World War II

Sixpenny Art

Sixpenny Art on December 4, 2010

The French painter Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) repudiates modern society for the sake of art, yet the art he made himself free to create does not seem to have brought him peace (EC 175). The English novelist Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) writes a version of Gauguin’s life a few years later which seems to confirm both the repudiation and the lack of peace (EC 176). But why is the modern artist at odds with the society that he reflects, and that supports him? And why is the modern art he produces normally so ugly? And why do people persist in supporting ugly art?

The artist as rebel goes back to the Romantics. Romanticism flourished alongside the French Revolution, which merely broke out in 1789, but has been pulling down throne and altar ever since. Modern artists, reflecting the society in which they live, as artists cannot help doing, steadily more repudiate God. Now if God does not exist, then surely the arts should have flourished serenely in their new-found liberty from that illusion of God that has dominated men’s minds from time immemorial. Yet is modern art serene? Or is it not rather suicidal?

On the other hand, if God exists, and if the artist’s talent is a gift from God to be used for his glory, as countless artists from the past used to proclaim, then the godless artist will be at war with his own gift, and his gift will be at war with his society, and society will be at war with his gift. Is this not rather what we observe all around us, for instance the deep scorn of modern materialists for all the arts, beneath a pretence of respect?

If God exists, at any rate the questions asked above are easy to answer. Firstly, the artist is at odds with modern society because the breath of God within him that is his talent knows that his society is despicable insofar as it is godless. The fact that society supports him despite his scorn makes it merely more despicable. As Wagner once said when his increased orchestra meant eliminating a row of seats in the theatre, “Fewer listeners? So much the better!” Secondly, how can a gift from God that is turned against him produce anything harmonious or beautiful? For anyone to find modern art beautiful he must reverse the meaning of words: “Fair is foul and foul is fair” (Macbeth) – yet when did even a modern artist mistake ugliness for beauty in a woman? And thirdly, modern people will persist in their reversing the meaning of words because they are making war on God, and have no intention of letting up. “Rather the Turk than the tiara,” said the Greeks just before the catastrophic fall of Constantinople in 1453. “Rather Communism than Catholicism,” said American Senators after World War II, and they had their wish.

In brief, Wagner, Gauguin and Maugham and thousands of modern artists of all kinds are right to scorn our sixpenny Christendom, but the answer is not to make even more war on God with modern art. The answer is to stop making war on God, to give him again the glory due to him and to put Christ back into Christendom. How much more ugliness will it take for men to turn back to the tiara and to choose once more Catholicism? Will even World War III be enough?

Kyrie eleison.

Delay Condemning?

Delay Condemning? on October 30, 2010

Following on several recent numbers of “Eleison Comments” emphasizing the importance of doctrine (EC 162, 165–167, 169), a reader asks if it would not nevertheless be wiser to delay the condemnation of Vatican II, on the grounds that neither the Church officials in Rome nor Catholics at large are ready to accept that the Council is doctrinally as bad as the Society of St Pius X, following Archbishop Lefebvre, says that it is. Actually, it is far worse.

The doctrinal problem with the documents of Vatican II is not, mainly, that they are openly and clearly heretical. In fact their “letter,” as opposed to their “spirit,” can seem Catholic, to the point that Archbishop Lefebvre, who took direct part in all four Sessions of the Council, signed off on all but the two last and worst of those documents, “Gaudium et Spes” and “Dignitatis Humanae.” However, that “letter” is subtly contaminated with the “spirit” of the brand-new man-centered religion towards which the Council Fathers were inclining, and which has been corrupting the Church ever since. If the Archbishop could vote again today on the 16 documents, one wonders if with the wisdom of hindsight he would vote for a single one of them.

So the documents are ambiguous, outwardly interpretable as being Catholic for the most part, but inwardly poisoned with modernism, that most pernicious of all Church heresies, said St Pius X in “Pascendi.” So when for instance “conservative” Catholics, out of “loyalty” to the Church, defend the documents, what exactly are they conserving? The poison, and its ability to go on corrupting the Catholic Faith of millions of souls, thereby setting them on the path to eternal damnation. It all reminds me of one Allied convoy crossing the Atlantic with vital supplies for the Allies in World War II. An enemy submarine succeeded in surfacing in the very middle of the defensive perimeter of ships, so that it was free to torpedo them one after another, because the Allied destroyers were chasing around and around the perimeter outside to hunt down the submarine, never imagining it could be in their midst! The Devil is in the midst of the Vatican II documents and he is torpedoing the eternal salvation of millions of souls, because he is so well disguised in those documents.

Now imagine a sailor with sharp eyes on board one of the merchant-ships in the convoy who has noticed the little tell-tale wake of the submarine’s snorkel. He yells, “The submarine is inside!,” but nobody takes him seriously. Is he to wait and keep quiet, or is he to scream “Blue Murder!,” and go on screaming, until at last the captain is brought to see the deadly danger?

The SSPX must scream about Vatican II, and go on screaming, and without ceasing, because millions of souls are in deadly and unceasing danger. To grasp that danger, admittedly difficult to grasp in theory, read, or get translated into your own language, Fr. Alvaro Calderon’s profound book on the Vatican II documents, “Prometeo: la Religion del Hombre.”

Kyrie eleison.

Rampant Unreality

Rampant Unreality on August 28, 2010

On a private visit two weeks ago to the USA, my first since 2008, I was able to enter and leave the country with no personal problems, but on a two-hour tour which a friend gave me of a major American city, devastated by the recent economic downturn, I observed some daunting social problems:—

As we drove towards the city past a handsome housing estate in the country, he said, “You see all these expensive-looking houses? They are in fact poorly built, cookie-cutter houses, way over-priced, bought with money out of nowhere from the Clinton era (1992–2000), by people living in a dream, from paycheck to paycheck, in a false paradise of high credit, materialism and excessive spending. If they lose their jobs, as many are doing, they will be lucky to get half their money back on their houses. The men have no real skill or trade. Theirs is a world of slick tongue nonsense . . .

“They are mostly white people who have fled from the inner city suburbs where we are now arriving. Look around you at all the houses boarded up, abandoned, dilapidated, with huge gaps in between where the housing has been destroyed to give the illusion of prosperity. But the lost jobs will not come back, so there is no real basis for a return to prosperity. The neat houses you do see have been repaired or re-built with Government money borrowed by the broke city in accordance with unreal housing projects, because the neat houses will not usually be cared for, but will soon be dilapidated again. There is a kind of Government aid which can do more harm than good to the people it is supposed to help, by trapping them in their dependence on it . . .

“Now we are coming into the downtown where you see tall handsome buildings, but also few people circulating. The buildings go back to the 1920’s when this city was a great industrial centre, but after World War II the USA began to lose its industrial pre-eminence. Around the Reagan years (1980–1988) began, as I see it, a false stimulus by the credit card being made available to the common man. In the 1990’s a non-white mayor was elected here who did his serious best to bring business back to the city, and some of these handsome buildings are due to him, but he was voted out by his own people because he was not like one of them . . .

“The economy is hanging on a thread, yet most people think everything will be fine in a year’s time. They think it is lovely if the Government just prints or digitalizes more and more money. Five per cent of the people, or less, understand just how grave the situation is, and less than one per cent see religion as playing any part in their country’s downfall. People look only for band-aids, not for deep or real solutions. The whites have allowed themselves to be given a huge guilt complex, and they have caved in without admitting it. There is a huge problem that everybody senses and knows, but they are too afraid to talk about it . . .”

Yet within 50 miles of this city thrives an SSPX parish and school, unknown or disdained, yet embodying the one true solution: God.

Kyrie eleison.

Killer Pride

Killer Pride on August 1, 2009

I love “The Poem of the Man-God” by Maria Valtorta. It is, in the English edition, five Volumes of visions of the life, death and resurrection of Our Lord, mostly the three years of his public ministry, as seen during the last years of the Second World War by a crippled Italian woman, unmarried, nailed to her sick-bed by an injury suffered many years before in her youth. As a visionary she was always scared of being deceived by the Devil. The fruits of the “Poem” in edification and conversions strongly indicate rather that her visions were a true gift from Heaven.

The “Poem” does not appeal to everybody. It has severe critics. Some find it sentimental. I find it full of sentiment, but a sentiment objective and not self-indulgent. Some find it undoctrinal. I find it questionable perhaps in a few details, but generally the doctrine is astonishingly rich and accurate (the foot-notes in the Italian edition help). Some find the “Poem” too earthy. I find it a marvellous presentation of Our Lord as true God and true man Might these last critics be wishing the Incarnation had been less incarnate? Christ took flesh.

Here is one sample amongst thousands of the concrete reminders of the “Poem” on how human nature works, unrecognized today. To overcome the evil impulses that Judas Iscariot recognizes in himself, he has asked the Mother of God if he can stay with her for a while in Nazareth. As “Refuge of Sinners” she asks Our lord if she may render this service to Judas. Our Lord replies that he is not against, only he knows that it will be useless:—

“Judas is like someone drowning who although he feels he is drowning rejects out of pride the rope being thrown to him to pull him to the bank. He lacks the will to reach the bank. Every now and again the terror of drowning makes him seek and call out for help, which he clutches hold of, but then pride takes over again, he drops the help and pushes it away, as he wants to manage by himself, but all the while he is getting heavier with the muddy water that he is swallowing. However, so that nobody can say I left any remedy untried – go ahead, poor Mamma” (“Poor,” because she has no taste for this rescue attempt).

Every soul in Hell – alas, would that it were empty! – has chosen to be there, as the only alternative to submitting to God. Any submission diminishes my sense of my own excellence. Pride is the sin of sins. From our hidden pride, O Lord, deliver us!

Kyrie eleison.

Providence’s 2009

Providence’s 2009 on December 27, 2008

In mid-November last year “Eleison Comments” recommended “fastening seat-belts” for the year 2008, because a couple of private revelations and above all “pressure building towards a third World War” together constituted “at least an orange alert.” Was the alert justified? What about 2009?

As for the alert, WW III has still been postponed, but it is surely not cancelled. “The justice of God grinds slow,” says the old proverb, “but it grinds exceeding small.” In other words, the Lord God may take his time – “He dealeth patiently for your sake” says St. Peter, “not willing that any should perish, but that all should return to penance” (II Pet.III,9) – yet God does not miss the least little detail. The year 2008 has seen only the stepping up of the offences against him – indifference, blasphemy, immorality, etc, etc. At a given moment he is going to say, “Enough!” In 2009?

Possibly. In any case it is worth recalling that in 1917, under Pope Benedict XV, Our Lady said at Fatima that if Russia were not consecrated to her Immaculate Heart in the way she would come to ask, then another more terrible war than WW I, then raging, would break out “under the reign of the next pope.” This would be Pius XI. Yet Pius XI died in February of 1939, whereas WW II was declared by England and France only in September of that year, under Pius XII. Had Our Lady made a mistake?

That is not likely. What happened was that in January of 1938, while Pius XI was still pope, exactly when the unusual red light foretold by Our Lady to be the warning sign of “the more terrible war” was seen all over Europe’s night-sky, Stalin was being told in Russia how, by making an alliance with Hitler (the subsequent Ribbentrop Pact), he would enable Hitler to launch an exhausting war to the West (declared ten days after the Pact!) which would open the way for Russia to take over all Europe from the East. In other words, WW II broke out in public under Pius XII only because it had been previously planned and decided in private under Pius XI. So Our Lady was not mistaken. And God knows how for well over a century his enemies have been planning WW III.

So as for the coming year, let souls still asleep in economics or politics wake up to how it is God’s justice that is closing in, and let souls awake but who may be discouraged or frightened by what they see around them, take heart! Shortly before dying of a horribly painful tuberculosis, St Therese of Lisieux said, “I am more convinced than ever that Providence watches over the least little detail of our lives.” How could it be otherwise?

Kyrie eleison.

Dangerous Prosperity

Dangerous Prosperity on July 19, 2008

Since the end of World War II in 1945, material prosperity and comfort have not ceased to advance in many parts of the world. Alas, this prosperity is not without its dangers, as Moses warned the Israelites some 3,500 years ago. Here is one such passage which deserves today to be quoted in full (Deuteronomy VIII, 11–20). It is easily applied to our own times:

11 Take heed, and beware lest at any time thou forget the Lord thy God, and neglect his commandments and judgments and ceremonies, which I command thee this day:

12 Lest after thou hast eaten and art filled, hast built goodly houses and dwelt in them,

13 And shalt have herds of oxen and flocks of sheep, and plenty of gold and silver, and of all things,

14 Thy heart be lifted up, and thou remember not the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage:

15 And was thy leader in the great and terrible wilderness, wherein there was the serpent burning with his breath, and the scorpion and the dipsas, and no waters at all: who brought forth streams out of the hardest rock,

16 And fed thee in the wilderness with manna which thy fathers knew not. And after he had afflicted and proved thee, at the last he had mercy on thee,

17 Lest thou should say in thy heart: my own might and the strength of my own hand have achieved all these things for me.

18 But remember the Lord thy God, that he hath given thee strength, that he might fulfil his covenant, concerning which he swore to thy fathers, as this present day sheweth.

19 But if thou forget the Lord thy God, and follow strange gods, and serve and adore them, behold now I foretell thee that thou shalt utterly perish.

20 As the nations, which the Lord destroyed at thy entrance (into the Holy Land), so shall you also perish, if you be disobedient to the voice of the Lord your God.

To keep one’s head on straight amidst confusion which only grows worse, it can certainly help to visit (prayerfully) the Old Testament. Being the Word of God, it always gives us God’s own perspective on things.

Kyrie eleison.