tyranny

Admirable Appeal

Admirable Appeal on May 30, 2020

Ever since governments all over the world clamped down on the lives of their citizens over two months ago because of dishonest reports of the danger of the “corona-virus” let loose from China, honest experts have contradicted these reports. Included in that clamp-down were severe measures taken against Catholics attending Mass or any of the Holy Week liturgy. And at the time Church leaders and laity set up little resistance. But earlier this month some churchmen published an “Appeal for Church and World” in which at last the sinister forces behind the so-called “pandemic” were openly denounced, even if they were not clearly named. It was high time that Catholics received guidance from high-ranking churchmen that they are being led like sheep to the slaughter by wolves of the Antichrist disguised as friends of mankind. Here is a summary of the 1375-word Appeal –

In today’s crisis, we undersigned Church leaders consider we are in duty bound to make this Appeal to all Catholics and souls of good will. People’s rights have been violated by worldwide government measures taken on the excuse of the coronavirus to restrict their liberties when the facts show that the media panic raised over the virus has been exaggerated out of all proportion. We believe that there are powers interested in creating panic among the world’s population with the sole aim of permanently imposing unacceptable forms of restriction on freedoms, of controlling people and tracking their movements, and that this is a disturbing prelude to the realisation of a world government beyond all control. Such measures have wrecked many an economy, and encouraged foreign interference, whereas governments must protect their citizens and not indulge in social engineering to split families and isolate individuals.

Let scientists tell the truth and beware of shady business interests and of pharmaceutical companies seeking huge profits by expensive cures for the not so dangerous virus. Let governments rigorously avoid all systems of tracking or locating their citizens, and let them not support the hidden intentions of supranational bodies that have very strong commercial and political interests in the plan to do so. Let citizens be free to refuse vaccines, and let self-styled “experts” enjoy no kind of immunity from prosecution. Let the media tell the truth and not practise various forms of censorship as are now being practised, to impose a single way of thinking, in fact a subtle dictatorship of opinion, all the more effective for being subtle.

And last but not least, let everyone remember that Our Lord Jesus Christ granted to His Church an entire independence from the State to worship God and to teach and govern citizens in accordance with her own purposes, the glory of God and the salvation of souls. The State may not interfere in any ruling of the Church upon her own affairs, nor may it in any way limit the sovereignty of God’ s own true Church, nor may it in any way restrict or ban public worship or Catholic priests doing their priestly duty. Therefore let all coronavirus restrictions upon Catholic worship be removed. If citizens have duties towards the State, so also they have rights, which include respect for natural law and for God’s interests coming first.

We are fighting against an invisible enemy that seeks to divide citizens, to separate children from parents, grandchildren from grandparents, souls from priests, students from teachers, and so on, in brief to erase centuries of Christian civilisation by an odious technological tyranny in which nameless and faceless people can decide the fate of the world by confining us to a virtual reality. But Christ will win. We pray for government leaders who face a special responsibility before the judgment seat of God, We beg Our Lord to protect His Church. And may Our Lady defeat the plans of the children of darkness.

And this appeal was signed by dozens of eminent laymen, in addition to several leading churchmen.

Kyrie eleison.

Doctrine Again

Doctrine Again on August 18, 2012

The scorn of “doctrine” is an immense problem today. The “best” of Catholics in our 21st century pay lip-service to the importance of “doctrine,” but in their modern bones they feel instinctively that even Catholic doctrine is some kind of prison for their minds, and minds must not be imprisoned. In Washington, D.C., around the interior dome of the Jefferson Memorial, that quasi-religious temple of the United States’ champion of liberty, runs his quasi-religious quotation: I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. Surely he had Catholic doctrine in mind, amongst others. Modern man’s quasi-religion excludes having any fixed doctrine.

However, a sentence from the “Eleison Comments” of two weeks ago (EC 263, July 28) gives a different angle on the nature and importance of “doctrine.” It ran: So long as Rome believes in its Conciliar doctrine, it is bound to use any such(“non-doctrinal”) agreement to pull the SSPX in the direction of the(Second Vatican) Council.In other words what drives Rome supposedly to discount “doctrine” and at all costs to conciliarize the SSPX is their own belief in their own Conciliar doctrine. As Traditional Catholic doctrine is – one hopes – the driving force of the SSPX, so Conciliar doctrine is the driving force of Rome. The two doctrines clash, but each of them is a driving force.

In other words, “doctrine” is not just a set of ideas in a man’s head, or a mental prison. Whatever ideas a man chooses to hold in his head, his real doctrine is that set of ideas that drives his life. Now a man may change that set of ideas, but he cannot not have one. Here is how Aristotle put it: “If you want to philosophize, then you have to philosophize. If you don’t want to philosophize, you still have to philosophize. In any case a man has to philosophize.” Similarly, liberals may scorn any set of ideas as a tyranny, but to hold any set of ideas to be a tyranny is still a major idea, and it is the one idea that drives the lives of zillions of liberals today, and of all too many Catholics. These should know better, but all of us moderns have the worship of liberty in our bloodstream.

Thus doctrine in its real sense is not just an imprisoning set of ideas, but that central notion of God, man and life that directs the life of every man alive. Even if a man is committing suicide, he is being driven by the idea that life is too miserable to be worth continuing. A notion of life centred on money may drive a man to become rich; on pleasure to become a rake; on recognition to become famous, and so on. But however a man centrally conceives life, that concept is his real doctrine.

Thus conciliar Romans are driven by Vatican II as being their central notion to undo the SSPX that rejects Vatican II, and until they either succeed or change that central notion, they will continue to be driven to dissolve Archbishop Lefebvre’s SSPX. On the contrary the central drive of clergy and laity of the SSPX should be to get to Heaven, the idea being that Heaven and Hell exist, and Jesus Christ and his true Church provide the one and only sure way of getting to Heaven. This driving doctrine they know to be no fanciful invention of their own, and that is why they do not want it to be undermined or subverted or corrupted by the wretched neo-modernists of the Newchurch, driven by their false conciliar notion of God, man and life. The clash is total.

Nor can it be avoided, as liberals dream it can. If falsehoods win, eventually even the stones of the street will cry out (Lk.XIX, 40). If Truth wins, still Satan will go on raising error after error, until the world ends. But “He that perseveres to the end will be saved,” says Our Lord (Mt.XXIV, 13).

Kyrie eleison.