Eleison Comments

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT on November 30, 2024

‘Tis God Who designed, created every child.

Neglect His own instructions – they go wild.

“Spare the rod and spoil the child” is an old proverb, going back certainly before our own time, going back at least to the Old Testament, in surprisingly many places. Eight of them are quoted here below, with comments, and there might easily be even be more. What matters is to realise that if Scripture is so insistent, then the principle comes not only from natural common sense, but ultimately from God Himself to instruct us on how human nature, specially of boys, is to be formed. Of course modern circumstances must be taken into account, for instance fundamentally wicked legislation by which a government’s so-called “social services” can take my children away from me and my wife if we dare to lay a finger on them. But the series of Scripture quotes tells us at least what to think of such “social services.”

Let us begin with Proverbs XIII, 24, an almost literal version of our familiar proverb –

He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes.

Proverbs XIX, 18 is an appeal to common sense. Corporal punishment is to be used justly, without excess –

Chastise thy son, despair not: but to the killing of him set not thy soul.

Proverbs XXII, 15 evokes the original sin which is the great truth behind the need for corporal punishment –

Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of correction shall drive it away.

Proverbs XXIII, 13 is another appeal to common sense: it will not kill the child to warm his backside –

Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die.

Proverbs XXV, 20 declares how unwise it is to spoil a bad person (or naughty child) with being too nice – As vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a very evil heart.

Proverbs XXIX, 15, 17 declare the good/bad effect on parents of punishing/ not punishing children –

15 The rod and reproof instil wisdom, but the child that is left to his own will bringeth his mother to shame.

17 Instruct thy son, and he shall refresh thee, and shall give delight to thy soul.

Ecclesiasticus XXII, 6 repeats the teaching of Proverbs on the value of corporal punishment -–

 . . . the stripes and instruction of wisdom are never out of time (“stripes” here means “beatings”).

Ecclesiasticus XXX, 1–12 is a little treatise on the value of taking care in bringing up one’s sons –

He that loveth his son, frequently chastiseth him, that he may rejoice in his latter end, and not grope after the doors of his neighbours. 2 He that instructeth his son shall be praised in him, and shall glory in him in the midst of them of his household. 3 He that teacheth his son, maketh his enemy jealous, and in the midst of his friends shall glory in him . . . 6 For he left behind him a defender of his house against his enemies, and one that will repay kindness to his friends . . .

9 Give thy son his way, and he shall make thee afraid: play with him, and he shall make thee sorrowful. 10 Laugh not with him, lest thou have sorrow, and at the last thy teeth be set on edge. 11 Give him not liberty in his youth, and wink not at his devices. 12 Bow down his neck while he is young, and beat his sides while he is a child, lest he grow stubborn, and regard thee not, and so be a sorrow of heart to thee.

Do not the “child psychologists” of today teach parents rather the opposite of the Old Testament? Do not many parents of today tend to give up on disciplining or instructing their own children, rather handing them over, or letting them be taken in hand, by their godless States? And are the boys any the better for it? Judging by a mass of today’s young men . . .

Kyrie eleison.

CONTROLLED CHAOS

CONTROLLED CHAOS on November 23, 2024

God then withdrew, a punishment quite just,

Yet still men are intent on going bust!

If there is one word with which to describe the state of the Catholic Church today, surely that word is “chaos.” The normal structure of the Church is that of a pyramid, with God’s own Authority descending through Pope, cardinals, bishops and priests, all raised up by God to look after His sheep, or laity, at ground level. This hierarchy consists of fallible men, from top to bottom, so that at all levels mistakes can be made. However, if in normal circumstances a Superior in the hierarchy misbehaves, he usually has a Superior of his own to whom I can appeal against his misbehaviour, because any given Superior in the Church will normally make decisions in accordance with Canon Law, and, with a minimum of good will, in accordance with truth and justice. And so, in normal circumstances, from lower down I can appeal all the way up to Rome.

However, what happens when the fallible human being at the top of this pyramid loses his sense of truth and justice, and even his good will? There can only be chaos in the Church from top to bottom, because the Catholic Church was designed by God to be a monarchy in which there is His own divine Authority to protect the great truths of salvation, so that He can populate His Heaven with souls to share His bliss. That Authority is recognised and exercised at all levels of the hierarchy, but supremely by the Pope, who has no human Superior above him, but only God. It follows that if the Pope, or the man in white who is universally accepted as Pope, seems to lose all sense of Truth for which alone he receives his awesome Authority over the Church, dwarfing all merely human authorities, then the Church is in chaos, from top to bottom.

In this respect, the Catholic Church resembles a string doll consisting of multiple pieces of coloured wood, upheld on strings, upheld in turn by the puppeteer above. If for one moment the puppeteer lets go of the strings, the entire doll collapses into a jumbled heap of meaningless pieces of wood. If for one moment Almighty God lets go of His Pope and Cardinals in Rome, His bishops and priests and laity turn worldwide into a jumbled heap of Catholics, disunited and divided among themselves, many of them striving to recreate in their own little corner a semblance of that divine Authority which can come from God alone. What less can they do? Wise Catholics recognise their basic impotency, unless and until God restores a Catholic Pope. Meanwhile Catholics must do what they can to rebuild Catholic corners, and help all other Catholics to do the same, just so long as they have the Catholic Faith (and here let nobody pretend to be infallible!).

And the Pope, or seeming Pope? The correct perspective on the history of mankind is that, because of original sin, each of its Seven Ages is launched by a key figure, followed by a period of decadence until the next key figure is appointed by God to raise mankind up again, until the Antichrist will bring to an end the Seventh Age of the World which was introduced by God Himself with His Incarnation, some 2000 years ago.

This Seventh Age has been by far the longest, because God’s own Incarnation has been the turning-point of human history, the climax of all Seven Ages, because the Incarnation has continued ever since through the Catholic Church, Jesus continuing to live and save souls for eternity among all races and nations.

But God, to honour man, chose to entrust His Church not to angels but to fallible men, without turning them into robots by taking away their free-will. This means that He laid Himself open to the possibility that the human ministers of His Church would eventually so misuse their God-given free-will as to destroy His Church. This is what virtually happened at Vatican II (1962–1965). In 1968, God gave mankind a second chance, when He guided Pope Paul VI to condemn artificial means of birth control in the Encyclical Humanae Vitae. But all mankind, not just the Catholics, rose up in revolt, to condemn the old man dressed in white, living in Rome, supposed to know nothing about marriage.

Almighty God then said, so to speak, “Alright. Have it your own way. You do not want My Church. Have your own, and see how you like it. Good-bye for now. Get back in touch as soon as you want My Church back. Meanwhile, I will keep it going, in distress. I will be waiting to hear from you. I love you still.

Kyrie eleison.

SOME ANSWERS

SOME ANSWERS on November 16, 2024

The chaos of today is serving to purge

Mankind. Bad men will undergo the scourge.

60 years ago this writer was given by God a real sense of civilisation disintegrating. From there it was merely a matter of time (and grace) before the pursuit of Truth led him to the Catholic Church. The same pursuit of Truth led him at the end of 1972 to Archbishop Lefebvre and to his Seminary in Econe, Switzerland. At the same time he entered the Society of St Pius X which had been founded as a framework of the Church to surround and support the priests that the Archbishop would soon be ordaining. He foresaw difficulties with the official Church in a few years’ time. He was right.

If he was right, how could he envisage defying the official Church? Because the Faith is greater than obedience. Alas, even the successors of Archbishop Lefebvre at the head of the Society that he founded, failed, like the churchmen of Vatican II, to have his grasp of the necessity to “disobey” when the Faith is at stake. Better to obey God than men, says St Peter (Acts IV, 19). The drama of our poor age is that the mass of men have lost their grip on objective truth. As man is taken to be above God, so the subject is supposedly above the object (Emmanuel Kant). This error “liberates” from any objective truth or faith.

What about the Priestly Union of Marcel Lefebvre? It became defunct and was dissolved soon after its founding in 2013, because of serious dissension among its first members. Since then the so-called “Resistance” has not been structured in any way. It is merely a loose association of priests who all over the world see the crisis of the Church in the same way, namely that neither the Newchurch of Vatican II, nor the “sedevacantists” against Vatican II (at least the dogmatic ones), nor the Newsociety following a different orientation from that of its Founder, Archbishop Lefebvre, have the right answer to the Church’s crisis. However, only the true Church’s proper Authority can impose what is God’s own answer, so the loose association of resistant priests waits for Almighty God to restore His stricken Papacy. Meanwhile, “The Shepherd is struck and the sheep are scattered.” Because this “Resistance” is not structured or even organised, it is difficult to tell just how many priests might claim that they belong to it.

As for the Newchurch, “renewed” by Vatican II in the 1960’s, it is surely much further down the path of total destruction than it was in the 1970’s or 80’s. The downhill slide is inexorable, until the churchmen abandon these disastrous principles of the French Revolution and of the modern world which were designed from the beginning by Judeo-masonry to do away with God, with Jesus Christ and with His Catholic Church. It looks very much as though only a severe Chastisement from God will bring the Conciliar churchmen to their Catholic senses. Alas, numbers of churchmen still refuse to understand that the Faith is greater than obedience, because Catholic obedience is only for the Faith. Authority exists in the Church only to protect the Truth from human beings, who all suffer from original sin. “Obedience is not the servant of obedience” – Spanish proverb. Obedience is the servant of Truth, and not its master.

True Catholic obedience presupposes a truly Catholic Pope at the top of the pyramid of the Church’s hierarchy. For such a Pope, God wants us to wait and to pray. We will have him, in God’s good time. If Catholics do see at last the need to return to Tradition, it is understandable if they wish to go further back than the liturgical reform of 1962, but it is not essential. Patience. The liturgy will be properly restored.

Catholics who in the 2020’s realise that they risk losing the Faith if they obey their Conciliar clergy need to do two things. Firstly, pray every day all 15 Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, and not just five. Secondly, to make sure of saving their souls for eternity, they need to find out all about the Five First Saturdays of Our Lady of Fatima, and do them. She will then look after them and protect them from the world, the flesh and the Devil, as only She can. And they will help towards the Consecration of Russia, essential for the restoration of the Catholic Church.

Kyrie eleison.

VIGILANT BISHOP

VIGILANT BISHOP on November 9, 2024

A bishop guards his flock by truth they learn.

That doctrine into fibs the modernists turn.

Just over one month ago one of the four bishops consecrated in 1988 by Archbishop Lefebvre without the Pope’s permission, died. It was from a fracture of the skull from falling down on a stone staircase in the Seminary of Econe, Switzerland, where he had been living for the past several years. His Excellency Bishop Tissier de Mallerais was 79 years old, and had in a long life rendered considerable service to the Archbishop’s Society of St Pius X. To commemorate his leaving this “vale of tears” let these “Comments” recall here at least three of those occasions, with the gratitude of all of us to him, and with our prayers for the repose of his soul.

Firstly, at the end of the 1960’s when the Archbishop had launched the first year of a projected Seminary, at the end of that year so many of the first seminarians left him that he was on the point of giving up his project as though it had no future. It was two of those young seminarians who persuaded him not to give up, but to try again for the next school-year. One was Paul Aulagnier, virtual founder of the Society’s anchor District in France. The other was Bernard Tissier de Mallerais, future bishop of the Society. Where would the Catholic Church – and the world – be today, had the two of them not persuaded the Archbishop to persevere in what would become the spearhead of upholding Catholic Tradition in a Church and world going mad?

Secondly, in the 1980’s the Archbishop was locked in a deadly struggle to the death with the Freemasonic enemies of the Church, who were firmly holding onto the levers of power in the Church handed over to them by Vatican II as a just punishment from God for mankind’s worldwide apostasy. The main problem was doctrinal – the joint errors of religious liberty and false ecumenism, both of them profoundly undermining all Catholic dogma. It was Fr. Tissier on whom the Archbishop largely relied to spell out the true doctrine of the Church in order to make clear why Catholic Tradition, being betrayed by the modernists, had to be defended at all costs. The inspiration came from the Archbishop, but Fr Tissier was his executive instrument.

And thirdly, in 2006, Bishop Tissier gave a serious interview to Stephen Heiner, then writing for The Remnant, American Catholic magazine which surely has the full text available in its archives. When Heiner thought that he had finished the interview, the Bishop objected – no, Heiner had left out the essential – once again doctrine, the horrific doctrinal errors of Pope Benedict XVI. It is clear from the last part of the interview that the Bishop had taken the trouble to read himself what Fr Ratzinger actually wrote earlier in his career as a “theologian.” How many of us have actually taken that trouble? In justice the Bishop tells Heiner that he does not know if Pope Ratzinger has renounced his sentimental foolishness, but Tissier does also say that by 2006 Ratzinger had not yet retracted his errors. Here is a quote from pages 232 to 233, translated from the German of Ratzinger’s book, Introduction to Christianity, appearing in 1968 –

“. . . some texts of devotion seem to suggest that the Christian faith in the Cross understands God as a God whose inexorable justice required a human sacrifice, the sacrifice of his own Son. And we flee with horror from a justice, the dark anger of which removes any credibility from the message of love.”

In other words the Cross was too horrible to be true, because God the Father cannot have required such a cruel sacrifice from His beloved Son, because such cruelty contradicts the new Conciliar religion of “luv.” Here is modernism, pure and simple. Contrast how St Ignatius devotes the whole First Week of the Catholic Exercises to making retreatants grasp just how serious their sins have been. Fr. Ratzinger was turning the Faith to mush. Bishop Tissier was guarding the Faith. See the whole Tissier-Heiner interview.

Thank you, Your Excellency. May you be resting in peace.

Kyrie eleison.

DAILY SATAN

DAILY SATAN on November 2, 2024

The Devil works hard to make us lose our souls.

Our Lord works just as hard – at the controls!

“Ab inimico disce” is another of those pithy Latin sayings – “Learn from your enemy.” The text quoted in italics below is a classic illustration of the principle. It comes from a video-clip accessible in French on the Internet at crowdbunker.com/v/CPpx2RTFm7 It shows a senior Freemason giving practical instructions to some of his juniors on how to keep souls away from Christ by promoting features of daily living which will make it more and more difficult to have any spiritual life at all.

Freemasonry is a powerful enemy of Christ, launched in London in 1717, and – what many Freemasons do not know – designed to wreck the Catholic Church. It spread rapidly to France and America, and has played an important part in de-christianising the entire world ever since. All that Catholics need do to profit greatly by the text is to throw all of its advice exactly into reverse. For instance, it says to keep away from nature. On the contrary, St Ignatius said to a little flower, “Be quiet, I know Who you are talking to me about.” And England’s famous poet, William Wordsworth (1770–1850), wrote similarly,

“To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

But Satan does not want souls reaching for God through His creatures, and so he has his Freemasonry cutting off any contact of people with nature, if it can. The text is properly satanic (freely translated) –

“. . . so that they have no time to develop any intimate relationship with Christ. Here is what I want you to do. Distract people from their attachment to Jesus Christ, and keep them away from Him all day long. You will ask, how are we to do that? Keep them occupied with the non-essential things of life, and invent all kinds of devices to occupy their minds. Tempt them to spend and spend, to borrow and borrow, convince the young wives that they must go to work, the husbands that they must work six days a week, anything from eight to twelve hours a day, so that they can keep up their standard of living. Stop parents from spending time with their children. While the family is being broken up, soon the home will offer no escape from the pressure of work. Overstimulate their minds, so that they can no longer hear the quiet little voice speaking inside them. Get them to listen to the stereo while they are driving. Get them to keep the television set, videos or CDs constantly switched on in the home. Get all the restaurants and shops in the area to be constantly playing music. That will upset their minds and cut off any union with Christ. Fill their minds with news and the weather, 24 hours a day. Invade their time in the car with brightly lit advertisements. Flood their email inboxes and their letter-boxes with filth and undesirable emails to make them fall into mortal sin. Even on holiday let them go too far. Make them come back from their holidays exhausted, upset and quite unready to go back to work the following week. Don’t let them return to nature to relax, let them rather resort to amusement parks, sporting events, concerts, cinemas and shopping centres, and whenever they get together for a spiritual meeting, let there be no talk of anything profound, or of any spiritual combat. Discourage them from enjoying Christ’s company. When they get together, fill their time instead with chatter, silly laughter and gossip, so that they go away with troubled consciences and feelings awash . . .

Do we not find here the very programme for living of countless modern families, what we would call the “rat-race”? Are we still puzzled why the world is all the time further away from God? If on the contrary parents want to bring up their children close to Our Lord and Our Lady, these “Comments” strongly recommend family readings every night from Maria Valtorta’s Poem of the Man-God. Surely Jesus gave this treasure to the post-war world, amongst other things, as an alternative to so many poisoned screens, so soon to fill people’s homes.

Kyrie eleison.

GAZA “EXPLAINED”

GAZA “EXPLAINED” on October 26, 2024

“Vengeance is Mine,”says God, “I will repay.

For special foes I need My friends to pray.”

In 1936 an Argentinian Catholic theologian and thinker of international repute, Fr. Julio Meinvielle (1905–1973), wrote a short book entitled The Mystery of the Jews in History, centring on their essentially religious, and not just political, origin and nature and destiny. They are, as Meinvielle proves, a theological people, incomprehensible without their theological dimension, from which their politics for good or evil merely follow. No other race has ever been formed by God to be the cradle of the Messiah, the one and only Redeemer of all mankind, nor will He in the future ever again need such a cradle for another birth. Here is what makes the Jews unique in all human history, whether they like it or not. The height and depth of their divine calling, when they refuse it, is what can make them psychopathic, with consequences such as we have been observing in Gaza.

In April of 1997 two good priests published a long summary of Meinvielle’s book in the Angelus magazine, accessible at salvationisfromthejews.com/m1.html What follows is the merest overview of that summary –

Catholic theology teaches that the Jewish people are the object of a very special vocation from God. Only in the light of theology can one explain the Jew. The Jewish people have a theological lineage, chosen, consecrated, and sanctified in order to serve God as the human cradle for His divine Incarnation. However, the Jewish people, instead of acknowledging that their glory was to be the cradle of the Christ, pretended that it was the glory of the Christ to have taken his human descent from the flesh of Abraham. And the Pharisees, veritable incarnation of this idolatry, declared proudly as a reason for not accepting Christ: ” We have Abraham for our father.” As for the awaited human Messiah, they wanted and expected of him to be not the Saviour of mankind but merely a military ruler, who would assure and perpetuate the greatness of Israel over all mankind.

And so in the year 33 AD, the Jewish people, assembled before the praetorium of Pilate and urged on by their priests, demanded the death of the Promised One. Then these Jews, in the name of their Law, and to serve the material interests of their nation and race, crucified the One who had been promised them as their blessing, but was replacing their Synagogue with His Church. The Jewish people, once a mystery of goodness, now changed into a mystery of iniquity, while to others were granted the blessings of the Promise. These others now make up the Church of Jesus Christ – converted Jews at first, and later the Gentile converts.

Thus there is a theological opposition – that is to say, one allowed for by God – which exists throughout Christian history between the Synagogue and the Church. The Jewish people, whose destiny was to bring Christ to us, found Christ a stumbling block. A part of them believed in Him and built on Him to form the roots and the trunk of that Olive Tree which is the Catholic Church. The other part fell, denying Him and invoking their carnal pride of race and nation. That part of Israel was rejected by God and called upon itself the blood of Christ as a curse. It is this part that forms what we know today as “Judaism,” which is the heir and the continuation of the rabbis who rejected Christ.

Therefore ever since Christ was lifted up on Mount Calvary, the world has been torn between Jewish leadership and Christian salvation. Not to follow Christ is, in effect, to follow Judaism. Hence if the Gentiles do not want to be part of the Olive Tree of the Catholic Church, as freely offered to them, they will necessarily belong to the sterile vine of Judaism. There is no third road ahead. It is either Christ, or Judaism.

How long must this terrible enmity between Jews and Christians last? Until God in His mercy brings about the conversion and reconciliation of the Jewish people. St. Paul teaches us that the day will come when Israel will recognize Him whom it has denied: “And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob” (Rom. XI, 25–26).

Kyrie eleison