by Our Lord Jesus Christ, True God and True Man. He wants us also to lose sight of the fact that there are organized forces working for the advent of the Natural Messias.
“By the fact that the indiscriminate freedom of all forms of worship is proclaimed, truth is confused with error, and the Holy and Immaculate Spouse of Christ is placed on the same level as heretical sects and even as Jewish perfidy” (Pius VII, Letter, Post tam diuturnas).
Satan has not left us in doubt about his enthusiasm for the Declaration of the “rights of man” and the principles of the French Revolution of 1789. “Long live Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! That is the favourable time for us” are amongst the expressions used by the possessed children of Illfurt, Alsace. (Cf. The Devil, his words and actions in the possessed children of Illfurt, from the official documents).
Does anyone out there in cyberspace want to say that Father Fahey is wrong and that, say, Joseph Ratzinger is correct to seek a "reconciliation" with the diabolical principles of 1789? Hmmmmm? No one and no nation can be "neutral" about the truth. And the truth is very simple: Satan reigns as king of men and nations when Christ does not reign as King of men and nations as He has revealed Himself through His true Church. Yes, the extent of the devil's hold on a nation may not be readily apparent at first. Eventually and inevitably, however, social order descends over the course of time when men do not acknowledge, either in their own personal lives or in the larger life of their nations, the Social Kingship of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the Indirect Power of the Catholic Church to infuse every aspect of national life with a concern for our Last End.
Obviously, George W. Bush does not know this, which is why he can give speech after speech that makes war upon truth. Leaving aside the insane, delusional contention that Iraqis are "uniting" around their new "government," the following passage from Mr. Bush's September 11, 2006, demonstrates Bush's utter incomprehension of reality, which can only be seen clearly by men who see the world through the eyes of the true Faith.
On 9/11, our nation saw the face of evil
Mr. President, the face of evil in this country is present every as over 4,000 babies are killed by means of surgical abortions. This means nothing to you. You would not work for the re-nomination of pro-aborts in your own political party if you understood the horror of abortion. You would not support a single abortion under cover of law, no less "exceptions" to the inviolability of all innocent preborn life, if you understood that willful murder is one of the four crimes that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.
Mr. President, you fund the face of evil in this country. One of the first things that your government introduced into the "liberated" Iraq three years ago were the pills and devices to prevent the conception of children, poisons, pills and devices that actually kill living human beings most instances. You are responsible for the chemical assassinations of thousands of preborn children in this country here and around the world by your support for so-called "family planning" programs.
Mr. President, you enable the face of evil in the Middle East, standing back callously as the State of Israel bombed Lebanese civilian population centers, with cluster bombs provided by the government of the United States of America, mind you, in some instances, supporting these bloodthirsty killers as our "partners" in the "War on Terrorism?" How many innocent human beings have been killed by the "War on Terrorism?"
Mr. President, your unjustifiable invasion of Iraq has led to the deaths of thousands of ordinary Iraqis, prompted in large measure by the invasion of Mohammedan operatives who were kept out of the country during the despotic reign of Saddam Hussein. How many American men and women have been killed and injured to realize the neoconservative dreams of your Christian Zionist and Talmudic Jewish Zionist advisors?
You want to look at the face of evil, Mr. President? Just look in the mirror as you incant jingoistic slogans about "freedom" and "democracy" that are but myths so as to aggrandize your own power and to solidify your own party's position in the upcoming elections. You and your callous disregard for truth help to propagate all manner of evils in this country and in this world.
George W. Bush doesn't really know any better, however. Enabled by the "talking heads" and by the radio talk show hosts, Bush just keeps making war on truth as he propagates a Trotskyite dream-come-true: perpetual war as the solution to all of the world's problems. What Bush does not know, however, is that a lot of the wars in the course of history that have waged by men not concerned about their eternal salvation, either because they do not believe in the true God or because they suffer under the Protestant delusion of the presumption of their salvation, have been efforts to divert public attention from their own deficiencies at home.
Enabling Future Bushes and Clintons and Gores and Kennedys and Giulianis and Schwarzeneggers
Alas, the real reason why men such as George W. Bush are able to make war upon truth with such ease is that the anti-Incarnational errors of Modernity are the foundation of the conciliar church's approach to her relations with the world. Men such as George W. Bush are the product of the Protestant Revolt and the subsequent rise of Freemasonry (and a whole host of related ideologies and pseudo-philosophies). Such men--and the nations they lead--need to be converted to the Catholic Faith so that they can become exemplars and heralds of Christ the King and of Mary our Immaculate Queen. Conciliarism does not believe that men and their nations need to be converted to the true Faith to know the path of salvation and thus of social order. Conciliarism adopts the Judeo-Masonic belief that a generic, non-sectarian approach to "social problems" is the only one that can be adopted in the midst of the allegedly "irreversible" "realities" of a pluralistic world.
The conciliar church had indeed made its accommodation with Modernity, believing, as Benedict XVI noted in his December 22, 2005, address to the Roman Curia, that such an accommodation with the modern world is the equivalent of the Church's reconciling the thought of Saint Augustine with Plato or that of Saint Thomas Aquinas with Aristotle. As Bishop Richard Williamson of the Society of Saint Pius X noted in an interview earlier this year with Mr. John Vennari of Catholic Family News the Church used what was true from the pagan philosophers of antiquity. Modernity is based on falsehoods and errors of the most manifest order.The pagan philosophers lived before the Incarnation. The philosophers of Modernity and the theologians of Modernism within the Church reject the Incarnation as absolutely essential in the lives of men and of their societies, believing that there is some "scientific" way to organize social life without recognizing the Social Reign of Christ the King and without subordinating everything in popular culture to the Deposit of Faith that Our Lord has entrusted to His true Church, keeping in mind always the greater honor and glory of God and thus the good of the souls for whom He shed every single drop of His Most Precious Blood.
Men like George W. Bush, therefore, are left to founder on the rocky shoals of Modernity because the Modernists in the conciliar church believe, in their Hegelian "synthesis of faith," that the "time" of "Christendom" has past and that the Magisterium must be, according to the words of Joseph Ratzinger both before and since his becoming Benedict XVI, "reformed" to take account of these "modern" developments. There is no returning to the Syllabus of Errors. There is no returning to Pascendi Dominci Gregis. He has said this very plainly and without any equivocation whatsoever. In other words, the binding teaching of past popes, who were only reiterating what had been taught always and everywhere and had been believed by everyone, means nothing to Benedict because he has "thought" things through in his Hegelian way and has devised a "solution" to a nonexistent problem: the "conflict" between Modernity and the Faith by accommodating the Faith to Modernity.
Remember, Pope Saint Pius X warned in Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907, that the one chief tools of Modernists to attack the Faith was:
The ecclesiastical authority must alter its line of conduct in the social and political world; while keeping outside political organizations it must adapt itself to them in order to penetrate them with its spirit. (Pascendi Dominici Gregis, No. 38)
Conciliarism is a means by which the devil's war against the necessity of personal and social belief in the Catholic Faith and a full and complete submission of the will to the Deposit of Faith entrusted to her by her Divine Bridegroom, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, can be further cemented in the minds of ordinary Catholics, most of whom long ago made their accommodation to the very false principle of "separation of Church and State," condemned repeatedly and unstintingly by one pope after another over the centuries, that is endorsed so thoroughly by Benedict XVI.
This proves once again that the real sedevacantists are the conciliar popes, who feel free to ignore and disparage dogmatic statements (such as Cantate Domino) and papal pronouncements they deem to be "ill-suited" for "modern" times. The paradox wrought by men who live their own worlds of paradox as they make war upon Divine Truth is thus inescapable: the conciliar popes have damaged the public's view of the papacy by claiming that they are no longer bound by the consistent, perennial teaching of the Church on such matters as the nature of the Church, the necessity to seek with urgency the conversion of men and nations to her maternal bosom, and the necessity of defending the teaching of the confessionally Catholic State.
The World Needs Catholicism, Not Modernity, Not Conciliarism, So as to Make War Upon the Devil
The state of the world depends upon the state of the Church, which is why the devil has sought to infiltrate the conciliar structures and to propagate his errors with such abandon. Consider the wisdom of Pope Leo XIII, contained Exeunte Iam Anno, December 25, 1888, and contrast it to the "healthy secularity" of conciliarism. Pope Leo XIII noted that men need to pursue sanctity to see the world clearly through the eyes of the true Faith and thus to choose wisely in light of their Last End. Chaos reigns supreme when this does not happen:
If We look into the kind of life men lead everywhere, it would be impossible to avoid the conclusion that public and private morals differ much from the precepts of the Gospel. Too sadly, alas, do the words of the Apostle St. John apply to our age, "all that is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life." For in truth, most men, with little care whence they come or whither they go, place all their thoughts and care upon the weak and fleeting goods of this life; contrary to nature and right reason they willingly give themselves up to those ways of which their reason tells them they should be the masters. It is a short step from the desire of luxury to the striving after the means to obtain it. Hence arises an unbridled greed for money, which blinds those whom it has led captive, and in the fulfillment of its passion hurries them madly along, often without regard for justice or injustice, and not seldom accompanied by a disgraceful contempt for the poverty of their neighbor. Thus many who live in the lap of luxury call themselves brethren of the multitude whom in their heart of hearts they despise; and in the same way with minds puffed up by pride, they take no thought to obey any law, or fear any power. They call selflove liberty, and think themselves "born free like a wild ass's colt. Snares and temptation to sin abound; We know that impious or immoral dramas are exhibited on the stage; that books and journals are written to jeer at virtue and ennoble crime; that the very arts, which were intended to give pleasure and proper recreation, have been made to minister to impurity. Nor can We look to the future without fear, for new seeds of evil are sown, and as it were poured into the heart of the rising generation. As for the public schools, there is no ecclesiastical authority left in them, and in the years when it is most fitting for tender minds to be trained carefully in Christian virtue, the precepts of religion are for the most part unheard. Men more advanced in age encounter a yet graver peril from evil teaching, which is of such a kind as to blind the young by misleading words, instead of filling them with the knowledge of the truth. Many now-adays seek to learn by the aid of reason alone, laying divine faith entirely aside; and, through the removal of its bright light, they stumble and fail to discern the truth, teaching for instance, that matter alone exists in the world; that men and beasts have the same origin and a like nature; there are some, indeed, who go so far as to doubt the existence of God, the Ruler and Maker of the World, or who err most grievously, like the heathens, as to the nature of God. Hence the very nature and form of virtue, justice, and duty are of necessity destroyed. Thus it is that while they hold up to admiration the high authority of reason, and unduly elevate the subtlety of the human intellect, they fall into the just punishment of pride through ignorance of what is of more importance.
When the mind has thus been poisoned, at the same time the moral character becomes deeply and essentially corrupted; and such a state can only be cured with the utmost difficulty in this class of men, because on the one hand wrong opinions vitiate their judgment of what is right, and on the other the light of Christian faith, which is the principle and basis of all justice, is extinguished.
In this way We daily see the numerous ills which afflict all classes of men. These poisonous doctrines have utterly corrupted both public and private life; rationalism, materialism, atheism, have begotten socialism, communism, nihilism-evil principles which it was not only fitting should have sprung from such parentage but were its necessary offspring. In truth, if the Catholic religion is willfully rejected, whose divine origin is made clear by such unmistakable signs, what reason is there why every form of religion should not be rejected, not upheld, by such criteria of truth? If the soul is one with the body, and if therefore no hope of a happy eternity remains when the body dies, what reason is there for men to undertake toil and suffering here in subjecting the appetites to right reason? The highest good of man will then lie in enjoying life's pleasures and life's luxuries. And since there is no one who is drawn to virtue by the impulse of his own nature, every man will naturally lay hands on all he can that he may live happily on the spoils of others. Nor is there any power mighty enough to bridle the passions, for it follows that the power of law is broken, and that all authority is loosened, if the belief in an ever-living God, Who commands what is right and forbids what is wrong is rejected. Hence the bonds of civil society will be utterly shattered when every man is driven by an unappeasable covetousness to a perpetual struggle, some striving to keep their possessions, others to obtain what they desire. This is wellnigh the bent of our age.
There is, nevertheless, some consolation for Us even in looking on these evils, and We may lift up Our heart in hope. For God "created all things that they might be: and He made the nations of the earth for health." But as all this world cannot be upheld but by His providence and divinity, so also men can only be healed by His power, of Whose goodness they were called from death to life. For Jesus Christ redeemed the human race once by the shedding of His blood, but the power of so great a work and gift is for all ages; "neither is there salvation in any other." Hence they who strive by the enforcement of law to extinguish the growing flame of lawless desire, strive indeed for justice; but let them know that they will labor with no result, or next to none, as long as they obstinately reject the power of the gospel and refuse the assistance of the Church. Thus will the evil alone be cured, by changing their ways, and returning back in their public and private life to Jesus Christ and Christianity.
Now the whole essence of a Christian life is to reject the corruption of the world and to oppose constantly any indulgence in it; this is taught in the words and deeds, the laws and institutions, the life and death of Jesus Christ, "the author and finisher of faith." Hence, however strongly We are deterred by the evil disposition of nature and character, it is our duty to run to the "fight proposed to Us," fortified and armed with the same desire and the same arms as He who, "having joy set before him, endured the cross." Wherefore let men understand this specially, that it is most contrary to Christian duty to follow, in worldly fashion, pleasures of every kind, to be afraid of the hardships attending a virtuous life, and to deny nothing to self that soothes and delights the senses. "They that are Christ's, have crucified their flesh, with the vices and concupiscences" -- so that it follows that they who are not accustomed to suffering, and who hold not ease and pleasure in contempt belong not to Christ. By the infinite goodness of God man lived again to the hope of an immortal life, from which he had been cut off, but he cannot attain to it if he strives not to walk in the very footsteps of Christ and conform his mind to Christ's by the meditation of Christ's example. Therefore this is not a counsel but a duty, and it is the duty, not of those only who desire a more perfect life, but clearly of every man "always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus." How otherwise could the natural law, commanding man to live virtuously, be kept? For by holy baptism the sin which we contracted at birth is destroyed, but the evil and tortuous roots of sin, which sin has engrafted, and by no means removed. This part of man which is without reason -- although it cannot beat those who fight manfully by Christ's grace -- nevertheless struggles with reason for supremacy, clouds the whole soul and tyrannically bends the will from virtue with such power that we cannot escape vice or do our duty except by a daily struggle. "This holy synod teaches that in the baptized there remains concupiscence or an inclination to evil, which, being left to be fought against, cannot hurt those who do not consent to it, and manfully fight against it by the grace of Jesus Christ; for he is not crowned who does not strive lawfully." There is in this struggle a degree of strength to which only a very perfect virtue, belonging to those who, by putting to flight evil passions, has gained so high a place as to seem almost to live a heavenly life on earth. Granted; grant that few attain such excellence; even the philosophy of the ancients taught that every man should restrain his evil desires, and still more and with greater care those who from daily contact with the world have the greater temptations -- unless it be foolishly thought that where the danger is greater watchfulness is less needed, or that they who are more grievously ill need fewer medicines.
But the toil which is borne in this conflict is compensated by great blessings, beyond and above heavenly and eternal rewards, particularly in this way, that by calming the passions nature is largely restored to its pristine dignity. For man has been born under this law, that the mind should rule the body, that the appetites should be restrained by sound sense and reason; and hence it follows that putting a curb upon our masterful passions is the noblest and greatest freedom. Moreover, in the present state of society it is difficult to see what man could be expected to do without such a disposition. Will he be inclined to do well who has been accustomed to guide his actions by self-love alone? No man can be high-souled, kind, merciful, or restrained, who has not learnt selfconquest and a contempt for this world when opposed to virtue. And yet it must be said that it seems to have been pre-determined by the counsel of God that there should be no salvation to men without strife and pain. Truly, though God has given to man pardon for sin, He gave it under the condition that His only begotten Son should pay the due penalty; and although Jesus Christ might have satisfied divine justice in other ways, nevertheless He preferred to satisfy by the utmost suffering and the sacrifice of His life. Thus he has imposed upon His followers this law, signed in His blood, that their life should be an endless strife with the vices of the age. What made the apostles invincible in their mission of teaching truth to the world; what strengthened the martyrs innumerable in their bloody testimony to the Christian faith, but the readiness of their soul to obey fearlessly His laws? And all who have taken heed to live a Christian life and seek virtue have trodden the same path; therefore We must walk in this way if We desire either Our own salvation or that of others. Thus it becomes necessary for every one to guard manfully against the allurements of luxury, and since on every side there is so much ostentation in the enjoyment of wealth, the soul must be fortified against the dangerous snares of riches lest straining after what are called the good things of life, which cannot satisfy and soon fade away, the soul should lose "the treasure in heaven which faileth not." Finally, this is matter of deep grief, that free-thought and evil example have so evil an influence in enervating the soul, that many are now almost ashamed of the name of Christian -- a shame which is the sign either of abandoned wickedness or the extreme of cowardice; each detestable and each of the highest injury to man. For what salvation remains for such men, or on what hope can they rely, if they cease to glory in the name of Jesus Christ, if they openly and constantly refuse to mold their lives on the precepts of the gospel? It is the common complaint that the age is barren of brave men. Bring back a Christian code of life, and thereby the minds of men will regain their firmness and constancy. But man's power by itself is not equal to the responsibility of so many duties. As We must ask God for daily bread for the sustenance of the body, so must We pray to Him for strength of soul for its nourishment in virtue. Hence that universal condition and law of life, which We have said is a perpetual battle, brings with it the necessity of prayer to God. For, as is well and wisely said by St. Augustine, pious prayer flies over the world's barriers and calls down the mercy of God from heaven. In order to conquer the emotions of lust, and the snares of the devil, lest we should be led into evil, we are commanded to seek the divine help in the words, "pray that ye enter not into temptation." How much more is this necessary, if we wish to labor for the salvation of others? Christ our Lord, the only begotten Son of God, the source of all grace and virtue, first showed by example what he taught in word: "He passed the whole night in the prayer of God,"and when nigh to the sacrifice of his life, "He prayed the longer."
The frailty of nature would be much less fearful, and the moral character would grow weak and enervated with much less ease if that divine precept were not so much disregarded and treated almost with disdain. For God is easily appeased, and desires to aid men, having promised openly to give His grace in abundance to those who ask for it. Nay, He even invites men to ask, and almost insists with most loving words: "I say unto you, ask and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you." And that we should have no fear in doing this with confidence and familiarity, he softens His words, comparing Himself to a most loving father who desires nothing so much as the love of his children. "If you then being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father who is in heaven, give good things to them that ask Him?"And this will not seem excessive to one who considers it, if the efficaciousness of prayer seemed so great to St. John Chrysostom that he thought it might be compared with the power of God; for as God created all things by His word, so man by prayer obtains what he wills. For nothing has so great a power as prayer, because in it there are certain qualities with which it pleases God to be moved. For in prayer we separate ourselves from things of earth, and filled with the thought of God alone, we become aware of our human weakness; for the same reason we rest in the embrace of our Father, we seek a refuge in the power of our Creator. We approach the Author of all good, as though we wish Him to gaze upon our weak souls, our failing strength, our poverty; and, full of hope, we implore His aid and guardianship, Who alone can give help to the weak and consolation to the infirm and miserable. With such a condition of mind, thinking but little of ourselves, as is fitting, God is greatly inclined to mercy, for God resisteth the proud, but to the humble he giveth grace.Let, then, the habit of prayer be sacred to all; let soul and voice join together in prayer, and let our whole daily life agree together, so that, by keeping the laws of God, the course of our days may seem a continual ascent to Him.
The virtue of which we speak, like the others, is produced and nourished by divine faith; for God is the Author of all true blessings that are to be desired for themselves, as we owe to Him our knowledge of His infinite goodness, and our knowledge of the merits of our Redeemer. But, again, nothing is more fitted for the nourishment of divine faith than the pious habit of prayer, and the need of it at this time is seen by its weakness in most, and its absence in many men. For that virtue is especially the source whereby not only private lives may be amended, but also from which a final judgment may be looked for in those matters which in the daily conflict of men do not permit states to live in peace and security. If the multitude is frenzied with a thirst for excessive liberty, if the inhuman lust of the rich never is satisfied, and if to these be added those evils of the same kind to which We have referred fully above, it will be found that nothing can heal them more completely or fully than Christian faith.
It is not possible to fight secularism and all of its multifaceted and inter-related evils with secularism. We can only fight secularism with Catholicism as the consecrated slaves of Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, trying to do our part to fulfill her Fatima Message in our own lives in anticipation of the day when we will have a pope who will obey her perfectly.
Our fealty must not be to Modernism or to Modernity. It must be to Christ the King and to Mary our Immaculate Queen. Pope Pius XI noted this very well in his encyclical letter on Nazism, Mit Brennender Sorge, March 17, 1937. Although his words were directed to the German bishops, they apply equally to us in the United Sates today, where so many Catholics, including so many traditional Catholics, may not necessarily "leave" the Church to support Americanism but who do not believe it prudent or necessary to work the restoration of the Social Reign of Christ the King, thus placing them in perfect--and I mean absolutely perfect--communion with Benedict and conciliarism. To Pope Pius XI:
Every true and lasting reform has ultimately sprung from the sanctity of men who were driven by the love of God and of men. Generous, ready to stand to attention to any call from God, yet confident in themselves because confident in their vocation, they grew to the size of beacons and reformers. On the other hand, any reformatory zeal, which instead of springing from personal purity, flashes out of passion, has produced unrest instead of light, destruction instead of construction, and more than once set up evils worse than those it was out to remedy. No doubt "the Spirit breatheth where he will" (John iii. 8): "of stones He is able to raise men to prepare the way to his designs" (Matt. iii. 9). He chooses the instruments of His will according to His own plans, not those of men. But the Founder of the Church, who breathed her into existence at Pentecost, cannot disown the foundations as He laid them. Whoever is moved by the spirit of God, spontaneously adopts both outwardly and inwardly, the true attitude toward the Church, this sacred fruit from the tree of the cross, this gift from the Spirit of God, bestowed on Pentecost day to an erratic world.
In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus urging people to leave the Church, and among the leaders there is more than one whose official position is intended to create the impression that this infidelity to Christ the King constitutes a signal and meritorious act of loyalty to the modern State. Secret and open measures of intimidation, the threat of economic and civic disabilities, bear on the loyalty of certain classes of Catholic functionaries, a pressure which violates every human right and dignity. Our wholehearted paternal sympathy goes out to those who must pay so dearly for their loyalty to Christ and the Church; but directly the highest interests are at stake, with the alternative of spiritual loss, there is but one alternative left, that of heroism. If the oppressor offers one the Judas bargain of apostasy he can only, at the cost of every worldly sacrifice, answer with Our Lord: "Begone, Satan! For it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve" (Matt. iv. 10). And turning to the Church, he shall say: "Thou, my mother since my infancy, the solace of my life and advocate at my death, may my tongue cleave to my palate if, yielding to worldly promises or threats, I betray the vows of my baptism." As to those who imagine that they can reconcile exterior infidelity tO one and the same Church, let them hear Our Lord's warning: -- "He that shall deny me before men shall be denied before the angels of God" (Luke xii. 9). . . .
Like other periods of the history of the Church, the present has ushered in a new ascension of interior purification, on the sole condition that the faithful show themselves proud enough in the confession of their faith in Christ, generous enough in suffering to face the oppressors of the Church with the strength of their faith and charity. May the holy time of Lent and Easter, which preaches interior renovation and penance, turn Christian eyes towards the Cross and the risen Christ; be for all of you the joyful occasion that will fill your souls with heroism, patience and victory. Then We are sure, the enemies of the Church, who think that their time has come, will see that their joy was premature, and that they may close the grave they had dug. The day will come when the Te Deum of liberation will succeed to the premature hymns of the enemies of Christ: Te Deum of triumph and joy and gratitude, as the German people return to religion, bend the knee before Christ, and arming themselves against the enemies of God, again resume the task God has laid upon them.
Modernity in the world and Modernism in the Church may be at war with truth. They may win a few battles. The victory belongs to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, who will see to it that her Divine Son is crowned again as the King of men and of all nations and that her Divine Son's Vicar faithfully exercises this Kingship here on earth once again. May we never cease by our Rosaries and our prayers before the Blessed Sacrament and our penances and mortifications to help to plant at last a few seeds for the day when true peace, the peace of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, resides in every soul and in every land as Catholicism and Catholicism alone permeates the hearts and the souls of men and their nations.
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 John the Beloved, 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.
Saint John Mary Vianney, pray for us.
Saint Vincent de Paul, pray for us.
Saint Therese Lisieux, pray for us.
Saint Martin of Tours, pray for us.
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, pray for us.
Saint Athanasius, pray for us.
Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, pray for us.
Saint Dominic, pray for us.
Saint Basil, pray for us.
Saint Augustine, pray for us.
Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.
Saint Vincent Ferrer, pray for us.
Saint Sebastian, pray for us.
Saint Tarcisius, pray for us.
Saint Lucy, pray for us.
Saint Agnes, pray for us.
Saint Agatha, pray for us.
Saint Bridget of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Catherine of Sweden, pray for us.
Saint Philomena, pray for us.
Saint John Bosco, pray for us.
Saint Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
Saint Bernadette Soubirous, pray for us.
Pope Saint Pius X, pray for us
Pope Saint Pius V, pray for us.
Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, pray for us.
Blessed Pauline Jaricot, pray for us.
Blessed Miguel Augustin Pro, pray for us.
Blessed Francisco, pray for us.
Blessed Jacinta, pray for us.
Sister Lucia, 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.
