Eleison Comments

Benedict’s Thinking – I

Benedict’s Thinking – I on July 9, 2011

The “Eleison Comments” of June 18 promised a series of four numbers which would show how “disoriented” is Pope Benedict XVI’s “way of believing.” They present in fact a summary of the precious tract on his thinking written a few years ago by Bishop Tissier de Mallerais, one of the four bishops of the Society of St Pius X. The Bishop’s tract, The Faith Imperilled by Reason, he calls “unpretentious,” but it does lay bare the Pope’s fundamental problem – how to believe in the Catholic Faith in such a way as not to exclude the values of the modern world. The tract shows that such a way of believing is necessarily disoriented, even if the Pope does still in some way believe.

It divides into four parts. After an important Introduction to Benedict XVI’s “Hermeneutic of Continuity,” Bishop Tissier looks briefly at the philosophical and theological roots of the Pope’s thinking. Thirdly he lays out its fruits for the Gospel, for dogma, for the Church and society, for the Kingship of Christ and for the Last Things. He concludes with a measured judgment upon the Pope’s Newfaith, highly critical but wholly respectful. Let us start with an overview of the Introduction:—

The basic problem for Benedict XVI, as for all of us, is the clash between the Catholic Faith and the modern world. For instance he sees that modern science is amoral, that modern society is secular and modern culture is multi-religious. He specifies the clash as being between Faith and Reason, between the Faith of the Church, and Reason as worked out by the 18th century Enlightenment. However, he is convinced that they can and must both be interpreted in such a way as to bring them into harmony with one another. Hence his close participation in Vatican II, a Council which attempted to reconcile the Faith with today’s world. But Traditionalists say that the Council failed, because its very principles are irreconcilable with the Faith. Hence Pope Benedict’s “Hermeneutic of Continuity,” or system of interpretation to show that there is no rupture between Catholic Tradition and Vatican II.

The principles for Benedict’s “hermeneutic” go back to a German historian of the 19th century, Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911). Dilthey maintained that as truths arise in history, so they can only be understood in their history, and human truths cannot be understood without the involvement of the human subject in that history. So to continue the core of past truths into the present, one needs to subtract all elements belonging to the past, now irrelevant, and replace them with elements important for the living present. Benedict applies to the Church this double process of purification and enrichment. On the one hand Reason must purify the Faith of its errors from the past, e.g. its absolutism, while on the other hand the Faith must get Reason to moderate its attacks on religion and to remember that its humanist values, liberty, equality and fraternity, all originated in the Church.

The great error here of the Pope is that the truths of the Catholic Faith on which Christian civilization was built and on which its feeble remains still rest, have their origin by no means in human history, but in the eternal bosom of the unchanging God. They are eternal truths, from eternity, for eternity. “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” says Our Lord, (MtXXIV,35). Neither Dilthey nor, apparently, Benedict XVI can conceive of truths far above human history and above all its conditioning. If the Pope thinks that by making such concessions to faithless Reason, he will draw its adherents towards the Faith, let him think again. They merely despise Faith the more!

Next, the philosophical and theological roots of Benedict’s thinking.

Kyrie eleison.

Don’t Borrow

Don’t Borrow on July 2, 2011

The latest financial bailout of Greece, announced last week, has once more put off the day of reckoning for the European Union and maybe for the worldwide financial system, but that day is merely postponed, not cancelled. The problem is systemic. If democratic politicians want to be re-elected, they must borrow to pay for the free lunches on which they themselves have made the peoples insist, but the folly for individuals, families or nations of taking out loans upon loans cannot last for ever, and one day it comes to a crashing halt. Such peoples and politicians have today long been on the wrong road, because the decision to heap up loans is ultimately stupid or criminal.

It is stupid if the basic wisdom has been forgotten of three lines of Shakespeare, worth volumes written by professional “economists”:— “Neither a borrower nor a lender be / For loan oft loses both itself and friend / And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.” In other words a habit of borrowing accustoms one to not “husbanding” or looking after the resources one has. For instance, at least to begin with, money borrowed comes too easily, thus undermining the sense of money’s value and the sense of reality, for instance how hard money can be to earn or eventually to pay back. As for lending, says Polonius (Hamlet, I, 3), not only are loans often not paid back, but also if I have lent to a friend who cannot pay back, he can be too afraid or ashamed to come near me again.

However, not all lenders are stupid. A number of them are criminal, because they know that by lending money at usurious rates of interest they can reduce individuals, families and nations to poverty and slavery – “The borrower is servant” (or slave) “to him that lendeth” (Prov. XXII, 7). Certain credit cards are now paying between 20 and 30% rates of interest, yet the Catholic Church has always severely condemned usury. Usurers are criminals who destroy the fabric of society by impoverishing and enslaving their fellow men, or whole nations.

In modern times usury takes different forms, say the Popes, and this is why the whole world should now be waking up to the fact that it has let itself be enslaved by the cunning money-men, who use their money to master the media and politicians in particular, and thus buy control of an entire society giving itself over to Mammon. The question then arises, how can God have allowed such a state of affairs to come about, and how can he now be meaning to allow the immense suffering that will come with the imminent financial crash and/or World War, both of which will have been engineered by his enemies to give them, as they hope, total world power?

The answer is that he has granted such power to his enemies because their cruelty and inhumanity serve him as a scourge to be laid across the back of a world that has turned away from him, and has preferred to take Mammon for its master – you cannot serve both God and Mammon, says Our Lord (Mt. VI, 24). And God will allow a great deal more suffering in the near future, because “In suffering is learning” (Aeschylus), and in fact only heavy suffering will today be enough to enable any significant number of souls worldwide to learn that their materialism and worship of Mammon are treacherous enemies of their one true interest, the salvation of their eternal souls.

Mother of God, obtain mercy for us poor sinners!

Kyrie eleison.

Choosing Lawyers

Choosing Lawyers on June 25, 2011

These “Comments” do not usually tell of things personal, but on the eve of their writer’s Appeal being heard in Germany (July 4), an UNTRUTH is circulating which needs to be set straight, amongst other things to allay unwarranted anxieties. The untruth is that I wish my defence against the German State’s accusation of “racial incitement” to be based on the truth or falsehood of what actually happened in the most controversial episode of recent German history.

In fact from the moment I knew that I might be accused in Germany of “racial incitement” for remarks made in English to Swedish journalists in November of 2008, I also knew that if I repeated the remarks in front of a German law-court, I risked being immediately thrown into jail. Such is the present state of German law. However, I would rather not be decorated with chains, if I can help it.

So from the beginning I heeded the advice to defend myself on the basis that my remarks were self-evidently in no way intended for a German audience, and thus the German law did not apply to my situation. This much is clear from the last minute of the famous video-clip available on YouTube, which is the last several minutes of the one-hour interview with the Swedes. Moreover, immediately after those remarks, but off camera, I went up to the Swedes and earnestly asked them to be “discrete” in the use they would make of the last part of the interview. This much they would have to admit if they were to testify, but they cannot be forced to come to Germany, so they decline to do so.

As for my changing lawyers four times, the Society’s Superior General originally entrusted my defence to the Society’s lawyer, Maximilian Krah, who chose to engage Matthias Lossmann, a member of the, alas, anti-Catholic Green Party. He was conscientious but perhaps not too enthusiastic about the case. Through friends, I discovered a lawyer enthusiastic and highly successful in defending such delicate cases, Wolfram Nahrath, but Lossmann was unwilling to work with him. Seeking only the best legal counsel available to me in my quandary, I switched from Lossmann to Nahrath.

However, when the Superior General was informed by aides of Nahrath’s political position, he ordered me to find someone else again, believing in good faith no doubt that any public association between the SSPX and “an extreme rightist” would be detrimental. He approved of the elderly and honourable Dr. Norbert Wingerter, a conservative Novus Ordo Catholic, but it appears that it could be Wingerter who is unwittingly the source of the untruth now in circulation. I do not know why, but he seems to be under the mistaken impression that I wanted to go, in front of the court, into the truth or untruth of that episode in German history. Fortunately the Superior General had already approved of yet another lawyer, who now understands correctly how I wish to be defended.

Dear readers, if you think that the interests of God are in any way at stake (not everybody thinks so), do say a prayer between now and July 4 for my latest lawyer who has been for several months working hard on the case, but who is liable to come under fierce pressure from anti-Catholic interests and their powerful servants.

Kyrie eleison.

Discussions’ Aftermath

Discussions’ Aftermath on June 18, 2011

As the doctrinal Discussions which were held from the autumn of 2009 to the spring of this year between the Society of St Pius X and Rome drop back into the past, the question naturally arises of future relations between the two. Among Catholics on both sides there is a wish for contacts to continue, but since such pious wishes for union easily give rise to illusions, it is necessary to keep one’s grip on reality if one is not to join the whole modern world in its anti-God fantasy.

Originally the Discussions were wanted not by the Society but by Rome, as it hoped to dissolve the Society’s notorious resistance to the Neo-modernism of Vatican II. The great obstacle was doctrine, because the Society is well protected inside the fortress of the Church’s age-old and unchanging doctrine. It had to be lured out of that fortress. Now for Neo-modernists, just as for Communists, any contact or dialogue with an adversary in a secure position was – and remains – better than none, because he can only lose by it while they can only gain. So Rome agreed even to doctrinal Discussions.

Alas for Rome, the Society’s four representatives believe clearly and held firm. As one of the four Roman theologians taking part in the Discussions was overheard to say afterwards, “We do not understand them and they do not understand us.” Of course. Unless the Romans abandoned their Neo-modernism or the Society priests betrayed the Truth, it was bound to be a relatively fruitless dialogue. But Rome cannot stand its own betrayal of the Truth being shown up by the paltry Society, so it is not likely to give up. That is why we already hear of an Ecclesia Dei spokesman telling that Rome will very soon offer an “Apostolic Ordinariat” to the Society. Of course such a quote may be merely a trial balloon to test reactions, but it is also a tempting idea. Unlike a Personal Prelature, an Apostolic Ordinariat is independent of the local bishops, and unlike an Apostolic Administration, such as Campos in Brazil, it is not confined to just one diocese. What more could the Society ask for?

It asks that Rome should come back to the Truth, because it knows, as do Communists and Neo-modernists, that any practical co-operation which would skirt around doctrinal disagreement leads eventually, for all kinds of human reasons, to absorbing the false doctrine of the enemies of the Faith, in other words to betraying the Truth. Here is why the Society’s Superior General has in public more than once repudiated any canonical agreement with Rome that would precede a doctrinal agreement. But the Discussions have served at least to demonstrate the depth of the doctrinal disagreement between the Society and Neo-modernist Rome. That is why Catholics should be prepared for the Society to refuse even the offer of an Apostolic Ordinariat, however well-intentioned the Roman authorities may be.

But why is doctrine so important? Because the Catholic Faith is a doctrine. But why is Faith so important? Because without it we cannot please God (Heb.XI,6). But why must it be the Catholic Faith? Will no other faith in God do? No, because God himself underwent the horror of the Cross to reveal to us the one true Faith. All other “faiths” contradict, more or less, that true Faith, with lies.

Four future numbers of “Eleison Comments” will show, with all due respect, how disoriented in this respect is the way of believing of the present Pope, however well-intentioned he may also be.

Kyrie eleison.

Men’s Limits

Men’s Limits on June 11, 2011

The discovery in early April, after a two-year hunt, of wreckage from the Air France Airbus which went down in mid-Atlantic on June 1, 2009, and the subsequent recovery of the aircraft’s flight recorders known as “black boxes,” have thrown an eerie light on the disaster, puzzling until now. What a drama! It seems that the Airbus 330–200 stalled at an altitude of 38,000 feet, and then for three and a half minutes tumbled straight down to crash into the ocean, causing everybody on board, 228 souls, to appear instantaneously before the judgment seat of God.

The initial problem for flight AF 447 could well have been nasty night-time weather high over the ocean two hours out from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil on the way to Paris. Conclusions from the evidence provided by the black boxes are not yet final, but the next problem may have been that the aircraft’s air speed indicators, deriving information from pitot tubes, gave false readings to the pilots. When the aircraft began to stall, instead of putting the nose down to gather the speed necessary for the aircraft to start flying again, it seems that the pilots turned up the engines, which is another way of dealing with a stall situation, but they also pulled the nose up. More automatic stall warnings followed until the plane finally stalled, and once it began to fall the pilots seem to have been powerless to prevent the crash.

Were they intent upon climbing above the storm instead of pitching down into it? Were they relying too much on their electronics, apparently more and more dominant in aircraft cockpits? Did they panic? (How understandable if they did!) One awaits the final results of Air France’s inquest as to the cause of the crash, but a few things in connection with it are certain.

We can any of us die at any moment, for a variety of causes. Will we at that moment of death have the time, grace and presence of mind to make an act of contrition sufficient to save our souls? A fear of imminent death can wipe out of the mind everything except the instinctive urge to survive. Now millions of intercontinental passengers are every year whisked safely over oceans by our brilliant flying machines, but these are puny things compared to the forces of nature. “Stop,” said the storm, “you are not such masters of the elements as you think.” And the passengers and crew, called violently back to reality from their in-flight movies and in-seat meals, must all have been gripped by a panic fear for most or all of the 210-second plunge to their death, as nature’s law of gravity took over from man’s ingenuity of flight.

Even after 672 days on the ocean-bed, the black boxes functioned perfectly, and now they are yielding up their secrets of the last minutes of flight AF 447. Clever idea! Clever design! But how many souls aboard that brilliant machine were ready to enter into eternity? And how many more might have been ready if only men devoted to the saving of their souls a small part of the intelligence and effort which they spend on their material machines? Mother of God, pray for us sinners that neither distraction nor panic may prevent us from putting and keeping our souls in order, “now and in the hour of our death.”

Kyrie eleison.

Reading Pagans

Reading Pagans on June 4, 2011

Some Catholic eyebrows may have been raised a while ago when “Eleison Comments” (EC 188) recommended the reading of the pagan Greeks to get a handle on the universe’s moral framework. Why not rather read Catholic authors? But the same great realities of life, suffering and death were faced by the Greek tragedians as are faced by the Catholic Doctors: why, as it seems, are we born on this earth, only to suffer and die, and by death be separated from everything we have learned to love? The question is basic, and can be agonizing.

The Catholic answer is clear and complete: an infinitely good God gives to each of us life, free-will and time enough, if we make the right use of the suffering exactly dosed by his Providence (Mt.X, 29–31), for us to choose to spend our eternity rather with him in Heaven than without him in Hell. The Greek answer is incomplete, but not wholly wide of the mark. Instead of God the Father, they have a Father-god, Zeus, and instead of Providence they have Fate (Moira).

Now whereas for Catholics Providence is inseparable from God, the Greeks separate Zeus from Fate so that they sometimes clash. That follows from the Greeks having a too human concept of their gods. Nevertheless they do conceive of Zeus as more or less benignly directing the universe and of Fate as being unchangeable, as is Providence within the true God (Summa Ia, 23, 8; 116,3), so that they are not wholly wrong. Moreover they have more respect for their mythical gods, and for the moral order guarded by them, than do a host of modern writers, who have no respect for any god at all, and who set out to negate any trace of a moral order.

But the Greeks have one advantage even over Catholic writers. When they present great truths, these are drawn from raw life and not just – so to speak – out of the Catechism. The same holds true for any non-Catholic witness to truths taught by the Church. Just as today’s Talmudic Jews, precisely because they reject Jesus Christ, render a special witness to him by guarding jealously in their synagogues the Hebrew text of that Old Testament which speaks of Our Lord from beginning to end, so the ancient Greeks give special witness to God and his Providence when, independently of the Catechism, they demonstrate the world’s moral order in action. In this way they prove that such natural truths are accessible not only to believers, rather they belong to the very fabric of life as lived by everyone, if only it is sanely understood.

Another advantage of the ancient classics in particular is that having preceded Christ, there cannot be in them a trace of that apostasy which mars, more or less, even pious writers coming out of Christendom after the Middle Ages. Natural truths are presented by the ancients with a certain innocence and freshness which can no longer be recovered. The waters are too muddied.

In fact it was the Church’s monasteries which ensured the survival of the manuscripts of the ancient classics in medieval times. Count on the true Catholic Church to save them once more in modern times from the new barbarians, liberals! For wherever the so-called “scholarship” of the liberals prevails today, it turns all classics to dust.

Kyrie eleison.