Eleison Comments

New Year

New Year on December 31, 2011

And so another year closes out without the sky having fallen in. I have for decades been saying that it is falling in, for instance to a little group of people in France some five or seven years ago. Amongst them was an SSPX priest who had been a seminarian in Econe when I was a professor there in the late ‘70’s and early ‘80’s. “Your Excellency,” he said, “Weren’t you saying that 25 years ago?” But he said it with a smile, so he may have thought that one day I could be right.

Then will 2012 be the year when the sky falls in? Plenty of worldly commentators think that it could well be the year in which the world economy implodes. Certainly debt cannot keep on piling up the way it has been piling up for decades. For instance welfare entitlements are an unbearable burden on the budget of many a Western democracy, but almost by definition a democratic politician is incapable of taking the severe decisions necessary to restore fiscal sanity, because if he wants to be re-elected he cannot touch them. It has been well said that a democracy can last for only as long as the people do not realize that the cash till belongs to them.

Then is 2012 the year in which the Western democracies finally crash? Maybe. But maybe not. Many people today have a sense of some disaster looming. Surely it cannot take yet another 30 years to arrive, one says. But one has been saying that now for many years. Perhaps people are so drunk on liberalism that ever increasing doses of chaos leave them unconcerned. Nevertheless while the wheels of God grind slowly, says the proverb, they do grind exceeding small. In other words all of God’s bills have to be paid, and the day of reckoning will come, and on accounts far more serious than those of mere welfare entitlements.

This year, next year, some time, never? Certainly not never. It will come in God’s good time. The year is relatively unimportant. As Hamlet says (Act V, 2), “There is a providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all.” There is a Providence. There is a God, and his timing is the best of all. “Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit,” says the German proverb.

Nor does God require of easily most of us to undertake action to attempt to hold back Church and world on their present course to destruction. I am willing to bet that many of the world’s public leaders feel in private helpless to do anything, and I wonder if even the world’s secret controllers, hell-bent on world domination, feel at all times confident that they have their game in hand. “Only I can help you now,” the Mother of God has said.

What God does require of us is to live in his grace and to trust him. When the crash comes, in 2012 or whenever, from a human point of view it will no doubt be rather unpleasant, but from God’s point of view his chastisements are acts of mercy. St. Paul quotes Proverbs (III, 11–12): “My son, reject not the correction of the Lord, and do not faint when thou art chastised by him. For whom the Lord loveth, he chastiseth.” And St Paul goes on (Heb.XII, 7–8): “Persevere under discipline. God dealeth with you as with his sons. For what son is there whom the father doth not correct? But if you be without chastisement, whereof all are made partakers, then are you bastards and not sons.”

The Catholic readiness is all, as of the wise virgins (Mt.XXV, 13). Happy New Year.

Kyrie eleison.

Necessary Child

Necessary Child on December 24, 2011

Constantly in the news today is the world’s financial and economic crisis, especially in Euroland. A Dutch commentator (courtfool.info) proposes for his country a classic solution: get State money out of the hands of the banksters. Christmas may seem a strange moment to consider such money problems, but the whole question is whether apparent solutions are real solutions.

Unless the Euro was positively designed as a means of forcing political unity upon the variety of European nations, it was, as a common currency for a dozen very different national economies, flawed from the start. To begin with it did enable the poorer member nations to borrow and spend, borrow and spend, while it did help the richer nations to export and lend, export and lend, but the process could not go on for ever. When the poorer countries could no longer manage even the interest on their debts, the richer countries were also threatened with the paralysis of their economies by the bankruptcy of their major banks that had made the foolish loans.

At this point the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund co-operate to provide emergency funding, in other words to solve the problem of debt by more debt! However, a condition of receiving these funds is that the hopelessly indebted countries must submit to international guardianship, which will impose spending cuts that make the national governments less and less able to rule. As for the richer governments, they too must make themselves unpopular by cutting spending, in order to cover the losses incurred by their major banks’ foolish loans, says Mr.de Ruijter.

Now comes his solution. He says it is simple. Instead of pouring dozens of billions more into a Euro that is doomed to disappear sooner or later, and instead of having the international agencies impose spending cuts, “we can introduce State money.” A State central bank will replace the present central bank which, as in almost all States of the world, is now under private control. The State bank alone will be authorized to create money. All loans will be supplied as State money. All private or non-State banks will be forbidden to create balances out of thin air, in other words fractional reserve banking will be forbidden (cf. EC 224). These non-State banks will receive a fee for their services, but they will not be allowed to charge interest.

And who will control the State bank? Mr.de Ruijter writes, “It will fall under the responsibility of the Minister of Finance, and it will be controlled by Parliament. A commission of well formed people will watch over the long term interest of the money system.”

Well and good. But, Mr. De Ruijter, who will do the forming of these “well formed” people? At what school will they learn truly to look after the common good? And what motivation will be given to them powerful enough to prevent them from being cunningly bought out by the banksters? Democracy? It is democracy that has landed Europe in its present mess!

There is only one true and complete solution: the divine Child in the Crib of Bethlehem. Happy Christmas, dear readers (and thanks to all of you that sent me a Christmas card, but thanks also to those that didn’t!).

Kyrie eleison.

Rome Insists

Rome Insists on December 17, 2011

At about the same time that Bishop Fellay was letting it be known that the SSPX will ask for clarification of the Doctrinal Preamble (Rome’s reaction to the doctrinal discussions running from 2009 to spring of this year), one of Rome’s four theologians taking part in those discussions, Monsignore Fernando Ocariz, published an essay “On Adhesion to the Second Vatican Council.” His timing shows that we are not out of the woods, on the contrary! But let us look at his arguments, which are at least clear.

In his introduction he argues that the “pastoral” Council was nonetheless doctrinal. What is pastoral is based on doctrine. What is pastoral seeks to save souls, which involves doctrine. The Council documents contain much doctrine. Good! The Monsignore is at least not going to dodge doctrinal accusations levelled at the Council by pretending the Council was not doctrinal, as have done many of its defenders.

Then on the Church’s Magisterium in general, he says that Vatican II consisted of the Catholic bishops who have “the charism of truth, the authority of Christ and the light of the Holy Spirit.” To deny that, he says, is to deny something of the very essence of the Church. But, Monsignore, what about the mass of Catholic bishops going along with the Arian heresy under Pope Liberius? Exceptionally, even the near unanimity of Catholic bishops can go doctrinally astray. If it happened once, it can happen again. It happened at Vatican II, as its documents show.

He proceeds to argue that the Council’s non-dogmatic and non-defined teachings nevertheless require of Catholics their assent, called “religious submission of will and intellect,” which is “an act of obedience well-rooted in confidence in the divine assistance given to the Magisterium.” Monsignore, to the Conciliar as to the Arian bishops no doubt God offered all the assistance they needed, but they refused it, as is shown by the departure of their documents from his Tradition.

Finally Monsignore Ocariz begs the question by arguing that since the Catholic Magisterium is continuous and Vatican II was the Magisterium, therefore its teachings can only be continuous with the past. And if they look like a break with the past, then the Catholic thing to do is to interpret them as though there is no such break, as does for instance Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of continuity.” But Monsignore, these arguments can be turned around. In fact there is a doctrinal break, as is clear from examining the Conciliar documents themselves. (For instance, is there (Vatican II), or is there not (Tradition), a human right not to be prevented from spreading error?) Therefore Vatican II was not the Church’s true Magisterium, and the Catholic thing is to show that there is indeed this break with Tradition, as did Archbishop Lefebvre, and not to pretend that there is no such break.

The Monsignore’s last word is to claim that only the Magisterium can interpret the Magisterium. Which takes us right back to Square One.

Dear readers, Rome is not by any means out of the woods. Heaven help us.

Kyrie eleison.

State Religion – II

State Religion – II on December 10, 2011

According to the religion of liberalism – it cannot be said too often that liberalism serves as a substitute religion – it is absolute heresy to declare that every State on earth should support and protect the Catholic religion. Yet if God exists, if Jesus Christ is God, if any natural society of human beings, such as the State, is a creature of God, and if Jesus Christ founded the Catholic Church as his one and only instrument for the saving of men from the eternal fires of Hell, then unless a State wants to be an enemy of mankind, it is bound to favour and protect the Catholic Church. But there are objections to this conclusion. Let us look at three of the most common:—

First objection: Our Lord himself said to Pontius Pilate (Jn. XVIII, 36) that his Kingdom was not of this world. But the State is of this world. Therefore the State should have nothing to do with his Kingdom or his Church.

Solution: Our Lord was telling Pilate that his Kingdom and the State are distinct but he was not saying that they should be separate. A man’s soul is distinct from his body, but to separate them is the death of the man. Parents are distinct from their children, but to separate them (as Child Agencies today are liable to do) is the death of the family. Church and State are as distinct from one another as life on earth is distinct from eternal life, but to separate them is to put a gulf between the first and the second, and it is to increase greatly the number of citizens who will fall into Hell.

Second objection: The Catholic religion is true. But Truth can be left to make its own way. Therefore the Catholic religion needs no coercive power of the State to help it, such as the suppression in public of the practice of all other religions. Solution: In itself, indeed “The truth is mighty and will prevail,” as the Latins said, but amongst us men it will not prevail easily, because of original sin. Were all human beings (except Our Lord and Our Lady) not afflicted ever since the Fall with the four wounds of Ignorance, Malice, Weakness and Concupiscence , then much less would get in the way of truth prevailing, and Thomas Jefferson might be right in proclaiming that truth needs only to be exposed in the market-place to prevail. But Catholics know what the Church teaches, namely that man remains even after baptism subject to the downward drag of original sin, so that to find that truth without which he cannot save his soul, he needs all reasonable help from his State. That reasonable help excludes the State’s trying to force anyone to be Catholic, but it includes the State’s keeping dangerous anti-truths out of Jefferson’s market-place.

Third objection: Great power can be greatly misused. Now the union of Church and State is very powerful for them both. Therefore it can do great harm – just see how the Conciliar Church and the secular New World Order are empowering one another! Solution: “Misuse cannot stop use,” said the Latins. Should Our Lord not have given us the Holy Eucharist on the grounds that it can be gravely misused? The Conciliar Church re-uniting with the liberal State is a powerful misuse of the union of Church and State, but it proves the wrongness of liberalism, not the wrongness of the union of Catholic State with Catholic Church.

Kyrie eleison.

Accursed Liberals

Accursed Liberals on December 3, 2011

Liberalism is a frightful disease, consigning to eternal Hell millions upon millions of souls. It “liberates” the mind from objective truth and the heart (will and affections) from objective good. The subject reigns supreme. It is man in the place of God, with man allowing to God only as much importance as man chooses to allow him, and that is normally not much. Almighty God is put on a leash, so to speak, like an obedient little puppy dog! In fact the “God” of the liberals is a mockery of the true God. But “God is not mocked” (Gal.VI, 7). Liberals are punished already in this life by becoming false crusaders, true tyrants, and effeminate men.

A classic example of the false crusader is provided by the revolutionary priests in Latin America, according to Archbishop Lefebvre. He used to say that priests losing the Faith under the influence of the modernizing movement in the Church made the most terrible of revolutionaries, because to the false crusade of Communism they would bring all the force of the true crusade for the salvation of souls, for which they had been trained, but which they no longer believed in.

The true crusade being for God, for Jesus Christ, for eternal salvation, then when it is no longer believed in, it leaves a correspondingly huge gap in people’s lives, which they attempt to fill by crusading for anything and everything: for a ban on tobacco (but freedom for marihuana and heroin); for a ban on capital punishment (but freedom to execute efficacious right-wingers); for a ban on tyrants (but freedom to bomb any country into “democracy”); for the sacredness of man (but freedom to abort the human baby in the womb) – the list can go on and on. The contradictions just highlighted are perfectly consistent in the liberals’ crusade for a total new world order to replace the Christian world order. They pretend they are not fighting Christ, but the pretence is wearing thin.

Liberals also become, logically, true tyrants. Since they have “liberated” themselves from any God or Truth or Law above them, then there remains only the authority of their own minds and wills to impose on their fellow human beings whatever it may be. For example, having lost all sense of any Tradition limiting his authority, Paul VI forced upon the Catholic Church in 1969 his New Order of Mass, to fit the New World Order, regardless of the fact that only two years before a significant number of bishops had rejected a substantially similar experimental rite of Mass. What did he care for the opinions of anyone beneath him, unless they were liberals like himself? They did not know what was good for them. He did.

Logically again, liberals become effeminate, because they cannot help taking everything personally. Yet any sane opposition to their authoritarianism is based on that Truth or Law above all human beings which the liberals are flouting. That is how Archbishop Lefebvre resisted the liberalism of Paul VI, but Paul VI could only think that the Archbishop wanted to take his place as Pope. He was incapable of understanding that there was a far higher Authority than his own, on which the Archbishop in all tranquillity was leaning. Who needs to worry that the Lord God will ever fail?

Sacred Heart of Jesus, grant us to deserve the good leaders who can come only from you.

Kyrie eleison.

State Religion – I

State Religion – I on November 26, 2011

What part should the State play in protecting or promoting the Catholic religion? Any Catholic who knows that Catholicism is the one true religion of the one true God can only answer that the State, being also a creature of that God, is bound to serve as best it can his one true religion. On the other hand any liberal who believes that the State is incompetent to tell which is the true religion because, for instance, religion is in any case the individual’s business, will answer that the State must protect the right of all its citizens to practise the religion of their choice, or none at all. Let us look at the Catholic arguments.

Man comes from God. His nature comes from God. Man is by nature social, so his socialness comes from God. But the whole man, not just part of him (First Commandment), owes worship to God. So the socialness of man owes worship to God. But the State is nothing other than the society formed by the socialness of all its citizens joining together in their body politic. Therefore the State owes worship to God. But amongst all different worships necessarily contradicting one another (otherwise they would not be different), maybe all are more or less false but certainly one alone can be fully true. So if there is such a worship, fully true and recognizable as such, that is the worship which every State, as State, owes to God. But Catholicism is that worship. Therefore every State, as State, owes Catholic worship to God, including even today’s England or Israel or Saudi Arabia!

But an essential part of worship is to render to God the service of which one is capable. Of what service is the State capable? Of great service! Man being social by nature, his society has a great influence on how he feels, thinks and believes. And a State’s laws have a decisive influence on moulding its citizens’ society. For instance, if abortion or pornography are made legal, many citizens will come to think that there is little or nothing wrong with them. Therefore every State has in principle a duty by its laws to protect and promote Catholic faith and morals.

Such is the clear principle. But does that principle mean that every non-Catholic should be rounded up by the police and burnt at the stake? Obviously not, because the purpose of worshipping and serving God is to give him glory and to save souls. But inconsiderate action on the part of the State will have the opposite effect, namely of discrediting Catholicism and alienating souls. Therefore the Church teaches that even a Catholic State has the right to abstain in practice from taking action against a false religion when taking that action would cause a still greater evil, or hinder a greater good. But every State’s duty in principle to protect Catholic faith and morals remains intact.

Does that mean forcing Catholicism on the citizens? Not at all, because Catholic belief is not something that can be forced – “Nobody believes against his will” (St Augustine). What it does mean is that in a Catholic State where taking such action may or should not be counter-productive, the public practice of all religions other than Catholicism may or should be prohibited. This logical conclusion was denied by Vatican II, because Vatican II was liberal. Yet it was common practice in Catholic States before the Council, and it will have helped many souls to be saved.

Kyrie eleison.