deicide

Conspiracy Theories

Conspiracy Theories on November 5, 2011

Following on the recent “Eleison Comments” on deicide (EC 222), some readers may hope that “Eleison Comments” will often mention the part played by Jews in world affairs, but they risk being disappointed. In 225 issues that have appeared so far, I doubt whether the Jews have been mentioned by name in much more than half a dozen. For, whatever problem they may or may not represent, they are certainly not the primary problem. The primary problem is the godlessness of modern man, which I hope most readers find is the central concern of “Eleison Comments.”

Conspiracy theories, like that of the Jews conspiring to dominate the world, are plentiful, but there are two exaggerations between which it is wise but not easy to hold the right balance. Most people follow the media in holding that all conspiracy theories are nonsense and the only people who believe in them are “conspiracy nuts.” On the other hand a small minority of people, but with strong convictions, hold that all world events are to be explained by some conspiracy or other, especially a Jewish conspiracy. The essential truth was best told by a famous Church writer 1800 years ago.

Tertullian (160–220) said that the Catholic Faith and Jewish power are like the two pans of a pair of scales: as Catholic Faith goes up, so Jewish power goes down, and as Catholic Faith goes down, so Jewish power goes up. But the Faith overtops the power. That is why the primary problem is not the Jews, but the increase or decrease of the Faith amongst men. That is why conspiracies do exist, they have an important part to play and they are not to be merely scorned, but the central problem is men turning away from the true God in his one true Church. In brief – and here is the crucial point – the Gentiles have only themselves to blame if Jewish power is today so great.

Therefore whoever begins to see what notably Disraeli and Woodrow Wilson hinted at but could hardly say openly, namely that there is a dark power behind the scenes directing world events, let them not lose their balance in cursing the Illuminati or the Jews or the Freemasons or whoever, but let them realize the wisdom of the words of Pius X: “Let every man do his duty, and all will be well.” That is because our first duty is towards God, as the First Commandment indicates, so that if we all did our duty and made our way back to God, it would be mere child’s play for him to undo that present power of his various enemies which he alone let them have in the first place by not intervening to prevent it.

Thus before Our Lady appeared at Fatima in 1917, the anti-Catholics had brought the government of Portugal completely under their control, but when virtually the entire Portuguese people prayed and did penance as Our Lady had asked, then she simply dissolved the anti-Catholics’ power in a bloodless revolution. Portugal became, in the godless 20th century with Communism triumphing everywhere, the showcase of a Catholic State.

The most intelligent of God’s enemies are well aware that they are serving him as a scourge to be laid across the backs of his unfaithful people. If only God’s friends would understand how they are being scourged by his enemies to help all souls to turn to him and so get to Heaven, then conspiracy theories would all drop into place: neither more, nor less, important than they really are.

Kyrie eleison.

Ancestral Pride

Ancestral Pride on October 15, 2011

In his second volume on the life of Jesus published several months ago, Pope Benedict XVI made remarks enabling journalists to jump to the conclusion that the Jews must no longer be held responsible for deicide, i.e. the killing of God. Worse, on May 17 the executive director of the US Bishops’ Conference’s Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs said that one cannot charge the Jewish people with deicide at any time in history without falling out of communion with the Catholic Church. Against what many people today want to believe, it is time to recall, however briefly, what the true Church always used to teach on the judicial murder of Jesus.

Firstly, the killing of Jesus was truly “deicide,” i.e. the killing of God, because Jesus was the one of the three divine Persons who in addition to his divine nature had taken a human nature. What was killed on the Cross? Only the human nature. But who was killed on the Cross in his human nature? None other than the second divine Person, i.e. God. So God was killed, deicide was committed.

Secondly, Jesus died on the Cross to save all of us sinful human beings from our sins, and in this sense all men were and are the purpose of his death. But only the Jews (leaders and people) were the prime agents of the deicide because it is obvious from the Gospels that the Gentile most involved, Pontius Pilate, would never have condemned Jesus to death had not the Jewish leaders roused the Jewish people to clamour for his crucifixion (Mt. XXVII, 20). Certainly the learned leaders were more guilty than the unlearned people, says St Thomas Aquinas (Summa III, 47, 5), but they all cried together for Jesus’ blood to come down upon them and their children (Mt. XXVII, 25).

Thirdly, at least Pope Leo XIII considered there to be a real solidarity between the Jews clamouring then for Jesus to be killed and the collectivity of Jews of modern times. Did he not in his Act of Consecration of the Human Race to the Sacred Heart of Jesus have the entire Church, from the end of the 19th century onwards, pray to God that he turn his “eyes of mercy towards the children of that race, once God’s chosen people: of old they called down upon themselves the Blood of the Saviour; may it now descend upon them a laver (i.e. washing) of redemption and life”?

But Leo XIII is by no means alone in observing such a continuity amongst Jews down the centuries. Do they themselves not lay claim today to the land of Palestine on the grounds that it is theirs by right from the God of the Old Testament? Has there ever been a race-people-nation on the face of the earth more proudly self-identifying as identical down the ages? Originally raised by God to cradle the Messiah, alas, when he came they refused, collectively, to recognize him. Collectively also, meaning there are always noble exceptions, they have remained faithful to that rejection, so that they changed their religion from that of Abraham and Moses and the Old Testament to that of Anas, Caiphas and the Talmud. Tragically, their very messianic training by God drives them to go on rejecting the one whom they hold to be a false messiah. Until they convert at the end of the world, as the Church has always taught they will do (cf. Rom. XI, 26–27), they seem bound to choose to go on acting, collectively, as enemies of the true Messiah. How can the Pope let go of such ancient truths?

Kyrie eleison.