Eleison Comments

Just Claims

Just Claims on May 30, 2009

On the assumption that the Second Vatican Council established within the Catholic Church a serious split between Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority, “Eleison Comments” three weeks ago (“Flat Contradiction”) divided today’s Catholics between those who cling to Truth and have problems with Catholic Authority, and those who cling to Catholic Authority and have problems with Catholic Truth or doctrine, for instance on religious liberty.

Setting up such a parallel between “Conciliarists” following Vatican II and “Traditionalists” following the age-old doctrine and liturgy, may well shock numbers of both, for the reasons evoked above, but let us appeal to the realities in the Church around us. Do we not observe that as Traditionalists who wholly reject present Church authorities risk losing their Catholic sense, so too Conciliarists who wholly scorn present Traditionalists (as do most German bishops) risk ceasing to be Catholics for lack of any sense of doctrinal truth?

However, the parallel only goes so far. For while outright “sedevacantism” and outright Neo-modernism are in this logical respect comparable, they are by no means equivalent, because Truth is higher than Authority, which only exists to serve Truth. If all Authority disappeared, Truth would still be there (“My words will not pass away,” says Our Lord – Mk.XXV, 35). But if all Truth were smothered in lies, as is happening today, we would see, as we are seeing, all Authority discredited with it, and being replaced by brute force. Truth and its ensuing Justice are the life-blood of Authority. Authority is merely the servant and protector of Truth and Justice.

This is why Traditionalists clinging to Truth are, as such, repeat, as such, better Catholics than Conciliarists clinging to Authority – judge by the fruits! And while Truth, by its nature of corresponding to the object and not to the subject, cannot bend to Authority, on the contrary the Church authorities, Popes and Cardinals and Bishops, must one day bend back to the Truth, and the sooner the better. Nor is saying so remotely an arrogant claim on the part of Traditionalists, as Cardinal Ratzinger once opined, because Traditionalists never invented Tradition, Tradition was a given, from being merely faithful to which they got their name. Archbishop Lefebvre had engraved on his tombstone St. Paul’s “Tradidi quod et accepi” (I Cor.XI, 23), because he was the very first to maintain that he had done no more than hand on what had been handed down to him.

This fundamental primacy of Truth over Authority applies inside and outside the Catholic Church, inside and outside any part of the Church. But modern souls have lost almost all grip on Truth. Here is the drama.

Kyrie eleison.

Sick Claims

Sick Claims on May 23, 2009

Another friend of mine tells me that on the occasion of some anniversary of Shakespeare (1564–1616), numbers of people, no doubt to battle “homophobia,” are maintaining once more that he was one of “them.” For proof that the Bard belonged to what is often called the Lavender Brigade, they are resorting as usual to the Sonnets, many of which were indeed lovingly addressed to a certain young man. Let us attempt to disentangle the mess.

Firstly, for men to misuse with men or for women to misuse with women that process which God gave to both to use properly with one another for the reproduction and continuation of the human race, is so grave a sin against God and human society that the Catholic Church calls it one of the four sins “crying to Heaven for vengeance.” To ensure that mankind continues, God gave to every one of us a deep and natural repugnance for man on man, or woman on woman. To whitewash the sin by blackening the repugnance for it as “homophobia,” is mentally and morally sick.

However, “to them that are defiled, and to unbelievers, nothing is clean” (Titus I, 15). For sick minds, there can be no such thing as a clean love between man and man. Therefore when Scripture (I Kings I, 26) presents to us such a love as noble in the extreme, as when David grieves for his dead friend Jonathan – “I grieve for thee, my brother Jonathan: exceeding beautiful, and amiable to me above the love of women. As the mother loveth her only son, so did I love thee,” these sick minds will declare that such love is to be approved of not because it could be void of sin, but only because to condemn it as sin is “homophobia.”

The case of Shakespeare’s love for the young man that he made famous in his Sonnets is surely similar. Many of them tell us how this young man was graced with a beauty comparable to that of women, or even more beautiful, says Shakespeare. And apparently those now trying to enlist the Bard in their ranks appeal in particular to Sonnet 20 for proof of his perversion. But I ask me: can they read? The first eight lines of this Sonnet may praise the young man’s feminine beauty, but the next four go on to tell how Nature endowed him also with a masculine feature which is (l.12) of no use to Shakespeare, but only to women (l.13). Conclusion? – “Mine be thy love, and thy love’s use their treasure” (l.14).

If people who have let themselves get caught in the vice against nature do all they can to get out of it, they deserve the sympathy of all sane souls. But if they so wallow in their perversion as to pretend that sane heroes of the past were like them, they need to be vigorously and clearly denounced – for as long as it is not illegal to do so!

Kyrie eleison.

Flat Objection

Flat Objection on May 16, 2009

A friend has just reminded me of the classic objection to the teaching of the true Catholic Church on religious liberty, outlined here last week. Here is the objection: Major: To force anyone’s belief is absurd, because belief is not something that can be forced. Minor: But to refuse people’s religious liberty is to force their beliefs. Conclusion: Therefore to refuse religious liberty is absurd.

The Major here is true. What someone does or does not believe in matters of religion is the choice of his inner free-will, which either cannot be gotten at from outside of him, and/or – especially in the case of the Catholic Faith – should not be gotten at from outside, because “Nemo nolens credit” (St. Augustine), i.e. nobody can believe against his will. So outer forcing of Catholic belief is either impossible or wrong.

The problem lies in the Minor of the objection. The Traditional Church doctrine that a Catholic State should not grant to its citizens religious liberty does not mean that the State should force anyone’s private belief, nor does it mean that the State should force anyone to act in public in accordance with Catholic belief. What it does mean is that a Catholic State has the right to prevent the public practice of any religion contrary to Catholic belief, and if the prohibition will do more good than harm, it has the duty to prohibit such practice. This is because every State made up of human beings comes from God as do they, and it has from God a corresponding duty to provide temporally (i.e. to do what it can in time, here below on earth) for the eternal welfare of its citizens (i.e. their salvation in Heaven). Citizens are normally influenced by everything going on in the State around them, so their eternal salvation is normally hindered by the public practice of false religions.

Thus the Catholic Church teaches that religious liberty must be denied 1) only in the case of false religions, 2) only in their public practice, and 3) only where it will do more good than harm to prohibit such practice. This used to mean only in Catholic States, because where there is little or no Catholic Faith, such a prohibition makes little to no sense. Today it means in hardly any States at all, because the citizens of all modern States are so steeped in liberalism (the quasi-religion of liberty) that even in supposedly Catholic States today such a prohibition would outrage people’s worship of freedom and so it would do more harm than good.

However, of these three conditions, the first is the key. If I do not grasp that Catholicism is the one and only completely true religion, I shall never conceive why all other religions should ever be blocked in public. Contrariwise, if I grasp that Catholicism alone (accepted at least implicitly) can send souls to Heaven, and that all other religions, as such, repeat, as such, send souls to Hell, then it follows automatically that their public practice should, where reasonable, be blocked. It comes down to a question of Faith. “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief” (Mk.IX, 23).

Kyrie eleison.

Flat Contradiction

Flat Contradiction on May 9, 2009

Ever since, with the Second Vatican Council, Catholic Authority and Catholic Truth substantially parted company, the Catholics who clung to Authority have had problems with the Truth, and the Catholics who clung to Truth have had problems with Catholic Authority. What could be more logical? Catholics on both sides long for a reunion. Especially amongst decent Conciliar Catholics, this takes the concrete form of the ardent wish that Pope Benedict XVI and the Society of St. Pius X come to an understanding.

Well and good. But there is a problem. Vatican II contradicts Catholic Truth, outside of which Catholic Authority dissolves, is now dissolving, because its Divine Master, Our Lord Jesus Christ, is “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn. XIV,6). For proof of the contradiction, read for instance Michael Davies’ The Second Vatican Council and Religious Liberty, where he shows that while the Catholic Church has always taught that no man has a true right not to be prevented from propagating error, Vatican II (Dignitatis Humanae) taught that every man has a true right not to be prevented from propagating error (save public order – see Davies’ Chapter XXII in particular). The contradiction is direct.

At first sight it may seem unimportant, because what does it matter if a few crazy people more or a few crazy people less spout nonsense in public? But in fact the difference between the right and the non-right to propagate error is all the difference between Hollywood’s candy-on-a-leash deity, and the Lord God of Hosts, whose thunder and lightning struck terror into the hearts of the Israelites even miles distant from his flaming Mount Sinai (Exodus XX, 18–21).

For indeed all human action follows on some thought. But thought is uttered between men, or socialized, mainly with words. Thus the being and action of any human society hangs on exchanges of words. Therefore either truth and error in those exchanges are of no importance to the existence of any society or the direction it is taking, or any society must control public speech in its midst, at least sufficiently to check significant transmission of significant error.

Now the only limit set by Vatican II to public discourse is that it should not disturb “public order.” So for Vatican II, any heresy or blasphemy may be uttered in public so long as the police do not have to be called in, and any deity that may exist must bow down before this “freedom and dignity of the human person”! On the contrary the Lord God of Sinai, the Holy Trinity whose Second Person is Jesus Christ, tells us we will answer for every idle word (Mt. XII, 36), and even for sinful thoughts (Mt.V, 28). So in accordance with God’s Truth (and so long as it will do more good than harm), Catholic society checks the public propagation of error against Faith or morals.

Kyrie eleison.

Kings Insufficient

Kings Insufficient on May 2, 2009

I have never felt entirely comfortable around monarchists, by which I mean people for whom a return to kings and queens would solve a large part of our present democratic woes. I agree that bygone monarchies like those of England, France and Russia are great landscapes for a nostalgia trip, and that Cromwell, Robespierre and Lenin were treacherous pioneers of a ghastly New World Order. Nevertheless the nostalgia comes across to me as a distraction.

Such thoughts arise from a visit to the delightful Exhibition at the Tate (Britain) Gallery in London, open until May 17, entitled “Van Dyck and Britain.” Sir Anthony van Dyck, knighted by King Charles I, was the outstanding painter of 17th century England. Born in 1599 in Antwerp, in today’s Belgium, he showed an early talent for painting, and soon became the “best pupil” of the famous Flemish painter, Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640). Amidst youthful travels on the Continent, in particular to Genoa to learn from the Italian masters, he made a brief visit to London in 1620–1621.

However, from 1632 until his early death in 1641, at the invitation of the Stuart King Charles I, a keen patron of the arts, van Dyck came to England mostly to stay. Here he became the fashionable and highly influential portrait painter of England’s ruling class, projecting, as no doubt the King had wished, a glamorous image of the Stuart kingdom. The glamour lives on in the colorful and characterful portraits that make up the bulk of this Exhibition.

Like his Continental masters, Rubens and Titian, and like the King’s spouse, Henrietta Maria of France, van Dyck was a Catholic. Even if a Puritan could be a painter, never could he rejoice as does van Dyck in the play of light upon gorgeous fabrics, nor could he portray costumes still more fanciful than they were in reality, like van Dyck’s ballooning sleeves. Of course the Puritans made war on Charles, and in 1649 they cut off his head, but with the Stuart Restoration of 1660 some of the color and joy returned, and van Dyck’s influence upon English portrait painting lasted – one thinks in particular of Gainsborough and Reynolds in the 18th century – through to the early 20th century, when at last the lights were switched out all over Europe, and remaining monarchies were extinguished with them, or gutted.

Therefore kings alone are not enough. They may patronize the arts, and their courts may uphold for a while the glamour and the glory, as reflected for instance by van Dyck, in whose dashing canvases one finds surprisingly little or no trace of the murderous tensions underlying the 1630’s in England. Nevertheless soon after him King and court were swept away, and only Restored on modern skids. What then does it take to overcome colorless and glamourless modernity? No less than the King of kings, and his Catholic Cross! “O crux ave, spes unica” – “Hail to thee, Cross, our only hope.”

Kyrie eleison.

Good Question

Good Question on April 25, 2009

On the blog-site of a certain Fr. John Zuhlsdorf appeared this week a number of comments provoked by “Difficult Discussions” appearing here a week ago. Many of these comments were relatively thoughtful – a compliment to Fr Zuhlsdorf. One went straight to the point: “Bishop Williamson is using terms without defining them. I’d really like to know if I am a Neo-modernist.” Joe Pinyan further wanted to know, “in order not to be in league with Baal,” whether he should be worshipping God rather at an SSPX Chapel than at a parish where both the “extraordinary” and “ordinary” forms of Mass are celebrated.

To offer Joe an answer, let me begin by defining Neo-modernism. It is the revival (“Neo-”), let loose within the Catholic Church by Vatican II (1962–1965), of the all-embracing heresy of Modernism. Modernism is the dreadful system of mind-rot, emerging over a century ago within the Church and solemnly condemned by St. Pius X in his Encyclical “Pascendi,” whereby the Catholic Church must be adapted to fit the modern world, as shaped by Protestantism and Liberalism. It is in fact the ultimate form of Liberalism, because by its Kantian principles it pretends to liberate man’s mind (and will) from any truth (or law) whatsoever.

Modernism is an especially hypocritical and dangerous error because it can leave intact the appearances of Catholicism even while emptying out its reality. Thus Jesus Christ is not really God, but I am free to make him God (for me) if I want to. Thus Catholic Truth and Law become whatever I care to make of them. Thus out of the Ten Commandments, I become free to obey none or all ten, because either way I am only obeying me. Neo-modernism is even more dangerous than Modernism, because by it the very highest of churchmen, instead of continuing like St.Pius X utterly to condemn Modernism, adopted it to establish it officially inside the Church!

Thus today Catholics have been made free to attend either the “extraordinary” or the “ordinary” form of Mass, according as they prefer the unchanging real God and his essentially unchanging true Mass, or both of them as suited to today’s world. Now this recent freeing of attendance at the true Mass may have proceeded from the best of intentions of Benedict XVI, but the real God imposes on all of us to worship him as he really is, and not as he has been downsized by modern man. So I hardly expect you to believe me against Rome, Joe, if I tell you to flee the “ordinary” form of Mass, but if you want nothing to do with the worship of Baal, then that is, objectively speaking, what you should do.

However, if you do wish to believe me, you must read! Alas, Pius X’s Pascendi makes for difficult reading. Start here on Dinoscopus with those “Eleison Comments” that treat of religion. Then graduate to the two books, soon to be four, advertised alongside. Then read anything written by Archbishop Lefebvre. Most important to obtain light, pray the Rosary to the Mother of the real God. And may God bless you.

Kyrie eleison.