Eleison Comments

A Convert Today – I

A Convert Today – I on March 2, 2019

A colleague has just written to tell the Editor of these “Comments” that the situation of the Church is much worse then he thinks – “It is an illusion to think that we can restore things. We must be faithful, and save the few souls that God will make use of when the time comes.” This Editor agrees entirely, and he thinks of a line from Virgil’s Aeneid (II, 353): For the doomed, hope lies in giving up all hope. However, for a follower of Christ, to trust in man is only less foolish than to distrust in God. Here is a recent e-mail to the Editor which shows Almighty God clearly at work, converting a young soul previously far from Him. In this week’s “Comments” he asks for the advice which for the next two weeks they will offer.

Excellency, I am a young man in some despair because I do not know what to do. Maybe Your Excellency can give me some advice. Let me give you briefly my background.

Until I was about 18 I was a “normal” teenager, completely deluded, because I accepted everything that the new modern world gave me. I tried to fit in with it, but I always felt that it was against human nature, and deep down something was lacking. Although I was baptised, I had never lived like a Catholic, nor ever really thought of God, since I was just too caught up in the atheistic material world. However, I was a good student and my parents could afford to pay, so at 18 I went to University to study Management. But after a while by the grace of God I started seeing that things are not after all how the media and people portray them. Filled with anger and contempt for modern society because of the lies and corruption, I dropped out of university and then tried the Army Officers’ Academy since I was always physically fit and ready to stand up to the “mushy leftist society.”

But that was not God’s plan for me either. In boot camp God gave me the immense grace to start converting and to foster my faith. When after a short time I came out I was a different person, no longer filled with rage and contempt but disappointed and lost. I had realised how weak my generation is because of our liberal parenting and teaching and how hard it is to counteract it. We are so uprooted in comfort and in complete freedom to do as we like, that it makes us useless. But my liberal parents continued to press me against my will to go to University, so I had to go – this was not all that long ago. At that moment God gave me to find the SSPX and the “Resistance,” thanks to Archbishop Lefebvre. My faith started to grow rapidly, because I was getting the Truth. I started to read the Bible and to look into the problems of the Conciliar Church and the modern world, and I started praying the 15 mysteries of the Rosary, since there is no Tridentine Mass anywhere nearby.

So now I am thinking about what I should do. I feel a desire to renounce the material life, to get closer to God and to study the Faith in depth so as to learn everything about Catholicism and to convert others, but since I am young and I do not have any skills, I thought it might be better first to learn a practical skill – carpentry, for instance. At this point in time I would not even exclude a priestly vocation. My greatest struggle has been trying to reason with my parents and to convert them, but they thought I was nuts or had had a breakdown, and since then it has been big arguments at home about my not wanting to go to University. So I don’t know what to do. I am all alone, nobody in my family or among my friends is a Traditional Catholic. Since I am still unemployed, I have thought of moving not far away to where there is a Traditional Catholic community. What advice might you give me?

Kyrie eleison.

USA Misled

USA Misled on February 23, 2019

Last week these “Comments” quoted President Putin of Russia in 2014 accusing the United States of America of having “ruined all systems of global collective security.” What was he referring to?

In the 1980’s Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev of the USA and Russia respectively, realising the danger of the store of nuclear weapons on each side capable of ending life on earth, together made agreements to reduce the weapons they had, and to abstain from producing any more armaments of specifically perilous kinds that they did not yet have. These agreements served well to relax tensions and to keep the peace between the two nations until the end of the Cold War in 1989 and beyond, but the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet Russia created a new situation on the world stage – the USA was now the only super-power. Would it have the wisdom not to misuse its now overwhelming military might?

A number of leaders inside the USA called for a severe reduction in military expenditure – what was it needed for any longer? – but as far back as 1961 the outgoing President Eisenhower had famously warned US citizens in his farewell address to the nation against its “military-industrial complex” exerting too great an influence on public policy. By the “MIC” he meant the informal triangular alliance that had arisen between the USA’s armed forces, heavy industry and Congress, and the danger was that together they would want war for the sake of the immense profits to be made from the production of expensive weapons – in 2011 the USA spent more on its armed forces than the next 13 nations combined.

The truth is that a capitalist economy thrives on war, insofar as weapons can be expensive to produce, and if they are destroyed and have to be replaced, that is all the more turnover for the producers. So at the end of the Cold War, there were at least three arguments for maintaining the heavy expenditure on weapons: the USA must still be ready to defend itself against threats that can arise, the economy needs the turnover, and the world needs a policeman. Within reason, each of the arguments is valid, but the Plan which US leaders (especially Dick Cheney) worked out in the 1990’s to guide US policy was not necessarily reasonable, because it was a plan for the US to rule the world. It calls for the US to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the US must be more or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful. The Plan has turned disarming back into rearming.

(For the Cheney Plan, see http://​www.​informationclearinghouse.​info/​article1544.​htm).

That a plan expressed in such terms suffers from dangerous pride and overweening ambition should be obvious to anyone with the least knowledge of human nature. Under President Clinton (1992–2000) the Plan was slowed down, but as soon as Dick Cheney came back to power with the Republicans as Vice-President, the wicked idea of a new Pearl Harbour as a contrived event to mobilise the people behind a policy they would never in their right minds approve of, was put into practice – 9/11, one of the greatest lies of all history, which can only have been engineered by the secret government (the true “Deep State”) from deep within the public government, but which eminently succeeded at the time in furthering Cheney’s Plan. 9/11 immediately made the military invasion of Iraq possible, and how many more wars of aggression since then. It also made the worldwide police State take gigantic strides forward.

But lies are the sure footprint of Satan. It would follow from the huge lie of 9/11 that there is something satanic about Cheney’s Plan with its design for military domination of the world by the USA, all in the name of “democracy.” For a sane view of insane US policy heading straight for World War III, read at PaulCraigRoberts.org the sanity of a former official high under President Reagan in the US government, who watched at first hand and admired how Reagan and Gorbachev succeeded in working together to protect world peace. And let us pray for both Trump and Putin. With all their respective faults, both are surely gifts of God for which we need to be grateful to God.

Kyrie eleison.

Russia Vilified

Russia Vilified on February 16, 2019

On the international scene for several years now Russia has been vilified and its President has been blackened in the vile Western media, because the powers that control the Western nations and their media and their politicians want the third World War to give them hegemony or control over the entire world, and Russia is the main obstacle in the way of that worldwide monopoly of power. However, many souls all over the world have come to trust more in the fruits of Putin’s Russia avoiding war than in the fruits of the Western politicians and media doing their best to provoke war. Here follows the summary by Russians of a major speech of Putin given at the Valdai conference in Socchi, Russia, in October of 2014. Let readers judge for themselves if Putin’s words are reasonable, and if they correspond to his deeds:

1. Russia will no longer play games and engage in back-room negotiations over trifles. But Russia is prepared for serious conversations and agreements, if these are conducive to collective security, are based on fairness and take into account the interests of each side.

2. All systems of global collective security now lie in ruins. There are no longer any international security guarantees at all. And the entity that destroyed them has a name: The United States of America.

3. The builders of the New World Order have failed, having built a sand castle. Whether or not a new world order of any sort is to be built is not just Russia’s decision, but it is a decision that will not be made without Russia.

4. Russia favours a conservative approach to introducing innovations into the social order, but is not opposed to investigating and discussing such innovations, to see if introducing any of them might be justified.

5. Russia has no intention of going fishing in the murky waters created by America’s ever-expanding “empire of chaos,” and has no interest in building a new empire of her own (this is unnecessary; Russia’s challenges lie in developing her already vast territory). Neither is Russia willing to act as a saviour of the world, as she has done in the past.

6. Russia will not attempt to reformat the world in her own image, but neither will she allow anyone to reformat her in their image. Russia will not close herself off from the world, but anyone who tries to close her off from the world will be sure to reap a whirlwind.

7. Russia does not wish for the chaos to spread, does not want war, and has no intention of starting one. However, today Russia sees the outbreak of global war as almost inevitable, is prepared for it, and is continuing to prepare for it. Russia does not want war – nor does she fear it.

8. Russia does not intend to take an active role in thwarting those who are still attempting to construct their New World Order – until their efforts start to impinge on Russia’s key interests. Russia would prefer to stand by and watch them give themselves as many lumps as their poor heads can take. But those who manage to drag Russia into this process, through disregard for her interests, will be taught the true meaning of pain.

9. In her external, and, even more so, internal politics, Russia’s power will rely not on the elites and their back-room dealing, but on the will of the people. (End of the summary of Putin’s speech.)

If, when and how another World War breaks out, is entirely in God’s hands, depending on what mankind deserves. But if God must punish us for our own good, all sincere prayer between now and then will help to mitigate the human disaster. It is the enemies of God on both sides who will really have caused it.

Kyrie eleison.

Emotions Rampant

Emotions Rampant on February 9, 2019

In another interesting article from the regular bulletin of the American TFP (Tradition, Family, Property, January 4th edition), John Horvat observes and criticises a widespread phenomenon of modern society – emotions running out of control, and dominating people’s lives. Again (cf. these “Comments,” 590 of Nov. 3, 2018), from a Catholic point of view, the international TFP may be open as an organisation to more or less severe criticism (notably for by-passing the true Church), but its American bulletin has many thoughtful yet accessible articles for today’s Catholics having to live in a godless world. How Wisdom helps People Destroy the Dictatorship of the Emojis by John Horvat is one of these articles.

An “emoji” is one of those small digital images or icons used to express an idea or emotion, especially the tiny smiley or frowny faces freely available on computers and easily inserted in a text to express any one of a variety of emotions. Horvat uses emojis as a concrete example of the frequency with which emotions figure in today’s society. He argues that emotions are not bad in themselves, but they are presently playing too large a part in daily living, with disastrous results for the whole of society. When people do not want to face the reality of a world that includes hardship and suffering, then feelings prevail over facts, says Horvat, and instead of thinking they emote, so that, for instance, raw emotions fuel the anger politics that are rocking the world. Where it hurts to have to think, in order to work out why the world’s problems are as they are, on the contrary emotions make me feel good, and so I prefer to emote. But emotions have a necessarily incomplete grasp on reality. Here is why many a good wife has valuable instincts and intuitions, but she recognises that these need to be subordinated to the normally higher reasoning of her husband (not to his tyranny). And here is why our emotive politics of today are so crazy. And why the Newchurch of Vatican II and its Conciliar priests are so effeminate.

So why is reasoning superior to emotion? Because reasoning belongs to the higher part of man, to his mind and will, whereas human emotions belong to his higher and lower parts, to his passions and will. Certainly Our Lord and Our Lady had emotions. Our Lord wept over the grave of Lazarus (Jn. XI, 35). Our Lady suffered intensely when she lost her 12-year old Boy (Lk. II, 48). But just as by her reason she submitted her motherly grief to His mystery (Lk. II, 50), so He submitted 21 years later His human agony in the Garden of Gethsemane to the will of His Father in Heaven (Mt. XXVI, 39). For whereas all animals have sense appetite or passions, responding to sense stimuli from outside them, only the rational animal, man, has also the higher faculty of will which responds to intellective information fed to it by his mind. This intellective or rational dimension of man is wholly lacking to all the non-rational or brute animals.

Now nobody in his right mind accuses any non-rational animal of committing sin. At worst it is only following its instincts. This is because right and wrong are perceived only by man’s mind and performed as such by his will. That is because only by having mind and will does man have a conscience aware of sin (Jn. I, 9), making him able to sin. That is why man’s will must follow his higher reason and control his lower emotions, neither crushing them too tightly nor letting them completely go, but harnessing them in accordance with reason, with what his natural reason (Jn I, 9) tells him is right and not wrong.

It follows that if men want to sin, they will begin by dulling or obscuring their conscience, and they may well finish by denying that they have reason at all, and by affirming that animals are just as rational as they are. Anywhere in between they will let their emotions loose so that they no longer have to think, but are free to wallow in their passions. Horvat does not go this deep, but in fact this modern unleashing of emotion is part and parcel of modern man’s total war on God. God has only to get out of His own universe so that man can take His place, and do with it what he likes. Dear God, have mercy upon us!

Kyrie eleison.

“Holocaustianity”

“Holocaustianity” on February 2, 2019

Many Catholics seem to think that what is called the “Holocaust” has nothing to do with religion. They are very mistaken. Here are two (slightly edited) paragraphs from the handsome tribute paid to the late Professor Robert Faurisson by Jérôme Bourbon, brave editor of the excellent Paris weekly, Rivarol:—

Not only did Professor Faurisson by his research and famous phrase of 60 words threaten the ideological foundations of the world order issuing from World War II, but he also called in question the religion, or counter-religion, of “Holocaustianity.” It is a veritable religion, demanding respect and submission. Its false god requires a homage of adoration, a constant burning of incense before it, a flame to be lit like at Yad Vashem, flowers to be offered, and wailing to go up to Heaven, like at the pilgrimages and processions to Auschwitz and elsewhere, while people must beat their breast, crying out “Never again.”

“Holocaustianity,” taught from primary school to the end of one’s days, by television, cinema and every form of entertainment, does in fact ape all features of the Catholic religion. It has its martyrs (the Six Million), its Saints (Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank), its miracles (“Holocaust” survivors), its stigmatists (tattooed camp-inmates), its pilgrimages (to Auschwitz, etc.), its temples and cathedrals (“Holocaust” museums and memorials), its alms-giving to obtain pardon (never-ending reparation payments to Israel and to “Holocaust” survivors), its relics (camp inmates’ teeth, hair, shoes, etc.), its lives of the Saints (books by Elie Wiesel, Anne Frank, etc.), its torture chambers (gas-chambers), its Gospel (the verdict of the post-war Nuremberg military tribunal), its High Priests and Pontiffs (Simon Wiesenthal), its Inquisition (anti-Revisionist civil law-courts), its laws against blasphemy (strictly forbidding any questioning of the “Holocaust”), its Holy City (modern Jerusalem), its preachers and guardians (all instructors and associations in politics, the media, religion, trade unions, sports and economics), its religious Congregations (World Jewish Congress, B’nai B’rith, AIPAC, etc., etc.), its Hell (for all nationalists – except Israelis! –, all revisionists, all believers in the deicide and in the New Testament replacing the Old, etc.), and its faithful (almost all of mankind).

However, not only does “Holocaustianity” ape Christianity, it also turns it inside out: instead of love, hate; instead of truth, lies; instead of forgiveness, Talmudic vengeance; instead of respect for elders, the hunting down of aged camp-guards; instead of the spirit of poverty, the pursuit of reparation payments; instead of humility, the drive to dominate; instead of sharing, the pursuit of personal gain, instead of charity, blackmail: instead of respect for others, lynching: instead of quiet and discretion, publicity and noisy accusations in the media; instead of the boundless justice of God, the brazen injustice of conquerors setting themselves up as judges of the conquered, and so on and so on.

So here is a sonnet to honour what Prof. Faurisson did to get this monkey off of mankind’s back:—

“The Truth is mighty, and will prevail,” they said.
“Oh no!” one race replied, “the Truth we make –
“We are the Master Race, of all men head,
Our truth is what inferiors have to take!”
And thus a whole mythology arose
From how this race remoulded two World Wars.
On weak minds horror chambers they impose
To fake a god that everyone adores.
Yet one frail Frenchman braved the racist lies –
“Picture us one such genuine chamber – one!”
But pictures there were none to show. With cries
Of rage, the racists knew that Truth had won.
In God, Professor, you did not believe,
But you He used, all races to relieve.

Kyrie eleison.

Macchabees? Where?

Macchabees? Where? on January 26, 2019

What does the reunification of the Society of St Pius X with Rome mean to the great mass of the world’s inhabitants, even to the large number of its Catholics? The answer must be, very little. Similarly when passengers on the Titanic saw a team of engineers going below decks to investigate something or other, they may not have shown much interest, but as soon as they came to learn that their great ship was doomed, their interest must have grown much keener. The Catholic Church hit the iceberg of Vatican II over 50 years ago. A great engineer of the Church warned the Church’s captain of what had happened, and what would be the result, and he showed how to stop the Church from sinking. Alas, Archbishop Lefebvre was not heeded by the captains then or since, and his discouraged successors prefer today to listen to the misguided captains, who are, if the Society no longer shows the true way out, to be pitied.

Let us recall the last six years of the process of reunification, and assess where it is at today.

The decisive step in that process was the Society’s General Chapter of 2012, where it renounced the Archbishop’s fundamental principle that without a doctrinal agreement between the Society and Rome, no merely practical agreement could serve the Church. This is because a Catholic is a Catholic firstly by his subjective virtue of faith submitting his mind and will to the objective creed of the Church’s Faith. What the error of subjectivism does is to render the objective Faith subjective, so that I become free to believe, and consequently to behave, how I like. Like believing 2 and 2 are 4, OR 5 OR 6 OR 6,000,000. This unfaith of Vatican II the Society essentially adopted in 2012, yet Society leaders immediately began reassuring their priests and laity that nothing essential had changed in the Society. BUT –

In 2013 began a series of publicly admitted meetings in Rome with the Roman authorities, to prepare a step-by-step process of full recognition. This process duly followed:—

In 2014, There were visits of Roman dignitaries to SSPX seminaries, and there was the temporary Jubilee “concession” of official jurisdiction for SSPX Confessions.

In 2015, the “concession” on Confessions and Extreme-Unction was made permanent.

In 2016, priestly ordinations in the SSPX were no longer to be punished by suspension “a divinis.”

In 2017, Society Marriages were rendered “licit” by the participation of a Newchurch priest as witness.

In 2018, the SSPX General Chapter elected for their General Council three men who are no tigers of the Faith, and created two new positions alongside them (General Councillors) to enable Bishop Fellay and Fr. Schmidberger to retain their power as the two leading tigers of reunification.

And in 2019? – Rome has just re-absorbed the Commission Ecclesia Dei (ED) into the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), from which it was hived off in 1988 to draw back to Rome Catholics tempted by the Society’s episcopal consecrations to follow the Archbishop instead of Rome. As such, ED was meant to be relatively kind to Traditionalists. But Pope Francis has no time for Tradition. Therefore since the Newsociety now agrees with Rome that there is no longer the clash with Rome that there was in 1988, he has put an end to ED. But ED was kind to Tradition, whereas the CDF are tigers of the Newchurch. Like Little Red Riding Hood, the Newsociety is throwing itself into the jaws of Rome – “Oh, sweet Big Bad Rome, what lovely teeth you have!” “All the better to eat you up with, you silly child!”

And the Society? Just as it will be happy if Rome dissolves ED because the CFD will then treat it as belonging fully to the Church, so it risks being happy if Rome were to attach to the Society two relatively decent Newbishops to look after its need of Ordinations and Confirmations, but from outside the Society and always under Rome’s own control. On Rome’s part it would be a clever move, closing the trap even tighter on what remains of the Archbishop’s Society. And how many Newsociety priests will even see that here is “a sea of troubles,” let alone “take arms, to end them” (Hamlet)? Not many, one may fear.

Kyrie eleison.