Eleison Comments

Guerrilla Gardening

Guerrilla Gardening on September 20, 2008

Over the last few years I have advised several owners of a house with a yard or garden to pull up the rose-bushes and plant potatoes. Some of them must have wondered what on earth I was talking about. With the collapse of Wall Street and finance capitalism now well on its way, they may understand better.

It is the last Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the banksters’ puppet at the head of the banksters’own Sesame Cave, who for several years promoted, pushed and protected those financial instruments known as “derivatives” which the famed American investor Warren Buffett denounced prophetically soon after they appeared as “weapons of mass financial destruction.” In other words the banksters themselves put in place the rolling rock to let loose the avalanche.

“Free enterprise” means in effect survival of the fittest, with freedom for the stronger to eat up the weaker, until takeovers and mergers make enterprises so massive that they become too big to fail. Then, by capitalism’s internal contradiction, the failing enterprises that used to scream for the government not to intervene, now scream for it to intervene, and we see, for instance, the US government nationalising Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (Sept. 13), AIG, etc. Thus capitalism and socialism that always pretended to be enemies suddenly discover they are friends, while the banksters’ globalism is waiting in the wings to swallow up both of them.

So what is the solution to the grand problem of the false split between capitalism and socialism? Many serious and honest non-Catholics recognize it is to be found in Pope Leo XIII’s famed Encyclical of 1891, Rerum Novarum. That solution is the Gospel. Yes, both capitalism and socialism are problems ultimately religious!

And what is the solution to the immediate problem of rising food prices and imminent war (classic solution for capitalism’s problems)? See the article on “Guerrilla Gardening” in the August 25 edition of the admirable “American Free Press” – dig up the lawn and plant potatoes.

Kyrie eleison.

9/11 Questions

9/11 Questions on September 13, 2008

Two days ago was the seventh anniversary of that 9/11 event which changed people’s thinking all over the world. I am always surprised when people cannot see the religious dimension of what happened on that day.

Firstly, can anybody deny that since 9/11 the police-state, for instance in the USA (but not only), has made giant advances, and always in the name of 9/11? And can anybody claim that the advancing police-states make the peoples more free? Are they not rather paving the way for global enslavement? But Our Lord says that the truth will make us free (Jn.VIII, 32). Does that not tell us that 9/11 was maybe a gigantic lie?

In which case, secondly, leaving aside the nigh-on 3000 people murdered for the purposes of whoever the Insiders were, has not the moral atmosphere of the entire world been polluted wherever this event was passed off as being what the media and politicians worldwide made it out to be? And is that pollution not still continuing? And is such a massive breaking of the Eighth Commandment (“Thou shalt not bear false witness”) not a moral problem, a grave offence against God, and therefore a religious problem?

And is not the worldwide success of such a lie not a punishment from God upon the peoples of the world who do not want to have to live up to the demands of his Truth? In the time of the Antichrist, says Scripture (II Thess.II, 10–11), “to them that perish . . . God shall send the operation of error, to believe lying: that all may be judged who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity.” Does “operation of error” not perfectly fit 9/11? Is then 9/11 not a major step towards the Antichrist? And is the Antichrist not a religious problem?

I hear someone objecting: “Alright, alright, the evidence persuades me that 9/11 was an inside job. But what can I do about it?” Answer, stop making your government(s) and your media into your religion, or half your religion, with a de-clawed Catholicism being the other half! Wake up! 9/11 IS a religious problem!

Kyrie eleison.

Weak Tea?

Weak Tea? on September 6, 2008

To a layman asking whether one should – or could – attend today the (Tridentine) Mass of a priest ordained in 1972 with the 1968 new rite of Ordination, an SSPX priest answered that the SSPX “would not recommend it.” The layman found this answer “too weak to be definitive.” His hope for stronger answers is surely shared by many souls suffering from today’s all-round confusion.

However, clear answers are not always possible. Where an object is grey, one cannot say it is black or white. At the point of dawn, one cannot say it is night or day, because it is in between. Where the truth is confusing, it is more important to try to be true than to try to be clear. Alas, with Novus Ordo ordinations as with Novus Ordo Masses, no doubt they are more and more often invalid as the pre-Conciliar Church’s ways drop more and more into the past, but even today one cannot truthfully say that all Novus Ordo sacraments are automatically invalid.

A sacrament to be valid requires valid Minister, Form, Matter, and Intention. In 1972 it is reasonable to assume (one can always check) that the ordaining Minister (bishop) and his sacramental Intention were still Catholic. The Form of the 1968 rite of priestly Ordination includes (even in English) all the elements necessary for validity. And one can assume that the Bishop laid both hands on the future priest’s head, which means there was the Matter. For a 2002 Novus Ordo ordination the need to check elements necessary for validity is definitely more pressing, but for a 1972 ordination, surely the SSPX priest’s abstaining in his answer from a clear condemnation was reasonable.

Nevertheless he said the SSPX “would not recommend” attendance at such a priest’s (Tridentine) Mass, and surely that is also reasonable. Besides the remote off- chance (in 1972) that the ordination was invalid, the Mass in question may be set in a whole Novus Ordo context liable eventually to undermine the Catholic Faith of those attending.

However, unless a priest knows personally such a celebrant and his manner of celebrating the Tridentine Mass, he must leave to Catholics who do know him to judge whether his way of celebrating is of a nature to nourish or to undermine the Faith of Catholics. Certainly not all Novus Ordo priests today picking up the Tridentine Mass mean to bring souls round to Vatican II. On the contrary.

Almighty God, we beg of You, restore order in Your Church!

Kyrie eleison.

Fatal Turn – II

Fatal Turn – II on August 30, 2008

To say that the “turn to man” is the key-note of Vatican II is not an insult to Vatican II. Was not “die anthropologische Wende” (“the turn to man” in German) at the heart of Fr. Karl Rahner’s thinking, and was not Rahner one of the very most influential minds at work in the Council? The question is not whether or not Vatican II turned to man. The question is whether that turn was a good or bad thing.

The Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty, Dignitatis Humanae(Of Human Dignity), argues that every civil government must grant to all its citizens the civil right to practise in public whatever religion those citizens choose to practise, because even if they misuse that right by choosing to practise a false religion, still their intrinsic dignity or worth as human beings demands that they be granted that liberty to choose. No liberty, no dignity.

Here is the key quotation: “The right to (civil) religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person” (broadly equivalent to what we call “second nature”) “but in his very nature” (what we might call, as against second nature, man’s “first nature”). “In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it . . .” In other words, where the Catholic Church always used to teach that the prime worth of a human being so consists in his getting closer to the true God that a State may – wherever it will not be counter-productive for the salvation of souls – forbid the public practice of false religions, i.e. all non-Catholic religions, the Conciliar Church henceforth teaches that the prime worth of a human being so consists in his making his own choice of religion, true or false, that no State should place any civil hindrance in the way of any citizen practising in public the religion of his own choice.

The difference may seem slight at first sight, but the implications are enormous: man in the place of God. For Catholicism, a man’s prime worth or dignity consists in the right use of the free will intrinsic to his (first) human nature. Free will is not an end in itself but merely a means of so choosing good as to get to Heaven. God’s good is the end, man’s freedom is merely the means. Man’s first nature is for his second nature. First nature is not enough for eternal salvation.

On the contrary, for Conciliarism a man’s prime worth so consists in his first nature that the mere exercise of his free will, regardless of the good or evil he chooses, is more important for the human person and therefore for the State than the right use of his free will. In other words man’s free will comes before God’s right or wrong, before God’s Heaven or Hell. The mere exercise of freedom is becoming an end in itself. “First nature” now has priority over second nature. If “God” condemns men to “Hell” for “misuse” of their free will, that is God’s problem (or a problem of the old religion), not a problem for man!

Could any doctrine put men more surely on the road to Hell than such a “turn to man”?

Kyrie eleison.

Colonial Charm

Colonial Charm on August 23, 2008

A brief visit to Goa, former Portuguese colony half-way down the western coast of the Indian sub-continent and now a full member-state of the Republic of India, revives within me a great nostalgia, a great debate and always the same great conclusion: the Lord God is not a little lap-dog to be put on a leash!

The 1,429-square mile enclave of Goa was conquered by the Portuguese in two stages, in 1510 and 1546, as an essential link in a chain of supply-stations for their ships travelling between Europe and the Far East for the spice trade, which then brought with it immense wealth. The conquest still shows in a ring of well-designed and well-built forts surrounding the Old City of Goa, and largely visible today. The wealth still shows in a few sumptuous churches of the Old City, dating back to the early years of the Portuguese settlers when the spice trade and their Catholic Faith were in their hey-day. Goa was the base of operations in the Far East for St. Francis Xavier, whose body rests in one of the great churches. Goa is where he wanted to be buried. He still watches over it.

From the 18th century onwards Goa lost its importance for trade, but the Portuguese remained, because they had put down deep roots and had created what some have called the “Rome of the Orient.” They had successfully converted the local population. At one point they even destroyed all Hindu temples. The result was a Catholic enclave in the warmth of the tropics, peaceful and happy, with an administrative order typical of the colonies prior to their de-colonisation, and with a special charm of which traces remain to this day. Hence the nostalgia.

But time moves on. By mid-20th century the adoration of “liberty” and the onward march of “independence” was spelling the death of the European colonies and empires. At least in the Portuguese, Spanish and French empires the conquest of souls for Heaven had been a driving motivation, evident in Goa, but it is now failing in “Rome of the Occident” itself, as it puts into practice the revolutionary Second Vatican Council. Where God the Father was being stripped of His Fatherhood, any kind of paternity or paternalism was being correspondingly outlawed, and that included all paternalism of colonies and empires. “Colonialism” and “imperialism” were to be replaced by scruffy tourism and disordered socialism. Religion, or irreligion, rules.

So in 1961 the combined army, air force and navy of the new Indian Republic took over the enclave of Goa. Hinduisation is proceeding apace, Goa has been moved into the modern world, and Hindu temples are being built everywhere, with the encouragement of the Catholic priests. But is it the fault of the children or the fathers? Was not a mosque built recently right next to St. Peter’s in Rome?

Kyrie eleison.

Fatal Turn – I

Fatal Turn – I on August 16, 2008

Man, says Vatican II (Gaudium et Spes), is the only creature that God wants for its own sake. Typically for Vatican II, this statement has two possible meanings, one orthodox and the other profoundly revolutionary. Unfortunately for the “conservatives” who try to maintain that the Council was Catholic, it is the revolutionary meaning that clearly corresponds to the key doctrine of another Council document, Dignitatis Humanae, and is therefore the Council’s true meaning.

Amongst all the material creatures on this earth, man alone is rational, i.e. endowed with faculties capable of knowing and loving God. All the rest of material creation serves only as a trampoline for man to bounce his short life on, until either he jumps to Heaven or crashes into Hell, and as soon as the last soul appointed by God to make that choice has done so, then all material creation will be consumed by fire, says Scripture (II Peter), because it will have served its purpose. In this sense it is true that God wills all creatures for man, and man alone for himself.

But that God wants man for man’s own sake is absolutely false in relation to God because God cannot want any creature, even man, for anything other than for the sake of God himself. God is Self-Being, Self-Good, totally Self-Sufficient, totally Self-Perfect. He can be in no want outside of His Divine Self-Being, because that would be in Him a need, a lack, an imperfection. That does not exclude his wanting to create creatures other than himself – look around! – but it does exclude his wanting them ultimately for anything other than for his own Goodness. Penultimately, i.e. prior to ultimately, he may want them for their own sake, for instance man to share in his Bliss, but ultimately he can only want them for his own Goodness, otherwise he would be needing them to perfect him – blasphemy!

St. Thomas Aquinas explains this ultimate and penultimate willing of God by a comparison with sweet and sour medicine, Ultimately I take the medicine, sweet or sour, only for my health, but if the medicine is sweet then penultimately I can be taking it also for its sweet taste. Ultimately God can want nothing but his own Goodness. Only penultimately can he want any creature for its own sake, e.g. man, to share in the Divine Bliss.

Does the distinction seem subtle? In the present case it is all the difference between man being centred on God, as the true Catholic religion knows, or God being centred on man, which is what the false religion of Vatican II is promoting – the “turn towards man.” Stay tuned for the proof from Dignitatis Humanae that the centring of God on man is the Council’s true meaning.

Kyrie eleison.