Eleison Comments

Prison Survival

Prison Survival on January 20, 2018

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) is one of the few truly outstanding writers of the 20th century because he is not godless but came back to God thanks to his sufferings under the totalitarian tyranny of Communist Russia, which lasted from 1917 until 1989. His major work is the Archipelago Gulag in three volumes, for which he drew extensively on his own experience, when he lived from 1945 to 1953 inside the Communist archipelago of prison camps spread all over Russia. He survived the experience, and his writings include hints or serious advice on how to survive in such modern-day totalitarian prisons. One hears that the Globalists have already built prisons across the United States in which to shut up enemies of the Globalist State, who will surely include convinced Christians. The following seven-point recipe for survival was drawn from the Archipelago Gulag and presented recently in France:—

* At the preliminary interrogation , do not try to deceive or trick the interrogators when for a week you have been given the bare minimum of food and sleep for survival. Rather play the idiot from start to finish, e.g. “I don’t know,” “I can’t remember.” In any case, do not fool yourself, it is the interrogators who write up the interrogation – the Party is their conscience, and they do not want to lose their jobs.

* Once inside the prison , lead any kind of life of the mind sufficiently intense for no kind of suffering to be able to knock your mind off balance.

* Get into your head as fast as possible that your past life is over and done with , even life itself. Once you have nothing more to lose and are convinced of it, and have made up your mind that cost what it may, you are going to stick to the line you have determined upon, then you are no longer afraid, automatically you find the right answers and how to answer, they can no longer impose on you, and if you have to die, you do so with dignity and a clear conscience. Here is the moral strength that they are afraid of and which they do all they can to break, for instance by raising false hopes of your receiving a pardon.

* Possess nothing, be detached from everything, and you will have the calm and freedom of mind to judge serenely of people and circumstances. Rely on your memory alone to call up everything you know of man and human nature.

* Give up any desire to organise your own life, in order to preserve your peace of mind.

* Believe nobody, distrust everybody: inside the gulag, nobody does anything for nothing.

* Finally, stick close to decent fellow-prisoners against the crooks and informers, taking justice into your own hands, if necessary. For indeed one of the most remarkable discoveries on your journey through this scene from Hell is that your worst enemies are not the prison guards, but . . . your fellow-prisoners. The law of this jungle is, today it’s you that kicks the bucket, tomorrow it’s my turn. All that you can do is to strike first, even if you get knifed in return . . . in brief, make yourself respected if you do not want to be exploited.

As for the use of physical force in self-defence, the Church teaches that it must be proportional to the attack threatened. But Solzhenitsyn’s main point is the renunciation of all earthly hope, the detachment from all possessions, the calm of mind, the conscience at peace, in brief that inner moral strength which transfers the fear from oneself to one’s adversaries. Here Catholics are universally recognised to be winners, who have a prayer life by which they live close to God. “This is the victory which overcometh the world, our faith” (I John V, 4).

Kyrie eleison.

Faith Crucial – II

Faith Crucial – II on January 13, 2018

Your Excellency,

Talking with an Indult priest (one who says the true Mass but obeys the Church officials in Rome) I have become confused about Archbishop Lefebvre and the stand which he took in defence of the Faith. I thought he was right, but now I am not so sure. Here are some of that priest’s arguments:—

1 The Archbishop disobeyed Rome. That proves that he was proud.

2 Had he given up his Society and seminaries to obey Rome, he would have been heroic.

3 If he disobeyed Rome to save Tradition, he did evil in order to bring about good, which is wrong.

4 To obey a Pope as misguided as Pope Francis is, is a martyrdom by which one imitates Christ.

5 For Bishop Fellay to step into the jaws of the Roman lion is, in spiritual terms, heroic.

Dear Sir,

In sane times the Catholic Church gives to souls a clear direction as to what is true or false, right or wrong, and you would need to be in no confusion. But ever since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) these have not been sane times, because the Roman churchmen themselves at that Council abandoned God’s true Catholic religion and adopted a false man-made religion which we can call Conciliarism. So ever since the 1960’s, Catholics have been confused from top to bottom of the Church, by trying to go in two directions at once. For instance, your Indult priest says the Mass of the true religion, while meaning to obey the Romans set upon the false religion. No wonder it confuses you to listen to him. And you will remain confused until you fully grasp the difference between God’s true religion and men’s Conciliarism – God may want you to do some more homework.

A Catholic is a Catholic by the Faith he believes in, by the sacraments he receives and by the hierarchy which he obeys. But he is firstly Catholic by his Faith, without which he would have no concern for the Catholic sacraments or hierarchy. Therefore the Catholic Faith is fundamental to a Catholic, and it is that Faith which the Roman officials abandoned at Vatican II in order to get off the wavelength of God and onto the wavelength of modern man. Therefore Conciliarism is fundamentally different from Catholicism and it creates a quite different viewpoint from which to consider pride, heroism, obedience, and so on. The Catholic viewpoint is true, the Conciliar viewpoint is false. Now, to the Indult priest’s arguments:—

1 The Archbishop was not proud, because he was defending God’s truth and putting God before men. On the contrary, heretics like Luther and Conciliarists are proud because they are defying God to please men.

2 He was heroic not by giving way to Rome, but by resisting Rome, in order to put God first.

3 When he did what he did in order to save Tradition, he was doing not evil but good to achieve good.

4 Catholic martyrdom lies in suffering harm and death not just for any cause, but only for the true Catholic Faith. The Archbishop suffered a true martyrdom not by giving way to the Popes who had gone wrong, but by doing all he could to make them see how they were abandoning the true Faith.

5 His successors on the contrary, by doing all they can, since 2000 at least, to bring the Archbishop’s Society under the control of the Conciliar Romans, are in no terms heroic because they are putting men before God. Nor are they martyrs, nor are they truly imitating Christ, but they are indeed proud.

Dear Sir, I hope that by now you can see that everything in the Church must ultimately be judged in the light of the Truth and of the Faith. This is because a man’s faith or lack of it is his basic attitude to God. A man may choose to go to Hell if he wants, but if he wants to go to the one true Heaven of the one true God, then he must start by believing in Him, according to the true Faith.

Kyrie eleison.

SSPX, 2018?

SSPX, 2018? on January 6, 2018

As the world plunges downhill, more and more people are opening their eyes and are wondering where it will end. As the Catholic Church is led resolutely downhill by a pope who seems intent only on rubbing out the last traces of the pre-Conciliar Church, more and more Catholics are opening their eyes and are driven to wondering if the Council (1962–1965) was not some kind of problem for the true Catholic Church. Then they look towards the Society of St Pius X, because it was founded in 1970 by Archbishop Lefebvre precisely to ensure the continuation of the pre-Conciliar Church, and what do they find? A group of priests more and more sympathetic to the post-conciliar Church, less and less clear on Vatican II, and sliding into the arms of the Conciliar Romans. Result? Many of these souls looking for the Truth are more confused than ever. So where are the Church and the Society of St Pius X headed in 2018?

Souls looking for the Truth must read (for instance Ralph Wiltgen’s The Rhine flows into the Tiber, or Archbishop Lefebvre’s Letter to Confused Catholics). That is how many Catholics found their way in the 1970’s and 1980’s towards the Traditional movement where they found again the true Church which they knew they had lost after the Council’s “renewal.” And in Archbishop Lefebvre (1905–1991) they found a leader with a clear and Catholic vision of what had happened at the Council – it had taken place under pressure from the modern world to conform to the world, whereas from the beginning of the Church through to the 20th century, it was always the Church that had put the world under pressure to conform itself to God. In this perspective, Vatican II represented an upheaval, a turning upside down, without precedent in all Church history, but the Council Fathers were nearly all more or less beglamoured by the modern world. It is this upheaval which set the course of the official Church from the Council until today. And given that the enemies of God and man were behind the modern world and behind Vatican II, and given that by a just punishment of God they are now deeply entrenched within the offices of the Vatican, then in 2018, short of a miracle or of grave events intervening, the official Church will continue on its downward plunge.

And the Society of St Pius X in 2018? At the beginning of July, in six months’ time, the SSPX holds its elections for those who are to be for the following 12 years its three senior officials, the Superior General and his two Assistants. If the 40 leading priests of the Society who vote in those elections wish to continue the Society’s slide into the arms of Conciliar Rome, i.e. the official Church, then no doubt they will vote for Bishop Fellay to be Superior General so that he can finish the work of replacing the Archbishop’s clear vision of the need to resist Vatican II with his own confused vision of blending Catholic Tradition with Vatican II, which is like blending fire with water. For just as Paul VI (1963–1978) dreamt of saving both Church and modern world by blending them in Vatican II, and almost crushed the life out of the Church by his tyrannical dream, so Bishop Fellay has drained the life out of the Society by clamping upon it his parallel dream of saving both Tradition and Council in a messianic reconciliation of his own making. The vision is quite different from the Archbishop’s. Then how will the 40 priests vote? Upon their vote depends how the Society will develop in 2018, at least from July onwards.

However, there was a reason for Vatican II, and that was the ever widening gulf between God’s true Church and modern man. The strain of holding them together became unbearable, and the Council Fathers snapped. Archbishop Lefebvre stood his Catholic ground and founded the Society, but his successors at its head have in turn snapped under the strain. Today’s godless world surrounds all of us, and its siren charms are highly seductive. Catholics must “watch and pray” – they need to read, and to continue reading, and they must have a strong prayer life by which to cleave to God – 15 Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, every day.

Kyrie eleison.

Culture’s Importance – II

Culture’s Importance – II on December 30, 2017

Let us resort again to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, for some politically incorrect common sense on the notion of “culture,” which he is taking in its broadest but real sense as the values, standards and way of life of different peoples at the national and international level. The enemies of man and God wish to homogenise all nations in a global mush which it will be that much easier for their Antichrist to dominate in the worldwide tyranny of which they dream. Almighty God, on the contrary, establishes an astonishing variety throughout His Creation, because the ordered variety of creatures best reflects His own fullness of being. But any ordered variety means a higher and a lower, in other words inequality. That is why His enemies wish to level everything down in the name of equality – “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” for example. Catholics on the contrary must wish for all creatures to be as varied and as unequal as their Creator meant them to be. Putin is in this respect on the side of Almighty God.

He was here talking to an international group of youngsters attending the 19th World Festival of Youth and Students held in Sochi, Russia, last October. See http://​en.​kremlin.​ru/​events/​president/​news/​55842.

India, our neighbour to the left, has a population of 1.2 billion, and China has a population of 1.5 billion. As for the United States, it continues to receive more and more immigrants; and, as far as I understand, its White Christian population has recently become a minority, less than 50 percent of the total US population. What I mean to say is that the world is going through dramatic, global change. I am not saying this is good or bad, just that global changes are taking place.

You have said Russia is a vast territory – indeed. But from its western to its eastern borders, it is a Eurasian space. As regards culture, even language, language group and history, it is all undoubtedly a European space insofar as it is inhabited by people of European culture. This I say because it is what we have to preserve if we are to remain a significant centre in the world – and I do not mean that in the military sense or any other such sense. We should not divide peoples according to their ethnicity, and we should not look back in history, thinking, say, of the war between France and Russia from 1812 to 1814, rather we should look to the future for ways to build a common future and follow a common path.

This is how we can preserve Russia and its people as a global centre that is significant for relations with Asian countries and the American continent. If we fail to preserve Russia, it will be divided into minor quasi-national associations of States that would eventually lose their significance in the global sense as independent centres. If we do preserve Russia, this will be a great advantage for the development of all mankind as well, because Russia is a major part of the global culture and it certainly has to be preserved.

Indeed. A leading part of men’s culture has always been their literature, visual arts and music, because human beings of all times and in all places stand especially in need of stories, pictures and music to express and share what is going on inside them. That is why theatre and cinema which can combine all three are so influential, especially cinema today. In literature Russia boasts a number of world-famous authors: Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekov, Solzhenitsyn, etc.; in music, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc.; in cinema, Eisenstein and Tarkovsky have international reputations. Putin is right – thanks to Russia’s long winters and deep thinkers, his country has much to contribute to world culture that is far superior to the heap of democratic trash presently expressing what is going on inside men.

Pray for Putin not to be assassinated, because God’s enemies hate him, not without reason – he is leading his country towards its Consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, which will put off, at least for a while, the Antichrist. May She protect him.

Kyrie eleison.

Christmas Narrative

Christmas Narrative on December 23, 2017

The following highpoint from a narrative certainly suitable for Christmastide is placed in the mouth of the Mother of God as she re-enters the sacred cave in Bethlehem to describe to friends the human birth of God in the very place where it happened. It is a brave writer who undertakes to describe the scene, and to put words into the mouth of the Mother. Not all readers of these “Comments” may agree that this attempt has been successful. No matter. Other readers may find great delight in the scene, which truly happened, and must have happened in some such way, and for such readers it is presented here:—

“Mary gets to her feet again and enters the cave: “Everything is just like it was then. Only then it was night-time . . . . Joseph struck a light as I entered. Then and only then, getting down from the donkey, did I realise how tired and frozen cold I was. We were greeted by an ox. I went up to it to feel a little warmth, to rest on the hay . . . where I am standing now Joseph spread out the hay to make me a bed, and he dried it out for the two of us, Jesus and me, at the little fire in that corner . . . because my angelic husband had for us the love of a true father . . . and he and I, holding one another by the hands like two brothers lost in the dark of the night, we ate our bread and cheese, and then he went over there to look after the fire, taking off his coat to block the cave entrance . . . . Actually he was veiling the glory of God about to descend from the heavens. With Jesus I stood on the hay between the warmth of the two animals, wrapped up in my coat and the woollen blanket. My dear husband! . . . In that anxious moment for me, facing alone the mystery of giving birth for the first time, an unknown for any woman but heightened for me by the uniqueness of my motherhood, and heightened still further by the prospect of seeing the Son of God emerge from mortal flesh, he, Joseph was like a mother to me, an angel . . . my comforter . . . then and always . . .

“And then silence and sleep came down to enwrap the Just Man . . . so that he should not see what was for me the daily embrace of God . . . . And for me began the boundless waves of ecstasy, rolling in from a sea of paradise, lifting me up again on crests of light, higher and higher, carrying me upwards, upwards, with them, in an ocean of light, more light, peace and love, until I found myself lost in the sea of God, of the bosom of God . . . . A voice still reached up to me from earth; “Are you asleep, Mary?” Oh, so far away! . . . A bare echo, calling from earth! . . . and so faint as hardly to touch the soul, and I have no idea what answer I give him while I climb, I am still climbing in the abyss of fire, of infinite bliss, of the foreknowledge of God . . . until it is God, God Himself . . . . Oh, was Jesus born of me, or was I born of the splendours of the Holy Trinity on that night? Was it I who gave Jesus birth, or was it Jesus that drew me up to give birth to me? I have no idea . . .

“And then the descent, from Choir to Choir of angels, from layer to layer of stars, a descent as gentle and slow and blissful and peaceful as that of a flower being carried on high by an eagle and then dropped, falling slowly on wings of air, glistening in a pearl of rain with the fragment of a rainbow stolen from heaven, and landing back on its native soil . . . . And my jewelled crown: Jesus, Jesus upon my heart . . .

“Seated over here, after adoring Him on my knees, I loved Him. At last I could love Him with no barrier of flesh coming between us, and from here I stood up to carry him over to be loved by the Just One who deserved like me to be among the first ones to love Him. And here between these two rustic pillars, I offered Him to the Father. And here He rested for the first time on Joseph’s heart . . . . I rocked Him on my breast while Joseph dried out the hay at the fire and kept it warm to place it on the Baby’s chest, and then over there, for the two of us to adore Him and bend over Him just as I am bending over now, to drink in His breath, to marvel at just how far God’s love can stoop down to love men, to weep the tears certainly being wept in Heaven for the inexhaustible joy of gazing on God.”

Kyrie eleison.

Culture’s Importance – I

Culture’s Importance – I on December 16, 2017

“When I hear the word ‘culture,’ I reach for my gun,” is a famous quote (often attributed to Reichsmarchall Göring, but coming actually from a Berlin play of 1933), which may be taken to mean that culture is not the ultimate source of the values often attributed to it. Often the word serves as a fig-leaf to cover over the West’s deep-down apostasy by a shameful but long-standing hypocrisy, to which some gun-owners may be instinctively tempted to put a violent end. One American of our own time who realizes that culture depends on religion or its absence is Ron Austin, who has written in December’s issue of the magazine First Things an article on pop culture, arguing that it is neither pop, nor culture.

Austin is a veteran Hollywood writer-producer who spent nearly half a century producing pop culture, mostly for television. He is a member of the American Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, but also a Fellow at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California, which gives him at least a handle on the true dimensions of “culture.” For instance towards the beginning of his article he writes, “The key to understanding modernity and its ultimate failure lies in the many failed efforts to find replacements for religious faith . . . . It was the mass media fostering a “pop culture” that was the most influential and powerful substitute for a meaningful world-view . . . ” Pop culture, says Austin, is an idol . . . as such it is phony . . . it is neither pop nor culture.

Austin defines “pop” as belonging rather to the people than to any elite. He admits that pop culture has considerable popular appeal today, but he says it is synthetic and industrial in nature, deriving as it does from no natural or organic way of life, so it is not truly popular. “Culture” is difficult to define, but he takes it to mean a way of life with shared values and with the means to express it. Culture in this sense can only grow organically like a tree, at nature’s speed which cannot be forced, and it requires a shared memory with a sense of the past, a continuity of meaning, goals and standards. But “pop culture” erases the past. Therefore it is no true culture. Austin recalls the decades of his own life from this point of view.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s he remembers a growing alienation from the past in which the mass media played a crucial part. In the 1970’s a counter-culture of fragmentation and narcissism grew, with more entertainment than ever, and with it an increasing detachment from reality. The medium itself was becoming the message, and morality was based on subjective emotion, which the media packaged as a product for profit. Entertainment replaced thought or analysis. If not fatal, the disease was highly contagious. In the 1980’s the attempt to restore past values failed in the USA, Europe and Russia. In the 1990’s some false hopes came to an end, but the mass of consumers were more fragmented than ever.

However, in the 2010’s the Catholic Faith does give Austin some hope. True culture depends on human beings being human, he says, and humans have for true models Our Lord and Our Lady. True culture will be replanted, and the Light will return.

Austin is on the track of the real problem, even if his treatment of the problem and of its solution is relatively lightweight. It is today’s total environment, or culture, which is so dangerous for souls and their salvation. It has become totally normal either to disbelieve in God, or if one believes in Him, not to take Him seriously. The past has little to tell us (except the Six Million, of course). Immorality is unimportant. There is no such thing as an order of nature to be respected. Technology saves. Freedom is all. And this sickness is highly contagious, because it is so “liberating.” Heaven help us!

Kyrie eleison.

P.S. As a minor resort to the elite culture of yesteryear, in the true sense of the word, a session of Mozart parallel to the “Beethoven Blast” of two years ago will be held here in Broadstairs, from Friday, February 23rd to Sunday, February the 25th, of next year. Details will follow.