society

State Religion – III

State Religion – III on January 14, 2012

To claim that States need not profess or protect the Catholic religion is a classic liberal error, and one of the major errors of Vatican II. Liberalism said, so to speak, “Let us not attack Catholicism head on, but let us divide and rule. Let us divide the individual man from society by pretending that man is not a social animal, and then we can pretend that religion is purely an individual affair. This will enable us to take over society, and once we have made it liberal, we can turn it back on the individual as a mighty weapon to liberalize him too, because of course man is a social animal! If any individual then wants not to be liberal, he will have great difficulty in resisting his society that we have liberalized.” Not so? Look around! Then let us answer three more objections to the doctrine that, for the salvation of souls, every State should be Catholic.

Your Excellency, Our Lord himself said, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Mt. XXII, 21). Here Our Lord is clearly separating Church from State. Therefore no State should get involved in Catholicism or any other religion Answer, no, Our Lord is not here separating Church from State! He is making the common sense distinction between what the individual owes to the State (taxes, etc.) and what he owes to God (worship). Our Lord is absolutely not saying that the temporal State owes nothing to the eternal God. In fact the State, as being the collective temporal authority of a collection of human beings, owes to God in its acts of authority what they owe to him as social beings, namely the social observance of his natural law, and to that Church which natural reason on its own can see to be true, as much social recognition and promotion as will not get in the way of the salvation of souls.

But discerning which is the true religion is something for the individual to do. How then can the State as State be obliged in principle to be Catholic?Answer, the State is nothing but the moral (i.e. non-material) association in a political body of a greater or lesser number of physical (i.e. material) human beings. But every one of these human beings, merely by the upright use of his natural reason, whether or not he has the supernatural virtue of the Faith, is capable of discerning that God exists, that Jesus Christ is God, and that the Catholic Church is the one Church founded by Jesus Christ. If then any given State does not discern which is the true religion, that is not because its citizens cannot discern, but because for a variety of reasons they will not, or do not want to do so, by making an upright use of their God-given reason. In fact they can discern, and before God they will all bear a greater or lesser responsibility, perfectly measured by him according to their circumstances, for failing to do so.

But, your Excellency, if you insist on every State’s obligation to be Catholic, you are merely going to make a lot of martyrs for evil.It is for the glory of God and the eternal salvation of souls that every State should be Catholic. To men therefore too ignorant or corrupt for this truth to do anything but alienate them, one may, without minimising the principle, hesitate to proclaim it, but that does not make it any less true. True principles are no less true for sometimes requiring in practice a measure of prudence in the way they are to be told. Surely readers of this “Commentary” can be told the whole truth!

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.

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.

Financial Solutions

Financial Solutions on November 19, 2011

Numbers of commentators on economic questions are presently writing or saying that the world’s financial system is on the brink of collapse. None of them are sure of the timing, but many of them predict that it will be a major collapse. Yet before the onset of the financial crisis in 2008, few people saw it coming because they were comfortable in a way of life that seemed well established and for ever moving forward. However, if these commentators are right, it is about to come off its hinges.

We should all of us be thinking what went wrong and how it should be put right. Here below are a series of practical proposals, adapted from a recent article on the website Burning Platform. One need not agree with each of them to begin envisaging alternatives to our present broken system. There are political and financial proposals. Let us begin with the latter:—

*Nationalize those banks which by being “Too Big to Fail” can hold the State to ransom. Let any consequent losses fall on the people responsible or involved, not on the taxpayer. *Re-institute (in the USA) the Glass-Steagall Act to stop banks from ever becoming so big again. *Re-institute mark to marketing accounting rules, so that banks can no longer pretend that their assets are worth much more than they are worth in the market-place. *Regulate the derivatives market so that likewise no financial entity can become so big that it can threaten to crash the entire system if it goes under (as happened in the USA with AIG). *Simplify the present highly cumbersome system of income tax, or replace it altogether with a consumer tax, and eliminate corporate tax breaks. Notice how such proposals may be explicitly financial, but they are implicitly political, because to be put into practice they would need a significant change in the political way of thinking of the people and especially of the leaders. Finance depends on politics. Here are the more obviously political proposals, which may be disputed, but they at least point in the right direction:—

*To combat the corruption of too comfortable politicians, impose term limits. To combat the corruption of elections by special interests, cut out all lobbying and lobbyists. *To cut down the power of the central bank, take away its control of the nation’s money supply. *Re-organize the States’ welfare benefits, today so draining the States’ finances that tomorrow they will be able to benefit nobody. *Re-instruct the people to go without, and to accept a lower standard of living, so that instead of spending society into oblivion, they build it by saving. *Do what can be done to replace suburban sprawl by more self-sufficient communities. *Renounce world empire so as to cut down the enormous military spending of the USA, for instance by bringing thousands of troops home from their bases all over the world.

Here again, for such proposals to be put into practice, they require great changes in the people’s way of thinking, especially in that of the leaders. Political decisions depend upon what people value more, or most. Why are we alive? To enjoy on earth, or to be truly happy for eternity? Is that an either-or question? Is there an eternity? Thus politics depend on religion, or on the lack of it. Will today even a financial crash bring anyone to their senses?

Kyrie eleison.

Crisis Films

Crisis Films on September 24, 2011

Two interesting films have already appeared about the arrival in the USA of the financial and economic crisis which has been threatening since 2008 to undermine the whole Western way of life. Both films are well made. Both are persuasive. Yet one says the bankers are heroes while the other says they are villains. If Western society is to have any future, the contradiction deserves thought.

The documentary film Inside Job consists of a series of interviews with bankers, politicians, economists, businessmen, journalists, academics, financial consultants, etc. There emerges a frightening picture of greed and collusion in fraud at the top of American society in all these domains. Free enterprise was the justification for the financial de-regulation of the 1980’s and 1990’s, which gave to the money-men steadily more power until they were able to bring under their control all politicians or journalists or academics of influence. Thus a process of merciless plundering of the middle and working classes is still going on. The anger of the victims is building towards an explosion, but at least for the moment the money-men cannot stop gorging at the trough they have so well designed for themselves. “Greed is good. It makes the world go round,” say the banksters.

In the second film, Too Big to Fail, the dramatic events of autumn 2008 centring around the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a major New York investment bank, are re-constructed. Hank Paulson, then Secretary of the US Treasury, is shown making a classic free enterprise decision by refusing a government bail-out to let Lehman Brothers go bankrupt. But the result is such a shock to the global financial community, threatening a meltdown of worldwide finance and commerce, that Paulson with his comrades in government and with the help of all the leading bankers of New York has to persuade the US Congress to approve a taxpayer bail-out of all the big banks which cannot be allowed to fail. He just succeeds. The system is saved. The government and bankers are the heroes of the day. Once again capitalism is proved to be the marvel we always knew it was – thanks to socialist intervention!

Then are the bankers heroes or villains? Answer, heroes at the very most in the short run, but certainly villains in the long run, because it needs very little common sense to realize that, all society requiring selflessness, no society can be built on greed, meaning selfishness. In any society there will always be the haves and the have-nots (cf. Jn.XII, 8). The managers of society who have the money and power absolutely must look after the masses who have neither, otherwise there will be revolution and chaos. Of course the globalists are planning on this chaos tomorrow to give them world power the day after, but while they may propose, it is God who disposes.

Meanwhile Catholics and anybody who cares about the future should go to see both films and then ask themselves some hard questions about capitalism and free enterprise. How on earth could capitalism be saved this time only by socialism? Is government then really all that bad? Is capitalism really all that good? How can a society possibly depend on greedy men to survive? How can it have got itself into such a dependency? And is there any sign right now that anybody is asking such questions? Or is everybody’s worship of Mammon – let us call things by their name – proceeding unchecked?

Unless Jesus Christ absolves men of their sins through his priests, no post-Incarnation system of society can ultimately work. Capitalism only ever lived off the Catholicism from earlier centuries. It is today’s exhaustion of Catholicism that spells the death of capitalism.

Kyrie eleison.

“Greek Gifts” – III

“Greek Gifts” – III on September 3, 2011

Speculation is only speculation. Journalists are only journalists. But an Italian journalist claimed last month that he had the authority of a”Vatican insider” for writing that the Sept 14 meeting between Roman officials and the Superior General of the Society of St Pius X with his two Assistants may discuss a possible canonical regularization of the SSPX. Here is a summary of Andrea Tornielli’s main points (see http://​vaticaninsider.​lastampa.​it/​en/​homepage/​inquiries-and-interviews/​detail/​articolo/​lefebvriani-vaticano-tradizione-fellay-7423/​):—

The Vatican officials will submit to the SSPX (1) a clarification of Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of continuity” to show how it is the more authentic interpretation of the texts of Vatican II. “Only if,” says Tornielli, this clarification overcomes the doctrinal difficulties will there then be presented (2) a solution to the canonical irregularity in which the SSPX bishops and priests still find themselves: an Ordinariat such as was given to the Anglicans in May, whereby the SSPX would depend directly on the Holy See through the Ecclesia Dei Commission. This arrangement would enable the SSPX to “retain its characteristics without having to answer to the diocesan bishops.” But (3) any such agreement is not certain because “within the SSPX co-exist different sensitivities.”

From everything we know in public about Vatican-SSPX relations, Tornielli’s forecast for the Sept 14 meeting seems highly probable. But each of his three main points deserves comment:—

Firstly, as to the doctrinal gulf between today’s Vatican and Archbishop Lefebvre’s SSPX, it cannot be said that Benedict XVI’s “hermeneutic of continuity” is a solution (see EC 208–211). If Tornielli is right, it will be interesting (not edifying) to see how Rome tries once more to prove that 2+2 can be 4 or 5, 5 or 4. Catholic doctrine is as rigid, if not always as clear to us human beings, as 2+2=4.

Secondly, as to the canonical arrangement evoked by Tornielli, if – unimaginably – the SSPX were to accept any kind of doctrinal compromise, then in no way could the SSPX both come under the present Holy See (2+2=4 or 5), and still “retain its characteristics” (based on 2+2= exclusively 4). The practical agreement would exercise a constant and finally irresistible pressure to make Catholic doctrine no longer exclusive but inclusive of error, which would be to adopt the Freemasons’ ideology and to abandon the very reason for existing of Archbishop Lefebvre’s SSPX.

And thirdly, Tornielli may well be right that an agreement is not certain, but he and his “Vatican insider” are absolutely wrong if either of them thinks that the problem is one of “different sensitivities.” Sensitivities are subjective. The central problem between the Vatican and Archbishop Lefebvre’s SSPX is as objective as 2+2=4. At no point in time, reaching backwards or forwards into eternity, on no planet or star created or creatable, can 2+2 ever be anything other than, exclusively, four.

When all Archbishop Lefebvre’s efforts had failed in the negotiations of May 1988 to obtain from then Cardinal Ratzinger a secure place for the Faith within the mainstream Church, he said some famous words: “Your Eminence, even were you to give us everything we wanted, still we would have to refuse, because we are working to christianize society, whereas you are working to de-christianize it. Collaboration between us is not possible.”

Kyrie eleison.