Eleison Comments

People’s Voice – II

People’s Voice – II on August 17, 2019

President Putin’s June interview with the Financial Times, partially summarised and quoted here last week, became notorious because his prophecy that “the liberal idea” has done its time and is out of date, hit a raw nerve with Western politicians and media. They reacted vigorously, like ants whose ant-hill has been struck with a stick. What is the significance of his prophecy, and of the Western reaction to it? We must begin with a summary of the summary, in order to get clear what is at the very heart of his argument. In the original long interview he spoke on many subjects, but what he said on liberalism was indeed the most important subject that he broached.

The President starts out from the practical problem for Western peoples of the mass immigration of inassimilable foreigners into their countries. At ground level, multiculturalism is simply not working, but the liberalism of the elites leading the West makes them treat the immigration not as a problem, but as an enlightened advance, so they do nothing to stop it, and it continues unchecked. But States cannot survive without some basic human rules and moral values, which were formed in the West by the Bible. By the liberal elites’ disregard for these biblical values still held amongst the peoples, the liberals are proving that their liberalism is no longer in touch with reality and has become obsolete. Let anti-liberalism not turn into a tyranny in its turn, but the present stranglehold of liberals on Western politics and media is a true tyranny, and it must come to an end.

In brief, liberal values are opposed to Biblical values. Biblical values built the Western nations. Liberal values are destroying those nations. It is time for liberal values to stop destroying the West. Here Putin is quite right as far as he goes, but since he is a politician and not a theologian, he cannot express the argument in its full force, and he has to rest his case not upon absolutes such as Almighty God and His ten Commandments, but upon the presence still of Biblical values amongst the peoples of the West. Now 70 years of acute suffering under Jewish Communism are bringing the Russian people back to the Christ of Orthodoxy, so that Putin can rest his case on his own people’s return to Biblical values, but is there anything of Christ in the Western people’s resistance to mass immigration? Hardly. And yet there is a decisive participation of the enemies of Christ in the organising and financing of the mass immigration. (Readers of these “Comments” may remember the Jewess in Sweden, Barbara Specter, who boasted that her race was behind the immigration, “necessary to save Europe” – understand, from Christ.)

Thus if Putin rests his case for the Western nations upon their fidelity to Biblical values, who can deny that these are being eroded faster and faster? – “Thank you, Mr President, for wanting to defend us, but in all honesty we do not care for your defence. We love our liberalism because it gives us freedom to sin however we like. You are trying to save us from ourselves, but we worship Mammon (money), and we adore our liberty, equality and fraternity. We choose to go to Hell. Kindly leave us alone. We took centuries to get rid of God, and we do not want Him back.” Such is the reaction of the West, implicitly if not explicitly, to Putin’s political approach. He needs firebrand apostles to state the religious case in its most absolute terms:—

God exists, unchanging from all eternity. He freely chose to create spiritual creatures, angels and men, with a material earth, so as to have beings to share in his infinite bliss. But He does not want robots in His Heaven, so every spiritual creature had or has to use its free-will to choose to spend eternity with Him in Heaven instead of without Him in Hell. Yet a third of the angels and the original human couple chose Hell. He prepared a race to provide a human cradle for His divine Son to take human nature to repair that Fall. That race crucified His Son, and has fought ever since the Church which His Son instituted to continue saving souls until the end of the world. That fight is a cosmic war, the driving force of world history.

Kyrie eleison.

People’s Voice – I

People’s Voice – I on August 10, 2019

See en.​kremlin.​ru/​events/​president/​news/​copy/​60836 for a notorious interview of President Putin from last June, partly summarised here below. See these “Comments” next week for a commentary.

What is happening in the West . . . in Europe as well? The ruling elites have broken away from the people, because of the gap between the interests of the elites and the overwhelming majority of the people . . . . This means that liberalism has outlived its purpose, because, as our Western partners have admitted, liberal ideas such as multiculturalism, have proved to be no longer tenable.

When the flood of migrants into Western Europe brought the migration problem to a head, many people admitted that the policy of multiculturalism is not effective, and that the interests of the core population should be considered . . . . Maybe a wall between Mexico and the United States could be going too far . . . but President Trump was at least looking for a solution. Otherwise, who is doing anything? . . . Ordinary Americans say, Good for him, at least he is working on ideas and looking for solutions.

On the contrary liberals are doing nothing. Sitting in their cosy offices they say that everything is fine, but those who are facing the situation every day down on the streets in Texas or Florida are not happy, because they can see serious problems ahead . . . . Is anyone thinking about the people? The same is happening in Europe. I have discussed this with many of my colleagues, but nobody has the answer. They say that present laws exclude a hard-line policy . . . . Well then, change the law! In Russia we are making immigrants respect the laws, customs and culture of Russia, so in Russia too we have immigration problems, but at least we are doing something about it.

On the contrary liberals assume that nothing needs to be done . . . . The migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants must be protected. What rights are these? Every crime must have its punishment. In fact, liberalism has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population. In the name of liberalism one may now claim, for instance . . . that children can play five or six gender roles . . . but everyone pursuing life, liberty and happiness as they see it cannot be allowed to overwhelm the culture, traditions and traditional family values of millions of people making up the core population.

As for religion, it cannot be pushed out of this cultural space. We should not abuse anything. Russia is an Orthodox Christian nation, and it is not a Catholic nation, but from Russia we sometimes get the feeling that the same liberalism is at work, using elements and problems of the Church itself to destroy the Roman Catholic Church . . . . I consider this to be incorrect and dangerous. Have we forgotten that all of us live in a world based on Biblical values? Even atheists, living in this world, profit by those values. We may not be daily or public practitioners of our particular religion, but deep down inside there must be some fundamental human rules and moral values. In this sense, traditional values are more stable and more important for millions of people than liberalism, which in my opinion is coming to an end.

Then if liberalism is over, does that mean that tyranny is on its way? Not necessarily. A certain variety of opinions must always have free play. What matters is that the interests of the general public, millions of people living their daily lives, should never be forgotten . . . . Thus even liberals should be treated with a certain respect, but liberals cannot go on dictating to everybody as they have been doing for the last several decades, both in the media and in real life. For instance, how have they put certain subjects out of bounds? Let liberals have their say, but let them no longer absolutely dominate the public arena.

Kyrie eleison.

“Resistance” Unity

“Resistance” Unity on August 3, 2019

With the purpose of aiming a fire-extinguisher at pride, these “Comments” choose rarely to highlight any achievement of the priests and lay-folk labouring since 2012 to ensure the survival of Catholic principles and practice, especially but not exclusively within the Newsociety of St Pius X, i.e. that Society which is sliding into the arms of Rome. Newsociety leaders naturally condemn the so-called “Resistance” or “Fidelity” movement, pointing out in particular the divisions that have arisen between its various priests. But the time has come to highlight the contrasting unity of the Catholic “Resistance.”

For instance a long-standing observer of the “Resistance” scene makes the following pertinent remarks: The main argument of the Superiors of the Newsociety against the “Resistance” is to point out the divisions between Resistant priests. But while various Resistant priests have a variety of vocational gifts, giving rise to a variety of Resistant works (e.g. a Friary, a Seminary, a Monastery, a Priory, a Mission, etc.), there reigns amongst them all a remarkable unity as to the end being pursued – the survival of the Catholic Faith. On the contrary, the Newsociety is a giant with feet of clay, held together only by disciplinary measures, the fear of sanctions and personal interests, but as to the end being pursued it is highly divided: an Agreement with Rome, or not; marriages under official authority, or not; flirting with Conciliar bishops, or not – the Newsociety is cracking in all directions.

Once again, what we are seeing today is how all Catholics without exception are undermined by the split between Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority which resulted from the conscious or unconscious betrayal of the 2000 bishops and two Popes who engineered Vatican II. Thus in 2019 on the one hand the “Resistance” holding to the Truth suffers outward divisions from the lack of Authority, because the need for authority cannot from below create its reality, because authority can by definition only come from above. On the other hand the Newsociety holding to Roman Authority suffers inward division from the lack of Truth, because that Roman Authority is clinging to the lies of Vatican II.

But Truth is the purpose of Authority, and not the other way round. “Peter, when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren” (Lk. XXII, 32). In other words, firstly recover your own shaken faith in the Truth, then secondly exercise your Authority over the other Apostles. This is because in a fallen world, the inward Truth needs outward Authority to defend it, but if the outward Authority is no longer defending that inward Truth then it has lost its true reason for being, and it becomes an end in itself, ultimately a tyranny to serve personal positions, as with Paul VI and the Archbishop’s successors.

Thus however plentiful be the personal miseries of individual Resistants, so long as they are faithful to the Truth, the “Resistance” will outlive the Newsociety, just as the Archbishop’s Society, as long as it was faithful to the Truth, dominated, and will ultimately outlive, the Conciliar Romans. The ultimate problem is not one of persons or Authority, but of doctrines and Truth. Thus when in the early 2000’s the successor of the Archbishop at that time appealed to Authority to solve divisions inside the Society, he was already well down the Conciliar path of preferring Authority to Truth, of preferring will to reason. As a result, the Archbishop’s Society has been turned into a tyranny, and although the tyrant was apparently dismissed from the seat of power by the election of a year ago, really he is back there. Such is our modern world. Reality gives the lie to appearances.

Kyrie eleison.

Contradiction Rampant

Contradiction Rampant on July 27, 2019

Back to Bishop Huonder, not for any personal reason, but for the universal confusion which he illustrates. On the day when he resigned from being head of Switzerland’s major Diocese of Chur to take up residence in the Traditional SSPX boys’ school of Wangs in the Diocese of St Gallen, his move may have seemed so surprising, that on the same day he issued two explanations, one for Tradition and the other for the mainstream Church. Here are the key words from each explanation, which distort neither explanation by their being taken out of their full context.

To his former colleagues and lay-folk in the Diocese of Chur he wrote about his retirement to Wangs: “In accordance with the mind of Pope Francis I shall strive there (in Wangs) to contribute to the unity of the Church, not by excluding anyone but rather by discerning, following and integrating people.” For the Traditional Catholics among whom he was about to retire, he co-signed with the SSPX Superior General, Fr David Pagliarani, a joint Statement containing these words: “The one and only purpose of Bishop Huonder’s retiring within a house of the SSPX is to devote himself to prayer and silence, to celebrating exclusively the Tridentine Mass and to working for Tradition as the only way to renew the Church.”

But how can the honourable Bishop not see the contradiction between his two explanations? Ever since Francis became Pope in 2013, who has not seen the almost daily flow of words and deeds by which this Pope means Catholics to leave behind the Church of Tradition? Who has not sensed the deep and instinctive repugnance, which he shares with all the Conciliar churchmen who wrought the revolution of Vatican II, for the Church as it was before the Council? How can Bishop Huonder not see that between the “mind of Pope Francis” and “Tradition” there is a great gulf fixed?

If he is imagining that the “mind of Pope Francis” is other than what it is, or if he is hoping that it can be brought to be other than what it is, then on all previous showing the Pope will surely correct him swiftly and firmly as to the true state of his mind. On the other hand if the Bishop is imagining or hoping that Tradition is not what it is, here alas we must admit that he can well have been deceived by the 20-year slide from what the Society of St Pius X was under Archbishop Lefebvre to what the Newsociety has become under his successors. Under the Archbishop it was the Church’s single greatest fortress of the Catholic doctrine, sacraments and morals of all time, but once his personal magnetism died with him in 1991, then within a mere few years the official magnetism of Rome that draws all Catholics re-asserted itself, and the Society began with GREC its change into the Newsociety to fit in with Rome’s Newchurch. Probably Bishop Huonder sees no contradiction because he wants to help that change along.

But how about the Bishop’s co-signer on the joint Statement for Traditionalists, i.e. the Newsociety’s Superior General, Fr Pagliarani? Obviously he knows what Pope Francis is up to, and certainly he knew 20 years ago what the Archbishop understood by Tradition. So when he co-signed the Statement, did he know of the Bishop’s simultaneous intention to work in Wangs both “in accordance with the Pope’s mind” and “for Tradition”? And if he knew of the double intention, did he too see no contradiction? And if he sees the contradiction now, what has he done about the Trojan Horse, however well-intentioned, within the gates of Tradition? Perhaps he is saying to himself, “Oh, it hardly matters. The Archbishop wanted us to look after Newchurch priests (yes, but not Trojan Horses). Bishop Huonder is a nice man. We are all nice. We will all get along. Contradiction is more of a problem in theory than it is in practice, etc . . .”

If that is indeed how the Newgeneral is thinking, then he has caught the Conciliar disease, and the Society is truly sunk, while the Mushsociety is set fair to sail happily for ever after on the Mushchurch seas of confusion and contradiction. But woe to souls!

Kyrie eleison.

Cardinal’s Clarity

Cardinal’s Clarity on July 20, 2019

In a recently appeared book or interview by a Roman Cardinal one can read unusual good sense on the waves of immigration that have now for tens of years been threatening to swamp the once great Western nations. But Cardinal Sarah is no “racist” – he comes from black Africa. If only Europeans would appreciate God’s gifts to Europe as he does! But who in Europe wants God? “Ay, there’s the rub,” as Hamlet says.

I am scandalised by all these men dying at sea, by the human trafficking, by the mafia networking, by the organised slavery. These people emigrating with no papers, nor prospects for the future, nor family. Do they think they are going to find paradise on earth here? It’s not in the West! If these people are to be helped, better do it where they come from, in their own villages, amidst their own races. The economic imbalances and the human dramas cannot be justified. You cannot welcome migrants from all over the world. To welcome means not only letting these people into your own country, it means giving them work. Can you do that? No. It means giving them somewhere to live. Can you do that? No. Parking them in inadequate lodgings, with no dignity, no work, that is not what I call welcoming people. It is more like something organised by the mafia! The Church cannot co-operate in human trafficking, which is more like a new form of slavery.

What I find equally scandalous is using the Word of God to justify all that. God does not want people migrating. The Christ child took refuge in Egypt, because of Herod, but he returned home afterwards. God always brought His people back to Israel, whether it was a famine at home, or a captivity abroad. A country is a great treasure, it is where we were born, where our ancestors are buried. When you welcome somebody, it is to give them a better life, not to herd them into immigration camps. When you are fed without doing any work, there is no dignity there.

And what culture do you have to offer them? Are you capable of sharing your Christian culture and roots? I am afraid that the population imbalance brought about by these waves of immigration will make you lose your identity together with what makes you who you are. Europe has a special mission given to it by God. It is you Europeans that taught us the Gospel, and the values of family, personal dignity and freedom. If you give up your identity, if you allow yourselves to be swamped by peoples that do not share your culture, then your Christian values and identity risk disappearing. Like happened when ancient Rome was invaded by barbarians. You need to think – are today’s migrations not a new form of slavery, being organised to get cheap labour? All of these people coming here in pursuit of a dream way of life. What a lie! What sheer cynicism! Pope Benedict XVI was especially clear and prophetic on all these questions. [ . . . ]

You Europeans have been moulded by Christianity, everything in Europe is Christian. Why deny it? No Muslim denies his identity. If you do not come back to being who you are, you will disappear. And if Europe disappears, there will be an appalling upset: Christianity would risk disappearing from the face of the earth. You see how you are being invaded by Islam: Muslims mean to take over the world, and they have the financial means to do it. They will not succeed because the Lord is with us to the end of the world. But you must not deny who you are: those immigrants that you allow in must integrate into your culture, assuming that you still have a culture. You will not integrate them into your atheistic materialism. They want nothing to do with it.

Kyrie eleison.

Further Undermining

Further Undermining on July 13, 2019

These “Comments” have more than once recommended the Internet site of the American commentator on worldwide political and economic developments, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, because he may lack the fullness of perspective provided by the one true religion, but he sees a great deal of worldly truth, and he tells it on his site – paulcraigroberts.org – to the point that one asks oneself, when is he going to be assassinated? But murder is always messy, and the murder of a messenger always risks giving credit to his message. Be that as it may, Dr Roberts’ articles are widely read all over the world, and a recent article reinforces on a very practical level the starting of Fr Calderón’s dissection of the “new man” of Vatican II (see these “Comments” of June 22) by modern man’s being cut off from objective truth by subjectivism. Read Dr Roberts’ article, slightly resumed below, for a typical advance today of that cutting off—

Dr Roberts begins by quoting a truth-telling site, Zero Hedge, which reports that “the ability to falsify reality is growing by leaps and bounds. Thoughtless geeks have now developed technology that makes fake reality indistinguishable from real reality. “I don’t think we’re well prepared at all. And I don’t think the public is aware of what’s coming,” said the Chairman of the U.S.A. House Intelligence Committee. He was discussing the rapid advance of synthesis technology. This new artificial intelligence capability allows competent programmers to create audio and video of anyone, saying absolutely anything. The creations are called “deepfakes” and however outrageous they may be, they’re virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. No sooner had we adjusted to a world where our reality seemed fake, than things that are fake became our reality.

“We’re outgunned,” said a UC Berkeley digital-forensics expert, “The number of people now working on video-synthesis outnumber those working on detecting deepfakes by 100–1.” . . . . Already two-thirds of Americans say altered images and videos have become a major problem for understanding the basic facts of current events. Misinformation researchers warn of growing “reality apathy” whereby it takes so much effort to distinguish between what is real and what is fake that we simply give up and rely on our base instincts, tribal biases, impulses. Immersed in our leaders’ deceits, we come to believe in nothing.

For instance, two oil tankers burst into flames, billowing smoke. On cue, a suspicious Iranian Revolutionary Guard boat appeared on grainy video. Viral images flooded earth’s nine billion screens. Each side told a different story. No one quite knew who to trust. Conspiracy theories filled the void, as we each clung to what we most want to believe. https://​www.​zerohedge.​com/​news/​2019-06-16/​hedge-fund-cio-i-dont-think-public-aware-whats-coming Dr Roberts goes on, Why is it that tech geeks take pride in developing technology that makes truth even harder to find? What is wrong with their character as humans that they create methods of destroying the ability to know truth? How is this different from releasing an undetectable substance into the air that wipes out life? The only use of this technology is to allow the police state complete control. It is now possible to put words and deeds into the mouths and actions of anyone, and to use the faked evidence to convict them of the simulated crime. Without truth, there is no liberty, no freedom, no independent thought, and no awareness. There is only The Matrix. How has America so lost its way that corporations, investors, and scientists are motivated to develop truth-destroying technology? Aren’t these mindless idiots our real enemies? The most difficult thing in the world today is to ascertain the truth. And Dr Roberts’ article ends with a plea for support, which he surely deserves.

Readers, hold on to truth for dear life, because it is being undermined fast, as the world is putting liberty in front of truth, and fantasy in front of reality. The consequences will be humanly disastrous for us all.

Kyrie eleison.