Eleison Comments

“I am a man. I stand on my own feet. I have a mind and a will and a sense of duty. I can lead a decent, even noble, life on the natural level, far above mere materialism. Now you as a Catholic come and tell me of a supernatural, superhuman life, superior to the natural life, requiring supernatural virtues to be lived. You tell me it is a life far superior to the natural life, made possible by an Incarnate God, and promising unimaginable bliss. Now that is all very well, but quite honestly, I find human nature is enough: the life of neither an angel nor a beast. I want neither the Heaven to come, nor the demands it makes here on earth. I decline the benefit with the burden. I will content myself with a decent natural life, that God will reward with a decent natural after-life.”

That is how Cardinal Pie (1815–1880) put in the mouth of many an upright and respectable citizen of mid-19^th century the grave error of naturalism, which was sending then, and has sent ever since, huge numbers of souls down to Hell. Naturalism is the denial, or as here, the refusal, of the whole supernatural order. Nature is all, or is all that I want. Nothing above nature exists, or if it does exist, I politely decline it. Leo XIII in his Encyclical denounced naturalism as being the essential error of Freemasonry (see Humanum Genus ). Naturalism is the huge error of Hollywood, barely noticed because all of us have grown so used to the modern world as moulded by the Freemasons, one of whose principles is to be everywhere but to be seen nowhere. Cardinal Pie answered his respectable citizen with three arguments:—

Firstly, God is the Creator and the sovereign Lord of man, his creature. Having created the natural man who indeed belongs to the natural order (God’s gift of the world to man), he retained the right to perfect man by raising him also to the supernatural order (God’s gift of God to man). In fact God did appoint man to enter the supernatural order, by an act of love which man has no right to refuse, because the gift and the love are so great. Thus God makes the benefit an obligation, under severe penalty for refusal of the benefit, and for revolt against the love. The nobility of participating in God’s own nature by his gift of supernatural grace constitutes an obligation, such that he who refuses to behave like a son will be treated like a slave.

Secondly, reason itself proves that God revealed himself through his Son, Jesus Christ. If God reveals, I must see. Now his Incarnate Son revealed that to refuse to believe is to be condemned (Mk. XVI, 16). The Father has handed all judgment to the Son (Jn. V, 22–23). Every knee must bow to Jesus (Phil. II, 9–11). Every intelligence is to come under Jesus (II Cor. X, 4–6). All things are summed up in Jesus (Eph. I, 10–12; Heb. II, 8). There is no other name under Heaven than that of Jesus by which we can be saved (Acts, IV, 11–12). St Augustine on Jn. XV says, either one is attached to Christ like branch to vine and one bears fruit, or one is detached from him and is thrown into the fire. Vine or fire! You don’t want the fire? Cling to the vine!

Thirdly, to lead a truly decent natural life without supernatural grace is impossible. Fallen man is weak in mind and will. In practice, the Cardinal asks, how many “decent and respectable citizens” without God’s grace are capable of resisting all temptation? By day they behave decently in the office, but at night . . . ? They follow the noble Plato in public, but in private they follow the pleasure-seeking Epicurus. “Admit it, Sir,” warns the Cardinal: “In men’s eyes you may always have been very correct, but not in your own eyes, and if there is not a drop of Christ’s Blood in your soul, you are heading for punishment.”

Kyrie eleison.

Concerning the “Poem of the Man-God” by Maria Valtorta (1897–1961), a life of Our Lord extending to ten volumes written in Italian in the 1940’s, an Italian priest, Don Ottavio Michelini, is alleged to have heard in the 1970’s, from Our Lord himself, the following comments:—

“I have dictated to Maria Valtorta, a victim soul, a marvellous work (The Poem of the Man-God). Of this work I am the Author. You yourself, my son, have recognized Satan reacting with fury to it . . . . You have observed yourself the resistance that many priests oppose to this work. ( . . . ) If it were – I do not say “read” – but studied and meditated, it would do an immense good to souls. This work is a well-spring of serious and solid culture . . . . This is a work willed by Wisdom and Divine Providence for the new times. It is a spring of living and pure water. It is I, the Word living and eternal, Who have given Myself anew as nourishment to the souls that I love. I, Myself, am the Light, and the Light cannot be confused with, and still less blend Itself with, the darkness. Where I am found, the darkness is dissolved to make way for the Light.”

Maria Valtorta is the 20^th century equivalent of Maria of Agreda and Anne-Catherine Emmerich, of the 17^th and 19^th centuries respectively. The two earlier visionaries have by now gained wide respect within the Catholic Church, but Maria Valtorta is still controversial. Now one may admit that her “Poem” is not to everybody’s taste. It need not be forced on anybody. It is not a substitute for the Gospel. It is not necessary for salvation. And it may seem highly dubious to support the writings of one alleged visionary with the words of another, especially when the supporting witness is as little well known as Don Michelini.

However, there are souls all over the world for whom the “Poem” has acted like a stupendous gift of God himself, for whom it has seemed to be designed to alleviate the spiritual distress of our own times, which is becoming more and more unbearable for many. Therefore these “Comments” will dare to put before readers, once more, reasons to take seriously the testimony of Don Michelini and to interest themselves in the “Poem,” so as possibly to profit by it before God intervenes in spectacular fashion to relieve that distress. Let these reasons be the briefest of summaries of the seven reasons given supposedly by Our Lord at the end of the “Poem” for his having revealed its contents to Maria Valtorta:—

1 Doctrine – while modernism wreaks havoc with the Church’s unchanging teaching, souls need to see how I gave the selfsame teaching to the Church, from the start: divine, perfect, immutable.

2 Love – when charity is growing cold and sentimental, priests and layfolk need their love for Christ and for all that concerns Christ to be re-awakened, especially for his Mother.

3 Direction – when souls are going astray in so many different directions, spiritual directors need to see in how many different ways I looked after them.

4 Reality – when love is so widely falsified and sullied, human beings need to see Jesus and Mary as true human beings of flesh and blood, with a perfect love, but truly human, between them.

5 Suffering – when comfort everywhere comes first, pleasure-seekers need to know how long and varied were the sufferings of my Mother and myself, starting tens of years before the Passion.

6 Word – when language is utterly debased, people need to see the power of my Word, of my words, to transform souls, e.g. from rough sinners into great Apostles.

7 Judas – when evil is so sentimentalized as to be denied, sinners must be shown the mystery of iniquity in human form, so as not to follow Judas to Hell.

Kyrie eleison.

What does the Catholic Church think of “racism”? Or of “anti-semitism”? Or of “sexism”? Or of “homophobia”? And so on and so on. In a liberal world where everybody is supposed to be nice to everybody, is it not surprising how “political correctness” seems to come up regularly with a new class of people for all of us to hate? The Catholic Church, following its divine Master, says we are to love our neighbour and to hate nobody, but it does not say we should love all our fellow-men indiscriminately. Let us see how a great Catholic theologian puts order into our love of God and man. Here are the bare bones of the 13 Articles of St Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae, 2a 2ae, Question 26:—

1 Charity does have an order, because it is a friendship in supernatural bliss, and that bliss has its starting-point in God, and wherever you have things following from a starting-point, you have an order. (Notice how the Catholic immediately refers a major question to God. What might liberals immediately refer to as the starting-point of their “niceness”? Hatred of Nazis? Seriously . . . )

2 Charity must love God above neighbour, because charity is a friendship in bliss, and all bliss for myself or my neighbour has its source in God. (Where do liberals place the source of their happiness? In self-fulfilment? In their fellow-men? These are relatively poor forms of happiness.)

3 God must be loved above self, because all (unspoiled) creatures, each in their way, naturally love the common good above their particular good, and God is the natural and supernatural common good of all.

4 Spiritual self must be loved above spiritual neighbour, because I am closer to me than I am to my neighbour so that if I do not love me (spiritually), I am unlikely to love my neighbour. But –

5 Spiritual neighbour must be loved above corporal self, i.e., my own body, because spirit comes before body, because spirit partakes directly in bliss, while body partakes only indirectly (through spirit).

6 Some neighbours must be loved more than others, because they all vary in their closeness to one of the two poles of charity, objective to God, or subjective to me. Saints are closer to God, neighbours to me.

7 Objectively, Saints will be loved more than relatives, but subjectively neighbours will be loved more intensely than Saints, because in a variety of ways they are closer – “Charity begins at home.”

8 Essentially, blood-relatives will be loved above non-relatives, because blood-ties are natural, fixed and substantial. Accidentally however, other ties of friendship can be more powerful.

9 Objectively, parents are to be loved more than children, because as sources of life and of many benefits, parents are closer to God, but subjectively children can be closer to us for several reasons.

10 Father should be loved more than mother, as such, because by the part each plays in giving us life, the father is formal and active whereas the mother is material ( maternal ) and passive (St Thomas was writing about human beings who are normal and not de-natured as they are today).

11 Objectively, parents are to be loved more than wife, because as sources of life and of many benefits they are closer to God, but subjectively she who is “one flesh” with her husband is to be loved the more.

12 Objectively, somebody doing good to us is to be loved more than somebody we do good to, because they are a source of good to us, but by subjective closeness we love the more somebody that we do good to, for various reasons, e.g. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”

13 There will still be an order of charity in Heaven, especially the loving of God above all. Also the objective grading of neighbour for his closeness to God will count more there than it does here on earth.

“Racism”? – which races are closer to God, or to me? They are not all the same. “Anti-semitism”? – are “Semites” friends or enemies of God? “Sexism”? – do today’s women help or hinder me on my way to God? “Homophobia”? – how do “homos” stand with God?

Kyrie eleison.

Rumours coming from the Society of St Pius X seem to confirm the speculation of these “Comments” last week (see EC 423 of Aug. 22) that Rome wants an agreement with the SSPX.The rumours tell of a secret meeting held at the beginning of this month where SSPX leaders discussed finances and a “doctrinal preamble.” Was it the same preamble mentioned by Cardinal Müller on August 3? Drawn up by Rome for the SSPX to sign? The Cardinal said that that would be necessary for any agreement, while Bishop Schneider saw no doctrinal problem because Vatican II was merely “pastoral.” With or without rumours, let us review unchanging basics.

The 16 official documents of the Second Vatican Council present together a new vision of God, life and man, a new religion in tune with the man-centred modern world, but clashing with the God-centred Catholic religion that had not changed essentially for over 1900 years. Both religions teach their vision of God, life and man, both are doctrinal, but the two doctrines clash. However, by skilful ambiguities – ambiguity is the hallmark of the 16 documents – the Council Fathers were persuaded that there was no clash, and so when they voted in favour of the documents, there were three reasons why Catholics worldwide went along with the new religion: its clash with the true Faith was skilfully disguised, it was imposed on Catholics by almost all Church authorities from the Popes downwards, and it was rather easier to practise than the pre-Conciliar religion.

But God raised one true shepherd, Archbishop Lefebvre, to insist on the doctrinal clash, to stand up to the unfaithful Church authorities, and to continue the practice of the pre-Conciliar religion for any souls wishing to take the trouble. And these were enough in number for the Archbishop’s Society to have spread all over the world by the time he died in 1991. But his successors at the head of his Society were born after World War II into a very different world from that of the Archbishop, born before World War I. They did not see the world or doctrine as he saw them, so they had not the same motivation as he had to go on standing up to the Church authorities, even if they were not yet themselves wanting the Conciliar relaxation of Church discipline (wanted now by more and more Traditionalists). It was simply a matter of time before the magnetism of Rome would exert its pull.

As for the Romans, they were obdurate in their new Conciliar religion, and so from 2000 onwards they openly welcomed all approaches being made by the SSPX, because its doctrine and practice of unchanged Catholicism were a standing rebuke to their Freemasonic novelties, and a constant threat to them, like an unconquered pocket of the enemy in the rear of an otherwise all-successful invasion. Therefore as the Romans want to absorb the SSPX into their Newchurch, so the SSPX’s present leaders want to put themselves back under Rome’s official Church authority. It is a marriage made in Hell, and sweet Newchurchmen like Bishop Schneider can see no problem, because they have not seen, or have not wanted to see, the underlying clash of basic doctrine.

So Cardinal Müller is right in this respect. If two men have different visions of God, life and man, any agreement between them can only be relatively superficial. So if the SSPX cannot be brought by Rome to abandon dogma, or rather to undermine all Catholic dogma with the Masonic super-dogma that all dogma is mush, then the SSPX is bound to act within the walls of Rome like a Trojan horse. That is why the Cardinal will insist on a preamble, whether written by Rome or by the SSPX is of no importance, so long as the mass of Traditionalists, just like the mass of Catholics after Vatican II, will let themselves be deceived by the doctrinal ambiguities. Brilliant these will be.

Kyrie eleison.

Two Roman churchmen have seemed to contradict one another in remarks made recently about relations between Rome and the Society of St Pius X, but one explanation of the contradiction may be that Rome is playing on the Society a police trick as old as the hills. By the “good cop, bad cop” routine, when the police want to get a confession out of a criminal, firstly a brutal policeman is sent in to beat up the criminal until he is in a very sorry condition, requiring all kinds of sympathy. Then a really nice policeman is sent in, oozing with a sympathy which often makes the criminal open up and confess his crime.

The “bad cop” in this case would be no less than the Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Müller, who early this month in an interview with katholisch.de, official website of the German Bishops’ Conference, said about a Rome-SSPX agreement that “There is no substantial new development. The Holy Father wishes that we keep trying: “con tenacia e pazienza” – “with tenacity and patience.” The precondition for a full reconciliation is the signing of a doctrinal preamble in order to guarantee a full agreement in the essential questions of the Faith. In the past months, there were encounters of different ways which are meant to strengthen the mutual trust.”

Here it is clearly stated that the SSPX will have to sign a doctrinal text agreeable to neo-modernist Rome if it wishes for an agreement with Rome. The Cardinal is also being a “bad cop” when he reveals that there were “encounters of different ways” between Romans and the SSPX “to strengthen mutual trust.” Or is the SSPX happy that Rome is shedding the light of day upon contacts otherwise unknown? Yet who that has the Catholic faith is re-assured by mutual trust being established with neo-modernists? But now comes the “good cop.”

Earlier this year Bishop Athanasius Schneider visited two seminaries of the SSPX “in order to conduct a discussion on a specific theological topic with a group of theologians of the SSPX and with His Excellency Bishop Fellay.” Just recently he conducted an interview with a Hispanic website, Rorate Caeli en español, in which among other things he commented favourably on these visits. He himself was treated with cordial respect, and he observed a respect all around for the reigning Pontiff, Pope Francis. After his visits he could see “no weighty reasons to deny the clergy and faithful of the SSPX the official canonical recognition, and meanwhile they should be accepted as they are.” Bishop Schneider confirmed that he saw no doctrinal problem in the way of an agreement by downplaying the importance of Vatican II: the Council was primarily pastoral, and of its time, he said.

So who represents the real Rome? Cardinal Müller or Bishop Schneider? Certainly both. If the “good cop, bad cop” routine is not conscious, it is certainly instinctive. Rome, by keeping its options open, can continue to play the SSPX like a fish, reeling it in, letting it out, raising hopes and then dashing them, bending the wire and straightening it out again, and again, until finally it snaps. Alas, one may suspect that by “encounters” the leaders of the SSPX are complicit in this game of Rome.

Kyrie eleison.

A reader of these “Comments” forwarded to me in May a video-clip from the Internet (to be found here) which she said was then circulating widely on Facebook and was having “a massive influence on people.” The clip presents a well-known black American entertainer, Will Smith, being interviewed on “Progressive Thought Patterns,” which is a pompous title for a pile of nonsense. But then who ever resorted to Facebook or to icons of entertainment to hear sense? The interest lies for Catholics in seeing how the exact same Kantian nonsense that has overwhelmed the Church (see Pascendi, as the key to Vatican II) is also fermenting at street level amongst ordinary people without the least knowledge of Kant or of Pascendi. Here is what Will Smith says to his interviewer (with a few comments inserted in italics):—

“I don’t wanna’ (want to) be an icon (which he certainly is, as having been highly successful in Hollywood), I wanna’ be an idea. You know, I wanna’ represent an idea. I wanna’ represent possibilities. I wanna’ represent magic, right, that you’re in a universe, and two plus two equals four. Two plus two equals four only if you accept that two plus two equals four. Two plus two is gonna’ be what I want it to be, you know, and there’s a redemptive (note that word – so what is Redemption?) power that making a choice has, you know, like feeling you’re an effect (perhaps he means “cause”) to all things that are happening. Make a choice, like you just decide what is gonna’ be, who you’re gonna’ be, how you’re gonna’ do it. Just decide, and then from that point the universe is gonna’ get outa’ your way. It’s water, it wants to move and go around, and stuff, you know, so for me I wanna’ represent possibilities. I wanna represent the idea that you really can make what you want.

“One of my favourite books is The Alchemist by Paul Coelho, and I just believe that. I believe that I can create whatever I wanna’ create. If I can put my head to it, study it and learn the patterns ( . . . ), I feel very strongly that we are who we choose to be. I consider myself an alchemist. An alchemist is basically a mystical chemist, right, and one of the great feats that alchemists used to do is that they would take lead, take a chunk of lead, and make it turn from lead into gold. So I connect it (my idea, presumably) symbolically to being able to turn lead into gold. My grandmother used to say, ‘Life give you a lemon, you go ahead and make lemonade’ (that of course is good old-fashioned common sense, two generations back. But for Will Smith –) To me that’s alchemy. That’s the same concept behind The Alchemist.”

All the above is a close reproduction of Will Smith’s own words, not in order to make fun of him, but in order to show Kant at work amongst ordinary people who are far from being readers of Kant.

Notice that Will Smith is not completetly devoid of common sense. If the word “alchemy” really means making lemonade out of lemons, then it respects reality. But if the word stands for making gold out of lead, as it often does, then it stands for a dream which has been dreamt down the ages and represents escaping from reality, or, worse, the refusal of natural reality and even a resorting to devils for a preternatural bending of it.

Now Will Smith is an entertainer, and his video-clip is quite entertaining, so nothing obliges us to take too seriously anything he says. But just recently a professional mathematician, one who is at the top of his profession, told me what scorn for objective reality he observes amongst his colleagues. The real problem goes way beyond mere entertainment.

Kyrie eleison.