Eleison Comments

Truth Exclusive

Truth Exclusive on June 21, 2008

At a public conference I gave recently (not in Germany), a liberal of a venerable aspect and age doubted whether human beings are really that valuable. I deliberately sharpened the reply: “Place all the horses on earth in one pan of a pair of scales, and in the other pan one wretched but human beggar, which pan weighs heavier?” Instead of answering the question he said, “That´s religion, that´s not common sense.” At which point I became a little angry . . .

It was not so much his love of horses that was upsetting. After all, the horse is a noble and useful animal, and all the horses of the world are certainly worth a great deal. Nor was it even his implicit scorn of religion that was disturbing. After all billions of human beings alive today see no reason to take seriously what they understand to be religion. What was terrible was the heresy of heresies underlying his hippophiliac answer, namely the assumption that one truth can contradict another.

Of course liberalism is now as common as daisies (or dandelions), so the good man was most likely unaware of the objective enormity of what he had said. But what he had clearly implied was that there is one truth for common sense and another truth for religion. In other words truth is not one, nor absolutely exclusive of error, but there are different truths for different people at different times, above all in different domains, and they can flatly contradict one another without any problem. Thus what is true for common sense can be false for religion, and vice versa.

This disbelief in the oneness of truth, or in its attainability by human beings, is, if it is a conscious denial, the crime of crimes, and if it is an unconscious assimilation of the disbelief in truth so widely shared today, it is the loss of losses. To starve the mind of that truth for which it is made is a crime as infinitely greater than starving stomachs of food, as eternal life is infinitely greater than this little life we have on earth, 70 years or so. This is because disbelief in exclusive truth, or in its possibility, cripples thinking at its very root, turns minds into mush, and ultimately crumbles the indispensable natural foundations of that supernatural Faith without which we cannot save our souls (Heb. XI, 6).

The venerable lover of horses came up after question time to smooth things over: “I only meant to say that the question in that sharpened form is not common sense,” he said. It was much to be feared that he had little idea of all that he has lost.

Kyrie eleison.

Tail’s Moral

Tail’s Moral on June 14, 2008

On a recent transatlantic flight I saw displayed on the TV screens in the aeroplane’s main cabin something I had never seen before: the constantly changing view over the front of the aeroplane as seen from a TV camera mounted outside at the back, no doubt high on the tailfin. It was an interesting perspective . . .

Of course the camera could only show always in the same position the forward fuselage and roots of the wings, it could not even show the flaps moving at the back of the wings to manoeuvre the monster bird up to its cruising height. Nevertheless as the machine picked its way between the clouds, how ungainly its movements seemed, when compared for instance with those of a seagull soaring on the wind and swooping over the surf with its entire body flexing at every moment in a variety of all instinctive ways!

However, one could not at the same time help admiring the enormous power being deployed by the monster bird as it forced so much weight upwards through the clouds against the pull of gravity. At least for now, oil alone has a sufficient ratio of energy to weight to make powered flight possible. But the ever expanding airports all over the world, veritable palaces of glass, steel and concrete, tell of the ever increasing number of flights, and such an increase can only mean the limited supply of fossil fuels being burnt up faster and faster. “Here today, gone tomorrow,” are not those palaces doomed?

For over the last 150 odd years the industrial way of life whereby a welfare beggar of today can live as comfortably as a king of yesterday, has made itself more and more dependent on oil, and it has spread all over the world. India and China represent two giant populations demanding today their share in this “progress.” But everything has its price, even “progress.”

As oil makes for material comfort by taking out the need for many a physical effort, so the strain shifts from the muscles to the nerves, and so there tends to fade out that sense of reality which came with the discipline of labouring by the sweat of one’s brow for food, warmth and clothing. More strain, less discipline, more unreality – disaster may be upon us even long before the oil runs out.

Kyrie eleison.

Children’s Treasure

Children’s Treasure on June 7, 2008

Do mothers know – do they still want to know – what treasures they, and they alone, can lay up in the hearts of their children? Here is a charming reminder from a young poet of the Irish countryside, born in the last years of the 19th century, who died on the eve of World War Two, Michael Walsh. The poem is entitled “Roses”:

Roses of evening – O loveliest of roses

Falling in music as the night came down –

To me the most familiar sound of childhood,

My mother praying on her beads of brown.

Evenings at home – O evenings long remembered!

Sunset on the meadows – moonrise on the snows,

Be it June or December – twilights that descended

To low soft music of a falling rose!

Of all the memories of a quiet valley

That haunt me, haunt me in this dusty town,

But one remains – the loveliest and the sweetest –

My mother praying on her beads of brown!

What a mother can give to her child in its earliest years cannot be replaced by the father, nor even at a later date by a beloved spouse. Both of them come upon the heart made, or unmade, by the mother. The key to its unmaking is her self-centredness, or selfishness, arising often today from the pursuit of her own fulfilment – how little does she know! The key to its making, and to that profound veneration in which mothers are naturally held, is her self-sacrifice, or selflessness. See in “Roses” how deep in the child struck his mother’s forgetting herself in God!

Kyrie eleison.

Anti-Culture Antidote

Anti-Culture Antidote on May 31, 2008

In the recent April 15 issue of “ The Remnant,” there appeared an article “Windy Blather and Lies” by a young man that I don’t think I have ever met, but saying what I have been saying for many years: movies are far and away the most formative influence on young people’s hearts and minds today, and they constitute a tremendous obstacle to the youngsters’ either growing up or acquiring any sense of reality, let alone getting to Heaven.

The author of the article, E.Z., teaches at a Traditional Catholic school for boys which is outstanding in the USA today, yet he says that when the boys come back from a vacation, the one question they are all asking one another is what movies they have seen! I am not surprised, nor do I blame the school. What else does the anti-culture of today’s dissociety have to offer to the youngsters for the feeding of their minds? Worse, what real grip can the Catholic religion have on minds and hearts marinated in such silliness and unreality? As Marcel de Corte puts it, how can someone who has no idea of real being have any real idea of the Supreme Being?

Not that reality will let itself be overwhelmed. Through finance, economics, soon politics and war, it is coming back at a rate of knots. The danger is rather of our children being so progressively caught up in the wilfully immature fantasy that it will be too late for them to re-adjust to reality. “Movies are all they know,” says E.Z., “they aren’t learning anything about life except from movies. How can they reconcile a phony Hollywoodian perception of reality with their Catholic Faith?” No wonder Conciliarism took over from Catholicism!

The whole of E.Z.’s article, especially for adults who may never have thought about the matter, needs to be read and pondered on (four copies available for 4 from Remnant Reprints at PO Box 1117, Forest Lake, MN 55025, USA), because not only was E.Z. himself in his youth, as he tells, totally trapped in movie-mania, but also he found a wholly practical way out – recordings of lectures on the classics, especially Shakespeare, by Dr. David White.

Says E.Z., “You’ll learn more about the world and more about yourself and more about your Catholic Faith by listening to those hundred lectures than in any school anywhere.” Strong words, but they make sense. Dr. White knows both where youngsters (and adults) are at today. and he knows his Faith, so that his tapes can provide an incomparable bridge between the two. Get the article, get the tapes (I get no commission).

Kyrie eleison.

Last Cartridge?

Last Cartridge? on May 24, 2008

A priestly colleague of the Society of St. Pius X has just written (or maybe adopted) a parable whereby the Society is the last cartridge of a hunter who must shoot to kill the monster of Neo-modernism entrenched within the structures of the Catholic Church. Since it is the last cartridge, the hunter cannot afford to miss! Well, the “hunter” may be burdened, but let me attempt to assure him that he is not burdened that much!

First and foremost, the Catholic Church belongs to Almighty God who has numerous possible ways of coming to its rescue that we men cannot even imagine. “Is my arm shortened because you men are wicked?” asks the Lord God (Isaiah L:2). To imagine that the Lord God depends upon the SSPX to deal with the monster of Neo-modernism is gravely to underestimate His powers!

Secondly, Neo-modernism is surely far too entrenched in Catholics (or former Catholics) for a little Congregation of some 450 priests to be able to dislodge it! Just as the crime of abortion has become more and more normal and accepted over the last 40 years, so too has the heresy of Neo-modernism more and more established itself over the same time-period in the hearts and minds of the mass of Catholics (or once Catholics). By the grace of God, the SSPX may still have the Truth, but what grip or leverage does truth still have on diabolically disoriented minds, starting with those of today’s leading churchmen?

Thirdly, what power does the SSPX have other than the – today – powerless Truth? Besides the Faith, the SSPX has neither great numbers nor great theologians nor great writers. It is holding its own all over the world, which is already a miracle, but it is fragile and in worldly terms it is advancing surely no more than one little step at a time, whereas the worldwide Revolution is advancing by leaps and bounds.

No, dear colleague. The humble mission of the SSPX is surely not to kill the storm dead (as only Our Lord could do), but to ride it out. Not to overwhelm the lies, but to sustain the Truth. Not to conquer, but to give witness. Not to be in a hurry, but to wait for God’s good time. It is his Church, and he is certainly looking after it by, amongst other things, sustaining thus far the SSPX. But he is never short of cartridges!

Kyrie eleison.

Liberty vs. Nature

Liberty vs. Nature on May 17, 2008

Why is modern youth so goofy? The movies shown on long-haul airplane flights rarely promise to be anything but silly, but a movie from Catalonia recently made this ever hopeful 12-hour prisoner watch, and suggested an answer – liberty! The movie may have said more than it meant.

Here is the story. A young couple, unmarried but living together as is the way of “partners” today, are shown agreeing to part company if either of them ever feels like it. However, they love one another enough to hire together an apartment where she is happy to make with her man her first domestic nest. Alas, he has to be hospitalized with a grave liver problem, requiring a transplant for him to survive.

Visiting him regularly and caringly in the hospital, she offers him a part of her own liver. At last he accepts. The doctors find her compatible. The transplant is performed. Both recover from the operation. Joyfully he returns to the apartment to rejoin the girl who has saved his life, but he finds her . . . different! While he was in the hospital, a male colleague at her place of work took an interest in her, and she in turn found him attractive. So when the “partner” whom she saved rejoins her, she tells him that they may be bonded by his having in him a physical part of her, but he no longer has the best part of her, which is her heart! Weakly he comments, “What a pity!” But given their original agreement, what more was there to say?

The movie ends with her gently weeping in his arms, leaving open the possibility of a happy-ever-after ending, whereby he would regain her heart’s affections, etc, etc. However, it seems just as probable that she will “move on” (as they say today) to her new “partner.” In fact, to any bond created by her considerable sacrifice she even seems likely to prefer freedom for her feelings.

Now nothing in the movie remotely promotes the Catholic formula for such domestic happiness of man and woman as this “valley of tears” allows of, namely, a girl keeps her heart in reserve for the one man she will marry, marries him, and then never lets him go. But the movie does quite objectively suggest that that “liberty” which can cut off a girl’s deepest natural instincts of nest-making and self-sacrifice for her man, is not necessarily going to make her happy. Girls, if you are looking for happiness in this life, let alone for eternity, trust Mother Church.

Kyrie eleison.