Eleison Comments

I have just been re-reading Michael Davies’ Pope John’s Council, written in 1977 and hardly needing to be up-dated nearly 40 years later. If anything, Michael Davies was too kind to the Council, but there are many home truths in the book, so that it can be warmly recommended to anybody beginning to study the Council. Especially interesting is the Appendix VI consisting of a review by Professor Louis Salleron from 1936 of the French philosopher Jacques Maritain’s (1882–1973) then recently appeared book, Integral Humanism. This book so interested an Italian priest, Giovanni-Battista Montini, that he translated it into Italian. Later he became Pope Paul VI, the main architect of Vatican II. Thus Salleron uncovers the roots of the Council, 26 years before it began.

Integral Humanism presents Maritain’s vision of a new future for a remodelled Christendom. Bourgeois civilisation is doomed, but instead of the Church continually condemning the man-centred humanism which gave rise to the French Revolution (1789) which gave rise to that bourgeoisie, the Revolution needs to be recognised as part of an on-going and inevitable historical process with which Christianity can and must come to terms. By this means, while the whole course of modern history cannot be stopped, nevertheless by Christ the humanism can be made truly, fully human, becoming “integral humanism.” Christianity thus rebuilt on modern foundations will bring Christ to modern man and modern man to Christ, the admirable intention of Maritain and Paul VI and Bishop Fellay.

But “the way to Hell is paved with good intentions,” says the wise old proverb. Salleron admires all kinds of things in the book of Maritain, who was a philosopher skilled in Thomism and knew well, says Salleron, how to present any idea in such a way as not to contradict Catholic doctrine. But Salleron objects strongly to Maritain’s reading of modern history and calls it “Marxist.” Karl Marx (1818–1883) also started out from the rot of bourgeois civilisation but concluded that it must be completely torn down by on-going Revolution to make way for the dream of the classless society, which worked out in reality as the nightmare of Communism. So Maritain rejected Marx’ conclusion but accepted his analysis of history, so as to fashion a new compromise Christianity that would work for modern man: neither modernity on modern foundations (Marx – and Wagner), nor Christ on Christ’s foundations (Pius X – see especially his Letter on the Sillon – and Archbishop Lefebvre), but Christ on modern foundations. The result is that Newchristianity which is to be found throughout the documents of Vatican II, namely Christ is the true fulfilment of man – not man is ordered to Christ and to God, but God and Christ are ordered to man.

Alas, compromise solutions do not work with Our Lord. He says, “Let your speech be yes, yes or no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil” (Mt. V, 37). And “He that is not with me, is against me” (Mt. XII, 30). A man-centred religion of the true God is a contradiction in terms. Salleron points out that there is nothing inevitable in the march of modern history such as Marx and Maritain imagined. If modern man is going to the Devil, it is by man’s own free choice. What liberals like Maritain and Paul VI and Bishop Fellay do not grasp is the reality of evil. They do not grasp that modern man simply does not want Christ, and God will not force man to do so. Liberals will diminish God so as to make him appealing to modern man, but most modern men will turn away, in indifference or disgust. Vatican II has been a colossal failure, and “integral humanism” has been just one more example of disintegrating humanism, because it is not centred on God.

Politics, economics, the banks, finance, the arts, medicine, law, agriculture, the whole of modern society must come back under the Social Kingship of Christ the King. That was Archbishop Lefebvre’s solution. It is the only solution.

Kyrie eleison.

A reader of the ‘Comments’ questions again the value of non-Catholic culture when she attacks them for praising Wagner (EC 9) and T.S. Eliot (EC 406, 411). For her, T.S. Eliot is to be dismissed as a Protestant, while Wagner is a Jacobine devil in love with Buddhism, whose music is loaded with gnostic impurity. Now both Eliot and Wagner have their faults, grave faults when measured against the fullness of Catholic truth, as the ‘Comments’ mentioned above pointed out. But in our sick age they have their utility, which can be summed up in a few words, attributed to St Augustine: “All truth belongs to us Christians.”

Eliot and Wagner both belong to yesteryear’s “culture.” Culture we will define for our purposes here as the stories, music and pictures that men of all ages need, to nourish their minds and hearts. Thus defined, culture reflects and reveals, it teaches and moulds. It reflects, because it is the product of some writer, musician or artist who had the talent to give expression to what was going on in the souls of his contemporaries. If it was popular in its time, it revealed part of what was going on in their souls, and if it has become a classic since, like Eliot and Wagner, that is because it reflects and reveals part of what goes on in the souls of men of all time. Thus Eliot from the very poverty of his Unitarian upbringing was enabled to draw his daunting portrait of modern man, while Wagner by a towering talent, aside from any buddhism or gnosticism, filled his operas with a wealth of true human psychology that thousands of commentators have not ceased to interpret since.

Culture also moulds and teaches, because the writer or musician or artist gives expression and form to movements, until then formless, in the minds and hearts of his contemporaries. Shelley called poets “the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Elvis Presley and the Beatles had a huge influence on modern youth, for generations to come. Picasso almost created modern art, and thereby fashioned to a large extent how modern people visualise the world around them. These modern examples of the huge influence of literature, music and the arts on human beings are hardly rejoicing because modern man is so godless, and there is in him so litle of value to be reflected or expressed, but the huge influence cannot be denied.

In brief, culture is based in, and issues from, men’s souls. And the Catholic Church is in the business of saving men’s souls. So how could it neglect culture? Its own writers have directed men’s thoughts, and its artists and musicians have filled its churches with beauty to uplift men’s souls to God ever since the Church began. Of course that is true for Catholic culture, somebody might object, but neither Eliot nor Wagner were Catholics. Then of what use can they be to the Church?

In man there are three things: grace, sin and nature. As coming from God, our basic nature can only be good, but as flawed by original sin it is weak and inclines to evil. Nature is like the battlefield of the war to eternity between grace and sin for the possession of that nature. Grace lifts it up and heals that nature. Sin pulls it down. Hence the never-ending war. Now Eliot and Wagner may have been lacking in grace, but they were given by God to be masters of nature. The Church is commander-in-chief on the side of saving souls. How could it fail to study the battlefield, and to draw all possible profit from the masters of nature, to know the souls of the time and to teach them?

Kyrie eleison.

When the three-week meeting of Catholic bishops from all over the world opened in Rome on October 4 to discuss questions on the family, many Catholics feared that it would undermine the Church’s unchangeable moral doctrine, especially since Pope Francis is so intent on reaching out to immoral modern man. However, traditionally minded Catholics have been encouraged by the emergence before and during the Synod of substantial resistance by many Newchurch prelates to any such undermining. Only tomorrow will the Synod’s results be known, but certain things are clear, whatever those results may be.

Firstly, let nobody say that there is nothing Catholic left in the mainstream Catholic Church. Conciliarism may well have infected the faith and morals of many, even most, of its prelates, but to claim that all of them are utterly corrupt is a gross injustice and over-simplification. Obviously a number of them are doing their best to uphold God’s moral law.

Secondly, however, these (in this respect) good men are fighting from a weak position because dogma is the foundation of morals, and with Vatican II the Newchurch abandoned dogma. Dogma founds morals because, for instance, if God, Heaven and Hell (dogma) do not exist, then why should I obey the Ten Commandments (morals)? And Vatican II by its Declaration on Religious Liberty wrecked dogma because if, as it taught, a State must recognize the right of all its citizens to practise in public the religion of their choice, then Jesus Christ cannot be God, because if he is, then the State, coming from God just as much as all the men composing it come from God, can grant no such right to religions denying that he is God, and for it to grant such a right is implicitly to deny that Jesus is God. Thus 50 years before the Synod, Vatican II undermined in advance all subsequent defenders of Christian morals, however decent as men they may be, unless they repudiate Vatican II.

That is why, thirdly, as John Vennari argues (one need not agree with everything he says), the essential trick of those at the Synod seeking to change Catholic morals has been the “turn towards man” underlying all of Vatican II. Here is the trick: “God’s Church is for man. True, God cannot change, but his Law must fit man, and yesterday’s Law no longer fits today’s man. Therefore that Law must be adapted to modern times.” However the Catholic Church was purchased by the Blood of Christ not to pull God down to man, but to raise man up to God, and to provide him through Christ with the means of being thus raised.

And fourthly, as Michael Voris says (one need not agree with everything he says), the Synod has been full of “bishop babble.” This is because many Newbishops will never have been properly taught Catholic doctrine, in fact they may well have learned that there is no such thing as unchanging truth. Thanks to Vatican II their minds are adrift among the morals and anti-morals of all the religions of the world. It can be no wonder then if they are hardly capable of thinking, and if they run loose at the mouth.

And fifthly, as an honourable colleague from the Society of St Pius X says (he has been criticised before now in these “Comments”), even if the Synod were to close tomorrow with entirely Catholic conclusions, still God’s moral law will have been undermined by the mere fact of its having been questioned on major points for a length of time, officially and in public. Moreover this Synod seems sure to rest even true conclusions not on their objective truth, but on the bishops’ vote, so that the liberals can come back next year or the year after, for one vote after another, until they finally get what they want. Today the voting game belongs to them.

Kyrie eleison.

Your Excellency,

I am sorry to bother you, but I am a father responsible for getting many little souls that God has entrusted me with to Heaven and I’ve never been so lost or confused about how to do it as I am now. I am trying not to feel hopeless as I see both my Catholic world and the rest of the world in a tail-spin, about ready to crash and burn. A clerk in today’s United States gets sent to jail if they refuse to issue a license for a same-sex marriage. What next? But I do go on hoping because God has given us many children, and another is on its way. Why is God allowing us to bring more children into this world when it seems as if it’s about to end? Should my wife and I be preparing ourselves to see them martyred? I have not up till now found devotion to Our Lady too easy, but now even I find myself turning to her.

The immediate problem is what we have found to be happening with our local Traditional Catholic parish. We moved here to guarantee for the children especially, but also for ourselves, the true Mass and a Catholic formation. Alas, many things have come to light that have left us shocked, confused and feeling defeated. There seem to be demonic influences at work, and we have had to wonder if even the priests are not under their evil grip, because they are not the same priests we knew a year ago. For the past year we have done our best to help, but to no avail. We have continued to attend Mass there, all the while praying, fasting and doing Novenas in the hope that things would change. We have “watched and prayed,” and like the spouse of an alcoholic we have made excuses for them for as long as we could. But finally things have occurred which are driving us to look elsewhere if we do not want our children to be confused about their faith.

So where do we go from here? Obviously I want the children to have the Sacraments and to continue to grow in the faith by attending a valid Mass, so long as it is there. To raise these children’s souls for Christ my wife and I also have an essential need of the graces of the Mass. We want to stay away from major cities. My work situation is such that I could seek work anywhere in the United States. Where do we go?

Dear Father of a large family,

First and foremost, as I read everything you write, let me advise you to count your blessings. Almighty God is not making things easy for you, but nor did he do so for his own Son on earth. This is a “valley of tears,” but amid the tears, God is giving to you and to your family many graces. You are keeping the faith, you have been given to see the need for true Tradition, and your making it your first priority to get your family to Heaven is another huge grace. The Devil may have thrown quite an obstacle in your way, but you have seen it was him. Count on it, there will be many more such obstacles before this crisis is over, and the worst of them are liable to come from the priests (“We carry our treasure in vessels of clay,” says St Paul). Never be surprised by evil today, the Devil is running wild. Therefore above all, keep well in mind how much God is doing for you, as he did for the Holy Family, despite all the apparent hardships. That will put them in the right perspective. And do not be surprised if as the man of the family, God wants you to take some manly decisions for its future. He is not going to take these decisions for you.

Alright, you say, but the question remains, where do we go? Answer, wherever you are sure of finding firstly, work for yourself and secondly, the true Mass, in that order, because the family cannot survive without a breadwinner. As for the Mass, 20 years ago one might not have hesitated to say, it must be a Society of St Pius X Mass. Today, that is no longer so sure. I would say, go rather by the priest than by his Congregation, or label. Expect failures and betrayals. We are all adrift in a sea of apostasy. But have a boundless, a boundless confidence in Our Lord and his Mother. They will never let you go unless you want to be let go. Have compassion on your fellow human beings. And God bless you.

Kyrie eleison.

Americans have an expression, “To think outside the box.” It means to think outside of one’s usual way of thinking. If ever there was a time for “thinking outside the box,” that time is now. For six or seven hundred years mankind has been turning away from God, in a process which it has freely chosen and which God does not intervene to stop, as he could easily do, because he does not give us men our free-will to take it away again. Also, if he is now allowing this process to be reaching in our own time its logical conclusion, he must be hoping that as the crisis deepens and the pressures increase, so there will be more and more souls driven to think outside the box of their materialism, and by so doing get back on the road to Heaven.

Now how the next few years unfold remains God’s secret, especially the calendar. However, it seems highly probable that the suburban and urban areas where most of us live will be seriously destabilized, firstly because these areas are largely immersed in materialism and “happily” living without God, which must call down his wrath, and secondly because these areas are as intrinsically unstable as they are cut off from nature and artificial, depending more and more on the fragile system of supermarkets for sustenance and survival, on the under-manned police forces for any peace and order, on the Internet’s vulnerable satellites for their information and communications, on the villainous banks for the roof over their heads.

In fact only when the crisis really hits will we truly realise how fragile was our environment that seemed as natural as nature. Therefore for subsistence and survival it surely makes sense to lay in a stock of food and water; for information and guidance to lay in a battery-operated radio (with batteries); for law and order to lay in some physical means of self-defence, and to make contact with one’s immediate neighbours, however little one may have chosen them, because friends in need will be friends indeed; and for the roof over one’s head, to get as far as one can, as soon as one can, out of debt and out of the clutches of the bankers, although we are late in the day for that.

A Catholic reader goes further by suggesting that Catholics in a given area band together to set up Catholic refuges, even material as well as spiritual, invisible as such from the outside, but where the joy of the Faith will reign on the inside. That seems a strange thought. It is certainly “outside the box.” It depends upon a number of Catholics living close to one another who share the same sense of urgency as to imminent events, but it is an idea whose time may come. Also some ‘student’ should make good use of his time at ‘university’ by doing a thesis on how Catholics kept the Faith under brutal Communist repression. Globalism is not yet physically brutal, but that can make it all the more dangerous for souls.

And finally a priest makes a few classic suggestions for spiritual means to meet the present spiritual needs, which are urgent enough, even without grave events being imminent. The full 15-Mystery Rosary every day has Heaven’s guarantee for its efficacity. A 24-hour fast on bread and water can obtain miracles. A corporal work of mercy, eg real alms to a real beggar (more difficult than writing a cheque) pulls down grace. So does a spiritual work of mercy, like giving a Catholic leaflet or a Miraculous Medal to non-Catholics. Total abstinence from the Internet for one or several days can put a brake on habits of wasting time, and it can make half an hour available to meditate instead on the Passion of Our Lord, who is only waiting and longing for us to make use of all that He suffered.

Kyrie eleison.

A reader from South America corroborates what a reader from North America wrote here a few weeks ago. Readers, take heart – next week will see here several positive suggestions.

“How this North-American, brother in the Faith of all time, sees present and future, is excellent. I agree with him entirely. For more than 30 years a few friends and I have been warning how this situation, humanly speaking seemingly irreversible, will end. We are few for sure, because in the light of all the present madness we may be concerned for the future, we may see what is to come and is now at the door, but when we argue that people must prepare for it, how can they not be scandalized by our concerns? How can anybody not take us for jokesters, nihilists or madmen?

“Like the mass of people today, they are up to their necks in making that paycheck, in earning enough money to pay their bills, in working out whether they can afford to go back into debt. For such people it is obvious madness, a psychotic distraction, to talk to them about the possibility of a banking crisis, all the more of an apocalyptic catastrophe. They cannot accept that the wobbly house of cards which they have sacrificed so much to set up, amidst labyrinths of financial propaganda and captivating loans offered them by the bank, may all fall down. In desperate pursuit of lower lending fees or financing free of interest, they strive constantly to maintain the perverse consumerism which is their way of life, with their heads buried in the modern quagmire.

“Who but a ‘madman’ can be thinking of sources of water, canned foods and homegrown products, sources of information independent of the Internet, non-traditional sources of energy, printers running on heavy-duty rechargeable batteries, reams of A4 paper, materials for binding, basic medicines, disinfectants and anaesthetics, surgical instruments, solid fuels, especially wood, coal and liquids, etc, etc, everything necessary to face the worst of contingencies? Because I am absolutely convinced that that is what lies ahead, because nobody gets out of a crisis like we are in without a worldwide purification such as has never been seen before.

“However, it is being spiritually prepared which is the most important, being able to leave aside our own needs in the terrible moments to come, and help those closest to us by giving a word of encouragement, a piece of bread, a little water, some explanation of why the total disaster will have struck. That way, instead of accusing God, they may, once extricated from the overwhelming distractions of the world, rediscover the true path to save their souls. A wife and mother from Syria told a Sister from this country that the war of aggression they are now undergoing in Syria has enabled them to realize that the comfort in which they were living before had made them lose sight of the simple life-style so necessary for true Christians, and that amidst such a crisis they were now happier than before, because they were now focused on essentials: the day-to-day life of the Christian, raising his eyes to God and to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“That is why despite the evil all around, I myself see good news on all sides, inspiring in me joy and the hope of limitless heavenly possibilities, unimaginable at present, once this perverse world is defeated and wiped out. People making sacrifices to look after their neighbours, the honourable life of many soldiers, the examples of martyrs, family fathers striving to give a Christian education to their children, thousands of people thinking along the lines of the North American referred to above, Traditionalists reacting, and many other examples – it is all good news, and should refresh our souls with the cool breeze of trust in God. He never fails us. It is enough to imitate the life of his Son. But there being no Redemption without suffering, then it is absolutely certain that this infamous and perverted diabolical world of lies will not fall down by itself without an exemplary Chastisement.”

Kyrie eleison.