Eleison Comments

Restoring Authority

Restoring Authority on April 20, 2019

Whereas the post-Christian pagan Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) claimed that man is by nature an anti-social animal so that human society is essentially artificial, the pre-Christian pagan Aristotle (384–322), a much wiser man, knew that society is natural because man is by nature a social animal – watch how he gathers with his fellow-men from dawn to dusk in all kinds of human societies, especially the human family. But every man has free-will, so that all those kinds of societies must have somebody in authority to co-ordinate those free-wills which by themselves are liable to fly apart. Hence every society needs authority, as natural and as needed by man as is society. See how the Roman centurion recognises Our Lord as a man in authority from his own exercise of authority in the Roman army (Mt. VIII, 8–9).

But authority being as natural to men as is their social nature, and their social nature coming from God, then all authority amongst men must come ultimately from God (cf. Eph. III, 15), which is why in our own sunset of the world where almost all mankind is turning its back on God, men are also revolting against any kind of authority, and all kinds of authority are becoming more and more fragile. For instance is it not more and more common today for wives to be declaring independence from their husbands and for children to be running their parents? That is not natural in any true sense of the word, but it is today more and more common, because revolt against authority is in the bloodstream of all of us. Then how can it be restored? We have a classic example from the book of Numbers (Ch.16) in the Old Testament.

Moses and his brother Aaron were the political and religious leaders respectively of the Israelite people to bring them out of Egypt into the Promised Land. They had both been appointed by God, as the people well knew, but the Israelites were a proud and hard-necked people, and the moment came in the desert when Core, a first cousin of Aaron and jealous of his privileges, stirred up another 250 Levites and two leading Rubenites, Dathan and Abiron, to revolt, and the people rose up in a tumult behind them against the authority of Moses and Aaron. These two immediately appealed to the Lord, who told them to assemble the people on the next day in front of the Tabernacle. Then Moses told the people to get away from the tents of Dathan and Abiron standing there with all their extended families, whereupon the earth opened up and swallowed down the revolutionaries straight into Hell. Fire from God then devoured Core and his 250 Levites demanding privileges and prestige given by God only to the family of Aaron.

By this means God Himself demonstrated to whom He had given authority over the Israelites. Authority was so important for the Israelites in the desert because despite the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea (Exodus XIV), they were still hankering for the onions of Egypt, and Dathan was complaining of the hardships of the desert (Numb. XVI, 13–14). Yet Moses was no tyrant, but the gentlest of men (Numb. XII, 3), and Aaron had done the people no harm (Numb. XVI, 11). However, had God not resorted to an extreme punishment of the rebels, one may wonder if Moses and Aaron would have been able to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. Would anything less have restored their authority? As it was, it is easy to imagine that after the double miraculous fire no Israelite was in a hurry to disobey Moses or Aaron!

In 2019 rampant materialism all over the world is making ever fewer human beings even believe in God, let alone take Him seriously. Science and technology seem to guarantee the good life for us all, so who still needs God? And without Him, all basis of authority is gone, and authority in every form of human society is melting into thin air, but especially in the Catholic Church. Moreover Neo-modernism holds its victims in such a grip that they are virtually inconvertible, being persuaded that they are still Catholic. How can the Church survive? If Catholic authority is to be restored before world’s end, will not another miraculous and deadly fire from Heaven be necessary, as with Dathan, Core and Abiron? God is not mocked (Gal. VI, 7).

Kyrie eleison.

Holy Week Lessons

Holy Week Lessons on April 13, 2019

No Gospel readings can be so rich in lessons as those of Holy Week. Here are a few references from the Passion of Our Lord, quoted in chronological order, having a particular relevance to our own time, that of the Passion of His Church.

Lk. XIX, 40: “If these (disciples) were silent, the very stones would cry out” – As Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the crowd is praising him loudly. Pharisees complain of the noise. But God’s Truth will be heard. As the SSPX falls silent, somebody else must tell the truths it used to tell.

Jn. XVII, 15: ”I do not pray that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from evil.” After the Last Supper, just before leaving the Cenacle, Jesus prays to His Father in Heaven for His Apostles, but not that life be made easy for them. So why should life be made easy for Catholics today?

Mt. XXVI, 31: “I will strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” On the Mount of Olives Jesus tells His Apostles that they will all fall away, and he quotes from the Old Testament (Zach. XIII, 7). Today with the Pope being crippled in his faith, the entire Catholic Church is more or less crippled.

Mt. XXVI, 40: “Watch and pray.” In the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus is soon to be betrayed, He warns His Apostles to prepare by prayer for the hour of their trial. He says neither just “Pray,” nor even “Pray and watch,” but “Watch and pray,” because if they do not keep their eyes open, if they cease to keep watch, they will also cease to pray. Today the Church’s supreme hour of trial seems imminent.

Jn. XVIII, 6: “When Jesus said to them, ‘I am he,’ they drew back and fell to the ground.” As the Temple police close in on Jesus, he fearlessly identifies himself, and for one moment lets loose a single spark of His divine power – they all collapse. Another such spark could instantaneously rescue the Church today, but that would not win over men’s hearts. Today’s trial of the Church must be fulfilled.

Mt. XXVI, 52: “Put your sword away, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Peter is virile, he loves his Master, he absolutely wants to defend Him, but he has not understood Him – Jesus will be the King of Hearts, not the Knave of Clubs. Virile men today seek any action to defend the Church, as they are not content with “only” praying, but let them pray, or they will flee, as did the Apostles (v. 56).

Lk. XXII, 53: “This is your hour and the power of darkness.” Jesus is just about to be seized by the Temple police. He gently complains that they had not seized Him in daylight, when He was openly preaching in the Temple, but they had had to seize Him at night, when he was no longer surrounded by crowds to protect Him. Never in all history has He been so abandoned, have times been so dark, as today.

Mt. XXVII, 26: “And all the people answered, ‘His blood be upon us and upon our children’ Then Pilate released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, delivered Him to be crucified.” Clearly, the “people” here are not only the “chief priests and the elders” who “persuaded the people to ask for Barabbas and to destroy Jesus” (v.26), it was the whole crowd in front of Pilate, about to riot (v.24), which made Pilate give way by their calling down upon themselves and their descendants the responsibility for the deicide (death of God in His human nature). Now this crowd was overwhelmingly Jewish, and the crowd identified themselves as such (“Us and our children”). Therefore the blame for the deicide rests upon those descendants unless and until collectively they recognise and adore their own true Messiah, but Scripture says this will only happen at the end of the world (e.g. Rom. XI, 25–27). Like a true Catholic, Leo XIII (1878–1903) called for the same blood to come down upon the Jews not as a curse but as a “laver of regeneration” (Act of Consecration of the World to the Sacred Heart of Jesus). Meanwhile, they serve God to scourge our apostasy.

Kyrie eleison.

Invitation Withdrawn

Invitation Withdrawn on April 6, 2019

Bishop Vitus Huonder, still bishop of the large diocese of Chur in Eastern Switzerland which includes Zurich, is not after all going to take up residence in the boys’ school of the Society of St Pius X in Wangs when he retires later this month. In January his diocesan spokesman had announced that the bishop was moving into the school on behalf of Rome’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in order to maintain contact between Rome and the Society, but last month the bishop himself announced that he would not be retiring to the Society school in Wangs after all. And so the loving encounter between Rome’s bishop and the Society’s school was called off. Was it Rome, or the Society, or both, that had cold feet at the last moment? We do not know. It does not matter. What matters is to see clearly the never ending conflict between God’s reality and men’s false dreams, and to prefer God’s reality.

In this case the reality of God is that His Catholic Church and the churchmen’s Conciliar revolution can never blend together, while the dream of the churchmen is that they can. But God puts God before men, while the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) puts men before God. The two positions are as irreconcilable as Jesus Christ and Satan. From eternity Our Lord, Goodness itself, can only reject evil. Ever since Satan fell just after his creation, he has been fixed in evil and can only hate God, and His divine Son, and His Son’s true Church. And men are torn between the two from conception until death, because they receive from God their basic human nature and possibly sanctifying grace which both incline them to God, while from the Fall of Adam their nature is wounded with original sin which inclines them to Satan and to evil. Nor can any man alive avoid this conflict. Either he is advancing in good and becoming less evil, or he is retreating from goodness by sinking into evil.

Therefore if Bishop Huonder, a Conciliar bishop, had moved into the Traditional Catholic school in Wangs, one of two things must have happened. Either he succeeded in making the school less Traditional, or the school succeeded in making him more Catholic. And so if his residence in Wangs has been called off, either Rome feared his becoming more Catholic, which is not likely because Bishop Huonder is a typical crusader for the Newchurch of Rome, or the Newsociety changed its mind, and instead of installing the Conciliar wolf in its sheepfold in Wangs, decided to exclude him, after its prior decision to install him. Why the change of mind?

There are two possible explanations. Either by virtue the Newsociety for at least a moment stopped dreaming of wolves being nice, or by necessity it was forced by two extra revelations of wolvishness to delay the wolf’s welcome. On the one hand details came to light of a discreet meeting held in April four years ago in Oberriet, Switzerland, between Bishop Huonder and Bishops Fellay and de Galarreta with five more priests of the SSPX, to discuss the ecumenism of Vatican II. BpH began with a position which can be summed up as “Agreement first, doctrine second,” which is typical for a Conciliarist. The SSPX bishops and priests responded by putting in front Catholic doctrine on ecumenism, in a manner worthy of Archbishop Lefebvre. BpH concluded with the promise to take to Rome the SSPX objections to Conciliar ecumenism. But the Romans know those objections inside out – in brief, BpH’s arguments show him to have been a faithful servant of Conciliar Rome. On the other hand details also came to light of BpH’s extensive work within the Newchurch, especially since 2011, on behalf of official friendship between the Catholic Church and the Jews. Such work is again typical of a Conciliarist either innocently or wilfully ignorant of nearly 2,000 years of consistent – and proud – Jewish hatred of the Church.

So these two revelations showed BpH to be imbued with the spirit of the Council, a potentially dangerous inmate of a house of the SSPX. The true Society would not invite him again. But the Newsociety risks merely waiting until Traditionalists are soft enough to accept such Conciliarism in their midst.

Kyrie eleison.

Bishop Huonder

Bishop Huonder on March 30, 2019

It was widely known that Bishop Huonder (BpH) of the official diocese of Chur, Switzerland, when he is due to retire in April at the age of 77, was due to take up official residence for his autumn years in a boys’ school of the Society of St Pius X in Wangs, Switzerland. There was even a rumour circulating, from a close collaborator with two previous Superior Generals of the SSPX, that this same Conciliar bishop would be the principal consecrator of two Society priests to give, with Pope Francis’ full approval, two new bishops to the SSPX, perhaps after Easter. A date so soon for an event so significant is certainly impossible now, but its logic was inexorable, given the Newsociety’s 20-year old policy of blending with the Newchurch.

The same logic was behind BpH’s settling for his retirement in the Society’s school for boys in Wangs. Even as official bishop for one of the largest Newchurch dioceses in Switzerland, he is reported to have made several visits already to the school, and to have made himself popular with the Newsociety priests and boys living there. But he would not be cutting all contact with the Newchurch in Rome. On the contrary, his present diocesan spokesman announced in January that the bishop’s retiring to Wangs in April “is tied to a mission being entrusted to him by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, to maintain contact with the SSPX.” Clearly BpH, reputed to be a personal friend of Pope Francis, was planning to act as a link between Newchurch and Newsociety, in the hope of bringing them closer together.

Nor was the hope necessarily dishonest. Many a Newchurchman cannot see (or will not see) the gulf that separates the Catholic religion of God from the Conciliar religion of man. On both sides there exists the wish to pretend that there is no such gulf. On the one hand Catholics find it hard to bear being outside the structure of the Church’s visible Authority, while on the other hand followers of Vatican II need re-assurance that they have not broken with the true Church’s unchanging Tradition. It may be to BpH’s credit that he wanted to settle in a more Catholic environment than the official diocese where he probably has no alternative to giving Communion to young women badly dressed, and no alternative to taking back remarks entirely justified against homosexuality. But “A fact is stronger than the Lord Mayor,” says the English proverb.

The fact is that Vatican II was the greatest break with Catholic Tradition in all Church history. Take for instance the Newmass, which is to the Council as practice is to theory. Would BpH have been asked never to say it in the school? Could he have accepted never to say it? And even if so, could he possibly have admitted that the theory and practice of his priesthood and episcopacy have been immersed in the Conciliar sell-out of God’s true Church to the godless modern world? Could he have shed overnight the convictions of all his tens of years of immersion in the Conciliar Church? Ordained priest in 1971 and consecrated bishop in 2007 with the rites of the revolutionary Paul VI, could he have admitted that to eliminate all doubt as to the Newrites’ validity, he needs to be conditionally re-ordained and re-consecrated? Or would the Newsociety have required neither? That seems most likely, given its recent practice, but how would the Swiss Traditionalists have responded to that? To all appearances Bishop Vitus Huonder may be an honest and well-meaning man, but his honesty is Conciliar, which means that he is loyal to a thoroughly dishonest corruption of the Catholic Faith and Church.

Alas, all over the world Society Traditionalists are being accustomed to the replacing of Archbishop Lefebvre’s Society by the Newsociety. Bishop Fellay wanted to establish the SSPX within the walls of official Rome for it to act as a Trojan horse to convert Conciliar Rome. But was not BpH, even granting him all the good will in the world, being placed to act as a Trojan horse within the walls of the Society? One may hope that the school in Wangs would have enabled him to see the gulf between Tradition and the Council, but that is a fond hope. Alice was in Wonderland. The Newsociety wanted to be in Huonderland.

Kyrie eleison.

Law-Courts Conclude

Law-Courts Conclude on March 23, 2019

On January 31 last, the European Court of Human Rights announced its long-awaited decision to reject the appeal of the author of these “Comments” against his almost unanimous condemnation by seven different courts of law in Germany over several years for the “crime” by German law, of questioning on German soil in November of 2008 whether Six Million people really were gassed under the Third Reich. The two German defence lawyers made an honourable attempt to defend their politically most incorrect client, but they were fighting with one hand tied behind their back, because German law forbade them to take their stand on historical truth. Instead, in Germany as in many countries today, truth is no longer the measure of certain private interests, rather these private interests have become the measure of truth.

But how can truth thus have been dethroned? Like Almighty God Himself, Truth is either Number One, or it is nothing. God Himself can be Number One only, because He is the Creator infinitely superior to His entire Creation. Truth is Number One only, because if we define it as the matching of mind to reality, then any diminution or contradiction of truth, any preferring of a non-truth to that truth which the non-truth denies, means a corresponding loss of grip of my mind on reality, and therewith a lesser or greater slide of my whole self into fantasy and lies. So it is obvious that in the laws and law-courts of any nation, the truth is of paramount importance. Do not witnesses in a normal law-court swear “to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”?

Here is why great law-givers count as founders of their nations, e.g. Moses of the Israelites, Solon of the Athenians, Lycurgus of the Spartans, because they establish the framework of justice among their people, appointing to each man his due, thus making social relations and societies possible. Even the society of 22 men in a humble game of soccer needs its own administrator of justice, the referee. And he cannot act as referee without the truth. Was that an honest tackle or was it a foul? Now whether in justice it deserved a penalty or not depends on the truth of what actually happened. Thus living in society is possible only with a measure of justice, and justice is only possible with a measure of truth. Blessed is the nation that has law-makers and judges who reward what is truly right and punish what is truly wrong.

Now let us look at laws and courts which punish any questioning of the notorious murder of Six Million victims in World War II. Was it a historical fact, or not? If it was true, then to question it can be bad if the damage done is bad enough, but if the murder never took place, then it is in accordance with truth to call it in question, and not only is it not bad, it is positively good, to call it in question. For if the Six Million are a monstrous myth weighing down on people’s minds as the foundational dogma of what acts as their false religion, am I not a liberator if I help to free their minds from the lie? “The Truth will set you free,” says Our Lord (Jn.VIII, 32). Is it not then as clear as day that if the Six Million never were murdered, then to question that murder deserves a great reward from society, and not a punishment?

Now politicians and their private interests can twist truth to a certain extent, but truth is of such universal force that it cannot be suppressed altogether. Therefore the common judgment of serious historians, based on objective evidence, can still rise up against the most powerful of private interests. Such is the case with the “gassing” of “six million” victims under the Third Reich. Private interests can claim what they like, but they cannot change the objective facts of 75 years ago. And what serious researchers into those facts more and more allege now is that the “gassing” never happened.

Therefore with laws forbidding its denial, any State is building on sand. Let all States beware of passing such laws that put the truth in second place, because at the very least, in this case, historical truth – as opposed to emotional “truth” – is not necessarily on their side.

Kyrie eleison.

Convert Today – III

Convert Today – III on March 16, 2019

Dear young friend,

Two weeks ago these “Comments” related your own story of your conversion from the wasteland of a modern university to the truth of the Catholic Faith. It ended with your request for advice because you yourself realised that God had given you the Truth, but you needed to get your bearings in a very confused situation of Church and world. It took last week’s issue of the “Comments” to give you the basic advice that is valid for a Catholic convert in general, i.e. in all times and places. It will take this issue to offer you the particular advice recommended for you to see where you are in today’s chaos of the Church, unprecedented in all 20 centuries of Church history.

The crisis is unprecedented because the world will have only one ending, and we are approaching it. See Our Lord’s own description of the last times (Mt. XXIV, Lk. XXI), and see St Paul’s warning, dating from around 67AD, for these times (II Tim. III, 1–9), especially verses 5 and 8: men will be “corrupted in mind, reprobate concerning the faith,” “having the appearance of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Now these avoid.” Excellent advice for 2019AD, because it is important to realise that today men in general and Catholics in particular are as a whole not “normal,” but men at the wrong end of a long process of degeneration. The purpose of such a realisation is neither to scorn them, nor to despair, but to take the right measure of what it means to live as a Catholic in a post- and anti-Christian world. In God it can be done – “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me ” (Phil. IV, 13).

The chaos in the Church is special today because never before Vatican II in the 1960’s had the official Church in Rome departed officially from the Catholic Faith. Now Catholic Truth and Catholic Authority were designed by Our Lord to go hand in hand – when Peter is to be confirmed in the Faith (Catholic Truth), then he is to confirm the other Apostles (Catholic Authority – Lk. XXII, 32). Thus Truth is the very purpose of Authority, but it needs Authority to protect it. Each needs the other, but at Vatican II they were split apart, because the Popes and Cardinals and Bishops (Authority), magnetised by the modern world, gave up the old religion (Truth). From now on all Catholics had to be schizophrenic – either they clung to Truth and let go of the false authority, or they clung to Authority and let go of the Truth, or they found their way somewhere in between. From now on every Catholic sheep had to find its own way through the thorn-hedge set up by the bad shepherds of Vatican II.

Judging by the fruits (Mt. VII, 15–20), Archbishop Lefebvre’s way, of resisting the false shepherds while still recognising their authority, has proved to be one of the most fruitful ways of dealing with the confusion let loose by the Council, but his successors at the head of his Society have not proved faithful to his balance between Truth and Authority. Even now many are crawling back to false Rome, when it is falser than ever! Let this be a warning to you of the danger of thinking today that the appearance of Catholicism is the same thing as its substance. Then how do you know where the substance is to be found? The best answer is Our Lord’s, just mentioned – judge by the fruits. By what fruits? By supernatural faith, as God has just given you to understand it, and by genuine supernatural charity.

Then mix for a while with all kinds of Catholics, but listen more than you talk. Be in no hurry to pursue a vocation because God is never in a hurry (Gal. I, 18; II, 1). Have a boundless trust in His Wisdom and Providence, and be careful of clinging to any human leader or leaders, until God puts His Church back on its feet (as He certainly will do). Always honour your father and mother, however wrong they may seem to be (God has not given them the grace He has given to you). Have a boundless compassion on the mass of confused souls around you, but never confuse subjective sincerity with objective truth. Love the Mother of God, and pray every day for as long as you can all 15 Mysteries of Her Holy Rosary. And God be with you.

Kyrie eleison.