Tag: Euro

Happy Anniversary

Happy Anniversary posted in Eleison Comments on October 12, 2013

I have good news for all Catholics who understood what Archbishop Lefebvre was about. An eight-bedroom house is being bought in south-east England to serve as a base of operations for anybody wishing to continue his work outside of the present SSPX. For a whole year since my “exclusion” from the SSPX I have lain low, at least physically speaking, to watch and wait to see how things would develop within the SSPX, but they are not getting any better, alas.

And so just as the Archbishop can only have wished that Conciliar Rome would come back to its Catholic senses so that there would be no further need for his Society to maintain Tradition, so too one might now wish that the present SSPX leaders would come back to the Archbishop’s way of thinking about Conciliar Rome, so that resistance to their virtual conciliarism would be unnecessary. But wishes do not make reality go away, and that reality is that just as Conciliar Rome is obdurate in its apostasy, so too the SSPX leaders have not stopped promoting their own authority to do what they like with the Archbishop’s legacy – authority over truth. That is why some bricks and mortar have become a necessity for the on-going service of the true Church.

The house is being bought in England because England is the only country that I cannot be thrown out of as a foreigner. It is in south-east England with a relatively gentle climate for England, in a town not too far by fast train from London, and of easy access by Eurostar from Paris and Brussels. It is a picturesque town, and should be an agreeable place for priests to visit, to wind down, to talk (in all discretion), and to wind up again for today’s difficult apostolate. But it will cost more or less £400,000 to buy, and it will cost rather more to run than my present frugal way of life, for which I have not been in need and have hardly appealed. Let people who are themselves in need not think of contributing (see II Cor.VIII, 12–13), but let investors with fragile investments think of transferring funds to their completely secure bank accounts in Heaven before the stock markets collapse and before today’s paper monies are inflated out of all recognition. I must find within two months or so a tenth of the sum, and the rest soon afterwards.

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Kyrie eleison.

Necessary Child

Necessary Child posted in Eleison Comments 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.