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| Fr. Hewko: Archbishop Lefebvre Died Fighting, Will His Sons? |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 08:41 PM - Forum: Rev. Father David Hewko
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+ PAX +
ARCHBISHOP LEFEBVRE DIED FIGHTING WILL HIS SONS?
"The problem remains grave, very grave. We absolutely must not minimize it! This is how we must reply to the laypeople who ask such questions as, 'When will the crisis come to an end? Are we getting anywhere? Isn't there a way of getting permission for our liturgy, for our sacraments?'" Certainly, the question of the liturgy and the sacraments is important, but it is not the most important. The most important question is the question of the Faith! This is unresolved in Rome. For us, it is resolved. We have the Faith of all time, the Faith of the Catechism of the Council of Trent, of the Catechism of St. Pius X, hence the Faith of the Church, of all the Church Councils, of all the Popes prior to Vatican II. Now the official Church is persevering, we might say pertinaciously, in the false ideas and grave errors of Vatican II, that much is clear!" [Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Address to his priests seven months before his death, 1990]
How well Abp. Lefebvre understood the Combat for the Faith! The Holy Faith towers over all canonical questions, it is the main purpose for the authority given by Christ to the Popes, Bishops, and clergy. It is this Sacred Deposit that He commanded to be preached to the whole world, to be guarded unchanged, defended with martyrs' blood, and stands victorious over all false religions. Christ is God, Christ is King, He is the Eternal High Priest. This is the foundation of the Catholic Faith!
Abp. Lefebvre so often said that the Masonic ideas triumphing with the French Revolution (and its sister, the American Revolution), were the overthrow of Christ's Kingship in society, which was ignited by the Lodges and spread throughout the world. Our Combat now, is defined by the Popes who led the war against these ideas that conspire against God, and practically summarized in the Declaration of the Rights of Man. Hence, in the name of "My rights, My rights, My rights!" abortion, divorce, contraception, euthanasia, sodomy, pornography, etc., are legalized by civil authorities who have rejected Christ's Kingship and loudly proclaim "We will not have THIS MAN reign over us!" As St. Pius X said, this is legalized apostasy.
Catholics, faithful to Tradition stand with Abp. Lefebvre, on the shoulders of the Popes of the last two centuries who made war against the ideas of Liberalism, Modernism, Modern Democracy, the false "rights" & "freedoms" that corrupt the young and dissolve society and all morals. Dissolve Doctrine, you dissolve morals. Dissolve morals, and society crashes to the ground!
Vatican II was the Masonic triumph of their heresies within the Church. They have managed to swindle in their man-made Conciliar Church, with new sacraments, new theology, new priests, new Mass, new catechisms, new Bible, new "canonizations", new "miracles", new everything! Our Combat is against this hijacking of our Holy Roman Catholic Church! The great Declaration of 1974, written by Abp. Lefebvre, still stands as the greatest proclamation of the Faith since Vatican II. This Declaration defines precisely what the Catholic Resistance is all about. Vatican II, its New Mass and reforms must be categorically rejected. Vatican II, now within the Society of St. Pius X, must be categorically rejected. There is no possible way to mix the Revolution of Freemasonry with the Revolution of the Gospel. No mixture of Light and Darkness; Truth and Error; oil and water; Christ and Satan! Not possible! It is not possible!
Yet, this has always been the dream of Liberal Catholicism, as Pope Pius IX lamented, and proves to be a greater threat to the Church than any Roman Emperor, atheist, or satanist! "The enemy is in the very bosom of the Church!" said St. Pius X. This same enemy is in the very bosom of the seminaries, district houses and priories of the Conciliar-SSPX!
When young priests and seminarians come out from the classrooms of Winona cheerleading the Agreement with Modernist Rome and insisting on obedience to Modernist Popes, because "we are in an abnormal situation" and so we must "approve and determine a canonical normalization" (cf. General Chapter Statement, July 14, 2012) with Modernists, of whom Abp. Lefebvre said to stay far away! Then we indeed have a new War on our hands! Is this not the ongoing "diabolical disorientation" Our Lady of Fatima foretold? "It is, therefore, a strict duty for every priest (and all faithful) wanting to remain Catholic, to separate themselves from this Conciliar Church, for as long as it does not return to the Tradition of the Magisterium of the Church and the Catholic Faith!" said the wise Archbishop (Spiritual Journey, p. 13).
What would one be obliged to think of a Pro-Life Group, who's leaders thought that it was time to stop fighting and adopt a "new approach", a "new attitude" towards Planned Parenthood, no longer the offensive "bulldozer approach"? What if this Pro-Life Group proclaimed in official documents that it seeks an Agreement with Planned Parenthood, even going so far as to literally bind itself under six conditions to such an Agreement, and counted it an honor to receive "jurisdictional privileges" and expressed profound gratitude to Planned Parenthood for giving crumbs of recognition to it? Furthermore, what would one think if this Group, claiming to be Pro-Life, had adopted certain principles saying words like "We declare,...We acknowledge,....We accept", all signed in a new Declaration, agreeing with some cases of abortion, but, of course, only those seen in the "light of Tradition" and "in exceptional cases"?
What if members of this Pro-Life Group spoke up saying that this was wrong, it goes against the very nature of any pro-life position, it is betrayal and compromise? Then, what if those members were marginalized or even expelled for disobedience, rebellion, disrespect to the president of the Group and for not trusting his "grace of state"? What about those who stayed in, choosing to remain silent and " obedient"?
It goes without saying, such a president betrayed the cause, compromised with its sworn enemy, has surrendered, and should be removed along with his co-traitors! There can never be peace, cooperation, or any Agreement whatsoever, between the blood-dripping murderers in Planned Parenthood and ProLife Groups, impossible!
Now, every comparison limps, except in the point being made in the given comparison. But this comparison doesn't limp too much, because admittedly, Planned Parenthood is a murderous institution, but a murderer of bodies. Let it be said, loud and clear, that an institution given to the murder of eternal souls far outweighs in gravity any institution restricted to killing temporary bodies! The Conciliar Church attacks Our Lord as King, in its very founding documents! It dissolves the Faith and "is poisoned through and through!" It is entirely based on a "total perversion of the spirit, a whole new philosophy founded upon subjectivism" and represents a "schismatic Church". "...It is very serious! A total perversion!...It is truly frightening." (--Abp. Lefebvre). The Second Vatican Council, besides not being infallible, non dogmatic, and, in fact, the "worst disaster in the history of the Church" (--Abp. Lefebvre), kills immortal souls! It leads to eternal damnation! It dissolves the True Faith and replaces it with another; humanist, man-centered, and apostate. This makes the Conciliar Church far more wicked than Planned Parenthood, and in this light, what the leaders of the Society of St. Pius X are doing, has become the blind leading the blind, right into the jaws of the Conciliar Church!
With Doctrine compromised, morals are soon compromised. "When Doctrine is compromised, all is lost! The situation cannot be any more remedied," as Bp. Freppel foresaw in the 19th Century. This is the sad reality. This is the nightmare turned non-fiction. This is where the new Doctrine and orientation of the Conciliar-SSPX is going! The only recovery will be a 180° turn and a public rejection, condemnation and denouncing of the documents that compromised the Faith! These documents, available for all to see for those who foolishly insist, saying: "Nothing's changed",... "Everything is the same" are official, they were issued and signed by the authorities of the Society of St. Pius X, and they betray the Fight that Abp. Lefebvre was all about. But far worse, they betray Christ the King, His Church's Magisterium and His Sacraments! Anyone, 500 years from now, reading the General Chapter Statement of July 14, 2012, the attached 6 Conditions, the Doctrinal Declaration of April 15, 2012, and all the weasel language justifying compromise in the name of "prudence", will cringe in horror at their willingness to betray Christ the King for badges of recognition from smiling Modernists, set to destroy souls.
"Just as Israel of the Old Testament had a troubled history because of continuous infidelities towards God, which were often the works of its leaders and its Levites, so does the Church Militant in this world know without end, periods of trial on account of the infidelity of its clerics and their compromises with the world.
" The higher they come from, the more scandals provoke disasters. Certainly, the Church herself guards its sanctity and its sources of sanctification, but the control of its institutions by unfaithful popes and apostate bishops ruins the faith of the faithful and the clergy, sterilizes the instruments of grace, and favors the assault of all the powers of Hell, which seem to triumph!
"This apostasy makes its members adulterers, schismatics, opposed to all Tradition, separated from the past of the Church, and thus separated from the Church of today, in the measure that it remains faithful to the Church of Our Lord. Everyone who remains faithful to the True Church is the object of savage and continuous persecution." (Spiritual Journey, by Abp. Lefebvre, p. 54-55).
Granted, as Roman Catholics, we long for the day when we can see the Church in her pre-Vatican II splendor, with a good, doctrinally sound Pope, bishops who defend the flock from the wolves, the Tridentine Mass as the only "Ordinary Form" and happily obedient faithful. But, since "Satan's masterstroke was to sow disobedience to all Tradition through obedience," such happy obedience would be sinful when given to leaders destroying the Faith by adherence to Vatican II and the New Mass. This goes for all clergy who, in any way, accept the Council or minimize the poison of the New Mass. This goes for all the dozen traditional groups who have sought Agreements with Modernist Rome and signed the appropriate documents, even if they were promised the Latin Mass, the right to preach against Modernism and have their seminaries,...or even a bishop!
This was what Abp. Lefebvre was offered. He rightly refused. He saw the problem is not lace surplices, incense and even the Mass itself! But the real Fight of the Catholic Resistance is the Faith! Again and again, it is the Faith! The Faith! The Faith!
"When someone asks us if we know when there will be an accord with Rome, my answer is simple: when Rome re-crowns Our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot be in accord with those who uncrown Our Lord! The day when they recognize once again Our Lord as King of all people and nations, it will not be us with whom they have rejoined, but the Catholic Church, in which we live!" (Abp. Lefebvre at Flavigny, France, Dec. 1988; Fideliter no. 68, p.16.).
It's time for the clergy, faithful and the youth to rise to the Fight already advancing upon us, to stop burying their heads in denials, vanities and empty wishes. This is a time of war, of combat, of great self-sacrifice! and for those who find comfort in their missions, schools and priories, don't forget, the Church Triumphant belongs only in Heaven! As long as we're on this earth, we must fight and defend the Church Militant! That Battle now, is the Catholic Resistance. What's the Resistance? It is all Catholics fighting to maintain the Faith of Tradition, of the Popes before Vatican II and the clear line of Abp. Lefebvre! Any cleric claiming to be with the Resistance and muddles the lines of opposition between Vatican II and the New Mass is a wolf. Stay away. A sham "Resistance" fits in the enemy's plans, as did the "Conservatives" after Vatican II. Abp. Lefebvre was a gift for the Church (foretold 300 yrs. before, by Our Lady in Quito, Ecuador), and we simply have to hold his line until the crisis is passed. This means his structure and organization (insofar as possible), seminaries, priests responding to the needs of the faithful, encouraging priestly and religious vocations, the crusade for the large family and his publicly "resisting Peter to his face", for his Modernism. "Neither Modernist nor schismatic [viz. sedevacantist]!" This Combat can never change! And the Holy Roman Catholic Church is in battle as long as She is on this earth. She's not called the Church Militant for nothing! ...Neither are you Confirmed with Chrism and slapped as a warning, to watch our Holy Mother die! "Walk whilst you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you!" (St. Jn. 12:35). "I hold that WE ARE IN THE CHURCH and that WE ARE THE TRUE SONS OF THE CHURCH, and the others are not. They are not, because Liberalism is not a son of the Church. Liberalism is against the Church, Liberalism operates to destroy the Church, in that sense they cannot claim to be sons of the Church... some are prepared to sacrifice the Fight for the Faith by saying: 'Let us first reenter the Church! Let us first do everything to integrate into the official, public structure of the Church! Let's be silent about dogmatic issues. Let us be silent about the malice of the New Mass. Let's keep quiet over the issues of Religious Liberty, Human Rights, Ecumenism. And, once we are inside the Church, then we will be able to do this! We will be able to achieve that!'
"That's ABSOLUTELY FALSE! You don't enter a structure, under superiors, by claiming that you will overthrow everything, once inside, whereas they have all the means to suppress us! They have all the authority.
" What matters first and foremost is TO MAINTAIN THE CATHOLIC FAITH! THAT'S WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR! So the canonical issue, this purely public and exterior issue in the Church, is secondary! What matters is to stay within the Church,...inside the Church, in other words, IN THE CATHOLIC FAITH OF ALL TIME, in the true priesthood, in the true Mass, in the true sacraments, and the same catechism, with the same Bible. THAT'S WHAT MATTERS TO US! THAT'S WHAT THE CHURCH IS! Public recognition is a secondary issue. Thus, WE MUST NOT SEEK WHAT IS SECONDARY BY LOSING WHAT IS PRIMARY, BY LOSING WHAT IS THE PRIMARY GOAL OF OUR FIGHT!
"...We cannot place ourselves under an authority who has liberal ideas and who, little by little, would condemn us, by force of circumstances, to accept these Liberal ideas and all the consequences of these Liberal ideas which are the New Mass, the changes in the Liturgy, the changes in the Bible, the changes in the catechism, and all these changes...'But,' you may say, 'some have fought against the New Catechism!' It is simply to put the brakes on, because the changes were going so fast, that even they had to slow down a bit. The consequences of their own principles scare them. Thus, they put the brakes on, at times, but they nevertheless continue to want to keep their Liberal ideas. Changing their Liberal ideas is out of the question!" (Abp. Lefebvre, Spiritual Conference at Econe, Dec. 21, 1984). [Emphasis mine].
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| Fr. Hewko introduces himself to the Resistance - November 2012 |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 08:38 PM - Forum: Sermons by Date
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Many thanks to the good soul who transcribed this Sermon [originally posted in the Archived Catacombs]!
My name is Father David Hewko. I was, last seven years, in Syracuse at Blessed Virgin Mary Academy and parish. It’s size of about 700 or 400 souls. [It’s a] growing school and I’m here in Kentucky with the priests who are resisting the liberalism invading the Society of Saint Pius X which is a very sad event, this crisis of our dear Society. So that brings me here to help these priests to hopefully put ourselves in Our Lady’s hands, either the Society does a u-turn and continues the principles and the fight of Archbishop Lefebvre and previous great saint popes. Or to whatever God wills, begin again, just maintaining the principles of our holy founder. So pray for this, pray for all the priests, all the priests, pray for the Pope to consecrate Russia. That really is the solution. But if the Pope ignores Our Lady what can do but pray for him? In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Amen.
Our Lord compares the Church to a mustard seed and that mustard seed is the Catholic Faith that is implanted in all of our souls when we are baptized. I’d like to refer your minds to a great event in history, very similar to our own time, and that is when Spain in the late the 600’s was invaded, totally invaded, by the Muslims, who came in from Northern Africa. They swept all the way up very quickly invading towns, cities, tearing down the church bells, smashing the crucifixes, and needless to say, the murder of many, many women, children, priests, and men. This invasion spread very fast and by the early 700’s Spain was basically Muslim. And only in the northern regions, in the mountains, the Asturias Mountains, there remained a small remnant, led by Pelayo, who was a friend and disciple of a great holy monk who lived in the mountains there, in a cave. And this cave today is known as Covadonga, it’s a magnificent cave; actually there’s a monastery built there. I got to go there with some priests and we said Mass on the altar that Saint Anthony Mary Claret said Mass on in that cave. Pelayo who was the great general to resist (he’s buried there) and, it’s in the mountains. Underneath the cave there’s a huge waterfall which I’m sure the soldiers had a good time jumping off and swimming in during their stay there. But this holy monk saw the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary told him that Her protection is over them and that with Her help they will win many battles. And therefore there’s honored there the Virgin of Covadonga, a magnificent statue of Our Lady dressed in beautiful vestments So Pelayo, he gathered together, it says a small band of soldiers, some think up to a thousand, some say as low as three hundred. But whatever the number was it wasn’t very much. And the Muslims were threatening to come in and invade. Pelayo was visited by Bishop Opas; Bishop Opas was a perfect “Vatican II bishop”. He came and he said to the general Pelayo, he shouted out to him at the mouth of the cave, he said “Pelayo,” he shouted out his name. “Pelayo!” Pelayo knew this bishop and he said “Yes Bishop Opas, what do you want?” And Bishop Opas he said “Look, the whole country is Muslim, the whole city has given in, save your life, save your soldiers, and just make a peace treaty with these Muslims and all will go well.”
Pelayo said in these words “And you will try to convince us with your shameless words to abandon our stand and enjoy many benefits alongside the Muslims? All Spain must be Catholic. We will never accept a pagan Spain or compromise with infidels. How could you be so bold as to think we could trust you when you have already betrayed the Catholic banner, the Catholic cause?”
Bishop Opas, the compromiser, he told Pelayo, he said “Don’t worry, the fight is useless. You might as well give up, lay down your weapons. How can you expect to win with a handful against 60,000 trained Muslim soldiers? You’re gonna lose, Pelayo.”
Pelayo then referred to this Gospel of today’s mass. He said “Haven’t you read in Scripture that the Church of the Lord is like the mustard seed, which small as it is grows more than any other through the mercy of God?”
Bishop Opas said to him “But you ought to imitate those who have submitted and escaped slavery and death. You can live. Save your life.”
Pelayo said these great words which still echo from that cave today “Our hope is in Jesus Christ from this mountain will come the salvation of Spain and the people of the Goths. The mercy of Christ will free us from that multitude. Go home, Don Opas, and take this message to the enemy of God.”
The bishop returned to his city and he said “Well I can’t convince these fanatical, crusty, old, doctrinal Pelayo and that monk and all his soldiers.”
This happened in May of the year 722 and in fact the Muslims did invade and the Blessed Virgin Mary helped them. She let loose from heaven a downpour and the Muslim soldiers weren’t used to fighting in mountains, in brush, and especially in torrential rain. So the descriptions of the battle describe Pelayo’s soldiers running through with their swords, running on foot, leaping over the hills and mountains, while the Muslims on their horses were sliding and being slaughtered and being swept away in the torrents from the rain. So Pelayo, it was after that battle, a great battle of a couple days, and through the Virgin Mary they had victory. And he was crowned the first king of Spain. That began in the year 722 up until 1492, seven hundred years of the great history of the Reconquista, for to make Spain Catholic again. Our country is still young and our fight very fresh.
So, we can compare this to our dear Archbishop Lefebvre who when he saw during the Vatican Council the highjacking of the Holy Catholic Church by the enemies of Jesus Christ witnessed before his eyes he saw their expressions, he saw their whispering, he saw the laughter of the liberal bishops when Cardinal Ottaviani was trying, he went over his time, they turned off the speaker and he was in tears, begging the council fathers “Don’t go this direction; it will be the destruction of the faith.” And Archbishop Lefebvre saw these rats, these hyenas, just wreak havoc in the Church. But how did they do it?
There wasn’t a fight. There wasn’t bloodshed in Saint Peter’s Basilica. It was done by the slick pen, by the slick putting in of ambiguous terminology. And we Society priests and bishops we’ve all been warned, we’ve all been trained by Saint Pius X and by our founder Archbishop Lefebvre never use the language of the enemy.
We know like Navy Seals soldiers there’s a certain pattern of the enemy and you never imitate it.
We have been trained and we have been warned—we must never use their terminology. And yet we see recently ambiguous terms being used. We see language that can be interpreted in two ways, the “light of tradition”, “the council is limited”, and “religious liberty is limited”, “the council is not so bad”. I’m not going to go through all the quotes but you can look them up yourself. It’s very, very alarming to us Catholics because language is very important to protect the Catholic doctrine. We have to understand dear faithful the fight is about the faith. It’s not about some legalistic exchange—it is the faith at stake. Archbishop Lefebvre understood this and that’s why he alone against all the bishops, over 2,300 bishops, and Bishop de Castro Mayer with him, later, who stood up and said “We cannot cooperate in the destruction of the Holy Roman Catholic Church.” And thank the Good Lord for Archbishop Lefebvre who inspired great priests like Father Hannafin, who was your pastor here many years ago, and Father Snyder who knew him personally, and so many priests throughout the world who kept the Faith, and faithful who kept the Faith, thanks to Archbishop Lefebvre.
He died in ’91 and our dear Society has been piloted by Bishop Fellay. Bishop Fellay used to speak very clearly. He used to tell us “We can never make a false agreement with Rome. It will be our destruction.”
He warned Campos in the year 2003 “Don’t make a false agreement with Rome. It will be your disaster. It will be a destruction for you.”
Bishop Rifan fell, he made the compromise and now they have the new mass, now they accept Vatican II. Now it’s a mess. It’s very sad. And good priests…Dr. White told us he saw good priests battling for the Faith. And when this agreement happened, even before the agreement, it was prepared, the priests were already accepting “We have to go under Rome, we have to united with Rome.” They did to the destruction of their Faith…why? Because they forgot the great distinction of our holy founder, who by the way, the greatest theologian in the last 150 years. Archbishop Lefebvre made this very simple distinction which is not being heard anymore from the top of our dear Society. And what is that distinction? That Rome, now, is modernist. Rome now is the Conciliar church. It is a new religion which we refuse to follow because we want to remain Catholic. So the modernist Rome, the Conciliar church, must be distinguished from the Eternal Rome, the Catholic Church of all time. And that’s why we don’t have to worry as the Archbishop said “We’re not worried about being outside the Church. We’re not outside the Church.” You hold the same Faith as our fathers. You hold the same doctrine, the same sacraments, the same devotions, and that can’t change. Even if Catholics, said Saint Athanasius, were reduced to a handful they still remain the True Church of Jesus Christ. And as the Virgin Mary at La Salette warned us those days are coming when the Faith will only be found in pockets throughout the world. Farmhouses, families, little missions, little parishes…and we see, we see how this is very possible now. We see this whole new orientation since July of this year that our dear leaders want to make this agreement. They’re saying it’s not going to happen now, it’s not going to happen yet but they want it and that’s what is wrong. We cannot desire a peace treaty with the enemies of Jesus Christ. They are destroying the Faith and taking millions of souls to hell at the hands of bishops and priests, and with great, great sadness by the Pope himself. The Holy Father should hold high the light of the Catholic Faith but what did he do in Assisi just a year ago? You know what he did. Before the whole world, invited an atheist, with all these Buddhists, Muslims, Anglicans, you name it, they were all there. Voodooists. Satanists. An atheist who publicly said “I want to thank Pope Benedict XVI for inviting me to Assisi to represent the non-believers.”
How could the Pope if he had the Catholic Faith and knows the First Commandment, you boys serving Mass, you little boys and kids out there, what’s the First Commandment, you know—There’s only One God and no false gods before Me. And when we see the Pope himself and with his fellow cardinals and bishops, everyone being silent and trampling on Almighty God, the First Commandment, the whole Catholic world should react against this, especially the Society of Saint Pius X! And even there we had a weak resistance which tells you something is seriously wrong from the top. I smell Freemasonry. God knows.
They are saying Benedict XVI is changing. They are saying that things are different than from 1988 in Rome. They are saying that we cannot make a Vatican II superheresies. So we gotta ask three questions:
1.Why did the Society of Saint Pius X get founded in the first place? Why does it exist ?
2. what’s the difference between Rome and the Society of Saint Pius X and this so-called separation of forty-two years now?
And, 3. has Rome really changed ?
First, why the Society of Saint Pius X in the first place, why do we exist ? It’s to protect, to keep, the mustard seed in our souls, so you can save your soul and not go to hell. And what is the first attack at Vatican II—it is an attack leveled at the roots, the Faith itself is attacked. It’s not a question of just changing the vestments and turning the Mass around to face the people. Although that’s bad enough. But it’s the Faith, Jesus Christ, His Divinity, His Kingship, the whole Faith is under attack. And that’s why Archbishop Lefebvre said we cannot go with this and you can, I say, I beg you, don’t just read the great declaration of 1974. Don’t just read it—pray it. Meditate it. Get it in your blood. Because it is our defense. It is our declaration of war against the enemies of Christ. I’ll quote a little bit from it for your patience : We hold fast, with all our heart and with all our soul, to Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth. We refuse, on the other hand, and have always refused to follow the Rome of [here’s the distinction] neo-Modernist and neo-Protestant tendencies which were clearly evident in the Second Vatican Council and, after the Council, in all the reforms which issued from it.
And he goes to describe these reforms rooted in modern philosophy, in liberalism, condemned many years ago by Saint Pius X and Pius IX. And then he goes on to say “No authority” because back then the priests and the faithful were told “You must obey” and the most obedient pastors to their bishops were telling the faithful “I don’t like this new mass, I don’t like it, but I have to obey.” And they obeyed and by the obedience they destroyed many souls and many Catholics lose their faith by false obedience. How many nuns, how many priests, because they were obedient lost their faith, changed their habits, threw out their rosaries and crucifixes, and joined with the world?
"No authority , not even the highest in the hierarchy, can force us to abandon or diminish our Catholic Faith, so clearly expressed and professed by the Church’s Magisterium for nineteen centuries."
And he quotes the great Saint Paul :"But though we or an angel from heaven preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema." Let him be condemned. If a priest, a bishop, even a Pope, preaches a doctrine different than Catholic tradition, don’t listen to him. Keep the faith and oppose. And if you are called disobedient and a rebel and non-conforming “Blessed are you” Our Lord says “when they revile you for My Sake.” You fathers who want to raise your children and keep the faith and you good mothers, we must fight. We have no choice. God put us now in these days and that’s why these priests, these pockets of priests, up to about thirty and more, throughout the world in the Society of Saint Pius X are resisting, are speaking out because we see this terrible calamity on the Society. The Society of Saint Pius X is the last bastion of the Faith. It’s the last framework standing up. It’s the last column of soldiers fighting and if that crumbles we’ll see fire from Heaven very soon. I quote the Archbishop, the declaration ’74: “Is it not this that the Holy Father is repeating to us today? And if we can discern a certain contradiction in his words and deeds, as well as in those of the dicasteries, well we choose what was always taught and we turn a deaf ear to the novelties destroying the Church.” And then he goes on, and he says right in the middle, what we should be doing, what our dear Bishop Fellay should be preaching at every place he visits, he should be repeating these words over and over again. Here they are: “The only attitude of faithfulness to the Church and Catholic doctrine, in view of our salvation, is a categorical refusal to accept this Reformation.”
And that also means any soft-worded agreements that will move us to take an agreement, to come under these destroyers of the Faith. Bishop Fellay used to speak strongly . Maybe we haven’t sanctified our soul enough, maybe we haven’t done enough penance to allow this to happen for our leaders. So, why the SSPX? The Faith first. Then the priesthood, then salvation of the true Mass, and then to save your souls.
So, second question, what’s the difference between Rome and the SSPX that there’s been this separation for forty years ? Well it’s very clear the Archbishop told Cardinal Ratzinger who was this Pope now, he told him in very clear words. He didn’t try to use confusing language to make Rome smile and think we think like them. It’s not true. He was very clear. Here’s what he told the cardinal: “You are working to de-Christianize society. You are working to uncrown Christ the King, the human person in the Church. And we, the Society of Saint Pius X and traditional Catholics throughout the world we are working to Christianize them. We cannot get along together. Rome has lost the Faith, my dear friends, Rome is in apostasy. I am not speaking empty words; that is the truth.”
And the proof of Rome’s loss of the Faith, he almost hit it every week, this Pope has visited a mosque, in 2006 faced Mecca, did not make the sign of the cross, he took his shoes off and faced Mecca, praying with those Muslims. A horrible scandal, going into a mosque, to synagogues, praying with the Jews, who refuse Jesus Christ. The Jews reject Jesus Christ. And we cannot pray with the Jews; we must pray for the Jews to convert to Jesus Christ. This Pope, all his efforts towards ecumenism, Assisi III of course, which was a disaster, worse than Assisi I and Assisi II because he appears as the “conservative Pope” and deceiving many. And many think because he released the Tridentine Mass that’s he’s a conservative and he’s making gestures towards tradition. It’s not true. It’s very subtle, very sneaky.
He expressed at the beginning of his pontificate as John Vennari put in his Catholic Family News that quote in his headlines that he has successfully made traditional communities fall towards Vatican II. And they’re working at us causing division, by causing dissention, by ambiguous terminology, by pulling the leaders towards this false agreement. And Rome doesn’t want the Faith right now. It has not changed. Rome has not changed. In the name of religious liberty they have tore off from Catholic countries, from Columbia, Spain, Ireland, Philippines in ’92, Italy in 1984, tore off, ripped out Jesus Christ from the constitutions. And this promoted by the Vatican itself. And then a year ago in October two weeks after Assisi the Vatican called for a one-world government, a one-world authority, a one-world banking system. What does that sound like? Saint Pius X said a hundred years ago that the Anti-Christ is not far off. And when the men of the church are preparing [for] him, that is very frightening.
So the difference is the Faith. That’s what separates us from Modern Rome. We want to keep the Catholic Faith; they want to destroy it. And nothing has changed. Has Rome changed ? Absolutely not.
This is Dom Flichtman, a Benedictine in Brazil, a friend of Dom Thomas Aquinas. He said these words “I said in 1988 to Dom Gerard what I repeated to you today. Thousands of faithful anxiously wait for you, Dom Gerard [who made a compromise and agreement with Rome in 1988 and they accepted the new mass five years later]. We wait for you to confirm them in the Catholic Faith in the combat that Divine Providence requires of us without our succumbing to fatigue, weakness, or the siren song of legality. What Our Lord requires is, this is for us, all of us, what Our Lord requires is martyrdom, endured drop by drop, and a clear and simple profession of the Catholic Faith, without compromising with the modernists in the Vatican. The Pope, yes. Legality, yes. But above all, respond to God’s clear call to the combat of the Faith.”
The day the Pope really converts there will appear more clearly than the light of day obviously, it’s not by kissing the Koran and by going to pray in a mosque that he manifests this conversion. And we await, we pray, we fight for the conversion of Rome. That has not happened. It is far, far from it and that’s why now dear faithful and Society priests must speak out . And the Virgin Mary complained in Quito, she warned about these days:
“And the sanctuary light will be extinguished When the faith would be lost at the very highest parts of the church and many, many souls would be lost and virginity, purity will be almost unknown”, she said. “Priests will be worldly and not speak out against error.” She says this three times in the apparitions “Priests will not speak out when they should speak out.” And bishops. This is why this situation now. We have to speak out against a false compromise. We must speak up for all the Popes of tradition. Us priests are bound by our Anti-Modernist Oath to speak out , to uphold the position of our dear founder against the slippery compromise, and the steps thereto.
Already silencing is taking place. Fewer sermons speaking against Vatican II, against modernism, against liberalism. The sheep are being invaded by the wolves. Whose fault will it be? It will be the priests who did not speak up.
And you dear faithful, it’s not your place to preach from pulpits, I know. But you fathers, you teach in your home. Foster the Faith, first by example, by the love and cherishing of your dear wife, not to talk down at her like a rug. Hold her high and you’ll teach your boys how to respect and how to love properly the woman who is being torn down to the mud today. The father has to set this example. The good mother is you, foster the Faith in your home by loving obedience, by your cheerful teaching of the Faith in the smallest things. Johnny scratches his knee, teach him the children of Fatima’s secret to sanctity—offer it to God for souls. So simple. And to see all in the eyes of the Faith. Make the Mass the heart of our life and the Catechism to teach it but not in a boring way but in a way to each child, adaptable for them to comprehend and to absorb and memorize and get it in their heart and blood.
So let us turn to the Virgin Mary to surrender the garden of our souls to her, that she weed out our sins, help us root out our sins, and especially guard against false ideas, false liberal ideas, that why you have to read the Archbishop Lefebvre. Read the encyclicals of the great Popes so that the mustard seed in our soul may grow. In your soul, virtue and the charity of God might grow. The Church, the Catholic Church, which will revive again after whatever chastisement God unleashes on this wicked world that mocks Him. The Church will revive. That little mustard seed that you are guarding and taking care of now will blossom again, and the Catholic Church will blossom again with martyrs, with saints, and good and holy mothers and fathers and children.
Let’s keep our rosary everyday. That is our weapon in these days.
O Mary conceived without sin pray for us who have recourse to thee.
O Mary conceived without sin pray for us who have recourse to thee.
O Mary conceived without sin pray for us who have recourse to thee.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen.
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| Fr . Hewko: Ambiguous Language is the Devil's Quicksand |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 08:30 PM - Forum: Rev. Father David Hewko
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Ambiguous Language - The Devil's Quicksand
by Fr. David Hewko
"And the Light shineth in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it" (St. Jn. I:5).
When the Divine Saviour stood surrounded by the pharasaical pack of wolves as they tried to catch Him in His speech, Our Lord answered them, "If I say the truth to you, why do you not believe Me?...I speak to you, and you believe not: the works that I do in the name of My Father, they give testimony of Me. But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep" (St. Jn. X:25). St. Paul calls Our Lord "Splendor Gloriae";The Brightness of the Father's Glory" (Heb. I:3) in Whom "there is no change, nor shadow of alteration," nor confusion. The Holy Ghost relegates the state of confusion to the enemies of God "who loveth and maketh a lie" as a punishment for obstinately refusing the Light of the Truth (Apoc. XXI).
"Ambiguous" means something that can be interpreted in two ways. When such language is used in matters of the Faith it causes immense confusion! St. Pius X in his Encyclical "Pascendi" exposes the tactic of the Modernist clergy who resort to ambiguous language in order to introduce their wicked novelties. He condemns such deliberate craftiness meant to muddle the meaning of any doctrine, or worse,lead to the loss of Faith!
Such deviant tactics triumphed in all the documents of Vatican II, as Abp. Lefebvre himself witnessed and Michael Davies treated in his "Liturgical Timebombs." Abp. Lefebvre refers to this during the course of the Liberal Council when the Modernist, Schillebeeckx himself, wrote, "We know very well what we are doing in having EQUIVOCAL PHRASES in the schemas of the Council. We shall proceed from there AFTER the Council" [Emphasis mine]. Recently an arch-Modernist, Cardinal Kasper, testified to this deliberate use of double speech in the Council documents. He said, "In many places the [Council Fathers] had to find COMPROMISE FORMULAS, in which, often the positions of the majority are located immediately next to those of the minority, designed to delimit them. Thus, the Conciliar texts themselves have a huge potential for conflict, open the door to a selective reception IN EITHER DIRECTION" [Emphasis mine].
Ambiguous language is the friendly atmosphere for heresies and Modernism ("the synthesis of all heresies" - St. Pius X) to take root and grow. That is why the Catholic Church in Her Tradition vigorously defends Scholasticism, St. Thomas Aquinas' philosophy and theology, and the "unevolving" language of Latin. For clergy, faithful to Tradition, clarity of doctrine is crucial in this Combat for the Faith and nothing can be more repulsive and abhorrent to the Catholic mind than the use of ambiguous language. It has no place in the writings, documents or sermons of any Catholic, especially priests and bishops,....and popes!
St. Athanasius saw the entire Catholic Faith hinge on one Greek dipthong! The entire future of the survival of the Catholic Faith hung on two letters! "Homoousion" meant: "Christ is of ONE SUBSTANCE with the Father" (i.e.: "Consubstantial"); and the heretical: "Homoiousion" of Fr. Arius could be interpreted in two different ways, Catholic or heretical. Either "Christ is of ONE SUBSTANCE, or, of LIKE SUBSTANCE with the Father." How many Martyrs died to defend the Truth of the clear Catholic doctrine of "Homoousion"! Words, like the glass that holds the wine, hold the meaning of things. If the glass is shattered or cracked, the wine is lost. So too, misuse of words can shatter or change the meanings of words.
Let us come to the facts of the present crisis in Tradition. At the time of the Second Vatican Council, the Liberals had to invent loopholes in the documents to attain their desire for the Church to compromise and "be accepted" by the world. Is it no less true that Liberal minds in Tradition wanted to compromise clarity of language in order to"become more acceptable" by the Conciliar Church? It became official in July, 2012 with a whole new orientation towards "normalization" with Modernist Rome. Ignoring the warnings and direction of the Founder (who has the special grace of state as "Founder"!), the Society of St. Pius X leaders had to re-define "conversion of Rome", make a false separation between "principles of prudence" and "principles of the Faith" in applying the questions of canonical normalization with Modernist Rome, and utilize ambiguous language to advance their goals. To demonstate this, try figuring out what some of these quoted texts and interviews actually mean:
1. "Many things which we would have condemned as being from the Council are in fact not from the Council, but the common understanding of it.... The Council is presenting a religious liberty which is in fact a very, very limited one. A very limited one. It would mean our talks with Rome, they clearly said that to mean that there would be a right to error or right to choose each religion, is false." (Superior General CNS Interview May 2012).
2. "As for the Council, when they asked me the question, 'Does Vatican II belong to Tradition?'" I answered, "I would like to hope that that is the case." (Superior General, DICI 6-8-12)
[align=justify][color=#1b1919][size=medium]3. "Tradition is the LIVING transmission of revelation "usque ad nos" and the Church in it's doctrine, in its life and in its liturgy perpetuates and transmits to all generations what this is and what She believes. Tradition PROGRESSES in the Church with the assistance of the Holy Ghost, not as a contrary novelty, but through a better understanding of the Deposit of the Faith" (Doctrinal Preamble, III, [Emphasis mine]
4."The entire tradition of Catholic Faith must be the criterion and guide in understanding the teaching of the, SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, which, in turn, ENLIGHTENS - in other words DEEPENS and subsequently makes explicit - certain aspects of the life and doctrine of the Church implicitly present within itself or NOT YET CONCEPTUALLY FORMULATED" ( Doctrinal Preamble, III, 4). [Emphasis mine]
5."We declare that we recognize the validity of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Sacraments...LEGITIMATELY promulgated by Popes Paul VI and John-Paul II" (Doctrinal Preamble III,7) [Emphasis mine].
6."Concerning the reply I sent to Rome...from what I gather from private sources, I have the impression it is acceptable. Amongst ourselves, I think it will have to be explained properly because there are (in this document) expressions or declarations which are so very much on a tight rope that if you do not have a positive mind or if you are wearing black or pink glasses, YOU WILL SEE IT AS ONE WAY OR THE OTHER. So we shall have to properly explain that this letter changes absolutely nothing of our position. But, if one wants to read the letter in a crooked way, it will be possible to understand this letter the wrong way"(SSPX Superior General, Birgnoles, May 2012 - Nouvelles de Chretiente no. 135).
7. "It should be noted, by the way, that we have not sought a practical agreement. That is untrue. We have not refused 'a priori', to consider, as you ask, the Pope's offer. For the common good of the Society, we should prefer by far the current solution of an intermediary 'status quo', but clearly, Rome is not going to tolerate it any longer" (Superior General & Two Assistants, letter dated April 14, 2012). N.B.: The Doctrinal Preamble for a practical agreement was sent the next day!
How is it possible that those trained to refute Modernism and denounce the tactics of the modernists could possibly resort to using those very same means to attain their new goal; to be "recognized as we are" and have "justice done" to unjust penalties? What happened to the primacy of THE FAITH? Whatever happened to "no agreement until Rome converts to Tradition"? What happened to Abp. Lefebvre's proof for the moment of Rome's conversion, namely, the professing of all the papal teachings and condemnations from the Council of Trent down to Pius XII's "Humani Generis"? A few "crumbs of acknowledgement" to some aspects of Tradition are far from proofs of Rome's conversion! "Summorum Pontificum" and the so called "lifting" of excommunications that never existed, are mere tactics and maneuvers, as Abp. Lefebvre himself named other supposed moves on the part of the Holy See, and are none other than attempts to swing the SSPX into the Conciliar Church. Again and again, the proof is in the consequences of all the Traditional Catholic communities that made agreements with Rome. The proof lies in the Roman authorities unwavering adherence to Vatican II!
Have the men of Tradition forgotten the Divine Words of the only Savior; "Take up your cross daily and follow Me?" Have the defenders of the Deposit of Faith grown weary in the long battle?
"When those chosen to defend the Faith don't want to carry this cross, and choose to exchange resistance and self-sacrifice for compromise and "recognition" in the name of a "utopian unity", then, what happens to Truth? What happens to the only True Faith? What happens to the souls?
"The Doctrinal Preamble of April 15, 2012, OFFICIALLY signed and submitted to Rome by the Society superiors, is a testimony of the willingness to surrender the Fight for the Faith through explicit expressions of ambiguity. This ambiguity (similar to the practice of freemasons, moranos and enemy infiltrators) justifies the SSPX Resistance! The facts speak for themselves. Ever since the General Chapter Statement & 6 Conditions, the Letter of Response to the 3 Bishops (April 14, 2012), and the notorious Doctrinal Preamble, there has been a weakening of doctrine, loss of souls and confusion. The crisis becomes more severe. Clarification becomes essential!" (Dom Daniel Joaquim Maria de Santana, FBVM).
"Affirm the Truth!" the Archbishop used to tell the young priests. Why? Because, as Bishop Williamson used to say, "The Truth stands on its own." St. John calls it "the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith!" (1 Jn. V:4) It is not ours to change or modernize, nor does it come from us, but it is the Sacred Deposit that must be handed down from generation to generation ("tradere" means "to hand down", in Latin, from which "tradition" is derived). Is this not the glory of Catholic Tradition, that, like it's sacred Founder Himself, is always the same, victorious over devils and men, over heresies, and always beautiful? "Jesus Christ, yesterday, and today; and the same forever!" (Heb XIII:8)
"It is on the battlefield of Doctrine that the battles are won or lost, and what decides the future," said the great Cardinal Pie of Poitiers. If the Society recovers its former clear defense of Catholic doctrine, which, in turn, demands the public rejection and repudiation of the compromising language used in recent documents and interviews, then God may let the "pilot light" carry on. If not, it will continue the path of compromise towards the open jaws of Conciliar modernism and "official recognition" at the price of the unambiguous Truth and countless souls! What then? ...Our Lord put it this way, "I say to you, that if these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out!" (St. Lk. XIX: 40) The Faith will be kept, even if its reduced to a handful!
Let the great Abp. Lefebvre have the final word about liberals and their love of ambiguous words - the Devil's quicksand!
"Catholic liberals have kept on saying that their will for Tradition is equivalent to that of most intransigent persons. The compromise they have sought is not theoretical but practical....They always come back to this reasoning. They are telling us: 'See, we are shepherds. We accept the reality, we are concrete people, we are practical!' But what is this practice? The practice is the implementation of principles with the help of the virtue of prudence, it is nothing other than that.
"What is the practice when the principles are missing?...'Yes, yes, yes, we agree, we share the same Credo, et cetera. Yes, but when we find ourselves in the world, then one must adjust oneself to the level of the others, one must live with the others, if not, you will never convert others.' To say this is a total error!...Popes have perceived the danger of those Catholics that are elusive because they claim, when one wants to corner them: 'No, no, I agree.' But afterwards, they come to terms with the enemies of the Church...they are traitors...more dreadful than avowed enemies...they divide the minds, destroy unity, weaken strengths that, instead, should be all together coordinated against the enemy...You will be told that it is you who cause division, but it is not possible to divide when one abides in the Truth...those who divide are those who try to diminish the Truth in order to find agreement with everyone...Those who have it wrong must convert to the Truth and should not try to find common grounds between Truth and error..." (Abp. Lefebvre, Spiritual Conference, Econe, Jan. 1974).
Source: The Recusant
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| Fr. Hewko: 2012 Letter - "Change of Doctrine? Where? |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 08:18 PM - Forum: Rev. Father David Hewko
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"Change of Doctrine...? Where...?"
+ PAX +
July 24, 2012
St. Christina, Virgin & Martyr
Dear N., Dear N.,
As N. remarked in his letter, the Second Vatican Council’s great success for the Revolution was in the ambiguous documents.
The same success was accomplished in the Society by ambiguous phrases found in the CNS Interview on May 11, 2012, DICI Interview on June 7, 2012, the General Chapter Statement & Six Conditions of July 14, 2012, the April 15, 2012 D O C T R I N A L Declaration and the June 27, 2013 Declaration.
The change of doctrine is found directly or indirectly in the texts of the above documents & interviews. The new doctrines are:
1. The errors of the Council are surmountable, open to discussion and not really from the Council, “but from the general interpretation of the Council.”
2. Religious Liberty and Ecumenism are surmountable and “limited”. The new, erudite wording fails to condemn these heresies as the pre-Vatican II popes had done, and treats them as occasions of error rather than condemned errors that DIRECTLY attack Christ the King and the Faith.
3. The New Mass is now declared to be “legitimately promulgated” which is equivalent to calling it a legitimate Mass. (See talk of Fr. De La Rocque on May 18, 2012, proving this). This compromise has lead many other groups to accept and celebrate the New Mass. At best, the new Declaration charges the New Mass as “diminishing” Christ’s Reign, it also “curtails” and “obscures” the Sacrificial nature of the Mass, rather than saying that, in fact, it directly ATTACKS and UNDERMINES by omission, these essential qualities of the Mass, which Cardinals Bacci, Oddi and Ottaviani’s Study proves. Furthermore, since “how one prays expresses how one believes” (“lex orandi lex credendi”), for the SSPX to acknowledge as legitimately promulgated a way of prayer that fundamentally attacks what Catholics must believe, is to call that which attacks and undermines the Catholic Doctrine a legitimate prayer, pleasing to God!
4. Consequently, the New Rites and New Sacraments are also considered valid and legitimate. Where does this put our conditional Confirmations and Ordinations?
5. The New Code is accepted, with no distinctions. The New Code is penetrated with the errors and heresies of Vatican II, which must also be implicitly approved by accepting the New Code.
6. The new ecclesiology of recognizing the Conciliar Church as ONE with the Catholic Church of all time is now taught. Abp. Lefebvre always recognized the pope is head of TWO churches, as a result of the crisis; the Conciliar Church by his Modernism, and the Catholic Church by his lawful authority. Faithful Catholics are obliged to acknowledge him and resist him, simultaneously. This state of the Pope’s right to our disobedience exists until Rome returns to Tradition!
7. The acceptance of Vatican II as “enlightening” and “deepening” Tradition as well as admitting that there are doctrines “not yet conceptually formulated” as part of the “living transmission” of the Faith, constitutes a betrayal and unacceptable compromise of the Faith that every Catholic is bound to resist!
This answers your question: “Change of Doctrine? Where?” Vatican II & its Reforms attack the doctrines on:
– The One True Church
– The Social Reign of O. L. Jesus Christ
– The Eternal Priesthood of O. L. Jesus Christ & the priesthood
– The Union of Church and State
– The true and false notions of Liberty & Human Dignity
– The Monarchical Structure of the Papacy
– Outside of the Catholic Church, No Salvation
– The Sacrifice of the Mass
– The 7 Sacraments and their Institution
– The Faith as a whole! (since Modernism is the “synthesis of all heresies” and permeates the entire texts of the Council).
To say “the affirmations of Vatican II…must be understood in the light of the whole, uninterrupted Tradition” as Bp. Fellay does, is to admit a blatant CONTRADICTION! Why? “…Because I do NOT believe that the Declarations of the Council on Liberty of Conscience, Liberty of Thought, and Liberty of Religion can be compatible with what the Popes taught in the past! Therefore we have to choose. Either we choose what the Popes have taught for centuries and we choose the Church OR we choose what was said by the Council. BUT WE CANNOT CHOOSE BOTH AT THE SAME TIME SINCE THEY ARE CONTRADICTORY” (Abp. Lefebvre, Press Conference, Sept. 15, 1976; in a special issue of “Itineraires”, April 1977, p.299).
8. The lies continue perpetrating that “nothing has changed” while the doctrinal compromises, listed above, exist in official documents, officially sent to Rome, in an official capacity! Remember, La Barroux, Campos, Good Shepherd Institute, etc., all boasted that “nothing has changed” and they maintained the right to criticize Modernism & Vat. II! All of them have compromised AFTER their agreements with Modernist Rome. The only difference for the SSPX is that the compromise came BEFORE the written agreement!
9. Tactics are the same as all Revolutionaries; two steps forward, one step back. “…But the annoying thing is that the Liberals themselves practiced this system in the text of the schemas: assertion of an error or an ambiguity or a dangerous orientation, then immediately after or before, an assertion in the opposite direction, intended to tranquillize the conservative conciliar fathers” (Abp. Lefebvre, They Have Uncrowned Him, ch. 24,p.168).
10. All the above new doctrines are further confirmed by the silencings, punishments, threats, refusals of Holy Communion, punitive transfers, canonical monitions and expulsions for all those who openly oppose the new doctrines and orientation expressed by the Superior General and official documents.
Moreover, the fact that the Resistance is not a reaction specified to one location, but all over the world, shows it is a universal problem of the FAITH! The 3 bishops, on April 7, 2012, tried to alarm and warn Bp. Fellay, but they were rebuked and ignored. The fruits of the new doctrines have since appeared, as they had forewarned: division, loss of Faith, confusion and loss of trust in the SSPX authorities.
Even if, by a sudden change of mind, a truly solid, Traditional Catholic Declaration appeared from Menzingen tomorrow, it would still not undo the scandal and compromise of the Faith in the official documents expressing the SSPX’s new position! As Fr. Girourd remarked, it would take an equally serious General Chapter and Statement publicly denouncing, rejecting and correcting the scandalous compromises and errors against the Faith, found in the official documents and interviews since early 2012.
The Society would have to simply reaffirm the clear position and mission of its Founder, as before the “Vatican II-B” in July, 2012, and obviously replace the leadership with non Liberals.
“In practice our attitude should be based on a previous discernment, rendered necessary by these extraordinary circumstances of a Pope [or Superior General (addition, mine)] won to Liberalism. This discernment is this: when the Pope says something that is consistent with Tradition, we follow him; when he says something that goes contrary to our Faith, then we cannot follow him! The fundamental reason for this is that the Church, the Pope, and the hierarchy are AT THE SERVICE OF THE FAITH. It is not they who make the Faith; they must serve it. The Faith is not being created, it is unchangeable, it is transmitted.
“This is why we cannot follow these acts of these Popes that are done with the goal of confirming an action that goes against Tradition: by that very act WE WOULD BE COLLABORATING IN THE AUTODEMOLITION OF THE CHURCH, in the destruction of our Faith!
“…Someone once advised me, ‘Sign, sign, that you accept everything; and then you continue as before!’ (The May 5, 1988 Protocol). NO! ONE DOES NOT PLAY WITH HIS FAITH!” (Abp. Lefebvre, They Have Uncrowned Him, ch. 31, p.229).
I hope this answers your question. How we must pray to the Immaculate Heart to hasten Her hour!
In Christ the King,
Fr. David Hewko
Source: The Recusant
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| Fr. Hewko: 2012 Ordination Sermon |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 08:09 PM - Forum: Fr. Hewko's Sermons, Catechisms, & Conferences
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+ + +
Sermon given by Fr. David Hewko at the First Mass of a newly ordained Priest
Winona, 17th June, 2012
This day is a great joy for the Catholic Church, a great joy for the family of Fr. Reuter and all the families of the priests today offering their first Masses. What a great grace, what a great happiness for the Catholic Church of all time, the Catholic Church of Tradition!
Ten years ago on June 29th, Fr. Reuter and I were there present for the death of Fr. John of the Cross, who was a model monk and priest. He taught us many things. He said many things. Among some of the pearls of wisdom he left us was, “monks (and we could add priests and probably nuns, too), monks, when they’re young they look holy, but they’re not. And when they’re middle aged, they don’t look holy, and they’re not. And when they’re old and bent over and feeble, they don’t look holy, but they are!” And that defines the life of holiness. It’s an everyday battle for the sanctification of our own soul as priests. To drink everyday from the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ, the King; there we draw our strength. And to fulfill the one request, as Bishop Sheen says, the one request He asked of His priests… and, Fr. Reuter, I am sure you probably do already, and I encourage you to do this your whole priestly life; aside also from your Breviary, which is very powerful; aside also from the Holy Mass you will offer every day, is the Holy Hour. “Will you not spend one hour with Me?” And it’s there you will find your light, your strength, your wisdom, your romance, your love, your death, your glory. Because Jesus Christ the King dwells there for us in the Blessed Sacrament. And for the priest and for all religious and for the faithful that is our strength!
And this shows the outpouring of the love of God. “Deus caritas est,” says St. John. “God is Charity.” And He pours out His love to souls like a second flood, over the human race, to drown us, as it were, in the incredible love of God. He gives us today a beautiful day, the sun, the gravity, the planets in perfect mathematical circulation. He gives us the air we breathe. And He gives us His life in our soul by grace and gives us His own Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity in the Holy Eucharist, a great Treasure. And this is the great motto of our Founder, Archbishop Lefebvre,
credidimus Caritati - we have believed in Charity.
And you good fathers and good mothers, you know, as you grow spiritually, you know what this means. Charity is in sacrifice. The life of a priest is a continual self giving. “He is an eaten man,” says St. John Vianney. The sisters and our dear brothers and monks submit to a Holy Rule, and through this, and their sacred vows, they become sanctified. And their life is the life of Charity, to be crucified as a victim with Jesus on the Altar, out of love for Him. So this is the real love. It’s not the love as many Novus Ordo bishops today are preaching in many churches throughout the world, l-u-v, a false charity; that we must acknowledge all the false religions, we must embrace the Jews and the Protestants and Lutherans and have ecumenical services. This is not the true Charity, not at all! That has been condemned by the Church.
Christ tells us, “My sheep hear My voice.” My voice. Whose voice is that? It’s the voice of God Himself, Jesus Christ the Eternal God made flesh, the King, the High Priest. And that voice, how do we know the truth, the knowledge, with all the tidal wave of confusion, with all the lies? Where do we find, where do we hear the Truth? Where do we go? Archbishop Lefebvre gives us the answer when he gave the Episcopal Consecrations in 1988. He said in his sermon, “I hear the voices of all these popes since Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII, telling us, ‘What will you do with our teachings? What will you do with the Catholic Faith? Are you going to abandon it? Do not abandon the Church.’” “And what we,” then he said, “what we condemned in the past, the present Roman authorities have embraced and are professing.” The condemnations, where are these condemnations? Socialism, Liberalism, Communism, Modernism, Zionism, they’ve all been condemned. And all the modern errors. And he said in his sermon, “I hear these voices echoing the voice of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, echoing the voice of the Blessed Trinity, ‘Do something about it or all will be lost! Souls will be lost!’” And that defines the fight that we’re in.
Let me give a quote from the Archbishop himself. “And it is striking to see,” this is three years after the consecrations, “it is striking to see how our fight is now exactly the same fight as was being fought then by the great Catholics of the nineteenth century in the wake of the French Revolution. And by the popes, Pius VI, Pius VII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, Pius IX, Leo XIII, and so on, Pius X, down to Pius XII, their fight is summed up in the Encyclical, Quanta Qura, with the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX, and Pascendi of Pius X. These are the two great documents, sensational and shocking in their day, laying out the Church’s teaching in the face of the modern errors, the errors appearing in the course of the Revolution, especially the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This is the fight we are in in the middle of today. Exactly the same fight.”
And Fr. Reuter, that’s why I am addressing you as a priest of the Society of St. Pius X. This is the founder speaking, this is our father speaking, echoing the words of the infallible authority of the constant Magisterium of the Catholic Church. And as you know, the enemy is always about, and he seeks to destroy the Spouse of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church. Listen to Mr. Prelot in his book, Liberal Catholicism. He was a senator in France. In 1969 he wrote this. Listen to his words, “We struggled for a century and a half to make our ideas prevail inside the Church, and we did not succeed. Then came the Second Vatican Council, and we triumphed. Ever since, the theses and principles of liberal Catholicism have been definitively and officially accepted by the Holy Church.”
What are these principles that the Freemasons since the French Revolution have so brazenly and boldly raised up in the Declaration of the Rights of Man against the Rights of God? What are these, summed up? Archbishop Lefebvre speaks about them all the time. Read his books, read his sermons to keep clear in this confusion of our times. And he sums them up into three: Religious liberty. Religious liberty, which is a very serious sin, a very striking, bold attack against Jesus Christ in His Kingship in society. And it is not small. This error is huge. And it’s been condemned by the Church over and over and over again. And it triumphed at Vatican II. And in the name of religious liberty, you realize, dear faithful, dear Fathers, what happened in the name of religious liberty. Small effects? No. The smashing , literally the smashing of the great Catholic countries. One by one they fell. And it was the Vatican itself who made the political moves to tear off the crown of Jesus Christ, to tear off the Catholic constitution of Ireland, Spain, Colombia, Philippines, just to name a few, and Italy in 1984. And do you realize what this means? It means the flooding in of the false religions. That means the state cannot profess the True Religion, cannot acknowledge Jesus Christ as King. And this is, as Archbishop Lefebvre often, very often said, repeating the popes of all time, this is public apostasy. This is putting Man in the place of God.
And Fr. Reuter, this is our fight, this is it: To stand opposed to the whole wave of apostasy, standing on the rock-solid shoulders of the great popes. We have nothing to fear, nothing to worry about. There’s no confusion in their encyclicals, that’s for sure.
Also, what else triumphed in the Vatican Council was ecumenism. The false ecumenism which is prevalent today, prevalent today! Listen to a high-up Freemason in France. He said, “One can say that ecumenism is the legitimate son of Freemasonry. Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Israelites, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Freethinkers, Free-believers, to us they are only our first name. Freemasonry is our family name.”
And, of course, collegiality. Collegiality is the democracy within the Church. And the principle of religious freedom, that is, freedom of conscience, but the error is: “I can believe what I darn well please and still go to Heaven.” That’s condemned by the Catholic Church, by Jesus Christ Himself. “Who does not believe and is not baptized will be condemned.” Christ is not an option. He is our God, He is our King, He is our Redeemer and there is no other!
And that is why Archbishop Lefebvre very clearly said we have to reject the Vatican Council in her errors. And the errors are not small, little misconceived values. They are errors condemned by the Roman Catholic Church of all time with no ambiguity and with very clear and strong language. For example, the popes will call religious liberty “insanity.” St. Pius X will call it “delirium.” And listen to our Founder again, listen to him, because his words still ring true:
“What have the liberal Catholics been seeking for a century and a half? To make a marriage between the Church and the Revolution.” And this, Bishop Tissier mentioned at the ordinations two days ago. “To wed the Church and subversion. To wed the Church and the forces that destroy society, all societies, families, civil and religious. This wedding of the Church is described in the Council. Take the schema, Gaudium et Spes; that’s a Vatican II document.” So let nobody tell you it’s just a false interpretation or an exaggerated interpretation after the Council. The errors are built right into the Council. And if you have any doubts on that, read I Accuse the Council, by Archbishop Lefebvre. “It is necessary,” says the document, “to marry the principles of the Church with the conceptions of modern man. What does that mean? That means that it is necessary to wed the Church, the Catholic Church, the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ with principles that are contrary to this Church, that undermine it and which have always been against the Church. Precisely it is this marriage that was attempted in the Council by men of the Church and not the Church. For the Church can never permit such a thing. For a century and a half, all the Sovereign Pontiffs have condemned liberal Catholicism, have refused this marriage with the ideas of the Revolution, those who adored the goddess of reason. The popes had never been able to accept such things.”
“And during this Revolution priests were sent to the scaffold, their heads chopped off. Nuns were persecuted and also executed. Remember the pontoons of Nantes in France where faithful priests were assembled onto boats and were then sunk to drown. That is what the revolution did. And well, dear brethren what the revolution did is nothing compared to what the Second Vatican Council is doing, nothing! It would have been better for the thirty, forty, or fifty thousand priests who have left their cassocks and violated their vows and their oaths made before God; it would have been better for them to have been martyred or sent to the scaffold. At least they would have saved their souls!”
And Archbishop Lefebvre is consistent always, every decade, every year in the battle for the Faith. So read, read what he says. And Fr. Reuter, deep in your mind, deep in your soul, already in the seminary the good priests here have trained you in all the great doctrines of our Holy Faith. And you know the acts of the Magisterium. You know these great encyclicals. You studied them. And now you must meditate on them, pray on them!
And all of us, all of us, as we were told in the seminary and Archbishop Lefebvre himself admitted it, “I was a liberal, I believed in separation of Church and State, I believed in the modern errors.” We’re all liberals in some way. We’ve got to wash it out, we’ve got to soak it out, we’ve got to fight it out, dig it out, pull it out every day. It’s in us, it’s in our blood, it’s in our society, it permeates, as Gregory XVI said, like a black fog out of Hell, the smoke seen by St. John in the Apocalypse has spread all over the earth which are the liberal errors of Modernism, Communism, Socialism, and all those errors.
Three times Archbishop Lefebvre said in the sermon of the Consecrations, “We have to wait. We have to fight on and wait until Tradition finds its rightful place in Rome.” Three times he said this. Now I ask you, dear faithful, dear Fathers, and all of you, do we see Tradition back in Rome? Go down to your local diocese, go down to your local parish church. Has Tradition come back, with all the charismatic dancing and altar girls and irreverence and sacrileges and goofy priests saying goofy things? Is that Tradition come back?
And let’s look at Rome. And let’s look (obviously with respect and with filial respect and love even), at the Holy Father, the Pope. We are not sedevacantists. He is the pope. He is our father. But like a president, he can be a ‘so-and-so’ but he is still the president. And the pope is the Holy Father, he is. He’s the Vicar of Christ. But what are his actions? What have you seen? Everyday there is something new. And we can’t be deceived by the pro multis, a few crumbs to Tradition. When he visited the mosque, he took his socks off, faced Mecca. He has visited the Jews’ synagogues over and over again. The meeting of Assisi, the horrible scandal of Assisi. And Archbishop Lefebvre said about the spirit of Assisi, we must reject this because it will undermine our Faith, undermine the Faith of your families and your children. The spirit of Assisi is this ecumenical spirit, based on the instructions of the Council of Vatican II. You’ll find it right in the texts.
And lest we be deceived, dear faithful, lest we be deceived, I have in my hands the Summorum Pontificum. Now I was a little naïve, too. When this came out, I thought, well, that’s great, the Latin Mass is finally freed; it’s been declared that it’s never been abrogated. This is great! But then I read the text and it’s quite shocking. And, Catholics, we have to oppose the errors in here. Yes, it is a concession, it is a concession. The Latin Mass is free, no one can hinder the priest from saying it. But listen to a few words of this. “It must be said that the Missal published by Paul VI,” that is, the New Mass, made with the help of six Protestant ministers, written by a Freemason, which attacks the Kingship of Christ, attacks the Real Presence, and as Fr. Zigrane told me, (he is a priest of the Galveston diocese, a Canon lawyer for fourteen years; he joined the Society of St. Pius X down in our priory in Texas).
Fr. Zigrane told me the New Mass is most dangerous to the priest himself, to make him lose his Faith. And here’s what it says, “This Mass of Paul VI obviously is and continues to be the [/size]normal form, the [size=large]ordinary form of the Eucharistic Liturgy. The last version of the Missale Romanum prior to the Council (that’s our Mass, the Tridentine Mass) and used during the Council will now be able to be used as an extraordinary form of the liturgical celebration.” In other words, it is okay to be used and we’ll tolerate it. It’s not hindered anymore. It never was. “It is not appropriate to speak of these two versions of the Roman Missal as if they were “two Rites.” Rather, it is a matter of a twofold use of the one and the same rite.” You can’t mix water and oil.
I read out a little more, “The new Missal will certainly remain, (the New Mass) will certainly remain the form of the Roman Rite not only on account of the juridical norm but also because of the actual situation of the communities of the faithful.” What if the faithful have lost their Faith and the priests have misled them all these years since the Second Vatican Council? And they want bands and rock music and bouncing and dancing. That’s what the democracy wants. And I finish here, “There is no contradiction,” he says, (this is the Holy Father), “there is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal.” No contradiction? What are the fruits? Archbishop Lefebvre said look at the fruits! You know, one time Rome told Archbishop Lefebvre, “Look, everything will be solved between us, this drama, if you accept the New Mass and just say it once in your seminary. Just say it once. No problem, everything over, politics done.” Archbishop Lefebvre, (a rock he always was, thank God), he said, “No, I cannot accept the New Mass, not even once, because it is a direct attack against the Faith, with its subtle phrases and subtle formulae.” So when we see the pro multis put back in the Consecration, alright, that’s great, hoorah for Tradition. But what is veiled in this? Archbishop Lefebvre and our superiors of the Society of St. Pius X, they say obviously we can’t accept that. Obviously, it’s unacceptable.
The lifting of the excommunications, well, we’re still waiting for our Founder, for his excommunication to be lifted. But let me just draw another text from March of this year just in case any of us might be thinking, “Well, you know, this pope, is, he’s kinder to Tradition, it looks like things are going great, it’s another springtime.” We must not be deceived. We must pray, we must pray. Listen to this. This is the Letter for the Clergy, a letter to the priests from the Congregation for the Clergy, March of this year, not ten years ago, not thirty years ago, this year. And the pope calls for a celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council, October 11, 1962, fifty years ago, (have mercy on us!). He says further about the new evangelization for the transmission of the Christian Faith. I read: “We will therefore be expected to work in depth on each of these chapters (all the priests will have to work in depth on this, what is it?) on (here we go again) on the Second Vatican Council, so that it may be accepted once again as the great grace bestowed on the Church in the twentieth century, a sure compass by which to take our bearings in the new century now beginning, increasingly powerful for the ever-necessary renewal of the Church.” And so, Vatican II all the way. Vatican II, dying? You see, it’s not. Second point: “On the Catechism of the Catholic Church (this is the New Catechism permeated with the liberal errors), “that it may be truly accepted and used as a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion and sure norm for the teaching of the Faith.” Is that a sign of Rome coming back to Tradition, dear faithful? It’s in black and white.
Remember what happened last October. You know, in the first Assisi, Archbishop Lefebvre sent to the Holy Father, (of course with all respect; he always had respect for the authorities). But he always spoke up for the Truth. And he sent to the pope those pictures, you remember the drawings? Pope John Paul II at the gate having the ecumenical Assisi meeting and Christ the King and Mary saying, “No entrance into Heaven, no, ecumenists can’t enter here.” And the devil is on the side whispering, “Over here, buddy.” It’s a frightening image, but it’s very real, very true. How serious this matter is! The Assisi meetings are an attack against Jesus Christ as God, Jesus Christ as King. It’s a very serious sin against the First Commandment. And Archbishop Lefebvre, seeing this, he said, “We have to absolutely refuse this apostasy.” And this pope, again, he’s our father and with all respect, what do we do? He has all the world religions and (more than that), invited the voodoo doctor, sorcerer, to perform some who-knows-what ceremony invoking the devils at the pulpit. And the atheist woman stood there, and she said, “I want to thank the Holy Father for inviting me to speak at this Assisi meeting to represent all the nonbelievers.” Dear faithful, it’s frightening and it’s real. It’s happening, it’s happening! Be under no illusion. It’s happening before our eyes!
Two weeks before Assisi something also unheard of, in the history of the Council, but another step of degradation and apostasy, the document that came out from Rome, calling for the one world religion, a one world government, a one world authority. What do you think that’s going to be? St. Pius X warned, in his Apostolic Mandate on the Sillon “these enemies of Christ are working for a one world government, a one world religion, where there will be no dogmas, no morals.” You can believe what you want as long as you accept to be part of this supra-Ecumenical Church. It is very frightening to read the texts of Vatican II and the words of the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, and of this pope, and of Paul VI. It’s frightening, though we can’t be under illusion.
And we wonder why the Virgin Mary begged us to pray the Rosary that the pope consecrate Russia? Dear faithful, look at the results of those who have gone under Rome. I’ve had to talk to two priests personally. I battled with one, 7 hours long, not to go with Rome, to not compromise the Faith. And seven hours we battled. And he is saying the same thing about the popes, Tradition, Archbishop Lefebvre. We can’t compromise, I told him. But then I asked him, “What about Religious Liberty?” He said, “Well, we have to dialogue about that with Rome.” And another one, with St. Peter’s, said, “Well, we have to accept, we have to obey.” And they were told not to be polemical. And St. Peter’s has become totally neutralized, St. Peter’s Society. Look at Le Barroux. Archbishop Lefebvre said in five years they’ll have the New Mass. He was right. Look at Campos, glorious Campos under Bishop de Castro Mayer! It crumbled. The Redemptorists in Scotland, what happened? They’re neutralized, they can’t do anything. And the most recent: the Good Shepherd Institute. They were told to accept Vatican II and teach it in their seminaries. This happened this March! So the greatest service we can do to the Church, as our superiors know so well, is to oppose these errors and never compromise.
And that is, Fr. Reuter, we have to stand as brothers, as brothers with all the Society priests, with all our four bishops, opposed to this onslaught against the Faith. Archbishop Lefebvre himself told Pope Paul VI, he said, “Holy Father, either I follow the 262 popes before you and therefore go against you and John XXIII, or I have to follow you and obey you, and therefore disobey all of Catholic Tradition and all the 262 popes before you. What do I do? I have to stay with the Faith of all time.” And you know, the poor Archbishop, the badges of honor he had: suspension, excommunication, being smashed by the media, being turned away from so many friends of his. And he did not waver. And that’s what we must imitate, us priests. Again, the words of the Archbishop. This is Archbishop Lefebvre, this is two years after the Consecrations:
Quote:“While we find ourselves in the same situation, we must not be under any illusions. Consequently, we are in the thick of a great fight, a great fight. We are fighting the fight guaranteed by a whole line of popes. Hence, we should have no hesitation or fear, hesitation such as ‘Why should we be going on our own? After all, why not join Rome, why not join the pope?’ Yes, if Rome and the pope were in line with Tradition, if they were carrying on the work of all the popes of the nineteenth and of the first half of the twentieth century, of course, of course. But they themselves admit that they have set out on a new path. They themselves admit that a new era began with Vatican II. They admit that it’s a new stage in the Church’s life, entirely new, based on new principles. We need not argue the point, they say it themselves, it is clear. I think that we must drive this point home with our people in such a way that they realize their oneness with the Church’s whole history, going back well beyond the Revolution. Of course. It is the fight of the City of Satan against the City of God. We must not worry. We must trust in the grace of God!”
Dear faithful, just a little flashback, a little reminder of the glorious fight of our forefathers. At the French Revolution, the same principles that are being forced on us by Vatican II for the last forty years, the same liberal principles: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. At the French Revolution, you had the great Vendee. What was the Concordat between the Vendee and the Revolution? The Revolution crushed them. They fought hard, they fought nobly, they died noble in battle, like the Maccabee brothers. “Better to die in battle than to see the laws of our fathers trampled on and our sanctuary” turned into a dancing hall. Better to resist, and they did, and how much blood! How many mothers, children in the Vendee were slaughtered. If you want to hear a very good talk on that, listen to Mr. Christopher Check’s talk on the Vendee.
And let’s look at Mexico, 1926-1930. Do we make peace treaties with the enemies of Christ? Do you know what kind of “peace treaties” they make? In 1930, I think it was July 29th (N.B. The actual date was June 21st). The pope told the Cristeros, because he believed his bishops who informed him that “the war was useless, useless bloodshed.” And the good pope, Pius XI, he had to believe his bishops, but these bishops were liberals. And he believed them. He believed them. And he told the Cristeros, on that day, “Make a contract with the Freemasons, with the government, and the war will be over.” Useless bloodshed? No. They were winning the war! All they had to do was take Mexico City, and they would re-establish a Catholic government. But what happened? That day they all were lined up in the town squares, all these great Cristeros, little boys standing next to their dads, with their Winchester .30-30s, and they obeyed. “Okay, we’ll obey the pope.” One by one, they threw down their weapons, down on the ground, one by one, whole troops of hundreds. And these Freemasons, do they keep their treaty, their word? They lifted their .30-30s and pistols and opened fire. It is a fact of history, faithful and dear Father, a fact of history that on that day, more were killed than the four years of the war. And Archbishop Lefebvre said many times in his sermons, “You don’t dialogue with the devil, with the enemies of Christ. You can’t.” And we must imitate these great fathers before us!
So Fr. Reuter, to sum it up, obedience. The priest must be obedient, truly obedient to Tradition, truly obedient to the Catholic Faith of all time, and obedient to our superiors so long as they are protecting the Faith and upholding our holy statutes. But there was a time in history, not too long ago, when the priests should have been disobedient and not let their parishes accept the New Mass and the new catechisms. So we have to be, Fr. Reuter, truly obedient, always. Blind obedience is not Catholic! True obedience is founded on humility of heart to the voice of Our Lord the Good Shepherd and submits the mind and the heart to Him, speaking through one’s superiors, for the common good, and the lawful orders that go according to the Faith. Secondly, dear Fr. Reuter, study. You’re going to be very busy as a priest, but do make time to study; spiritual reading. Bishop Williamson used to tell us in the seminary, “An article a day keeps the modernists away. An article of the Summa of St. Thomas keeps the modernists away.”
So soak yourself, continue, all of us priests, all these good priests here who came to ordinations battle scarred, wounded by the battles with Hell and the salvation of souls, working hard, up late at night sometimes, going to sick calls in the middle of the night, tending to the poorest of the poor and the most sinful of the sinful. Be like Fr. John of the Cross who told us, “Be a living Heart of Jesus. Let people see in you the sweetness of the Sacred Heart of Jesus,” that you will lay down your life for your sheep. And never tell someone, “I can’t come to the sick call this week, I’m too busy.” Or if they’re dying, “I’m too busy.” You will never do that. But it happens a lot. We hear a lot of that in the Novus Ordo. And so, they call us (SSPX) priests.
And with sinners, as Fr. John of the Cross told us priests in the monastery, and Fr. Cyprian, “Love above all the greatest sinners.” Not their sins, but love their souls that Christ shed His Blood for. And in Confession, raise them to the hope of being washed in Christ’s Blood and living in God’s grace and of saving their souls! You will have this many times. Please, never be one of those priests, (and the Archbishop mentioned this also once), “Be firm in the confessional, but be very gentle and never severe,” never rude, never reckless with these souls. Every soul that comes to Confession and for spiritual advice, is a soul bought by Christ’s Blood, and we have no right to be not the Good Shepherd. We must be the Good Shepherd!
And lastly, and I promise, this is the last point, only She can help us now, the Virgin Mother! And you are a priest, you were ordained a priest two days ago, and you share the priesthood, a quasi-hypostatic union. What incredible words of St. Thomas Aquinas! You are “another Christ”, born in the womb of the Virgin Mary. You were ordained a priest like Christ was in the cathedral of the womb of the Virgin Mary. Your priesthood is directly connected to Mary, the Virgin Mother. So give Her your priesthood! Live in the Virgin Mary. As Fr. Le Roux said last week in Auriesville, “Priests must not only be devoted to Mary, be in Mary, live in Her.”
So, stand strong and souls will turn to you, and never compromise. In 1937, when all of Spain was being recklessly destroyed by the Communists, in Barcelona alone, the priests were arrested, 400 of them, martyred. Not one of them apostasized. Not one! They were good priests. One of them stood before the firing squad of the Communists, and the Communists said, “Alright, do you have any last words before we blow your brains out?” He said, “Yes, I do.” He said, “Firstly, I don’t need, (when offered) a handkerchief around my eyes.” He said, “When I was a boy, I prayed for three things. One: That I might be a priest. Two: That I might die a martyr. And three: If I die a martyr, I take a soul with me. God has granted me two of my wishes. What more can I ask of so loving a God?” And right then, one of the Communists soldiers, moved by grace, threw down his rifle, walked up to the priest, stood by him and said, “Father, you’ve got your third wish!” Both of them were executed, and their souls flew straight to Heaven. That is our model for this battle.
So let’s pray the Rosary, dear faithful, that the pope consecrates Russia. That’s the real solution! Negotiations,… all that, the real solution is that the pope consecrate Russia. And let’s go, Fr. Reuter, right now, you are going to go to the altar and re-enact the great Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross. Let’s adore Him. And pray for Fr. Reuter in his first Mass that he be a faithful priest with all his brothers ordained together, that they fight all the way to the end. And like that priest, die ready for battle, die with your battle boots on and attain Heaven, and join our dear Founder, Archbishop Lefebvre!
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee!
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee!
O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee!
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Source: The Recusant
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| Introduction to the Resistance [to the New Direction of the SSPX] |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 04:54 PM - Forum: Introduction to the Resistance
- Replies (1)
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An excellent introduction to the purpose of the 'Resistance' can be found in the first issue of The Recusant [October 2012]:
Quote:... There are many who are now growing up with the full benefit of Catholic Tradition who perhaps do not fully appreciate what they have been given. They would do well to speak to those Traditional Catholics of an older generation who first, having gone to the trouble of refusing the modern world, then equally found they had to refuse the "modern Church" from the late 1960s onwards, and who resigned themselves never more to enter the local parish Church, (buildings to which they have far more moral right than the current "Catholic" occupants, and which in many cases their parents had helped finance and build), referred to as "disobedient", "excommunicates", having to watch as relatives were refused burial in a "Catholic" cemetery, and many more personal tragedies besides. Catholic "Traditionalism" (the main vehicle for, and driving force behind which, has long been the SSPX) did not simply appear, as if by magic. It did not fall like manna from heaven. It was fought for, and hard won: inch by painful inch, soul by soul, priest by priest. We have come a long way since the tumultuous days in the immediate aftermath of the Council. Yet once again, there is a need for devout souls to stand strong, for once again everything is under threat.
We who refuse the modern world, we who refuse the modern Church due to its adulterous marriage to the modern world, we now are duty bound to refuse the modern SSPX leadership on account of their apparent desire for an adulterous Marriage with the modern Church. We refuse the nonsense talked by Benedict XVI when he says that America is the model for all nations, that the Jews do not need to be converted or that religious freedom, including the freedom to join a false religion and to worship in it publically is “the pinnacle of all other freedoms,” and “... a sacred an inalienable right.” We likewise refuse Bishop Bernard Fellay when he says that Benedict XVI is leading the fight for Tradition, that he is improving matters in
the Church, and that therefore the SSPX ought officially and legally to place itself fully at Benedict XVI's disposal and at the disposal of those whom he sees fit to appoint as his delegates. ...
Suffice it to say that we no longer recognise in Bishop Fellay the work of Tradition nor the legacy of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Archbishop Lefebvre is often quoted as saying, quite rightly, that Vatican II was the French Revolution inside the Catholic Church. Well, what we are witnessing right now is "Vatican II within the SSPX". And like those heroes of forty years before, it is now up to us to resist, to refuse, to take whatever steps necessary to safeguard the purity of the Catholic Faith, whatever the cost. Let us ask God that He gives us grace sufficient to
rise to the challenge.
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| Bishop Williamson [and the old-SSPX]: The New Mass is Intrisically Evil |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 04:09 PM - Forum: True vs. False Resistance
- Replies (6)
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Bishop Williamson [and the old-SSPX]: The New Mass is Intrisically Evil
At roughly the 0:55 minute mark:
Quote:"... The New Mass is in any case illicit. In any case. It's designed to please Protestants, it's designed to undo Catholicism. It's intrinsically offensive to God, it's intrinsically evil. That's how it was designed and that's how it turned out."
At roughly the 2:40 min mark:
Quote:"If the New Mass is valid but illicit, may I attend? NO! ... The fact that it's valid does not mean it's ok to attend."
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| Operation Sabotage: This is why there is a Fake Resistance |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 04:01 PM - Forum: True vs. False Resistance
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Taken from Issue 49 of The Recusant:
Operation Sabotage!
If the SSPX embarked upon “Operation Suicide” in 2012, and if the Resistance is meant to be “Operation Survival”, then that must make the Fake Resistance...?
Everyone who supports the Resistance must ask himself the question: wouldn’t life be so much easier if there were no Fake Resistance? Imagine if it were simply a question of pointing out the obvious SSPX slide into modernism and then proposing the only alternative, as in days gone by. Ask yourself why we are witnessing what we are now witnessing. Why is all this nonsense taking place? Why is it that wherever there is a real danger that the Resistance might take-off and grow, a secretive alternative always somehow pops-up next door? Why is that? Why are the followers of Bishop Williamson, who outwardly professes “No organisation! No Structure!” so organised and so structured? Why is it that the man who preached “I do not have authority! I cannot have authority!” wields such an iron-grip over his followers, even if it is in secret?
Let’s take just one example of this to illustrate the point. A few months ago Bishop Tomas Aquinas agreed to come and do confirmations at a chapel in Ireland. He admitted explicitly that the reason he had not done so before was due to the need to obtain Bishop Williamson’s permission before going ahead. When he had not had Bishop Williamson’s permission to come to Ireland, he had not come. Once Bishop Williamson gave his permission, Bishop Tomas Aquinas was able to visit, thus confirming what many had suspected for quite a while already. And yet, listen to Bishop Williamson’s sermon at the consecration of that very same Bishop Tomas Aquinas, and what do we hear? “There can be no organisation, no structure.” “The era of structures is yesterday.” Just as in Canada a couple of years earlier, he insisted: “I don’t have authority! I cannot have authority!”
For someone who claims that he doesn’t believe in structures or organisations or authority, this is very odd. Why is it that Bishop Tomas Aquinas needed his permission to do confirmations in Ireland? Doesn’t that look rather like authority? What about when the same Bishop Tomas Aquinas denied a Benedictine welcome to Fr. Cardozo in 2016 and told the faithful not to attend his Mass, because “criticising Bishop Williamson has consequences”…? What on earth is going on? Here is one possibility. To make sense of the seeming illogicality and contradictory nature of the Fake Resistance one has to see it in the context of the betrayal of the SSPX, and to see that in the wider context of the plot against the Church. We tend to think of Rome as having somehow “tricked” the SSPX leadership through some kind of sudden foul-play, and there is some truth in this, although that is a rather simplistic and naïve way of seeing things. The truth is that Bishop Fellay’s fall and the betrayal of the SSPX which took place in 2012 did not suddenly happen out of the blue nor were they the fruit of one act of deception or trickery. Rather, they were the fruit of carefully laid and well organised plans going back decades. Plans which literally spanned generations and which required a lot of foresight and careful planning. We know already that this is how the enemy operates: various clues have been given to us in recent times (read, for example, the document known as the Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita). We know that they brought about the Revolution inside the Church at Vatican II, just as they promised they would. With hindsight, we can see that they will have been working for the past 40 years to bring about the submission of the SSPX in like manner. They almost certainly foresaw the SSPX before it happened and had already prepared a plan for just such a contingency, which they only had to take down off the shelf and put into effect.
Ask yourself this. Is it likely, is it at all remotely probable, that an enemy who is so well organised, so patient and so far-sighted would simply overlook the possibility that the same thing would not happen again? That when the SSPX succumbed to their nefarious designs, there would be an SSPX-of-the-SSPX, i.e. a Traditionalist Resistance to novelty which would simply denounce the betrayal, remove themselves from it and carry on the fight? Of course they foresaw it. They knew what would happen before we did! To think otherwise is naïve in the extreme. And what might their contingency for that (entirely predictable) outcome be, do you think? Rinse and repeat.
That is why we have a Fake Resistance. Because the enemy knows that right now is when we are at our most vulnerable. The early days, the “Wild West” of any movement, are always the most crucial and formative, and we are still in those early days of the Resistance, when everything counts as a scrabble “triple-word score” and the good or bad which we do is amplified into the future. Those of you who are gardeners will know that even if you grow seedlings in pots inside the house until they are too big for the pots, putting them outside in the ground can often be touch-and-go. Will they be eaten by pests or killed off by the frost? If they can make it a few weeks and manage to grow a bit bigger, they will be OK, but those first few days and weeks are crucial. That is where the Resistance is now.
Am I accusing every priest and faithful of the Fake Resistance of being a Masonic plant to destroy the Church? Not at all. Many, the majority even, I am sure, are allowing themselves to be used by someone else for ends which, ultimately, even they do not properly understand or do not want to think about. Like so many priests who stayed inside the SSPX, they are guilty of weakness, and through weakness, in going along with something which they ought to oppose. But aiding and abetting the enemy through weakness is still aiding and abetting the enemy.
One of the hallmarks of the enemy is subversion, deception, secrecy, saying one thing and doing the other, or not saying anything at all and acting in such a way very few people can see what you are doing. I put it to you dear reader that these are characteristics which the Fake Resistance has written all over it, the description fits the Fake Resistance like a glove.
To give one more example, from across the pond comes a story of a wedding presided at by Bishop Zendejas. The ceremony was being filmed from the choir loft. Zendejas ran up to the choir loft in full vestments, to tell the person filming in person and with urgency that they were not allowed to film the sermon. Please tell me: is such behaviour normal? Every one of his sermons since he left the SSPX have been private with the exception of two which were recorded without his consent (in October 2014). His newsletters have not been publicly available since 2015, and even his Mass times are only made known to an elite inner-circle of those in-the-know. Is that normal? Are we not allowed to wonder, at least a little, at what might motivate this sort of behaviour? What did Our Lord say about confessing him? “He who confesses me before men, I will confess him before the Father.” Before men. That means publicly. The Church confesses Christ publicly. Any organisation or setup which involves confessing Him secretly is always to be avoided, if for that reason alone.
This need to confess Christ “before men” is also why, when considering the apostolate of a priest and what he stands for, anything which the priest tells you in private does not count. If a Resistance priest is tempted by sedevacantism and begins to become sedevacantist privately, in his own mind, then he is still a Resistance priest as long as that is the last public position he has taken. The moment he makes his sedevacantism public, then it is a different matter of course. The same applies to a Resistance priest who tells you in private that he does not agree with Bishop Williamson’s novelties and scandals. Very well and good. But as long as it is done in private only, it does not count. What about the other faithful, don’t they also have a right to know where he stands? If he is not prepared to say anything distancing himself from Bishop Williamson in public, then he is guilty of silence. “In private” does not count. Only “in public” counts.
Here is another example from closer to home. On the proverbial grapevine comes news that Fr. Paul Morgan is now saying Sunday Mass in South East England (near St. Michael’s school). There was no public announcement, and as far as I can see there is no way for interested parties to acquire details of this apostolate. This feels very like what happened in the USA four years back with Fr. Zendejas, whose Masses were invitation only, only for a select few, for those in the know. Not a good sign.
Now, leaving aside the obvious point that this not and never was how the Church operates, there is the further question of who exactly Fr. Morgan is and what he thinks he is doing. Last I recall he was our District Superior, the one who took part in the 2012 General Chapter, where he failed to remove or in any way sanction Bishop Fellay and ultimately confirmed him as Superior General. The same Fr. Morgan who signed the General Chapter Statement with its scandalous six conditions (three of which were only “desirable,” remember?). The same one who then came back to London and spent the next three years telling anyone who would listen that everything was now fine in the SSPX, things are back to normal, we haven’t changed, and above all don’t have anything to do with those Resistance people! The same one who was ready to refuse communion to faithful guilty of criticising Bishop Fellay and who ordered a notice placed in the back of all SSPX chapels denouncing this very newsletter and forbidding anyone to give or receive a copy of it (even though he himself had praised it in private shortly before). That one. The same Fr. Morgan who wrote in his last ever District Newsletter editorial (August 2015) that he was really pleased that it was Fr. Robert Brucciani who was taking over and recommended him warmly to the faithful. Suddenly, a mere two or three years later, that same Fr. Morgan is somehow magically transformed into a “Resistance” priest with not a word about any of those things? To put it mildly, I think we are entitled to be a little sceptical. Something is not right. For our American readers, the equivalent would be if Fr. Arnaud Rostand were suddenly to pop up and start behaving as though he were a Resistance priest, acting as though he hadn’t been fighting the Resistance just a few years before, and without any hint that he had changed his mind since then or regretted the part he had played. Can you imagine?
For the record, I have no way of knowing exactly what Fr. Morgan thinks he is up to, but I think one can reasonably conclude the following. First, that it is highly unlikely that Fr. Morgan would operate in the South East of England without at least having checked-in with a certain episcopal personality who lives in an eight-bedroom house in Broadstairs. Nor, I think, it safe to say, would he currently be ministering to English faithful if the aforementioned Broadstairs personality were against it. I think, then, it is probably safe to say that he has his tacit approval at the very least, even if not an explicit charter. Secondly, that since leaving the SSPX he is now short of a constituency of supporters amongst the faithful. His target constituency, therefore, it seems to me, would be precisely the sort of people who are either already involved in the Resistance or are thinking seriously about it. Thirdly, that if I know Fr. Morgan at all, he is not the sort of priest who is adventurous enough or courageous enough to launch out unaided into the great unknown, trusting only to Divine Providence, and make a go of it from scratch (this is not a criticism, very few priests are); and that therefore he will have received or be receiving some sort of at least moral support and encouragement from somewhere, if not support of a more substantial, material nature. A small group of faithful freshly departed from the SSPX will not be able to offer substantial material support. The irony here is that those of us who have been in the Resistance from the early days are probably better placed to support a resident priest, though we have none to support; whereas it always seems to be that the “newcomer” priests, the ones who spring up suddenly though nobody is quite sure where they stand, are always, it seems, quite able to look after themselves materially, almost as though they have support and backing from someone else in the background. But there, maybe I am just seeing things?
Fourthly, it seems fairly likely to me that whoever has been or is providing him with such “moral support” (if not material support also) will be doing so for a reason and with a motive in mind. We do not know what that motive may be, but it must exist. Finally, I will point out that there would be no need for anyone to speculate or surmise anything about anything were Fr. Morgan not operating in secrecy and without declaring himself openly.
Let me say once again - and this is true with or without Fr. Morgan’s contribution to events - we can be reasonably sure that the enemy is seeking to subvert the Resistance and neutralise it, and moreover, that they are seeking to do so by secret, silent and undeclared means. The enemies of the Church know that they cannot keep everyone from leaving the SSPX, that a certain number will inevitably leave whatever they do. Their purpose is to ‘take care of’ them by leading them up the garden path. This is why the Fake Resistance exists. The Fake Resistance is not just a collection of people who are not clear about what they believe, bumbling about in a disorganised and haphazard fashion. They are something far worse: a deliberate counterfeit, designed to deceive and mislead. If the SSPX in 2012 became “Operation Suicide” and the Resistance since then has been “Operation Survival,” then the Fake Resistance truly is “Operation Sabotage.” That is its goal, its purpose and its reason for existing.
We are therefore entirely justified in being extremely wary of secrecy and silence and undeclared actions and intentions. Our Lord tells us that the true shepherd is he who enters in through the front door, but whoever climbs in over the wall is a robber (see John 10:1). As Fr. Hewko recently said in his sermon in London, we are sick and tired of people playing games with the Faith. We are not after as many Masses as possible: what we want is the Faith without compromise, without any dalliance with liberalism, whether it be SSPX liberalism or Bishop Williamson’s liberalism. We want nothing to do with the Council, with the New Mass, or the bogus, fake conciliar “miracles,” or any of that nonsense. We want only to preserve what Archbishop Lefebvre handed down to us, and hand it down to others in turn. Any priest or faithful is welcome with the Resistance, there is nothing which could not be easily forgiven, but we have had enough of secrecy and politics and lack of clarity. By all means, write to Fr. Morgan, ask him what on earth he thinks he’s up to and impress on him the need to make a clear stand in the line of Archbishop Lefebvre and to confess Christ before men. It may be that he is simply unthinking or ignorant of what has been going on. Or he may be giving in to weakness. In the end it does not matter. Like all of us, he must decide what he stands for, what his purpose and goal is, and then say so clearly and publicly. He must confess Christ before men. But be firm in insisting that, until he does, his presence serves no useful purpose.
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| YouTube Will Remove Videos Questioning Biden Election Victory Even as Legal Challenges Continue |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 02:00 PM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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YouTube Will Remove Videos Questioning Biden Election Victory Even as Legal Challenges Continue
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki
Breitbart | 9 Dec 20200
Google-owned video platform YouTube has announced plans to remove any content that questions Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 U.S. presidential election despite the fact that legal challenges involving multiple states continue. YouTube also announced it will be promoting “authoritative news sources,” such as NBC and CBS in video recommendations.
In a recent blog post titled “Supporting the 2020 U.S. election,” Google-owned video-sharing platform YouTube announced plans to remove any content that questions Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 U.S. presidential election or implies fraud impacted the election outcome.
In the blog post, YouTube writes:
Quote:Yesterday was the safe harbor deadline for the U.S. Presidential election and enough states have certified their election results to determine a President-elect. Given that, we will start removing any piece of content uploaded today (or anytime after) that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, in line with our approach towards historical U.S. Presidential elections. For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to widespread software glitches or counting errors. We will begin enforcing this policy today, and will ramp up in the weeks to come. As always, news coverage and commentary on these issues can remain on our site if there’s sufficient education, documentary, scientific or artistic context.
YouTube also announced that it will be promoting “authoritative news sources,” such as NBC and CBS:
Quote:Now let’s look at recommendations, one of the main ways our viewers find content. Limiting the reach of borderline content and prominently surfacing authoritative information are important ways we protect people from problematic content that doesn’t violate our Community Guidelines. Over 70% of recommendations on election-related topics came from authoritative news sources and the top recommended videos and channels for election-related content were primarily authoritative news. In fact, the top 10 authoritative news channels were recommended over 14X more than the top 10 non-authoritative channels on election-related content.
YouTube also included a graphic showing the most-viewed U.S. election-related content on the platform, with ABC News ranking the highest:
Read the full blog post at YouTube here.
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| Pope Pius XI: Divini Redemtoris - On Atheistic Communism |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 01:50 PM - Forum: Encyclicals
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DIVINI REDEMPTORIS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI ON ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM
TO THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, AND OTHER ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE.
Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction.
The promise of a Redeemer brightens the first page of the history of mankind, and the confident hope aroused by this promise softened the keen regret for a paradise which had been lost. It was this hope that accompanied the human race on its weary journey, until in the fullness of time the expected Savior came to begin a new universal civilization, the Christian civilization, far superior even to that which up to this time had been laboriously achieved by certain more privileged nations.
2. Nevertheless, the struggle between good and evil remained in the world as a sad legacy of the original fall. Nor has the ancient tempter ever ceased to deceive mankind with false promises. It is on this account that one convulsion following upon another has marked the passage of the centuries, down to the revolution of our own days. This modern revolution, it may be said, has actually broken out or threatens everywhere, and it exceeds in amplitude and violence anything yet experienced in the preceding persecutions launched against the Church. Entire peoples find themselves in danger of falling back into a barbarism worse than that which oppressed the greater part of the world at the coming of the Redeemer.
3. This all too imminent danger, Venerable Brethren, as you have already surmised, is bolshevistic and atheistic Communism, which aims at upsetting the social order and at undermining the very foundations of Christian civilization.
4. In the face of such a threat, the Catholic Church could not and does not remain silent. This Apostolic See, above all, has not refrained from raising its voice, for it knows that its proper and social mission is to defend truth, justice and all those eternal values which Communism ignores or attacks. Ever since the days when groups of "intellectuals" were formed in an arrogant attempt to free civilization from the bonds of morality and religion, Our Predecessors overtly and explicitly drew the attention of the world to the consequences of the dechristianization of human society. With reference to Communism, Our Venerable Predecessor, Pius IX, of holy memory, as early as 1846 pronounced a solemn condemnation, which he confirmed in the words of the Syllabus directed against "that infamous doctrine of so-called Communism which is absolutely contrary to the natural law itself, and if once adopted would utterly destroy the rights, property and possessions of all men, and even society itself."[1] Later on, another of Our predecessors, the immortal Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, defined Communism as "the fatal plague which insinuates itself into the very marrow of human society only to bring about its ruin."[2] With clear intuition he pointed out that the atheistic movements existing among the masses of the Machine Age had their origin in that school of philosophy which for centuries had sought to divorce science from the life of the Faith and of the Church.
5. During Our Pontificate We too have frequently and with urgent insistence denounced the current trend to atheism which is alarmingly on the increase. In 1924 when Our relief-mission returned from the Soviet Union We condemned Communism in a special Allocution[3] which We addressed to the whole world. In our Encyclicals Miserentissimus Redemptor,[4] Quadragesimo Anno,[5] Caritate Christi,[6] Acerba Animi,[7] Dilectissima Nobis,[8] We raised a solemn protest against the persecutions unleashed in Russia, in Mexico and now in Spain. Our two Allocutions of last year, the first on the occasion of the opening of the International Catholic Press Exposition, and the second during Our audience to the Spanish refugees, along with Our message of last Christmas, have evoked a world-wide echo which is not yet spent. In fact, the most persistent enemies of the Church, who from Moscow are directing the struggle against Christian civilization, themselves bear witness, by their unceasing attacks in word and act, that even to this hour the Papacy has continued faithfully to protect the sanctuary of the Christian religion, and that it has called public attention to the perils of Communism more frequently and more effectively than any other public authority on earth.
6. To Our great satisfaction, Venerable Brethren, you have, by means of individual and even joint pastoral Letters, accurately transmitted and explained to the Faithful these admonitions. Yet despite Our frequent and paternal warning the peril only grows greater from day to day because of the pressure exerted by clever agitators. Therefore We believe it to be Our duty to raise Our voice once more, in a still more solemn missive, in accord with the tradition of this Apostolic See, the Teacher of Truth, and in accord with the desire of the whole Catholic world, which makes the appearance of such a document but natural. We trust that the echo of Our voice will reach every mind free from prejudice and every heart sincerely desirous of the good of mankind. We wish this the more because Our words are now receiving sorry confirmation from the spectacle of the bitter fruits of subversive ideas, which We foresaw and foretold, and which are in fact multiplying fearfully in the countries already stricken, or threatening every other country of the world.
7. Hence We wish to expose once more in a brief synthesis the principles of atheistic Communism as they are manifested chiefly in bolshevism. We wish also to indicate its method of action and to contrast with its false principles the clear doctrine of the Church, in order to inculcate anew and with greater insistence the means by which the Christian civilization, the true civitas humana, can be saved from the satanic scourge, and not merely saved, but better developed for the well-being of human society.
8. The Communism of today, more emphatically than similar movements in the past, conceals in itself a false messianic idea. A pseudo-ideal of justice, of equality and fraternity in labor impregnates all its doctrine and activity with a deceptive mysticism, which communicates a zealous and contagious enthusiasm to the multitudes entrapped by delusive promises. This is especially true in an age like ours, when unusual misery has resulted from the unequal distribution of the goods of this world. This pseudo-ideal is even boastfully advanced as if it were responsible for a certain economic progress. As a matter of fact, when such progress is at all real, its true causes are quite different, as for instance the intensification of industrialism in countries which were formerly almost without it, the exploitation of immense natural resources, and the use of the most brutal methods to insure the achievement of gigantic projects with a minimum of expense.
9. The doctrine of modern Communism, which is often concealed under the most seductive trappings, is in substance based on the principles of dialectical and historical materialism previously advocated by Marx, of which the theoricians of bolshevism claim to possess the only genuine interpretation. According to this doctrine there is in the world only one reality, matter, the blind forces of which evolve into plant, animal and man. Even human society is nothing but a phenomenon and form of matter, evolving in the same way. By a law of inexorable necessity and through a perpetual conflict of forces, matter moves towards the final synthesis of a classless society. In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life. Insisting on the dialectical aspect of their materialism, the Communists claim that the conflict which carries the world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated by man. Hence they endeavor to sharpen the antagonisms which arise between the various classes of society. Thus the class struggle with its consequent violent hate and destruction takes on the aspects of a crusade for the progress of humanity. On the other hand, all other forces whatever, as long as they resist such systematic violence, must be annihilated as hostile to the human race.
10. Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man's relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement.
11. Refusing to human life any sacred or spiritual character, such a doctrine logically makes of marriage and the family a purely artificial and civil institution, the outcome of a specific economic system. There exists no matrimonial bond of a juridico-moral nature that is not subject to the whim of the individual or of the collectivity. Naturally, therefore, the notion of an indissoluble marriage-tie is scouted. Communism is particularly characterized by the rejection of any link that binds woman to the family and the home, and her emancipation is proclaimed as a basic principle. She is withdrawn from the family and the care of her children, to be thrust instead into public life and collective production under the same conditions as man. The care of home and children then devolves upon the collectivity. Finally, the right of education is denied to parents, for it is conceived as the exclusive prerogative of the community, in whose name and by whose mandate alone parents may exercise this right.
12. What would be the condition of a human society based on such materialistic tenets? It would be a collectivity with no other hierarchy than that of the economic system. It would have only one mission: the production of material things by means of collective labor, so that the goods of this world might be enjoyed in a paradise where each would "give according to his powers" and would "receive according to his needs." Communism recognizes in the collectivity the right, or rather, unlimited discretion, to draft individuals for the labor of the collectivity with no regard for their personal welfare; so that even violence could be legitimately exercised to dragoon the recalcitrant against their wills. In the Communistic commonwealth morality and law would be nothing but a derivation of the existing economic order, purely earthly in origin and unstable in character. In a word. the Communists claim to inaugurate a new era and a new civilization which is the result of blind evolutionary forces culminating in a humanity without God.
13. When all men have finally acquired the collectivist mentality in this Utopia of a really classless society, the political State, which is now conceived by Communists merely as the instrument by which the proletariat is oppressed by the capitalists, will have lost all reason for its existence and will "wither away." However, until that happy consummation is realized, the State and the powers of the State furnish Communism with the most efficacious and most extensive means for the achievement of its goal.
14. Such, Venerable Brethren, is the new gospel which bolshevistic and atheistic Communism offers the world as the glad tidings of deliverance and salvation! It is a system full of errors and sophisms. It is in opposition both to reason and to Divine Revelation. It subverts the social order, because it means the destruction of its foundations; because it ignores the true origin and purpose of the State; because it denies the rights, dignity and liberty of human personality.
15. How is it possible that such a system, long since rejected scientifically and now proved erroneous by experience, how is it, We ask, that such a system could spread so rapidly in all parts of the world? The explanation lies in the fact that too few have been able to grasp the nature of Communism. The majority instead succumb to its deception, skillfully concealed by the most extravagant promises. By pretending to desire only the betterment of the condition of the working classes, by urging the removal of the very real abuses chargeable to the liberalistic economic order, and by demanding a more equitable distribution of this world's goods (objectives entirely and undoubtedly legitimate), the Communist takes advantage of the present world-wide economic crisis to draw into the sphere of his influence even those sections of the populace which on principle reject all forms of materialism and terrorism. And as every error contains its element of truth, the partial truths to which We have referred are astutely presented according to the needs of time and place, to conceal, when convenient, the repulsive crudity and inhumanity of Communistic principles and tactics. Thus the Communist ideal wins over many of the better minded members of the community. These in turn become the apostles of the movement among the younger intelligentsia who are still too immature to recognize the intrinsic errors of the system. The preachers of Communism are also proficient in exploiting racial antagonisms and political divisions and oppositions. They take advantage of the lack of orientation characteristic of modern agnostic science in order to burrow into the universities, where they bolster up the principles of their doctrine with pseudo-scientific arguments.
16. If we would explain the blind acceptance of Communism by so many thousands of workmen, we must remember that the way had been already prepared for it by the religious and moral destitution in which wage-earners had been left by liberal economics. Even on Sundays and holy days, labor-shifts were given no time to attend to their essential religious duties. No one thought of building churches within convenient distance of factories, nor of facilitating the work of the priest. On the contrary, laicism was actively and persistently promoted, with the result that we are now reaping the fruits of the errors so often denounced by Our Predecessors and by Ourselves. It can surprise no one that the Communistic fallacy should be spreading in a world already to a large extent de-Christianized.
17. There is another explanation for the rapid diffusion of the Communistic ideas now seeping into every nation, great and small, advanced and backward, so that no corner of the earth is free from them. This explanation is to be found in a propaganda so truly diabolical that the world has perhaps never witnessed its like before. It is directed from one common center. It is shrewdly adapted to the varying conditions of diverse peoples. It has at its disposal great financial resources, gigantic organizations, international congresses, and countless trained workers. It makes use of pamphlets and reviews, of cinema, theater and radio, of schools and even universities. Little by little it penetrates into all classes of the people and even reaches the better-minded groups of the community, with the result that few are aware of the poison which increasingly pervades their minds and hearts.
18. A third powerful factor in the diffusion of Communism is the conspiracy of silence on the part of a large section of the non-Catholic press of the world. We say conspiracy, because it is impossible otherwise to explain how a press usually so eager to exploit even the little daily incidents of life has been able to remain silent for so long about the horrors perpetrated in Russia, in Mexico and even in a great part of Spain; and that it should have relatively so little to say concerning a world organization as vast as Russian Communism. This silence is due in part to shortsighted political policy, and is favored by various occult forces which for a long time have been working for the overthrow of the Christian Social Order.
19. Meanwhile the sorry effects of this propaganda are before our eyes. Where Communism has been able to assert its power - and here We are thinking with special affection of the people of Russia and Mexico - it has striven by every possible means, as its champions openly boast, to destroy Christian civilization and the Christian religion by banishing every remembrance of them from the hearts of men, especially of the young. Bishops and priests were exiled, condemned to forced labor, shot and done to death in inhuman fashion; laymen suspected of defending their religion were vexed, persecuted, dragged off to trial and thrown into prison.
20. Even where the scourge of Communism has not yet had time enough to exercise to the full its logical effects, as witness Our beloved Spain, it has, alas, found compensation in the fiercer violence of its attack. Not only this or that church or isolated monastery was sacked, but as far as possible every church and every monastery was destroyed. Every vestige of the Christian religion was eradicated, even though intimately linked with the rarest monuments of art and science. The fury of Communism has not confined itself to the indiscriminate slaughter of Bishops, of thousands of priests and religious of both sexes; it searches out above all those who have been devoting their lives to the welfare of the working classes and the poor. But the majority of its victims have been laymen of all conditions and classes. Even up to the present moment, masses of them are slain almost daily for no other offense than the fact that they are good Christians or at least opposed to atheistic Communism. And this fearful destruction has been carried out with a hatred and a savage barbarity one would not have believed possible in our age. No man of good sense, nor any statesman conscious of his responsibility can fail to shudder at the thought that what is happening today in Spain may perhaps be repeated tomorrow in other civilized countries.
21. Nor can it be said that these atrocities are a transitory phenomenon, the usual accompaniment of all great revolutions, the isolated excesses common to every war. No, they are the natural fruit of a system which lacks all inner restraint. Some restraint is necessary for man considered either as an individual or in society. Even the barbaric peoples had this inner check in the natural law written by God in the heart of every man. And where this natural law was held in higher esteem, ancient nations rose to a grandeur that still fascinates - more than it should - certain superficial students of human history. But tear the very idea of God from the hearts of men, and they are necessarily urged by their passions to the most atrocious barbarity.
22. This, unfortunately, is what we now behold. For the first time in history we are witnessing a struggle, cold-blooded in purpose and mapped out to the least detail, between man and "all that is called God."[9] Communism is by its nature anti-religious. It considers religion as "the opiate of the people" because the principles of religion which speak of a life beyond the grave dissuade the proletariat from the dream of a Soviet paradise which is of this world.
23. But the law of nature and its Author cannot be flouted with impunity. Communism has not been able, and will not be able, to achieve its objectives even in the merely economic sphere. It is true that in Russia it has been a contributing factor in rousing men and materials from the inertia of centuries, and in obtaining by all manner of means, often without scruple, some measure of material success. Nevertheless We know from reliable and even very recent testimony that not even there, in spite of slavery imposed on millions of men, has Communism reached its promised goal. After all, even the sphere of economics needs some morality, some moral sense of responsibility, which can find no place in a system so thoroughly materialistic as Communism. Terrorism is the only possible substitute, and it is terrorism that reigns today in Russia, where former comrades in revolution are exterminating each other. Terrorism, having failed despite all to stem the tide of moral corruption, cannot even prevent the dissolution of society itself.
24. In making these observations it is no part of Our intention to condemn en masse the peoples of the Soviet Union. For them We cherish the warmest paternal affection. We are well aware that not a few of them groan beneath the yoke imposed on them by men who in very large part are strangers to the real interests of the country. We recognize that many others were deceived by fallacious hopes. We blame only the system, with its authors and abettors who considered Russia the best-prepared field for experimenting with a plan elaborated decades ago, and who from there continue to spread it from one end of the world to the other.
25. We have exposed the errors and the violent, deceptive tactics of bolshevistic and atheistic Communism. It is now time, Venerable Brethren, to contrast with it the true notion, already familiar to you, of the civitas humana or human society, as taught by reason and Revelation through the mouth of the Church, Magistra Gentium.
26. Above all other reality there exists one supreme Being: God, the omnipotent Creator of all things, the all-wise and just Judge of all men. This supreme reality, God, is the absolute condemnation of the impudent falsehoods of Communism. In truth, it is not because men believe in God that He exists; rather because He exists do all men whose eyes are not deliberately closed to the truth believe in Him and pray to Him.
27. In the Encyclical on Christian Education[10] We explained the fundamental doctrine concerning man as it may be gathered from reason and Faith. Man has a spiritual and immortal soul. He is a person, marvelously endowed by his Creator with gifts of body and mind. He is a true "microcosm," as the ancients said, a world in miniature, with a value far surpassing that of the vast inanimate cosmos. God alone is his last end, in this life and the next. By sanctifying grace he is raised to the dignity of a son of God, and incorporated into the Kingdom of God in the Mystical Body of Christ. In consequence he has been endowed by God with many and varied prerogatives: the right to life, to bodily integrity, to the necessary means of existence; the right to tend toward his ultimate goal in the path marked out for him by God; the right of association and the right to possess and use property.
28. Just as matrimony and the right to its natural use are of divine origin, so likewise are the constitution and fundamental prerogatives of the family fixed and determined by the Creator. In the Encyclical on Christian Marriage[11] and in Our other Encyclical on Education, cited above, we have treated these topics at considerable length.
29. But God has likewise destined man for civil society according to the dictates of his very nature. In the plan of the Creator, society is a natural means which man can and must use to reach his destined end. Society is for man and not vice versa. This must not be understood in the sense of liberalistic individualism, which subordinates society to the selfish use of the individual; but only in the sense that by means of an organic union with society and by mutual collaboration the attainment of earthly happiness is placed within the reach of all. In a further sense, it is society which affords the opportunities for the development of all the individual and social gifts bestowed on human nature. These natural gifts have a value surpassing the immediate interests of the moment, for in society they reflect the divine perfection, which would not be true were man to live alone. But on final analysis, even in this latter function, society is made for man, that he may recognize this reflection of God's perfection, and refer it in praise and adoration to the Creator. Only man, the human person, and not society in any form is endowed with reason and a morally free will.
30. Man cannot be exempted from his divinely-imposed obligations toward civil society, and the representatives of authority have the right to coerce him when he refuses without reason to do his duty. Society, on the other hand, cannot defraud man of his God-granted rights, the most important of which We have indicated above. Nor can society systematically void these rights by making their use impossible. It is therefore according to the dictates of reason that ultimately all material things should be ordained to man as a person, that through his mediation they may find their way to the Creator. In this wise we can apply to man, the human person, the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles, who writes to the Corinthians on the Christian economy of salvation: "All things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's."[12] While Communism impoverishes human personality by inverting the terms of the relation of man to society, to what lofty heights is man not elevated by reason and Revelation!
31. The directive principles concerning the social-economic order have been expounded in the social Encyclical of Leo XIII on the question of labor.[13] Our own Encyclical on the Reconstruction of the Social Order[14] adapted these principles to present needs. Then, insisting anew on the age-old doctrine of the Church concerning the individual and social character of private property, We explained clearly the right and dignity of labor, the relations of mutual aid and collaboration which should exist between those who possess capital and those who work, the salary due in strict justice to the worker for himself and for his family.
32. In this same Encyclical of Ours We have shown that the means of saving the world of today from the lamentable ruin into which a moral liberalism has plunged us, are neither the class-struggle nor terror, nor yet the autocratic abuse of State power, but rather the infusion of social justice and the sentiment of Christian love into the social-economic order. We have indicated how a sound prosperity is to be restored according to the true principles of a sane corporative system which respects the proper hierarchic structure of society; and how all the occupational groups should be fused into a harmonious unity inspired by the principle of the common good. And the genuine and chief function of public and civil authority consists precisely in the efficacious furthering of this harmony and coordination of all social forces.
33. In view of this organized common effort towards peaceful living, Catholic doctrine vindicates to the State the dignity and authority of a vigilant and provident defender of those divine and human rights on which the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church insist so often. It is not true that all have equal rights in civil society. It is not true that there exists no lawful social hierarchy. Let it suffice to refer to the Encyclicals of Leo XIII already cited, especially to that on State powers,[15] and to the other on the Christian Constitution of States.[16] In these documents the Catholic will find the principles of reason and the Faith clearly explained, and these principles will enable him to defend himself against the errors and perils of a Communistic conception of the State. The enslavement of man despoiled of his rights, the denial of the transcendental origin of the State and its authority, the horrible abuse of public power in the service of a collectivistic terrorism, are the very contrary of all that corresponds with natural ethics and the will of the Creator. Both man and civil society derive their origin from the Creator, Who has mutually ordained them one to the other. Hence neither can be exempted from their correlative obligations, nor deny or diminish each other's rights. The Creator Himself has regulated this mutual relationship in its fundamental lines, and it is by an unjust usurpation that Communism arrogates to itself the right to enforce, in place of the divine law based on the immutable principles of truth and charity, a partisan political program which derives from the arbitrary human will and is replete with hate.
34. In teaching this enlightening doctrine the Church has no other intention than to realize the glad tidings sung by the Angels above the cave of Bethlehem at the Redeemer's birth: "Glory to God . . . and . . . peace to men . . .,"[17] true peace and true happiness, even here below as far as is possible, in preparation for the happiness of heaven - but to men of good will. This doctrine is equally removed from all extremes of error and all exaggerations of parties or systems which stem from error. It maintains a constant equilibrium of truth and justice, which it vindicates in theory and applies and promotes in practice, bringing into harmony the rights and duties of all parties. Thus authority is reconciled with liberty, the dignity of the individual with that of the State, the human personality of the subject with the divine delegation of the superior; and in this way a balance is struck between the due dependence and well-ordered love of a man for himself, his family and country, and his love of other families and other peoples, founded on the love of God, the Father of all, their first principle and last end. The Church does not separate a proper regard for temporal welfare from solicitude for the eternal. If she subordinates the former to the latter according to the words of her divine Founder, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you,"[18] she is nevertheless so far from being unconcerned with human affairs, so far from hindering civil progress and material advancement, that she actually fosters and promotes them in the most sensible and efficacious manner. Thus even in the sphere of social-economics, although the Church has never proposed a definite technical system, since this is not her field, she has nevertheless clearly outlined the guiding principles which, while susceptible of varied concrete applications according to the diversified conditions of times and places and peoples, indicate the safe way of securing the happy progress of society.
35. The wisdom and supreme utility of this doctrine are admitted by all who really understand it. With good reason outstanding statesmen have asserted that, after a study of various social systems, they have found nothing sounder than the principles expounded in the Encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno. In non-Catholic, even in non-Christian countries, men recognize the great value to society of the social doctrine of the Church. Thus, scarcely a month ago, an eminent political figure of the Far East, a non-Christian, did not hesitate to affirm publicly that the Church, with her doctrine of peace and Christian brotherhood, is rendering a signal contribution to the difficult task of establishing and maintaining peace among the nations. Finally, We know from reliable information that flows into this Center of Christendom from all parts of the world, that the Communists themselves, where they are not utterly depraved, recognize the superiority of the social doctrine of the Church, when once explained to them, over the doctrines of their leaders and their teachers. Only those blinded by passion and hatred close their eyes to the light of truth and obstinately struggle against it.
36. But the enemies of the Church, though forced to acknowledge the wisdom of her doctrine, accuse her of having failed to act in conformity with her principles, and from this conclude to the necessity of seeking other solutions. The utter falseness and injustice of this accusation is shown by the whole history of Christianity. To refer only to a single typical trait, it was Christianity that first affirmed the real and universal brotherhood of all men of whatever race and condition. This doctrine she proclaimed by a method, and with an amplitude and conviction, unknown to preceding centuries; and with it she potently contributed to the abolition of slavery. Not bloody revolution, but the inner force of her teaching made the proud Roman matron see in her slave a sister in Christ. It is Christianity that adores the Son of God, made Man for love of man, and become not only the "Son of a Carpenter" but Himself a "Carpenter."[19] It was Christianity that raised manual labor to its true dignity, whereas it had hitherto been so despised that even the moderate Cicero did not hesitate to sum up the general opinion of his time in words of which any modern sociologist would be ashamed: "All artisans are engaged in sordid trades, for there can be nothing ennobling about a workshop."[20]
37. Faithful to these principles, the Church has given new life to human society. Under her influence arose prodigious charitable organizations, great guilds of artisans and workingmen of every type. These guilds, ridiculed as "medieval" by the liberalism of the last century, are today claiming the admiration of our contemporaries in many countries who are endeavoring to revive them in some modern form. And when other systems hindered her work and raised obstacles to the salutary influence of the Church, she was never done warning them of their error. We need but recall with what constant firmness and energy Our Predecessor, Leo XIII, vindicated for the workingman the right to organize, which the dominant liberalism of the more powerful States relentlessly denied him. Even today the authority of this Church doctrine is greater than it seems; for the influence of ideas in the realm of facts, though invisible and not easily measured, is surely of predominant importance.
38. It may be said in all truth that the Church, like Christ, goes through the centuries doing good to all. There would be today neither Socialism nor Communism if the rulers of the nations had not scorned the teachings and maternal warnings of the Church. On the bases of liberalism and laicism they wished to build other social edifices which, powerful and imposing as they seemed at first, all too soon revealed the weakness of their foundations, and today are crumbling one after another before our eyes, as everything must crumble that is not grounded on the one corner stone which is Christ Jesus.
39. This, Venerable Brethren, is the doctrine of the Church, which alone in the social as in all other fields can offer real light and assure salvation in the face of Communistic ideology. But this doctrine must be consistently reduced to practice in every-day life, according to the admonition of St. James the Apostle: "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."[21] The most urgent need of the present day is therefore the energetic and timely application of remedies which will effectively ward off the catastrophe that daily grows more threatening. We cherish the firm hope that the fanaticism with which the sons of darkness work day and night at their materialistic and atheistic propaganda will at least serve the holy purpose of stimulating the sons of light to a like and even greater zeal for the honor of the Divine Majesty.
40. What then must be done, what remedies must be employed to defend Christ and Christian civilization from this pernicious enemy? As a father in the midst of his family, We should like to speak quite intimately of those duties which the great struggle of our day imposes on all the children of the Church; and We would address Our paternal admonition even to those sons who have strayed far from her.
41. As in all the stormy periods of the history of the Church, the fundamental remedy today lies in a sincere renewal of private and public life according to the principles of the Gospel by all those who belong to the Fold of Christ, that they may be in truth the salt of the earth to preserve human society from total corruption.
42. With heart deeply grateful to the Father of Light, from Whom descends "every best gift and every perfect gift,"[22] We see on all sides consoling signs of this spiritual renewal. We see it not only in so many singularly chosen souls who in these last years have been elevated to the sublime heights of sanctity, and in so many others who with generous hearts are making their way towards the same luminous goal, but also in the new flowering of a deep and practical piety in all classes of society even the most cultured, as We pointed out in Our recent Motu Proprio In multis solaciis of October 28 last, on the occasion of the reorganization of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.[23]
43. Nevertheless We cannot deny that there is still much to be done in the way of spiritual renovation. Even in Catholic countries there are still too many who are Catholics hardly more than in name. There are too many who fulfill more or less faithfully the more essential obligations of the religion they boast of professing, but have no desire of knowing it better, of deepening their inward conviction, and still less of bringing into conformity with the external gloss the inner splendor of a right and unsullied conscience, that recognizes and performs all its duties under the eye of God. We know how much Our Divine Savior detested this empty pharisaic show, He Who wished that all should adore the Father "in spirit and in truth."[24] The Catholic who does not live really and sincerely according to the Faith he professes will not long be master of himself in these days when the winds of strife and persecution blow so fiercely, but will be swept away defenseless in this new deluge which threatens the world. And thus, while he is preparing his own ruin, he is exposing to ridicule the very name of Christian.
44. And here We wish, Venerable Brethren, to insist more particularly on two teachings of Our Lord which have a special bearing on the present condition of the human race: detachment from earthly goods and the precept of charity. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" were the first words that fell from the lips of the Divine Master in His sermon on the mount.[25] This lesson is more than ever necessary in these days of materialism athirst for the goods and pleasures of this earth. All Christians, rich or poor, must keep their eye fixed on heaven, remembering that "we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come."[26] The rich should not place their happiness in things of earth nor spend their best efforts in the acquisition of them. Rather, considering themselves only as stewards of their earthly goods, let them be mindful of the account they must render of them to their Lord and Master, and value them as precious means that God has put into their hands for doing good; let them not fail, besides, to distribute of their abundance to the poor, according to the evangelical precept.[27] Otherwise there shall be verified of them and their riches the harsh condemnation of St. James the Apostle: "Go to now, ye rich men; weep and howl in your miseries which shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten; your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you and shall eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days. . ."[28]
45. But the poor too, in their turn, while engaged, according to the laws of charity and justice, in acquiring the necessities of life and also in bettering their condition, should always remain "poor in spirit,"[29] and hold spiritual goods in higher esteem than earthly property and pleasures. Let them remember that the world will never be able to rid itself of misery, sorrow and tribulation, which are the portion even of those who seem most prosperous. Patience, therefore, is the need of all, that Christian patience which comforts the heart with the divine assurance of eternal happiness. "Be patient, therefore, brethren," we repeat with St. James, "until the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, patiently bearing until he receive the early and the later rain. Be you therefore also patient and strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand."[30] Only thus will be fulfilled the consoling promise of the Lord: "Blessed are the poor!" These words are no vain consolation, a promise as empty as those of the Communists. They are the words of life, pregnant with a sovereign reality. They are fully verified here on earth, as well as in eternity. Indeed, how many of the poor, in anticipation of the Kingdom of Heaven already proclaimed their own: "for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven,"[31] find in these words a happiness which so many of the wealthy, uneasy with their riches and ever thirsting for more, look for in vain!
46. Still more important as a remedy for the evil we are considering, or certainly more directly calculated to cure it, is the precept of charity. We have in mind that Christian charity, "patient and kind,"[32] which avoids all semblance of demeaning paternalism, and all ostentation; that charity which from the very beginning of Christianity won to Christ the poorest of the poor, the slaves. And We are grateful to all those members of charitable associations, from the conferences of St. Vincent de Paul to the recent great relief organizations, which are perseveringly practicing the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The more the working men and the poor realize what the spirit of love animated by the virtue of Christ is doing for them, the more readily will they abandon the false persuasion that Christianity has lost its efficacy and that the Church stands on the side of the exploiters of their labor.
47. But when on the one hand We see thousands of the needy, victims of real misery for various reasons beyond their control, and on the other so many round about them who spend huge sums of money on useless things and frivolous amusement, We cannot fail to remark with sorrow not only that justice is poorly observed, but that the precept of charity also is not sufficiently appreciated, is not a vital thing in daily life. We desire therefore, Venerable Brethren, that this divine precept, this precious mark of identification left by Christ to His true disciples, be ever more fully explained by pen and word of mouth; this precept which teaches us to see in those who suffer Christ Himself, and would have us love our brothers as Our Divine Savior has loved us, that is, even at the sacrifice of ourselves, and, if need be, of our very life. Let all then frequently meditate on those words of the final sentence, so consoling yet so terrifying, which the Supreme Judge will pronounce on the day of the Last Judgment: "Come, ye blessed of my Father . . . for I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink . . . Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren you did it to me."[33] And the reverse: "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire . . . for I was hungry and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me not to drink . . . Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least. neither did you do it to me."[34]
48. To be sure of eternal life, therefore, and to be able to help the poor effectively, it is imperative to return to a more moderate way of life, to renounce the joys, often sinful, which the world today holds out in such abundance; to forget self for love of the neighbor. There is a divine regenerating force in this "new precept" (as Christ called it) of Christian charity.[35] Its faithful observance will pour into the heart an inner peace which the world knows not, and will finally cure the ills which oppress humanity.
49. But charity will never be true charity unless it takes justice into constant account. The Apostle teaches that "he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law" and he gives the reason: "For, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal . . . and if there be any other commandment, it is comprised in this word: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."[36] According to the Apostle, then, all the commandments, including those which are of strict justice, as those which forbid us to kill or to steal, may be reduced to the single precept of true charity. From this it follows that a "charity" which deprives the workingman of the salary to which he has a strict title in justice, is not charity at all, but only its empty name and hollow semblance. The wage-earner is not to receive as alms what is his due in justice. And let no one attempt with trifling charitable donations to exempt himself from the great duties imposed by justice. Both justice and charity often dictate obligations touching on the same subject-matter, but under different aspects; and the very dignity of the workingman makes him justly and acutely sensitive to the duties of others in his regard.
50. Therefore We turn again in a special way to you, Christian employers and industrialists, whose problem is often so difficult for the reason that you are saddled with the heavy heritage of an unjust economic regime whose ruinous influence has been felt through many generations. We bid you be mindful of your responsibility. It is unfortunately true that the manner of acting in certain Catholic circles has done much to shake the faith of the working-classes in the religion of Jesus Christ. These groups have refused to understand that Christian charity demands the recognition of certain rights due to the workingman, which the Church has explicitly acknowledged. What is to be thought of the action of those Catholic employers who in one place succeeded in preventing the reading of Our Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno in their local churches? Or of those Catholic industrialists who even to this day have shown themselves hostile to a labor movement that We Ourselves recommended? Is it not deplorable that the right of private property defended by the Church should so often have been used as a weapon to defraud the workingman of his just salary and his social rights?
51. In reality, besides commutative justice, there is also social justice with its own set obligations, from which neither employers nor workingmen can escape. Now it is of the very essence of social justice to demand for each individual all that is necessary for the common good. But just as in the living organism it is impossible to provide for the good of the whole unless each single part and each individual member is given what it needs for the exercise of its proper functions, so it is impossible to care for the social organism and the good of society as a unit unless each single part and each individual member - that is to say, each individual man in the dignity of his human personality - is supplied with all that is necessary for the exercise of his social functions. If social justice be satisfied, the result will be an intense activity in economic life as a whole, pursued in tranquillity and order. This activity will be proof of the health of the social body, just as the health of the human body is recognized in the undisturbed regularity and perfect efficiency of the whole organism.
52. But social justice cannot be said to have been satisfied as long as workingmen are denied a salary that will enable them to secure proper sustenance for themselves and for their families; as long as they are denied the opportunity of acquiring a modest fortune and forestalling the plague of universal pauperism; as long as they cannot make suitable provision through public or private insurance for old age, for periods of illness and unemployment. In a word, to repeat what has been said in Our Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno: "Then only will the economic and social order be soundly established and attain its ends, when it offers, to all and to each, all those goods which the wealth and resources of nature, technical science and the corporate organization of social affairs can give. These goods should be sufficient to supply all necessities and reasonable comforts, and to uplift men to that higher standard of life which, provided it be used with prudence, is not only not a hindrance but is of singular help to virtue."[37]
53. It happens all too frequently, however, under the salary system, that individual employers are helpless to ensure justice unless, with a view to its practice, they organize institutions the object of which is to prevent competition incompatible with fair treatment for the workers. Where this is true, it is the duty of contractors and employers to support and promote such necessary organizations as normal instruments enabling them to fulfill their obligations of justice. But the laborers too must be mindful of their duty to love and deal fairly with their employers, and persuade themselves that there is no better means of safeguarding their own interests.
54. If, therefore, We consider the whole structure of economic life, as We have already pointed out in Our Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno,the reign of mutual collaboration between justice and charity in social-economic relations can only be achieved by a body of professional and inter professional organizations, built on solidly Christian foundations, working together to effect, under forms adapted to different places and circumstances, what has been called the Corporation.
55. To give to this social activity a greater efficacy, it is necessary to promote a wider study of social problems in the light of the doctrine of the Church and under the aegis of her constituted authority. If the manner of acting of some Catholics in the social-economic field has left much to be desired, this has often come about because they have not known and pondered sufficiently the teachings of the Sovereign Pontiffs on these questions. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to foster in all classes of society an intensive program of social education adapted to the varying degrees of intellectual culture. It is necessary with all care and diligence to procure the widest possible diffusion of the teachings of the Church, even among the working-classes. The minds of men must be illuminated with the sure light of Catholic teaching, and their wills must be drawn to follow and apply it as the norm of right living in the conscientious fulfillment of their manifold social duties. Thus they will oppose that incoherence and discontinuity in Christian life which We have many times lamented. For there are some who, while exteriorly faithful to the practice of their religion, yet in the field of labor and industry, in the professions, trade and business, permit a deplorable cleavage in their conscience, and live a life too little in conformity with the clear principles of justice and Christian charity. Such lives are a scandal to the weak, and to the malicious a pretext to discredit the Church.
56. In this renewal the Catholic Press can play a prominent part. Its foremost duty is to foster in various attractive ways an ever better understanding of social doctrine. It should, too, supply accurate and complete information on the activity of the enemy and the means of resistance which have been found most effective in various quarters. It should offer useful suggestions and warn against the insidious deceits with which Communists endeavor, all too successfully, to attract even men of good faith.
57. On this point We have already insisted in Our Allocution of May 12th of last year, but We believe it to be a duty of special urgency, Venerable Brethren, to call your attention to it once again. In the beginning Communism showed itself for what it was in all its perversity; but very soon it realized that it was thus alienating the people. It has therefore changed its tactics, and strives to entice the multitudes by trickery of various forms, hiding its real designs behind ideas that in themselves are good and attractive. Thus, aware of the universal desire for peace, the leaders of Communism pretend to be the most zealous promoters and propagandists in the movement for world amity. Yet at the same time they stir up a class-warfare which causes rivers of blood to flow, and, realizing that their system offers no internal guarantee of peace, they have recourse to unlimited armaments. Under various names which do not suggest Communism, they establish organizations and periodicals with the sole purpose of carrying their ideas into quarters otherwise inaccessible. They try perfidiously to worm their way even into professedly Catholic and religious organizations. Again, without receding an inch from their subversive principles, they invite Catholics to collaborate with them in the realm of so-called humanitarianism and charity; and at times even make proposals that are in perfect harmony with the Christian spirit and the doctrine of the Church. Elsewhere they carry their hypocrisy so far as to encourage the belief that Communism, in countries where faith and culture are more strongly entrenched, will assume another and much milder form. It will not interfere with the practice of religion. It will respect liberty of conscience. There are some even who refer to certain changes recently introduced into soviet legislation as a proof that Communism is about to abandon its program of war against God.
58. See to it, Venerable Brethren, that the Faithful do not allow themselves to be deceived! Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever. Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of their error. And the greater the antiquity and grandeur of the Christian civilization in the regions where Communism successfully penetrates, so much more devastating will be the hatred displayed by the godless.
59. But "unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it."[38] And so, as a final and most efficacious remedy, We recommend, Venerable Brethren, that in your dioceses you use the most practical means to foster and intensify the spirit of prayer joined with Christian penance. When the Apostles asked the Savior why they had been unable to drive the evil spirit from a demoniac, Our Lord answered: "This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting."[39] So, too, the evil which today torments humanity can be conquered only by a world-wide crusade of prayer and penance. We ask especially the Contemplative Orders, men and women, to redouble their prayers and sacrifices to obtain from heaven efficacious aid for the Church in the present struggle. Let them implore also the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Virgin who, having crushed the head of the serpent of old, remains the sure protectress and invincible "Help of Christians."[/color]
60. To apply the remedies thus briefly indicated to the task of saving the world. as We have traced it above, Jesus Christ, our Divine King, has chosen priests as the first-line ministers and messengers of His gospel. Theirs is the duty, assigned to them by a special vocation, under the direction of their Bishops and in filial obedience to the Vicar of Christ on earth, of keeping alight in the world the torch of Faith, and of filling the hearts of the Faithful with that supernatural trust which has aided the Church to fight and win so many other battles in the name of Christ: "This is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith."[40]
61. To priests in a special way We recommend anew the oft-repeated counsel of Our Predecessor, Leo XIII, to go to the workingman. We make this advice Our own, and faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Church, We thus complete it: "Go to the workingman, especially where he is poor; and in general, go to the poor." The poor are obviously more exposed than others to the wiles of agitators who, taking advantage of their extreme need, kindle their hearts to envy of the rich and urge them to seize by force what fortune seems to have denied them unjustly.If the priest will not go to the workingman and to the poor, to warn them or to disabuse them of prejudice and false theory, they will become an easy prey for the apostles of Communism.
62. Indisputably much has been done in this direction, especially after the publication of the Encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno. We are happy to voice Our paternal approval of the zealous pastoral activity manifested by so many Bishops and priests who have with due prudence and caution been planning and applying new methods of apostolate more adapted to modern needs. But for the solution of our present problem, all this effort is still inadequate. When our country is in danger, everything not strictly necessary, everything not bearing directly on the urgent matter of unified defense, takes second place. So we must act in today's crisis. Every other enterprise, however attractive and helpful, must yield before the vital need of protecting the very foundation of the Faith and of Christian civilization. Let our parish priest, therefore, while providing of course for the normal needs of the Faithful, dedicate the better part of their endeavors and their zeal to winning back the laboring masses to Christ and to His Church. Let them work to infuse the Christian spirit into quarters where it is least at home. The willing response of the masses, and results far exceeding their expectations, will not fail to reward them for their strenuous pioneer labor. This has been and continues to be our experience in Rome and in other capitals, where zealous parish communities are being formed as new churches are built in the suburban districts, and real miracles are being worked in the conversion of people whose hostility to religion has been due solely to the fact that they did not know it.
63. But the most efficacious means of apostolate among the poor and lowly is the priest's example, the practice of all those sacerdotal virtues which We have described in Our Encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii.[41] Especially needful, however, for the present situation is the shining example of a life which is humble, poor and disinterested, in imitation of a Divine Master Who could say to the world with divine simplicity: "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head."[42] A priest who is really poor and disinterested in the Gospel sense may work among his flock marvels recalling a Saint Vincent de Paul, a Cure of Ars, a Cottolengo, a Don Bosco and so many others; while an avaricious and selfish priest, as We have noted in the above mentioned Encyclical, even though he should not plunge with Judas to the abyss of treason, will never be more than empty "sounding brass" and useless "tinkling cymbal."[43] Too often, indeed, he will be a hindrance rather than an instrument of grace in the midst of his people. Furthermore, where a secular priest or religious is obliged by his office to administer temporal property, let him remember that he is not only to observe scrupulously all that charity and justice prescribe, but that he has a special obligation to conduct himself in very truth as a father of the poor.
64. After this appeal to the clergy, We extend Our paternal invitation to Our beloved sons among the laity who are doing battle in the ranks of Catholic Action. On another occasion[44] We have called this movement so dear to Our heart "a particularly providential assistance" in the work of the Church during these troublous times. Catholic Action is in effect a social apostolate also, inasmuch as its object is to spread the Kingdom of Jesus Christ not only among individuals, but also in families and in society. It must, therefore, make it a chief aim to train its members with special care and to prepare them to fight the battles of the Lord. This task of formation, now more urgent and indispensable than ever, which must always precede direct action in the field, will assuredly be served by study-circles, conferences, lecture-courses and the various other activities undertaken with a view to making known the Christian solution of the social problem.
65. The militant leaders of Catholic Action thus properly prepared and armed, will be the first and immediate apostles of their fellow workmen. They will be an invaluable aid to the priest in carrying the torch of truth, and in relieving grave spiritual and material suffering, in many sectors where inveterate anti-clerical prejudice or deplorable religious indifference has proved a constant obstacle to the pastoral activity of God's ministers. In this way they will collaborate, under the direction of especially qualified priests, in that work of spiritual aid to the laboring classes on which We set so much store, because it is the means best calculated to save these, Our beloved children, from the snares of Communism.
66. In addition to this individual apostolate which, however useful and efficacious, often goes unheralded, Catholic Action must organize propaganda on a large scale to disseminate knowledge of the fundamental principleson which, according to the Pontifical documents, a Christian Social Order must build.
67. Ranged with Catholic Action are the groups which We have been happy to call its auxiliary forces. With paternal affection We exhort these valuable organizations also to dedicate themselves to the great mission of which We have been treating, a cause which today transcends all others in vital importance.
68. We are thinking likewise of those associations of workmen, farmers, technicians, doctors, employers, students and others of like character, groups of men and women who live in the same cultural atmosphere and share the same way of life. Precisely these groups and organizations are destined to introduce into society that order which We have envisaged in Our Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, and thus to spread in the vast and various fields of culture and labor the recognition of the Kingdom of Christ.
69. Even where the State, because of changed social and economic conditions, has felt obliged to intervene directly in order to aid and regulate such organizations by special legislative enactments, supposing always the necessary respect for liberty and private initiative, Catholic Action may not urge the circumstance as an excuse for abandoning the field. Its members should contribute prudently and intelligently to the study of the problems of the hour in the light of Catholic doctrine. They should loyally and generously participate in the formation of the new institutions, bringing to them the Christian spirit which is the basic principle of order wherever men work together in fraternal harmony.
70. Here We should like to address a particularly affectionate word to Our Catholic workingmen, young and old. They have been given, perhaps as a reward for their often heroic fidelity in these trying days, a noble and an arduous mission. Under the guidance of their Bishops and priests, they are to bring back to the Church and to God those immense multitudes of their brother-workmen who, because they were not understood or treated with the respect to which they were entitled, in bitterness have strayed far from God. Let Catholic workingmen show these their wandering brethren by word and example that the Church is a tender Mother to all those who labor and suffer, and that she has never failed, and never will fail, in her sacred maternal duty of protecting her children. If this mission, which must be fulfilled in mines, in factories, in shops, wherever they may be laboring, should at times require great sacrifices, Our workmen will remember that the Savior of the world has given them an example not only of toil but of self immolation.
71. To all Our children, finally, of every social rank and every nation, to every religious and lay organization in the Church, We make another and more urgent appeal for union. Many times Our paternal heart has been saddened by the divergencies - often idle in their causes, always tragic in their consequences - which array in opposing camps the sons of the same Mother Church. Thus it is that the radicals, who are not so very numerous, profiting by this discord are able to make it more acute, and end by pitting Catholics one against the other. In view of the events of the past few months, Our warning must seem superfluous. We repeat it nevertheless once more, for those who have not understood, or perhaps do not desire to understand. Those who make a practice of spreading dissension among Catholics assume a terrible responsibility before God and the Church.
72. But in this battle joined by the powers of darkness against the very idea of Divinity, it is Our fond hope that, besides the host which glories in the name of Christ, all those - and they comprise the overwhelming majority of mankind, - who still believe in God and pay Him homage may take a decisive part. We therefore renew the invitation extended to them five years ago in Our Encyclical Caritate Christi, invoking their loyal and hearty collaboration "in order to ward off from mankind the great danger that threatens all alike." Since, as We then said, "belief in God is the unshakable foundation of all social order and of all responsibility on earth, it follows that all those who do not want anarchy and terrorism ought to take energetic steps to prevent the enemies of religion from attaining the goal they have so brazenly proclaimed to the world."[45]
73. Such is the positive task, embracing at once theory and practice, which the Church undertakes in virtue of the mission, confided to her by Christ, of constructing a Christian society, and, in our own times, of resisting unto victory the attacks of Communism. It is the duty of the Christian State to concur actively in this spiritual enterprise of the Church, aiding her with the means at its command, which although they be external devices, have nonetheless for their prime object the good of souls.
74. This means that all diligence should be exercised by States to prevent within their territories the ravages of an anti-God campaign which shakes society to its very foundations. For there can be no authority on earth unless the authority of the Divine Majesty be recognized; no oath will bind which is not sworn in the Name of the Living God. We repeat what We have said with frequent insistence in the past, especially in Our Encyclical Caritate Christi: "How can any contract be maintained, and what value can any treaty have, in which every guarantee of conscience is lacking? And how can there be talk of guarantees of conscience when all faith in God and all fear of God have vanished? Take away this basis, and with it all moral law falls, and there is no remedy left to stop the gradual but inevitable destruction of peoples, families, the State, civilization itself."[46]
75. It must likewise be the special care of the State to create those material conditions of life without which an orderly society cannot exist. The State must take every measure necessary to supply employment, particularly for the heads of families and for the young. To achieve this end demanded by the pressing needs of the common welfare, the wealthy classes must be induced to assume those burdens without which human society cannot be saved nor they themselves remain secure. However, measures taken by the State with this end in view ought to be of such a nature that they will really affect those who actually possess more than their share of capital resources, and who continue to accumulate them to the grievous detriment of others.
76. The State itself, mindful of its responsibility before God and society, should be a model of prudence and sobriety in the administration of the commonwealth. Today more than ever the acute world crisis demands that those who dispose of immense funds, built up on the sweat and toil of millions, keep constantly and singly in mind the common good. State functionaries and all employees are obliged in conscience to perform their duties faithfully and unselfishly, imitating the brilliant example of distinguished men of the past and of our own day, who with unremitting labor sacrificed their all for the good of their country. In international trade-relations let all means be sedulously employed for the removal of those artificial barriers to economic life which are the effects of distrust and hatred. All must remember that the peoples of the earth form but one family in God.
77. At the same time the State must allow the Church full liberty to fulfill her divine and spiritual mission, and this in itself will be an effectual contribution to the rescue of nations from the dread torment of the present hour. Everywhere today there is an anxious appeal to moral and spiritual forces; and rightly so, for the evil we must combat is at its origin primarily an evil of the spiritual order. From this polluted source the monstrous emanations of the communistic system flow with satanic logic. Now, the Catholic Church is undoubtedly preeminent among the moral and religious forces of today. Therefore the very good of humanity demands that her work be allowed to proceed unhindered.
78. Those who act otherwise, and at the same time fondly pretend to attain their objective with purely political or economic means, are in the grip of a dangerous error. When religion is banished from the school, from education and from public life, when the representatives of Christianity and its sacred rites are held up to ridicule, are we not really fostering the materialism which is the fertile soil of Communism? Neither force, however well organized it be, nor earthly ideals however lofty or noble, can control a movement whose roots lie in the excessive esteem for the goods of this world.
79. We trust that those rulers of nations, who are at all aware of the extreme danger threatening every people today, may be more and more convinced of their supreme duty not to hinder the Church in the fulfillment of her mission. This is the more imperative since, while this mission has in view man's happiness in heaven, it cannot but promote his true felicity in time.
80. We cannot conclude this Encyclical Letter without addressing some words to those of Our children who are more or less tainted with the Communist plague. We earnestly exhort them to hear the voice of their loving Father. We pray the Lord to enlighten them that they may abandon the slippery path which will precipitate one and all to ruin and catastrophe, and that they recognize that Jesus Christ, Our Lord, is their only Savior: "For there is no other name under heaven given to man, whereby we must be saved."[47]
81. To hasten the advent of that "peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ"[48] so ardently desired by all, We place the vast campaign of the Church against world Communism under the standard of St. Joseph, her mighty Protector. He belongs to the working-class, and he bore the burdens of poverty for himself and the Holy Family, whose tender and vigilant head he was. To him was entrusted the Divine Child when Herod loosed his assassins against Him. In a life of faithful performance of everyday duties, he left an example for all those who must gain their bread by the toil of their hands. He won for himself the title of "The Just," serving thus as a living model of that Christian justice which should reign in social life.
82. With eyes lifted on high, our Faith sees the new heavens and the new earth described by Our first Predecessor, St. Peter.[49] While the promises of the false prophets of this earth melt away in blood and tears, the great apocalyptic prophecy of the Redeemer shines forth in heavenly splendor: "Behold, I make all things new."[50] Venerable Brethren, nothing remains but to raise Our paternal hands to call down upon you, upon your clergy and people, upon the whole Catholic family, the Apostolic Benediction.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the feast of St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church, on the 19th of March, 1937, the 16th year of our Pontificate.
PIUS XI
1. Encycl. Qui Pluribus, Nov. 9, 1864 (Acta Pii IX, Vol I, p. 13). Cf. Syllabus, IV, (A.S.S., vol. III, p. 170).
2. Encycl. Quod Apostolici Muneris, Dec. 28, 1928 (Acta Leonis XII, Vol. 1, p. 46).
3. Dec. 18, 1924: A.A.S., Vol. XVI (1924), pp. 494-495.
4. May 8, 1928: A.A.S., Vol. XX (1928), pp. 165-178.
5. May 15, 1931: A.A.S., Vol. XXIII (1931), pp. 177-228.
6. May 3, 1932: A.A.S., Vol. XXIV (1932), pp. 177-194.
7. Sept. 29, 1932: A.A.S., Vol. XXIV (1932), pp. 321-332.
8. June 3, 1933: A.A.S., Vol. XXV (1933), pp. 261-274.
9. Cf. Thessalonians, II, 4.
10. Encycl. Divini Illius Magistri, Dec. 31, 1929 (A.A.S., Vol. XXII, 1930 pp. 47-86).
11. Encycl. Casti Connubii, Dec. 31, 1930 (A.A.S., Vol. XX- II, 1930, pp. 539-592).
12. I Corinthians, III, 23.
13. Encycl. Rerum Novarum, May 15, 1891 (Acta Leonis XIII Vol. IV, pp. 177-209).
14. Encycl. Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931 (A.A.S., Vol. XXIII, 1931, pp. 177-228).
15. Encycl. Diuturnum Illud, June 20, 1881 (Acta Leonis XIII, Vol. I, . 210-22).
16. Encycl. Immortale Dei, Nov. 1, 1885 (Acta Leonis XIII, Vol. II, pp. 146-168).
17. St. Luke, 11, 14.
18. St. Matthew, VI, 33.
19. Cf. St. Matthew, XIII, 55: St. Mark, Vl, 3.
20. Cicero, De Officiis, Bk. I, c. 42.
21. St. James, I, 22.
22. St. James, I, 17.
23. A.A.S., vol. XXVIII (1936); pp. 421424.
24. St. John, IV, 23.
25. St. Matthew, V, 3.
26. Hebrews, XIII, 14.
27. St. Luke, Xl, 41.
28. St. James, V, 1-3.
29. St. Matthew, V, 3.
30. St. James, V, 7, 8.
31. St. Luke, VI, 20.
32. I Corinthians, XIII, 4.
33. St. Matthew, XXV, 34-40.
34. St. Matthew, XXV, 41-45.
35. St. John, XIII, 34.
36. Romans, XIII, 8, 9.
37. Encycl. Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931 (A.A.S., Vol. XXIII, 1931, p. 202).
38. Psalms, CXXVI, 1.
39. St. Matthew, XVII, 20
40. I Epist. St. John, V, 4.
41 Dec. 20, 1935, A.A.S., vol. XXVIII (1936), pp. 5-53. 42. St. Matthew, VIII, 20.
43. I Corinthians, XIII, 1.
44. May 12, 1936.
45. Encycl. Caritate Christi, May 3, 1932 (A.A.S., vol. XXIV, p. 184).
46. Encycl. Caritate Christi, May 3, 1932 (A.A.S., vol. XX-IV, 1932, p. 190).
47. Acts, IV, 12.
48. Encycl. Ubi Arcano, Dec. 23, 1922 (A.A.S., Vol. XIV, 1922,p.691).
49. II Epist. St. Peter, III, 13; cf. Isaias, LXV, 17 and LXVI, 22; Apoc., XXI, 1.
50. Apoc. XXI, 5.
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| Pope Pius XI: Divini Redemtoris - On Atheistic Communism |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 01:50 PM - Forum: Socialism & Communism
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DIVINI REDEMPTORIS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI ON ATHEISTIC COMMUNISM
TO THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, AND OTHER ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE.
Venerable Brethren, Health and Apostolic Benediction.
The promise of a Redeemer brightens the first page of the history of mankind, and the confident hope aroused by this promise softened the keen regret for a paradise which had been lost. It was this hope that accompanied the human race on its weary journey, until in the fullness of time the expected Savior came to begin a new universal civilization, the Christian civilization, far superior even to that which up to this time had been laboriously achieved by certain more privileged nations.
2. Nevertheless, the struggle between good and evil remained in the world as a sad legacy of the original fall. Nor has the ancient tempter ever ceased to deceive mankind with false promises. It is on this account that one convulsion following upon another has marked the passage of the centuries, down to the revolution of our own days. This modern revolution, it may be said, has actually broken out or threatens everywhere, and it exceeds in amplitude and violence anything yet experienced in the preceding persecutions launched against the Church. Entire peoples find themselves in danger of falling back into a barbarism worse than that which oppressed the greater part of the world at the coming of the Redeemer.
3. This all too imminent danger, Venerable Brethren, as you have already surmised, is bolshevistic and atheistic Communism, which aims at upsetting the social order and at undermining the very foundations of Christian civilization.
4. In the face of such a threat, the Catholic Church could not and does not remain silent. This Apostolic See, above all, has not refrained from raising its voice, for it knows that its proper and social mission is to defend truth, justice and all those eternal values which Communism ignores or attacks. Ever since the days when groups of "intellectuals" were formed in an arrogant attempt to free civilization from the bonds of morality and religion, Our Predecessors overtly and explicitly drew the attention of the world to the consequences of the dechristianization of human society. With reference to Communism, Our Venerable Predecessor, Pius IX, of holy memory, as early as 1846 pronounced a solemn condemnation, which he confirmed in the words of the Syllabus directed against "that infamous doctrine of so-called Communism which is absolutely contrary to the natural law itself, and if once adopted would utterly destroy the rights, property and possessions of all men, and even society itself."[1] Later on, another of Our predecessors, the immortal Leo XIII, in his Encyclical Quod Apostolici Muneris, defined Communism as "the fatal plague which insinuates itself into the very marrow of human society only to bring about its ruin."[2] With clear intuition he pointed out that the atheistic movements existing among the masses of the Machine Age had their origin in that school of philosophy which for centuries had sought to divorce science from the life of the Faith and of the Church.
5. During Our Pontificate We too have frequently and with urgent insistence denounced the current trend to atheism which is alarmingly on the increase. In 1924 when Our relief-mission returned from the Soviet Union We condemned Communism in a special Allocution[3] which We addressed to the whole world. In our Encyclicals Miserentissimus Redemptor,[4] Quadragesimo Anno,[5] Caritate Christi,[6] Acerba Animi,[7] Dilectissima Nobis,[8] We raised a solemn protest against the persecutions unleashed in Russia, in Mexico and now in Spain. Our two Allocutions of last year, the first on the occasion of the opening of the International Catholic Press Exposition, and the second during Our audience to the Spanish refugees, along with Our message of last Christmas, have evoked a world-wide echo which is not yet spent. In fact, the most persistent enemies of the Church, who from Moscow are directing the struggle against Christian civilization, themselves bear witness, by their unceasing attacks in word and act, that even to this hour the Papacy has continued faithfully to protect the sanctuary of the Christian religion, and that it has called public attention to the perils of Communism more frequently and more effectively than any other public authority on earth.
6. To Our great satisfaction, Venerable Brethren, you have, by means of individual and even joint pastoral Letters, accurately transmitted and explained to the Faithful these admonitions. Yet despite Our frequent and paternal warning the peril only grows greater from day to day because of the pressure exerted by clever agitators. Therefore We believe it to be Our duty to raise Our voice once more, in a still more solemn missive, in accord with the tradition of this Apostolic See, the Teacher of Truth, and in accord with the desire of the whole Catholic world, which makes the appearance of such a document but natural. We trust that the echo of Our voice will reach every mind free from prejudice and every heart sincerely desirous of the good of mankind. We wish this the more because Our words are now receiving sorry confirmation from the spectacle of the bitter fruits of subversive ideas, which We foresaw and foretold, and which are in fact multiplying fearfully in the countries already stricken, or threatening every other country of the world.
7. Hence We wish to expose once more in a brief synthesis the principles of atheistic Communism as they are manifested chiefly in bolshevism. We wish also to indicate its method of action and to contrast with its false principles the clear doctrine of the Church, in order to inculcate anew and with greater insistence the means by which the Christian civilization, the true civitas humana, can be saved from the satanic scourge, and not merely saved, but better developed for the well-being of human society.
8. The Communism of today, more emphatically than similar movements in the past, conceals in itself a false messianic idea. A pseudo-ideal of justice, of equality and fraternity in labor impregnates all its doctrine and activity with a deceptive mysticism, which communicates a zealous and contagious enthusiasm to the multitudes entrapped by delusive promises. This is especially true in an age like ours, when unusual misery has resulted from the unequal distribution of the goods of this world. This pseudo-ideal is even boastfully advanced as if it were responsible for a certain economic progress. As a matter of fact, when such progress is at all real, its true causes are quite different, as for instance the intensification of industrialism in countries which were formerly almost without it, the exploitation of immense natural resources, and the use of the most brutal methods to insure the achievement of gigantic projects with a minimum of expense.
9. The doctrine of modern Communism, which is often concealed under the most seductive trappings, is in substance based on the principles of dialectical and historical materialism previously advocated by Marx, of which the theoricians of bolshevism claim to possess the only genuine interpretation. According to this doctrine there is in the world only one reality, matter, the blind forces of which evolve into plant, animal and man. Even human society is nothing but a phenomenon and form of matter, evolving in the same way. By a law of inexorable necessity and through a perpetual conflict of forces, matter moves towards the final synthesis of a classless society. In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life. Insisting on the dialectical aspect of their materialism, the Communists claim that the conflict which carries the world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated by man. Hence they endeavor to sharpen the antagonisms which arise between the various classes of society. Thus the class struggle with its consequent violent hate and destruction takes on the aspects of a crusade for the progress of humanity. On the other hand, all other forces whatever, as long as they resist such systematic violence, must be annihilated as hostile to the human race.
10. Communism, moreover, strips man of his liberty, robs human personality of all its dignity, and removes all the moral restraints that check the eruptions of blind impulse. There is no recognition of any right of the individual in his relations to the collectivity; no natural right is accorded to human personality, which is a mere cog-wheel in the Communist system. In man's relations with other individuals, besides, Communists hold the principle of absolute equality, rejecting all hierarchy and divinely-constituted authority, including the authority of parents. What men call authority and subordination is derived from the community as its first and only font. Nor is the individual granted any property rights over material goods or the means of production, for inasmuch as these are the source of further wealth, their possession would give one man power over another. Precisely on this score, all forms of private property must be eradicated, for they are at the origin of all economic enslavement.
11. Refusing to human life any sacred or spiritual character, such a doctrine logically makes of marriage and the family a purely artificial and civil institution, the outcome of a specific economic system. There exists no matrimonial bond of a juridico-moral nature that is not subject to the whim of the individual or of the collectivity. Naturally, therefore, the notion of an indissoluble marriage-tie is scouted. Communism is particularly characterized by the rejection of any link that binds woman to the family and the home, and her emancipation is proclaimed as a basic principle. She is withdrawn from the family and the care of her children, to be thrust instead into public life and collective production under the same conditions as man. The care of home and children then devolves upon the collectivity. Finally, the right of education is denied to parents, for it is conceived as the exclusive prerogative of the community, in whose name and by whose mandate alone parents may exercise this right.
12. What would be the condition of a human society based on such materialistic tenets? It would be a collectivity with no other hierarchy than that of the economic system. It would have only one mission: the production of material things by means of collective labor, so that the goods of this world might be enjoyed in a paradise where each would "give according to his powers" and would "receive according to his needs." Communism recognizes in the collectivity the right, or rather, unlimited discretion, to draft individuals for the labor of the collectivity with no regard for their personal welfare; so that even violence could be legitimately exercised to dragoon the recalcitrant against their wills. In the Communistic commonwealth morality and law would be nothing but a derivation of the existing economic order, purely earthly in origin and unstable in character. In a word. the Communists claim to inaugurate a new era and a new civilization which is the result of blind evolutionary forces culminating in a humanity without God.
13. When all men have finally acquired the collectivist mentality in this Utopia of a really classless society, the political State, which is now conceived by Communists merely as the instrument by which the proletariat is oppressed by the capitalists, will have lost all reason for its existence and will "wither away." However, until that happy consummation is realized, the State and the powers of the State furnish Communism with the most efficacious and most extensive means for the achievement of its goal.
14. Such, Venerable Brethren, is the new gospel which bolshevistic and atheistic Communism offers the world as the glad tidings of deliverance and salvation! It is a system full of errors and sophisms. It is in opposition both to reason and to Divine Revelation. It subverts the social order, because it means the destruction of its foundations; because it ignores the true origin and purpose of the State; because it denies the rights, dignity and liberty of human personality.
15. How is it possible that such a system, long since rejected scientifically and now proved erroneous by experience, how is it, We ask, that such a system could spread so rapidly in all parts of the world? The explanation lies in the fact that too few have been able to grasp the nature of Communism. The majority instead succumb to its deception, skillfully concealed by the most extravagant promises. By pretending to desire only the betterment of the condition of the working classes, by urging the removal of the very real abuses chargeable to the liberalistic economic order, and by demanding a more equitable distribution of this world's goods (objectives entirely and undoubtedly legitimate), the Communist takes advantage of the present world-wide economic crisis to draw into the sphere of his influence even those sections of the populace which on principle reject all forms of materialism and terrorism. And as every error contains its element of truth, the partial truths to which We have referred are astutely presented according to the needs of time and place, to conceal, when convenient, the repulsive crudity and inhumanity of Communistic principles and tactics. Thus the Communist ideal wins over many of the better minded members of the community. These in turn become the apostles of the movement among the younger intelligentsia who are still too immature to recognize the intrinsic errors of the system. The preachers of Communism are also proficient in exploiting racial antagonisms and political divisions and oppositions. They take advantage of the lack of orientation characteristic of modern agnostic science in order to burrow into the universities, where they bolster up the principles of their doctrine with pseudo-scientific arguments.
16. If we would explain the blind acceptance of Communism by so many thousands of workmen, we must remember that the way had been already prepared for it by the religious and moral destitution in which wage-earners had been left by liberal economics. Even on Sundays and holy days, labor-shifts were given no time to attend to their essential religious duties. No one thought of building churches within convenient distance of factories, nor of facilitating the work of the priest. On the contrary, laicism was actively and persistently promoted, with the result that we are now reaping the fruits of the errors so often denounced by Our Predecessors and by Ourselves. It can surprise no one that the Communistic fallacy should be spreading in a world already to a large extent de-Christianized.
17. There is another explanation for the rapid diffusion of the Communistic ideas now seeping into every nation, great and small, advanced and backward, so that no corner of the earth is free from them. This explanation is to be found in a propaganda so truly diabolical that the world has perhaps never witnessed its like before. It is directed from one common center. It is shrewdly adapted to the varying conditions of diverse peoples. It has at its disposal great financial resources, gigantic organizations, international congresses, and countless trained workers. It makes use of pamphlets and reviews, of cinema, theater and radio, of schools and even universities. Little by little it penetrates into all classes of the people and even reaches the better-minded groups of the community, with the result that few are aware of the poison which increasingly pervades their minds and hearts.
18. A third powerful factor in the diffusion of Communism is the conspiracy of silence on the part of a large section of the non-Catholic press of the world. We say conspiracy, because it is impossible otherwise to explain how a press usually so eager to exploit even the little daily incidents of life has been able to remain silent for so long about the horrors perpetrated in Russia, in Mexico and even in a great part of Spain; and that it should have relatively so little to say concerning a world organization as vast as Russian Communism. This silence is due in part to shortsighted political policy, and is favored by various occult forces which for a long time have been working for the overthrow of the Christian Social Order.
19. Meanwhile the sorry effects of this propaganda are before our eyes. Where Communism has been able to assert its power - and here We are thinking with special affection of the people of Russia and Mexico - it has striven by every possible means, as its champions openly boast, to destroy Christian civilization and the Christian religion by banishing every remembrance of them from the hearts of men, especially of the young. Bishops and priests were exiled, condemned to forced labor, shot and done to death in inhuman fashion; laymen suspected of defending their religion were vexed, persecuted, dragged off to trial and thrown into prison.
20. Even where the scourge of Communism has not yet had time enough to exercise to the full its logical effects, as witness Our beloved Spain, it has, alas, found compensation in the fiercer violence of its attack. Not only this or that church or isolated monastery was sacked, but as far as possible every church and every monastery was destroyed. Every vestige of the Christian religion was eradicated, even though intimately linked with the rarest monuments of art and science. The fury of Communism has not confined itself to the indiscriminate slaughter of Bishops, of thousands of priests and religious of both sexes; it searches out above all those who have been devoting their lives to the welfare of the working classes and the poor. But the majority of its victims have been laymen of all conditions and classes. Even up to the present moment, masses of them are slain almost daily for no other offense than the fact that they are good Christians or at least opposed to atheistic Communism. And this fearful destruction has been carried out with a hatred and a savage barbarity one would not have believed possible in our age. No man of good sense, nor any statesman conscious of his responsibility can fail to shudder at the thought that what is happening today in Spain may perhaps be repeated tomorrow in other civilized countries.
21. Nor can it be said that these atrocities are a transitory phenomenon, the usual accompaniment of all great revolutions, the isolated excesses common to every war. No, they are the natural fruit of a system which lacks all inner restraint. Some restraint is necessary for man considered either as an individual or in society. Even the barbaric peoples had this inner check in the natural law written by God in the heart of every man. And where this natural law was held in higher esteem, ancient nations rose to a grandeur that still fascinates - more than it should - certain superficial students of human history. But tear the very idea of God from the hearts of men, and they are necessarily urged by their passions to the most atrocious barbarity.
22. This, unfortunately, is what we now behold. For the first time in history we are witnessing a struggle, cold-blooded in purpose and mapped out to the least detail, between man and "all that is called God."[9] Communism is by its nature anti-religious. It considers religion as "the opiate of the people" because the principles of religion which speak of a life beyond the grave dissuade the proletariat from the dream of a Soviet paradise which is of this world.
23. But the law of nature and its Author cannot be flouted with impunity. Communism has not been able, and will not be able, to achieve its objectives even in the merely economic sphere. It is true that in Russia it has been a contributing factor in rousing men and materials from the inertia of centuries, and in obtaining by all manner of means, often without scruple, some measure of material success. Nevertheless We know from reliable and even very recent testimony that not even there, in spite of slavery imposed on millions of men, has Communism reached its promised goal. After all, even the sphere of economics needs some morality, some moral sense of responsibility, which can find no place in a system so thoroughly materialistic as Communism. Terrorism is the only possible substitute, and it is terrorism that reigns today in Russia, where former comrades in revolution are exterminating each other. Terrorism, having failed despite all to stem the tide of moral corruption, cannot even prevent the dissolution of society itself.
24. In making these observations it is no part of Our intention to condemn en masse the peoples of the Soviet Union. For them We cherish the warmest paternal affection. We are well aware that not a few of them groan beneath the yoke imposed on them by men who in very large part are strangers to the real interests of the country. We recognize that many others were deceived by fallacious hopes. We blame only the system, with its authors and abettors who considered Russia the best-prepared field for experimenting with a plan elaborated decades ago, and who from there continue to spread it from one end of the world to the other.
25. We have exposed the errors and the violent, deceptive tactics of bolshevistic and atheistic Communism. It is now time, Venerable Brethren, to contrast with it the true notion, already familiar to you, of the civitas humana or human society, as taught by reason and Revelation through the mouth of the Church, Magistra Gentium.
26. Above all other reality there exists one supreme Being: God, the omnipotent Creator of all things, the all-wise and just Judge of all men. This supreme reality, God, is the absolute condemnation of the impudent falsehoods of Communism. In truth, it is not because men believe in God that He exists; rather because He exists do all men whose eyes are not deliberately closed to the truth believe in Him and pray to Him.
27. In the Encyclical on Christian Education[10] We explained the fundamental doctrine concerning man as it may be gathered from reason and Faith. Man has a spiritual and immortal soul. He is a person, marvelously endowed by his Creator with gifts of body and mind. He is a true "microcosm," as the ancients said, a world in miniature, with a value far surpassing that of the vast inanimate cosmos. God alone is his last end, in this life and the next. By sanctifying grace he is raised to the dignity of a son of God, and incorporated into the Kingdom of God in the Mystical Body of Christ. In consequence he has been endowed by God with many and varied prerogatives: the right to life, to bodily integrity, to the necessary means of existence; the right to tend toward his ultimate goal in the path marked out for him by God; the right of association and the right to possess and use property.
28. Just as matrimony and the right to its natural use are of divine origin, so likewise are the constitution and fundamental prerogatives of the family fixed and determined by the Creator. In the Encyclical on Christian Marriage[11] and in Our other Encyclical on Education, cited above, we have treated these topics at considerable length.
29. But God has likewise destined man for civil society according to the dictates of his very nature. In the plan of the Creator, society is a natural means which man can and must use to reach his destined end. Society is for man and not vice versa. This must not be understood in the sense of liberalistic individualism, which subordinates society to the selfish use of the individual; but only in the sense that by means of an organic union with society and by mutual collaboration the attainment of earthly happiness is placed within the reach of all. In a further sense, it is society which affords the opportunities for the development of all the individual and social gifts bestowed on human nature. These natural gifts have a value surpassing the immediate interests of the moment, for in society they reflect the divine perfection, which would not be true were man to live alone. But on final analysis, even in this latter function, society is made for man, that he may recognize this reflection of God's perfection, and refer it in praise and adoration to the Creator. Only man, the human person, and not society in any form is endowed with reason and a morally free will.
30. Man cannot be exempted from his divinely-imposed obligations toward civil society, and the representatives of authority have the right to coerce him when he refuses without reason to do his duty. Society, on the other hand, cannot defraud man of his God-granted rights, the most important of which We have indicated above. Nor can society systematically void these rights by making their use impossible. It is therefore according to the dictates of reason that ultimately all material things should be ordained to man as a person, that through his mediation they may find their way to the Creator. In this wise we can apply to man, the human person, the words of the Apostle of the Gentiles, who writes to the Corinthians on the Christian economy of salvation: "All things are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's."[12] While Communism impoverishes human personality by inverting the terms of the relation of man to society, to what lofty heights is man not elevated by reason and Revelation!
31. The directive principles concerning the social-economic order have been expounded in the social Encyclical of Leo XIII on the question of labor.[13] Our own Encyclical on the Reconstruction of the Social Order[14] adapted these principles to present needs. Then, insisting anew on the age-old doctrine of the Church concerning the individual and social character of private property, We explained clearly the right and dignity of labor, the relations of mutual aid and collaboration which should exist between those who possess capital and those who work, the salary due in strict justice to the worker for himself and for his family.
32. In this same Encyclical of Ours We have shown that the means of saving the world of today from the lamentable ruin into which a moral liberalism has plunged us, are neither the class-struggle nor terror, nor yet the autocratic abuse of State power, but rather the infusion of social justice and the sentiment of Christian love into the social-economic order. We have indicated how a sound prosperity is to be restored according to the true principles of a sane corporative system which respects the proper hierarchic structure of society; and how all the occupational groups should be fused into a harmonious unity inspired by the principle of the common good. And the genuine and chief function of public and civil authority consists precisely in the efficacious furthering of this harmony and coordination of all social forces.
33. In view of this organized common effort towards peaceful living, Catholic doctrine vindicates to the State the dignity and authority of a vigilant and provident defender of those divine and human rights on which the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church insist so often. It is not true that all have equal rights in civil society. It is not true that there exists no lawful social hierarchy. Let it suffice to refer to the Encyclicals of Leo XIII already cited, especially to that on State powers,[15] and to the other on the Christian Constitution of States.[16] In these documents the Catholic will find the principles of reason and the Faith clearly explained, and these principles will enable him to defend himself against the errors and perils of a Communistic conception of the State. The enslavement of man despoiled of his rights, the denial of the transcendental origin of the State and its authority, the horrible abuse of public power in the service of a collectivistic terrorism, are the very contrary of all that corresponds with natural ethics and the will of the Creator. Both man and civil society derive their origin from the Creator, Who has mutually ordained them one to the other. Hence neither can be exempted from their correlative obligations, nor deny or diminish each other's rights. The Creator Himself has regulated this mutual relationship in its fundamental lines, and it is by an unjust usurpation that Communism arrogates to itself the right to enforce, in place of the divine law based on the immutable principles of truth and charity, a partisan political program which derives from the arbitrary human will and is replete with hate.
34. In teaching this enlightening doctrine the Church has no other intention than to realize the glad tidings sung by the Angels above the cave of Bethlehem at the Redeemer's birth: "Glory to God . . . and . . . peace to men . . .,"[17] true peace and true happiness, even here below as far as is possible, in preparation for the happiness of heaven - but to men of good will. This doctrine is equally removed from all extremes of error and all exaggerations of parties or systems which stem from error. It maintains a constant equilibrium of truth and justice, which it vindicates in theory and applies and promotes in practice, bringing into harmony the rights and duties of all parties. Thus authority is reconciled with liberty, the dignity of the individual with that of the State, the human personality of the subject with the divine delegation of the superior; and in this way a balance is struck between the due dependence and well-ordered love of a man for himself, his family and country, and his love of other families and other peoples, founded on the love of God, the Father of all, their first principle and last end. The Church does not separate a proper regard for temporal welfare from solicitude for the eternal. If she subordinates the former to the latter according to the words of her divine Founder, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added unto you,"[18] she is nevertheless so far from being unconcerned with human affairs, so far from hindering civil progress and material advancement, that she actually fosters and promotes them in the most sensible and efficacious manner. Thus even in the sphere of social-economics, although the Church has never proposed a definite technical system, since this is not her field, she has nevertheless clearly outlined the guiding principles which, while susceptible of varied concrete applications according to the diversified conditions of times and places and peoples, indicate the safe way of securing the happy progress of society.
35. The wisdom and supreme utility of this doctrine are admitted by all who really understand it. With good reason outstanding statesmen have asserted that, after a study of various social systems, they have found nothing sounder than the principles expounded in the Encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno. In non-Catholic, even in non-Christian countries, men recognize the great value to society of the social doctrine of the Church. Thus, scarcely a month ago, an eminent political figure of the Far East, a non-Christian, did not hesitate to affirm publicly that the Church, with her doctrine of peace and Christian brotherhood, is rendering a signal contribution to the difficult task of establishing and maintaining peace among the nations. Finally, We know from reliable information that flows into this Center of Christendom from all parts of the world, that the Communists themselves, where they are not utterly depraved, recognize the superiority of the social doctrine of the Church, when once explained to them, over the doctrines of their leaders and their teachers. Only those blinded by passion and hatred close their eyes to the light of truth and obstinately struggle against it.
36. But the enemies of the Church, though forced to acknowledge the wisdom of her doctrine, accuse her of having failed to act in conformity with her principles, and from this conclude to the necessity of seeking other solutions. The utter falseness and injustice of this accusation is shown by the whole history of Christianity. To refer only to a single typical trait, it was Christianity that first affirmed the real and universal brotherhood of all men of whatever race and condition. This doctrine she proclaimed by a method, and with an amplitude and conviction, unknown to preceding centuries; and with it she potently contributed to the abolition of slavery. Not bloody revolution, but the inner force of her teaching made the proud Roman matron see in her slave a sister in Christ. It is Christianity that adores the Son of God, made Man for love of man, and become not only the "Son of a Carpenter" but Himself a "Carpenter."[19] It was Christianity that raised manual labor to its true dignity, whereas it had hitherto been so despised that even the moderate Cicero did not hesitate to sum up the general opinion of his time in words of which any modern sociologist would be ashamed: "All artisans are engaged in sordid trades, for there can be nothing ennobling about a workshop."[20]
37. Faithful to these principles, the Church has given new life to human society. Under her influence arose prodigious charitable organizations, great guilds of artisans and workingmen of every type. These guilds, ridiculed as "medieval" by the liberalism of the last century, are today claiming the admiration of our contemporaries in many countries who are endeavoring to revive them in some modern form. And when other systems hindered her work and raised obstacles to the salutary influence of the Church, she was never done warning them of their error. We need but recall with what constant firmness and energy Our Predecessor, Leo XIII, vindicated for the workingman the right to organize, which the dominant liberalism of the more powerful States relentlessly denied him. Even today the authority of this Church doctrine is greater than it seems; for the influence of ideas in the realm of facts, though invisible and not easily measured, is surely of predominant importance.
38. It may be said in all truth that the Church, like Christ, goes through the centuries doing good to all. There would be today neither Socialism nor Communism if the rulers of the nations had not scorned the teachings and maternal warnings of the Church. On the bases of liberalism and laicism they wished to build other social edifices which, powerful and imposing as they seemed at first, all too soon revealed the weakness of their foundations, and today are crumbling one after another before our eyes, as everything must crumble that is not grounded on the one corner stone which is Christ Jesus.
39. This, Venerable Brethren, is the doctrine of the Church, which alone in the social as in all other fields can offer real light and assure salvation in the face of Communistic ideology. But this doctrine must be consistently reduced to practice in every-day life, according to the admonition of St. James the Apostle: "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."[21] The most urgent need of the present day is therefore the energetic and timely application of remedies which will effectively ward off the catastrophe that daily grows more threatening. We cherish the firm hope that the fanaticism with which the sons of darkness work day and night at their materialistic and atheistic propaganda will at least serve the holy purpose of stimulating the sons of light to a like and even greater zeal for the honor of the Divine Majesty.
40. What then must be done, what remedies must be employed to defend Christ and Christian civilization from this pernicious enemy? As a father in the midst of his family, We should like to speak quite intimately of those duties which the great struggle of our day imposes on all the children of the Church; and We would address Our paternal admonition even to those sons who have strayed far from her.
41. As in all the stormy periods of the history of the Church, the fundamental remedy today lies in a sincere renewal of private and public life according to the principles of the Gospel by all those who belong to the Fold of Christ, that they may be in truth the salt of the earth to preserve human society from total corruption.
42. With heart deeply grateful to the Father of Light, from Whom descends "every best gift and every perfect gift,"[22] We see on all sides consoling signs of this spiritual renewal. We see it not only in so many singularly chosen souls who in these last years have been elevated to the sublime heights of sanctity, and in so many others who with generous hearts are making their way towards the same luminous goal, but also in the new flowering of a deep and practical piety in all classes of society even the most cultured, as We pointed out in Our recent Motu Proprio In multis solaciis of October 28 last, on the occasion of the reorganization of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.[23]
43. Nevertheless We cannot deny that there is still much to be done in the way of spiritual renovation. Even in Catholic countries there are still too many who are Catholics hardly more than in name. There are too many who fulfill more or less faithfully the more essential obligations of the religion they boast of professing, but have no desire of knowing it better, of deepening their inward conviction, and still less of bringing into conformity with the external gloss the inner splendor of a right and unsullied conscience, that recognizes and performs all its duties under the eye of God. We know how much Our Divine Savior detested this empty pharisaic show, He Who wished that all should adore the Father "in spirit and in truth."[24] The Catholic who does not live really and sincerely according to the Faith he professes will not long be master of himself in these days when the winds of strife and persecution blow so fiercely, but will be swept away defenseless in this new deluge which threatens the world. And thus, while he is preparing his own ruin, he is exposing to ridicule the very name of Christian.
44. And here We wish, Venerable Brethren, to insist more particularly on two teachings of Our Lord which have a special bearing on the present condition of the human race: detachment from earthly goods and the precept of charity. "Blessed are the poor in spirit" were the first words that fell from the lips of the Divine Master in His sermon on the mount.[25] This lesson is more than ever necessary in these days of materialism athirst for the goods and pleasures of this earth. All Christians, rich or poor, must keep their eye fixed on heaven, remembering that "we have not here a lasting city, but we seek one that is to come."[26] The rich should not place their happiness in things of earth nor spend their best efforts in the acquisition of them. Rather, considering themselves only as stewards of their earthly goods, let them be mindful of the account they must render of them to their Lord and Master, and value them as precious means that God has put into their hands for doing good; let them not fail, besides, to distribute of their abundance to the poor, according to the evangelical precept.[27] Otherwise there shall be verified of them and their riches the harsh condemnation of St. James the Apostle: "Go to now, ye rich men; weep and howl in your miseries which shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten; your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be for a testimony against you and shall eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up to yourselves wrath against the last days. . ."[28]
45. But the poor too, in their turn, while engaged, according to the laws of charity and justice, in acquiring the necessities of life and also in bettering their condition, should always remain "poor in spirit,"[29] and hold spiritual goods in higher esteem than earthly property and pleasures. Let them remember that the world will never be able to rid itself of misery, sorrow and tribulation, which are the portion even of those who seem most prosperous. Patience, therefore, is the need of all, that Christian patience which comforts the heart with the divine assurance of eternal happiness. "Be patient, therefore, brethren," we repeat with St. James, "until the coming of the Lord. Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, patiently bearing until he receive the early and the later rain. Be you therefore also patient and strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand."[30] Only thus will be fulfilled the consoling promise of the Lord: "Blessed are the poor!" These words are no vain consolation, a promise as empty as those of the Communists. They are the words of life, pregnant with a sovereign reality. They are fully verified here on earth, as well as in eternity. Indeed, how many of the poor, in anticipation of the Kingdom of Heaven already proclaimed their own: "for yours is the Kingdom of Heaven,"[31] find in these words a happiness which so many of the wealthy, uneasy with their riches and ever thirsting for more, look for in vain!
46. Still more important as a remedy for the evil we are considering, or certainly more directly calculated to cure it, is the precept of charity. We have in mind that Christian charity, "patient and kind,"[32] which avoids all semblance of demeaning paternalism, and all ostentation; that charity which from the very beginning of Christianity won to Christ the poorest of the poor, the slaves. And We are grateful to all those members of charitable associations, from the conferences of St. Vincent de Paul to the recent great relief organizations, which are perseveringly practicing the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. The more the working men and the poor realize what the spirit of love animated by the virtue of Christ is doing for them, the more readily will they abandon the false persuasion that Christianity has lost its efficacy and that the Church stands on the side of the exploiters of their labor.
47. But when on the one hand We see thousands of the needy, victims of real misery for various reasons beyond their control, and on the other so many round about them who spend huge sums of money on useless things and frivolous amusement, We cannot fail to remark with sorrow not only that justice is poorly observed, but that the precept of charity also is not sufficiently appreciated, is not a vital thing in daily life. We desire therefore, Venerable Brethren, that this divine precept, this precious mark of identification left by Christ to His true disciples, be ever more fully explained by pen and word of mouth; this precept which teaches us to see in those who suffer Christ Himself, and would have us love our brothers as Our Divine Savior has loved us, that is, even at the sacrifice of ourselves, and, if need be, of our very life. Let all then frequently meditate on those words of the final sentence, so consoling yet so terrifying, which the Supreme Judge will pronounce on the day of the Last Judgment: "Come, ye blessed of my Father . . . for I was hungry and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me to drink . . . Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren you did it to me."[33] And the reverse: "Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire . . . for I was hungry and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me not to drink . . . Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least. neither did you do it to me."[34]
48. To be sure of eternal life, therefore, and to be able to help the poor effectively, it is imperative to return to a more moderate way of life, to renounce the joys, often sinful, which the world today holds out in such abundance; to forget self for love of the neighbor. There is a divine regenerating force in this "new precept" (as Christ called it) of Christian charity.[35] Its faithful observance will pour into the heart an inner peace which the world knows not, and will finally cure the ills which oppress humanity.
49. But charity will never be true charity unless it takes justice into constant account. The Apostle teaches that "he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law" and he gives the reason: "For, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal . . . and if there be any other commandment, it is comprised in this word: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."[36] According to the Apostle, then, all the commandments, including those which are of strict justice, as those which forbid us to kill or to steal, may be reduced to the single precept of true charity. From this it follows that a "charity" which deprives the workingman of the salary to which he has a strict title in justice, is not charity at all, but only its empty name and hollow semblance. The wage-earner is not to receive as alms what is his due in justice. And let no one attempt with trifling charitable donations to exempt himself from the great duties imposed by justice. Both justice and charity often dictate obligations touching on the same subject-matter, but under different aspects; and the very dignity of the workingman makes him justly and acutely sensitive to the duties of others in his regard.
50. Therefore We turn again in a special way to you, Christian employers and industrialists, whose problem is often so difficult for the reason that you are saddled with the heavy heritage of an unjust economic regime whose ruinous influence has been felt through many generations. We bid you be mindful of your responsibility. It is unfortunately true that the manner of acting in certain Catholic circles has done much to shake the faith of the working-classes in the religion of Jesus Christ. These groups have refused to understand that Christian charity demands the recognition of certain rights due to the workingman, which the Church has explicitly acknowledged. What is to be thought of the action of those Catholic employers who in one place succeeded in preventing the reading of Our Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno in their local churches? Or of those Catholic industrialists who even to this day have shown themselves hostile to a labor movement that We Ourselves recommended? Is it not deplorable that the right of private property defended by the Church should so often have been used as a weapon to defraud the workingman of his just salary and his social rights?
51. In reality, besides commutative justice, there is also social justice with its own set obligations, from which neither employers nor workingmen can escape. Now it is of the very essence of social justice to demand for each individual all that is necessary for the common good. But just as in the living organism it is impossible to provide for the good of the whole unless each single part and each individual member is given what it needs for the exercise of its proper functions, so it is impossible to care for the social organism and the good of society as a unit unless each single part and each individual member - that is to say, each individual man in the dignity of his human personality - is supplied with all that is necessary for the exercise of his social functions. If social justice be satisfied, the result will be an intense activity in economic life as a whole, pursued in tranquillity and order. This activity will be proof of the health of the social body, just as the health of the human body is recognized in the undisturbed regularity and perfect efficiency of the whole organism.
52. But social justice cannot be said to have been satisfied as long as workingmen are denied a salary that will enable them to secure proper sustenance for themselves and for their families; as long as they are denied the opportunity of acquiring a modest fortune and forestalling the plague of universal pauperism; as long as they cannot make suitable provision through public or private insurance for old age, for periods of illness and unemployment. In a word, to repeat what has been said in Our Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno: "Then only will the economic and social order be soundly established and attain its ends, when it offers, to all and to each, all those goods which the wealth and resources of nature, technical science and the corporate organization of social affairs can give. These goods should be sufficient to supply all necessities and reasonable comforts, and to uplift men to that higher standard of life which, provided it be used with prudence, is not only not a hindrance but is of singular help to virtue."[37]
53. It happens all too frequently, however, under the salary system, that individual employers are helpless to ensure justice unless, with a view to its practice, they organize institutions the object of which is to prevent competition incompatible with fair treatment for the workers. Where this is true, it is the duty of contractors and employers to support and promote such necessary organizations as normal instruments enabling them to fulfill their obligations of justice. But the laborers too must be mindful of their duty to love and deal fairly with their employers, and persuade themselves that there is no better means of safeguarding their own interests.
54. If, therefore, We consider the whole structure of economic life, as We have already pointed out in Our Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno,the reign of mutual collaboration between justice and charity in social-economic relations can only be achieved by a body of professional and inter professional organizations, built on solidly Christian foundations, working together to effect, under forms adapted to different places and circumstances, what has been called the Corporation.
55. To give to this social activity a greater efficacy, it is necessary to promote a wider study of social problems in the light of the doctrine of the Church and under the aegis of her constituted authority. If the manner of acting of some Catholics in the social-economic field has left much to be desired, this has often come about because they have not known and pondered sufficiently the teachings of the Sovereign Pontiffs on these questions. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to foster in all classes of society an intensive program of social education adapted to the varying degrees of intellectual culture. It is necessary with all care and diligence to procure the widest possible diffusion of the teachings of the Church, even among the working-classes. The minds of men must be illuminated with the sure light of Catholic teaching, and their wills must be drawn to follow and apply it as the norm of right living in the conscientious fulfillment of their manifold social duties. Thus they will oppose that incoherence and discontinuity in Christian life which We have many times lamented. For there are some who, while exteriorly faithful to the practice of their religion, yet in the field of labor and industry, in the professions, trade and business, permit a deplorable cleavage in their conscience, and live a life too little in conformity with the clear principles of justice and Christian charity. Such lives are a scandal to the weak, and to the malicious a pretext to discredit the Church.
56. In this renewal the Catholic Press can play a prominent part. Its foremost duty is to foster in various attractive ways an ever better understanding of social doctrine. It should, too, supply accurate and complete information on the activity of the enemy and the means of resistance which have been found most effective in various quarters. It should offer useful suggestions and warn against the insidious deceits with which Communists endeavor, all too successfully, to attract even men of good faith.
57. On this point We have already insisted in Our Allocution of May 12th of last year, but We believe it to be a duty of special urgency, Venerable Brethren, to call your attention to it once again. In the beginning Communism showed itself for what it was in all its perversity; but very soon it realized that it was thus alienating the people. It has therefore changed its tactics, and strives to entice the multitudes by trickery of various forms, hiding its real designs behind ideas that in themselves are good and attractive. Thus, aware of the universal desire for peace, the leaders of Communism pretend to be the most zealous promoters and propagandists in the movement for world amity. Yet at the same time they stir up a class-warfare which causes rivers of blood to flow, and, realizing that their system offers no internal guarantee of peace, they have recourse to unlimited armaments. Under various names which do not suggest Communism, they establish organizations and periodicals with the sole purpose of carrying their ideas into quarters otherwise inaccessible. They try perfidiously to worm their way even into professedly Catholic and religious organizations. Again, without receding an inch from their subversive principles, they invite Catholics to collaborate with them in the realm of so-called humanitarianism and charity; and at times even make proposals that are in perfect harmony with the Christian spirit and the doctrine of the Church. Elsewhere they carry their hypocrisy so far as to encourage the belief that Communism, in countries where faith and culture are more strongly entrenched, will assume another and much milder form. It will not interfere with the practice of religion. It will respect liberty of conscience. There are some even who refer to certain changes recently introduced into soviet legislation as a proof that Communism is about to abandon its program of war against God.
58. See to it, Venerable Brethren, that the Faithful do not allow themselves to be deceived! Communism is intrinsically wrong, and no one who would save Christian civilization may collaborate with it in any undertaking whatsoever. Those who permit themselves to be deceived into lending their aid towards the triumph of Communism in their own country, will be the first to fall victims of their error. And the greater the antiquity and grandeur of the Christian civilization in the regions where Communism successfully penetrates, so much more devastating will be the hatred displayed by the godless.
59. But "unless the Lord keep the city, he watcheth in vain that keepeth it."[38] And so, as a final and most efficacious remedy, We recommend, Venerable Brethren, that in your dioceses you use the most practical means to foster and intensify the spirit of prayer joined with Christian penance. When the Apostles asked the Savior why they had been unable to drive the evil spirit from a demoniac, Our Lord answered: "This kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting."[39] So, too, the evil which today torments humanity can be conquered only by a world-wide crusade of prayer and penance. We ask especially the Contemplative Orders, men and women, to redouble their prayers and sacrifices to obtain from heaven efficacious aid for the Church in the present struggle. Let them implore also the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Virgin who, having crushed the head of the serpent of old, remains the sure protectress and invincible "Help of Christians."[/color]
60. To apply the remedies thus briefly indicated to the task of saving the world. as We have traced it above, Jesus Christ, our Divine King, has chosen priests as the first-line ministers and messengers of His gospel. Theirs is the duty, assigned to them by a special vocation, under the direction of their Bishops and in filial obedience to the Vicar of Christ on earth, of keeping alight in the world the torch of Faith, and of filling the hearts of the Faithful with that supernatural trust which has aided the Church to fight and win so many other battles in the name of Christ: "This is the victory which overcometh the world, our Faith."[40]
61. To priests in a special way We recommend anew the oft-repeated counsel of Our Predecessor, Leo XIII, to go to the workingman. We make this advice Our own, and faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ and His Church, We thus complete it: "Go to the workingman, especially where he is poor; and in general, go to the poor." The poor are obviously more exposed than others to the wiles of agitators who, taking advantage of their extreme need, kindle their hearts to envy of the rich and urge them to seize by force what fortune seems to have denied them unjustly.If the priest will not go to the workingman and to the poor, to warn them or to disabuse them of prejudice and false theory, they will become an easy prey for the apostles of Communism.
62. Indisputably much has been done in this direction, especially after the publication of the Encyclicals Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno. We are happy to voice Our paternal approval of the zealous pastoral activity manifested by so many Bishops and priests who have with due prudence and caution been planning and applying new methods of apostolate more adapted to modern needs. But for the solution of our present problem, all this effort is still inadequate. When our country is in danger, everything not strictly necessary, everything not bearing directly on the urgent matter of unified defense, takes second place. So we must act in today's crisis. Every other enterprise, however attractive and helpful, must yield before the vital need of protecting the very foundation of the Faith and of Christian civilization. Let our parish priest, therefore, while providing of course for the normal needs of the Faithful, dedicate the better part of their endeavors and their zeal to winning back the laboring masses to Christ and to His Church. Let them work to infuse the Christian spirit into quarters where it is least at home. The willing response of the masses, and results far exceeding their expectations, will not fail to reward them for their strenuous pioneer labor. This has been and continues to be our experience in Rome and in other capitals, where zealous parish communities are being formed as new churches are built in the suburban districts, and real miracles are being worked in the conversion of people whose hostility to religion has been due solely to the fact that they did not know it.
63. But the most efficacious means of apostolate among the poor and lowly is the priest's example, the practice of all those sacerdotal virtues which We have described in Our Encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii.[41] Especially needful, however, for the present situation is the shining example of a life which is humble, poor and disinterested, in imitation of a Divine Master Who could say to the world with divine simplicity: "The foxes have holes and the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay His head."[42] A priest who is really poor and disinterested in the Gospel sense may work among his flock marvels recalling a Saint Vincent de Paul, a Cure of Ars, a Cottolengo, a Don Bosco and so many others; while an avaricious and selfish priest, as We have noted in the above mentioned Encyclical, even though he should not plunge with Judas to the abyss of treason, will never be more than empty "sounding brass" and useless "tinkling cymbal."[43] Too often, indeed, he will be a hindrance rather than an instrument of grace in the midst of his people. Furthermore, where a secular priest or religious is obliged by his office to administer temporal property, let him remember that he is not only to observe scrupulously all that charity and justice prescribe, but that he has a special obligation to conduct himself in very truth as a father of the poor.
64. After this appeal to the clergy, We extend Our paternal invitation to Our beloved sons among the laity who are doing battle in the ranks of Catholic Action. On another occasion[44] We have called this movement so dear to Our heart "a particularly providential assistance" in the work of the Church during these troublous times. Catholic Action is in effect a social apostolate also, inasmuch as its object is to spread the Kingdom of Jesus Christ not only among individuals, but also in families and in society. It must, therefore, make it a chief aim to train its members with special care and to prepare them to fight the battles of the Lord. This task of formation, now more urgent and indispensable than ever, which must always precede direct action in the field, will assuredly be served by study-circles, conferences, lecture-courses and the various other activities undertaken with a view to making known the Christian solution of the social problem.
65. The militant leaders of Catholic Action thus properly prepared and armed, will be the first and immediate apostles of their fellow workmen. They will be an invaluable aid to the priest in carrying the torch of truth, and in relieving grave spiritual and material suffering, in many sectors where inveterate anti-clerical prejudice or deplorable religious indifference has proved a constant obstacle to the pastoral activity of God's ministers. In this way they will collaborate, under the direction of especially qualified priests, in that work of spiritual aid to the laboring classes on which We set so much store, because it is the means best calculated to save these, Our beloved children, from the snares of Communism.
66. In addition to this individual apostolate which, however useful and efficacious, often goes unheralded, Catholic Action must organize propaganda on a large scale to disseminate knowledge of the fundamental principleson which, according to the Pontifical documents, a Christian Social Order must build.
67. Ranged with Catholic Action are the groups which We have been happy to call its auxiliary forces. With paternal affection We exhort these valuable organizations also to dedicate themselves to the great mission of which We have been treating, a cause which today transcends all others in vital importance.
68. We are thinking likewise of those associations of workmen, farmers, technicians, doctors, employers, students and others of like character, groups of men and women who live in the same cultural atmosphere and share the same way of life. Precisely these groups and organizations are destined to introduce into society that order which We have envisaged in Our Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, and thus to spread in the vast and various fields of culture and labor the recognition of the Kingdom of Christ.
69. Even where the State, because of changed social and economic conditions, has felt obliged to intervene directly in order to aid and regulate such organizations by special legislative enactments, supposing always the necessary respect for liberty and private initiative, Catholic Action may not urge the circumstance as an excuse for abandoning the field. Its members should contribute prudently and intelligently to the study of the problems of the hour in the light of Catholic doctrine. They should loyally and generously participate in the formation of the new institutions, bringing to them the Christian spirit which is the basic principle of order wherever men work together in fraternal harmony.
70. Here We should like to address a particularly affectionate word to Our Catholic workingmen, young and old. They have been given, perhaps as a reward for their often heroic fidelity in these trying days, a noble and an arduous mission. Under the guidance of their Bishops and priests, they are to bring back to the Church and to God those immense multitudes of their brother-workmen who, because they were not understood or treated with the respect to which they were entitled, in bitterness have strayed far from God. Let Catholic workingmen show these their wandering brethren by word and example that the Church is a tender Mother to all those who labor and suffer, and that she has never failed, and never will fail, in her sacred maternal duty of protecting her children. If this mission, which must be fulfilled in mines, in factories, in shops, wherever they may be laboring, should at times require great sacrifices, Our workmen will remember that the Savior of the world has given them an example not only of toil but of self immolation.
71. To all Our children, finally, of every social rank and every nation, to every religious and lay organization in the Church, We make another and more urgent appeal for union. Many times Our paternal heart has been saddened by the divergencies - often idle in their causes, always tragic in their consequences - which array in opposing camps the sons of the same Mother Church. Thus it is that the radicals, who are not so very numerous, profiting by this discord are able to make it more acute, and end by pitting Catholics one against the other. In view of the events of the past few months, Our warning must seem superfluous. We repeat it nevertheless once more, for those who have not understood, or perhaps do not desire to understand. Those who make a practice of spreading dissension among Catholics assume a terrible responsibility before God and the Church.
72. But in this battle joined by the powers of darkness against the very idea of Divinity, it is Our fond hope that, besides the host which glories in the name of Christ, all those - and they comprise the overwhelming majority of mankind, - who still believe in God and pay Him homage may take a decisive part. We therefore renew the invitation extended to them five years ago in Our Encyclical Caritate Christi, invoking their loyal and hearty collaboration "in order to ward off from mankind the great danger that threatens all alike." Since, as We then said, "belief in God is the unshakable foundation of all social order and of all responsibility on earth, it follows that all those who do not want anarchy and terrorism ought to take energetic steps to prevent the enemies of religion from attaining the goal they have so brazenly proclaimed to the world."[45]
73. Such is the positive task, embracing at once theory and practice, which the Church undertakes in virtue of the mission, confided to her by Christ, of constructing a Christian society, and, in our own times, of resisting unto victory the attacks of Communism. It is the duty of the Christian State to concur actively in this spiritual enterprise of the Church, aiding her with the means at its command, which although they be external devices, have nonetheless for their prime object the good of souls.
74. This means that all diligence should be exercised by States to prevent within their territories the ravages of an anti-God campaign which shakes society to its very foundations. For there can be no authority on earth unless the authority of the Divine Majesty be recognized; no oath will bind which is not sworn in the Name of the Living God. We repeat what We have said with frequent insistence in the past, especially in Our Encyclical Caritate Christi: "How can any contract be maintained, and what value can any treaty have, in which every guarantee of conscience is lacking? And how can there be talk of guarantees of conscience when all faith in God and all fear of God have vanished? Take away this basis, and with it all moral law falls, and there is no remedy left to stop the gradual but inevitable destruction of peoples, families, the State, civilization itself."[46]
75. It must likewise be the special care of the State to create those material conditions of life without which an orderly society cannot exist. The State must take every measure necessary to supply employment, particularly for the heads of families and for the young. To achieve this end demanded by the pressing needs of the common welfare, the wealthy classes must be induced to assume those burdens without which human society cannot be saved nor they themselves remain secure. However, measures taken by the State with this end in view ought to be of such a nature that they will really affect those who actually possess more than their share of capital resources, and who continue to accumulate them to the grievous detriment of others.
76. The State itself, mindful of its responsibility before God and society, should be a model of prudence and sobriety in the administration of the commonwealth. Today more than ever the acute world crisis demands that those who dispose of immense funds, built up on the sweat and toil of millions, keep constantly and singly in mind the common good. State functionaries and all employees are obliged in conscience to perform their duties faithfully and unselfishly, imitating the brilliant example of distinguished men of the past and of our own day, who with unremitting labor sacrificed their all for the good of their country. In international trade-relations let all means be sedulously employed for the removal of those artificial barriers to economic life which are the effects of distrust and hatred. All must remember that the peoples of the earth form but one family in God.
77. At the same time the State must allow the Church full liberty to fulfill her divine and spiritual mission, and this in itself will be an effectual contribution to the rescue of nations from the dread torment of the present hour. Everywhere today there is an anxious appeal to moral and spiritual forces; and rightly so, for the evil we must combat is at its origin primarily an evil of the spiritual order. From this polluted source the monstrous emanations of the communistic system flow with satanic logic. Now, the Catholic Church is undoubtedly preeminent among the moral and religious forces of today. Therefore the very good of humanity demands that her work be allowed to proceed unhindered.
78. Those who act otherwise, and at the same time fondly pretend to attain their objective with purely political or economic means, are in the grip of a dangerous error. When religion is banished from the school, from education and from public life, when the representatives of Christianity and its sacred rites are held up to ridicule, are we not really fostering the materialism which is the fertile soil of Communism? Neither force, however well organized it be, nor earthly ideals however lofty or noble, can control a movement whose roots lie in the excessive esteem for the goods of this world.
79. We trust that those rulers of nations, who are at all aware of the extreme danger threatening every people today, may be more and more convinced of their supreme duty not to hinder the Church in the fulfillment of her mission. This is the more imperative since, while this mission has in view man's happiness in heaven, it cannot but promote his true felicity in time.
80. We cannot conclude this Encyclical Letter without addressing some words to those of Our children who are more or less tainted with the Communist plague. We earnestly exhort them to hear the voice of their loving Father. We pray the Lord to enlighten them that they may abandon the slippery path which will precipitate one and all to ruin and catastrophe, and that they recognize that Jesus Christ, Our Lord, is their only Savior: "For there is no other name under heaven given to man, whereby we must be saved."[47]
81. To hasten the advent of that "peace of Christ in the kingdom of Christ"[48] so ardently desired by all, We place the vast campaign of the Church against world Communism under the standard of St. Joseph, her mighty Protector. He belongs to the working-class, and he bore the burdens of poverty for himself and the Holy Family, whose tender and vigilant head he was. To him was entrusted the Divine Child when Herod loosed his assassins against Him. In a life of faithful performance of everyday duties, he left an example for all those who must gain their bread by the toil of their hands. He won for himself the title of "The Just," serving thus as a living model of that Christian justice which should reign in social life.
82. With eyes lifted on high, our Faith sees the new heavens and the new earth described by Our first Predecessor, St. Peter.[49] While the promises of the false prophets of this earth melt away in blood and tears, the great apocalyptic prophecy of the Redeemer shines forth in heavenly splendor: "Behold, I make all things new."[50] Venerable Brethren, nothing remains but to raise Our paternal hands to call down upon you, upon your clergy and people, upon the whole Catholic family, the Apostolic Benediction.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the feast of St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church, on the 19th of March, 1937, the 16th year of our Pontificate.
PIUS XI
1. Encycl. Qui Pluribus, Nov. 9, 1864 (Acta Pii IX, Vol I, p. 13). Cf. Syllabus, IV, (A.S.S., vol. III, p. 170).
2. Encycl. Quod Apostolici Muneris, Dec. 28, 1928 (Acta Leonis XII, Vol. 1, p. 46).
3. Dec. 18, 1924: A.A.S., Vol. XVI (1924), pp. 494-495.
4. May 8, 1928: A.A.S., Vol. XX (1928), pp. 165-178.
5. May 15, 1931: A.A.S., Vol. XXIII (1931), pp. 177-228.
6. May 3, 1932: A.A.S., Vol. XXIV (1932), pp. 177-194.
7. Sept. 29, 1932: A.A.S., Vol. XXIV (1932), pp. 321-332.
8. June 3, 1933: A.A.S., Vol. XXV (1933), pp. 261-274.
9. Cf. Thessalonians, II, 4.
10. Encycl. Divini Illius Magistri, Dec. 31, 1929 (A.A.S., Vol. XXII, 1930 pp. 47-86).
11. Encycl. Casti Connubii, Dec. 31, 1930 (A.A.S., Vol. XX- II, 1930, pp. 539-592).
12. I Corinthians, III, 23.
13. Encycl. Rerum Novarum, May 15, 1891 (Acta Leonis XIII Vol. IV, pp. 177-209).
14. Encycl. Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931 (A.A.S., Vol. XXIII, 1931, pp. 177-228).
15. Encycl. Diuturnum Illud, June 20, 1881 (Acta Leonis XIII, Vol. I, . 210-22).
16. Encycl. Immortale Dei, Nov. 1, 1885 (Acta Leonis XIII, Vol. II, pp. 146-168).
17. St. Luke, 11, 14.
18. St. Matthew, VI, 33.
19. Cf. St. Matthew, XIII, 55: St. Mark, Vl, 3.
20. Cicero, De Officiis, Bk. I, c. 42.
21. St. James, I, 22.
22. St. James, I, 17.
23. A.A.S., vol. XXVIII (1936); pp. 421424.
24. St. John, IV, 23.
25. St. Matthew, V, 3.
26. Hebrews, XIII, 14.
27. St. Luke, Xl, 41.
28. St. James, V, 1-3.
29. St. Matthew, V, 3.
30. St. James, V, 7, 8.
31. St. Luke, VI, 20.
32. I Corinthians, XIII, 4.
33. St. Matthew, XXV, 34-40.
34. St. Matthew, XXV, 41-45.
35. St. John, XIII, 34.
36. Romans, XIII, 8, 9.
37. Encycl. Quadragesimo Anno, May 15, 1931 (A.A.S., Vol. XXIII, 1931, p. 202).
38. Psalms, CXXVI, 1.
39. St. Matthew, XVII, 20
40. I Epist. St. John, V, 4.
41 Dec. 20, 1935, A.A.S., vol. XXVIII (1936), pp. 5-53. 42. St. Matthew, VIII, 20.
43. I Corinthians, XIII, 1.
44. May 12, 1936.
45. Encycl. Caritate Christi, May 3, 1932 (A.A.S., vol. XXIV, p. 184).
46. Encycl. Caritate Christi, May 3, 1932 (A.A.S., vol. XX-IV, 1932, p. 190).
47. Acts, IV, 12.
48. Encycl. Ubi Arcano, Dec. 23, 1922 (A.A.S., Vol. XIV, 1922,p.691).
49. II Epist. St. Peter, III, 13; cf. Isaias, LXV, 17 and LXVI, 22; Apoc., XXI, 1.
50. Apoc. XXI, 5.
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| The Message of the Sacred-Heart of Jesus to Sister Consolata |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 08:12 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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The Message of the Sacred-Heart of Jesus to Sister Consolata
Public and Private Revelations
Let us make clear here at the outset that we will be speaking about what are called “private revelations,” and that these should not be confused with public Revelation.
Public Revelation is the Revelation given by God to the prophets of the Old Testament, and by Our Lord Jesus Christ – and the Holy Ghost after Pentecost – to the Apostles in the New Testament. The Church’s mission is to transmit infallibly, and to offer to our faith, this public Revelation that we must believe in order to be saved. This public Revelation ended with the death of the last Apostle, St. John.
But God, who governs the world, reserves for Himself the right to intervene in the course of human history to help men to save themselves.
Private revelations are revelations given by God, by the Lord Jesus, by Our Lady, or even by saints. These revelations are given to private persons, whether for their own salvation or the aiding their own souls, or for a certain part of the Church, or even for the entire Church. Such revelations add nothing to the deposit of Faith.
Before reading books about private revelations or apparitions, we should read works on doctrine that explain public Revelation and strengthen our faith. It is faith that gives charity its purpose. If our faith is weak, the works of mystics risk giving us an appearance of charity that in reality will be only sentimentalism.
Of course, we must be careful about private revelations, especially today when false mystics and false apparitions are plentiful.
The revelations of the Sacred Heart to Sister Consolata have all the guarantees of authenticity: they have been approved by the local Church authorities, and several bishops have also attached indulgences to the invocation taught to Consolata by Our Lord.
Sister Consolata Betrone
Piérina Betrone – who would become Sister Consolata – was born in 1903 in Saluzzo, Italy. She was called home to God in 1946 at the age of 43, after only 17 years in religious life.
Wanting to devote herself since her youth, she first entered the Daughters of Mary, Help of Christians, founded by St. John Bosco in Turin for the education of young girls. Various interior trials, however, prevented her from remaining; and Providence then oversaw her entrance at the age of 26 into the Poor Clares – cloistered sisters dedicated to a very penitential life.
Nothing seemed more opposed to the active temperament of Piérina: “Nothing attracted me about the capuchin sisters,” she wrote. “The renouncement is complete.” But Our Lord only hid His servant so that He could give her a global apostolic influence, somewhat as with St. Therese of the Child Jesus. In fact, Sister Consolata considered herself as a spiritual daughter of St Therese.
The Message of Jesus to the World
Essential Highlights of the Message
— Mercy and Confidence
The message that Our Lord wants to transmit to the world through Sister Consolata as His intermediary is, above all, a message of mercy and confidence, as with all manifestations of the Sacred Heart:
“The devil has promised himself the destruction of the world,” said our Lord, “and I, its salvation. I will save it by the triumph of My mercy and My love. Yes, I will save the world in My merciful Love.”
But during the era when the Sacred Heart manifested Himself to Sister Consolata, there was an economic crisis and then World War II – which made it seem that Our Lord was proving His justice rather than His mercy. But this was not so.
What Our Lord said concerning the global economic crisis that started in 1929 also applies today, and especially if the crisis intensifies:
“The current misery that reigns in the world is not the work of My justice, but of My Mercy. A certain lack of money prevents many faults, and in the economic restrictions numerous are the prayers that rise up to Heaven. Do not think that I am insensitive to the sorrows of the earth. I love souls and I want to save them. For this purpose I use rigor, but believe Me, it is out of pure Mercy. In abundance, souls forget Me and are lost, whereas in times of misery they turn toward Me and are saved.”
Regarding the war (World War II), Our Lord told Sister Consolata in December, 1940:
— “Take heed, if I grant peace today, the world will return to its mire.”
— “But, Lord,” replied Consolata, “so many youths are being slaughtered!”
— “The greatest part of these young soldiers, remaining at home, will stagnate in vice,” responded Our Lord. “But on the battlefield, to the contrary and far from the occasions of sin, they will die with the help of their chaplain and will be saved. Two or three years of cruel and intense sufferings, crowned by an eternity of joy, is this not preferable to an entire life of sin that will finish in eternal damnation? How many young people will thank God in eternity for dying in this war that has saved them forever? The just (who suffer in the war) will see their merits increase.”
At all times, the sinner must never despair of being pardoned. Our Lord told Sister Consolata the following – and this must be applied to all souls, even the greatest of sinners:
“Your miseries have a limit, but My Heart does not. If it happens that you commit a fault, do not allow yourself to sink into sadness, but come immediately and cast it into My Heart, while renewing in great calm your resolution to practice the opposite virtue. Thus, each of your faults will be as a step forward.”
Of course, this does not dispense from the obligation of confession, at least for mortal sins.
The Mercy of Our Lord for His creatures calls for a return of confidence without limits. On August 14, 1934, Sister Consolata would even make a vow of confidence written out on paper in her own blood:
“Starting today and until my death, I want never to open the door, oh Jesus, to any thought of discouragement or defiance.”
Jesus replied: “If you had placed your confidence in yourself alone, or if you had only relied on one of my creatures to reach the summits, you would have taken only ‘turtle steps.’ But since you put your trust in Jesus, you will be relying on His Omnipotence. I will thus accomplish marvels and we (together) will take the steps of a giant.”
“Honor God by your confidence,” Jesus would repeat often.
“Consolata, in the heart of the Church, you will be confidence.”
Even Judas would have been saved if he had had confidence. His greatest sin was not having had confidence in the infinite Mercy of the Heart of Jesus.
— The Call to Love
If the first part of the message of the Sacred Heart to Sister Consolata is a message of Mercy and confidence, the second part is a message of Love, and more precisely it is a call to love along the lines of the revelations of the Sacred Heart at Paray-le-Monial (i.e., to St. Margaret Mary.)
Our Lord came to light the fire of charity on earth. In exchange for the Love that He has shown for us, especially by dying on the Cross for us, He asks for a reciprocity of love. But as love is continuing to diminish in the world, Our Lord, through His servant St. Margaret Mary, came to ask of those who still loved Him, a compensation of love to make reparation for the coldness of men toward Him, and thus giving love to Him for those who do not love Him and obtaining their conversion. This was the purpose of the First Friday Communions of Reparation and the holy hour of adoration on the preceding (Thursday) evenings.
Our Lord had also asked the king of France – Louis XIV at the time – to consecrate himself and France to the Sacred Heart. This would have led to an immense surge in devotion to the Sacred Heart among his people – and from there it would have spread to the entire world, considering the great influence that France had at that time. But alas, the French kings did not heed the requests because they did not understand that this earth is a battlefield between the faithful people of Jesus and Mary on one side, and the devil and his adepts on the other. And that if in this battle we do not rely on divine powers, we cannot resist the diabolical and superhuman powers that unceasingly wage war against the Church and Christianity. Having preferred to organize politics according to their human ways, they left the field wide open for the devil and his henchmen to destroy the entire Christian social order: such was the French Revolution.
Ever since the Revolution (1789), as the world has accelerated towards its destruction, Our Lord’s pleas have become more urgent: He tried without success to have France consecrated to the Sacred Heart by Louis XVIII in order to save the Restoration; then it was the revelation of the scapular of the Sacred Heart to Estelle Faguette (a Dominican tertiary) at Pellevoisin; then there were manifestations of the Sacred Heart to a mother of a family, Madame Royer, and also to Claire Ferchaud of Loublande; then to sister Josefa Menendez at Poitiers. And we must not forget the vision at Tuy, Spain where Sister Lucia of Fatima saw the word Mercy that was written in fiery letters under one of the crucified arms of Our Lord.
To make a counterbalance to the sins of the world, and to allow mercy and pardon to flow down to souls, Our Lord had asked one very simple thing from sister Josefa Menendez: to multiply acts of love through all the actions of our everyday lives:
“I want you to give me souls. For this, I ask nothing more than love for Me in all your actions. Do everything out of love, suffer out of love, and above all give yourself to my divine Love.”
Charity, indeed, is given to us by God so that we exercise it.
St. Thomas Aquinas tells us: “Charity consists more in loving than in being loved.”
Thus, the first object of charity is God before our neighbor. To exercise charity we must, above all, make interior acts of the love of God.
We must make clear here, however, that this does not necessarily mean sensible acts; charity is not found in the senses but in the will. The acts of love of which we are speaking are interior actions through which we tell our Lord of our union with His will, even in the middle of the greatest dryness and aridity of the senses.
— A Formula
With Sister Consolata, Our Lord added something very specific: he taught an invocation – a formula – that would tell God of our love. This formula is the following: “Jesus, Mary, I love you. Save souls.”
This is an easy formula to observe, and which can be used by all age groups, and in all conditions of life and even health.
And above all, when it is said with all one’s heart (and not in a mechanical manner of course) this formula is a perfect act of love as it contains the love of Our Lord, Our Lady and souls. It is the most perfect summary of our catholic religion.
Our Lord is indicating here a very simple spiritual path to transform our individual lives into acts of supernatural love, while helping us offer through this love all of our everyday actions and all the events of our lives.
Of course, it is not necessary to pronounce this invocation with our lips. It is sufficient to pray it interiorly.
This practice is certainly not obligatory. Spiritual paths are varied in the Catholic religion, corresponding to the differences in souls. But for those who embrace it, the fruits of this devotion are numerous.
Fruits of this Practice:
If we say often “Jesus, Mary, I love you. Save souls” this will first of all dispose our souls to receive new infusions of charity that will increase our love of God and neighbor. Then we will live in an entire abandonment to Providence and a total availability to our neighbor.
“One ‘yes’ to everything out of gratitude and appreciation; and one ‘yes’ to everyone with a smile, seeing and treating Jesus in everyone,” says Father Lorenzo Sales.1
To say often “Jesus, Mary, I love you. Save souls” is also an apostolic formula that obtains fruits for all souls, said Our Lord: “souls in purgatory, as well as those in the Church militant; guilty souls as well as the innocent ones; those dying, and those who are atheists, etc.” Our Lord revealed to Sister Consolata that by her acts of love, she would harvest an immense number of souls.
As “the smallest act of pure love has more value in the eyes of God, and is more useful to the Church…than all exterior works [without this pure love] put together,” as St. John of the Cross said, so these acts of love also form a great power against the enemies of the Church and Christianity. This young Poor Clare, Consolata, deep in her convent in Italy, even played a decisive role in the victory of the Catholic Spaniards over communism in 1936. To Sister Consolata, who prayed for this intention, Our Lord said:
“Yes, I will give to you the victory over communism in Spain. But you, do everything possible to give Me the unceasing act of love. The victory over communism in Spain will say to the world how much Jesus concedes to the unceasing act of love.”
This must encourage us today. With little exterior means – and in fact we have hardly any – we can do a lot to counteract the current assaults of Satan against the Church and Christianity.
Lastly, when facing a task to accomplish, or before trials and crosses of every sort, if we say, “Jesus, Mary, I love you. Save souls,” this will allow us to respond “yes” to all the requests for sacrifice that Jesus makes of us, and it will permit us to endure our sufferings by offering them in love.
Answer to an objection and Conclusion
One will perhaps object that it is not so easy to think of saying this formula throughout the day. Father Lorenzo Sales gives an enlightening and inspiring response:
“A dozen acts of love during the day -– which is within everyone’s reach -– accumulate in an impressive way over the course of a month and a year. And as the habit grows, the numbers will increase, and union with Our Lord will be ever deepened.”
“There will thus form, in all parts of the world, a continuous wave of love that ascends toward Heaven so as to come back down to earth in a torrent of mercy and pardon.”2
**
Whether or not we embrace this practice, let us take advantage in any case of this month of the Sacred Heart by rekindling our love for Our Lord and Our Lady, as well as our zeal for the salvation of souls.
- Sermon by a Dominican Father of Avrillé
1 — Father Lorenzo Sales, biographer of sister Consolata, in La toute petite voie d’amour, Message abrégé du Cœur de Jésus à soeur Consolata Betrone, Sherbrooke (Québec), Editions Saint-Raphaël, 1995, p. 50. The biography of sister Consolata by Fr Lorenzo Sales, is called: Sœur Consolata Betrone, Mulhouse, Salvator, 1963; edited again by Résiac.
2 — Father Lorenzo Sales, Jésus parle au monde, Fribourg (Switzerland), Éditions Saint-Canisius, 1957, p. 185-186.
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| Solange Hertz: Will He Find Faith in the Third Millenium? |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 08:02 AM - Forum: Articles by Catholic authors
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Will He Find Faith... in the third millennium?
By Solange Hertz
The Remnant | November 13, 1999
What would you do if you lost the Mass. . . the Sacraments . . . faithful priests?
Editor’s Note: The following originated as an address given by Solange Hertz at The Remnant’s Christ the King Forum. It was a keynote address delivered after Mrs. Hertz had been presented with the St. Catherine of Siena Award for her outstanding contribution to the Cause. MJM
Reverend Fathers, Dear Friends and their Guardian Angels,
What can I say? I can accept so undeserved an honor only in the name of The Remnant staff itself, its writers, the Matt family and the faithful readers who all these years have fought for the faith in any way they could against the tidal wave of error launched against it. Even as I speak we are standing on the brink of the third Christian millennium, watching the rise of a global world government which takes its authority not from heaven above, but from man below. Its first visible manifestation was the United States of America, the first human government constituted autonomously under no God, but only by the authority of "We the people." Having by now legalized divorce, sodomy, abortion and the cannibalism of human embryos, it appears that these same People are disposed to submit to authority even lower than themselves, to that of hell itself.
Satan, who is incapable of creative originality and can only ape God in whatever he devises, is using democracy to put together a whole new order of social reality, which is nothing less than a reverse image of the Christian civilization which flourished for over a thousand years under Christ the King. In this new order, water, the primordial substance on which both natural and supernatural life depend, is being superseded by electricity. The unity once supplied by the Holy Ghost residing in the souls of men through their Baptism in Christ is now generated physically by a world network of electronic communication, whose new international language is no longer the Greek, Latin or Hebrew affixed to the Holy Cross, but universal English, the language of the United States.
Divinely created natural substances like wood, stone, fibers and leathers are giving way increasingly to artificially produced plastics of every description. A whole new science built on the errors of Galileo, Newton, Darwin and Einstein which ignores divine revelation on principle, has been developed for the express purpose of presenting a view of God’s creation which is radically removed from reality. Now generally accepted as the new source of truth, this false science is preparing to tamper with life itself, to modify man's very nature by manipulating his genes in the laboratory.
Let's make no mistake: This gigantic reversal is not against religion, for even now it is in the process of manufacturing one for itself, an ecumenical religion whose worship is directed to a vague, all-purpose "god" who so far remains rigorously undefined so as to be acceptable to all, even to the members of the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. The rebellion is therefore not against religion or deity as such, but specifically against the God who told us exactly who He is -- the one almighty Blessed Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Who out of pure love, created us out of nothing and sent His beloved Son to redeem us and rule over us both here and hereafter as Christ the Universal King. Satan's intention is to supplant Him by his puppet the Antichrist, characterized by St. John as precisely the one "who denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
St. Paul predicted that this "man of sin" would appear after a widespread revolt, as one "who opposes and who is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were God.... whose coming is according to the working of Satan in all power and signs and lying wonders." We know these lying wonders cannot be supernatural if they come from the hand of Satan, so there is good reason to expect them to be scientific marvels of all kinds, leading people without faith to believe that man is really his own god and that the Christian God was simply one of the fabrications of his outgrown evolutionary past. St. Paul tells us that God will punish them by sending them "the operation of error, to believe a lie, that all may be judged, who have not believed the truth, but have consented to iniquity" (2 Thess. 2:4, 9-11).
Cardinal Pacelli, before he became Pope Pius XII, prophesied that "a day will come when the civilized world will deny its God, when the Church will doubt as Peter doubted. She will be tempted to believe that man has become God, that His Son is only a symbol and, in the churches, Christians will look in vain for the red lamp where God awaits them." Jean Vaquié, a great French post-Conciliar fighter for tradition, declared in 1987 (not long before he died), that
Quote:"the universal Republic is [now] set up, with the Church in no condition to hamper it in any way. But the devil's objectives have not yet been reached. The universal Republic must first be transformed into the Sacral Empire so that the Antichrist can assume the crown so long coveted, that of 'the King of the World.' Thus the Catholic religion must be replaced by the Universal Religion, whose pontiff will be the Antichrist and whose God will be Lucifer."
In order to achieve this goal, according to Prof. Vaquié,
Quote:"speculative Masonry infiltrated the Church where it organized first a modernist network, and more recently a gnostic network. This double network, orchestrated by the same hand, corrupted the ecclesiastical hierarchy, which is now reduced to impotence. Masonry no longer has any reaction to fear on the part of the official conciliar Church. It has definitely enrolled her in its ranks and made her its auxiliary. Barring a miracle of resurrection, the situation is canonically irreversible, for no ecclesiastical procedure lies any longer outside Masonic control. The Council, the Synod, the Curia, the Conclave and the Apostolic See itself, all are in its hands."
+
What can the ordinary layman do in such a situation[/b], when it appears that Holy Mother Church, in conformity with her divine Master, has now entered into her own Passion and is approaching her Crucifixion? Isn't he doomed to standing by helplessly as did the disciples who watched their Lord being led to Calvary after all His Apostles but one had fled? Even in the best of times the layman has no hand in governing the Church, much less in making judgments reserved to the Pope. Whatever authority he wields is strictly delegated. For the most part he can only obey, petition, pray and suffer, rooting his will in God’s and helping others to do likewise as best he can.
Scripture says that “all things have their season... a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted... a time to destroy and a time to build" (3:1-3). Believers, trapped in the spiritual turmoil unleashed upon them by this so-called New Order of the Ages, are surely not living in a time for building and planting, but a time for simply surviving what bodes to be the most violent storm in history, an unprecedented trial which our Lord called a “great tribulation such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved” (Matt. 24:21-2).
[color=#1101d]Certainly no political stratagems or other natural remedies are equal to the task at hand.[/color] Three hundred years ago our Lord offered to preserve Christendom's secular power, which rested on the French monarchy, if the King would consecrate the nation to His Sacred Heart, but the divine offer was disregarded. During His earthly life Our Lord had predicted that "whosoever... shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. (Matt. 10:33). In due time, therefore, Church and state parted company, and the whole world fell to godless modern democracy. At the beginning of the twentieth century, our Lady came to Fatima to request prayer, penance and the consecration of atheistic Russia to her Immaculate Heart by the Pope and Bishops, making it clear that only supernatural means would avail to turn the diabolic tide. Like our Lord’s, her requests likewise went unheeded, opening the way to the Second World War and atomic warfare.
The magnitude of such failures in obedience at the very summits of both secular and ecclesiastical authority are the measure of the disaster lying ahead in the time of which our Lord asked, “When the Son of man comes, shall he find . . . faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8). The Mass and the Sacraments can be expected to disappear, at least for a time in many places, yet inasmuch as our Lord also said that “he that shall persevere unto the end ... shall be saved,” it will be possible to keep the faith, although He warned us that we must be prepared to "be hated by all men for my name's sake" (Matt. 10:22).
The Sacred Heart promised that He would reign despite His enemies, and our Lady said that inevitably her Immaculate Heart would triumph. Until this happens, the ordinary Catholic can only follow the instruction the glorified Christ of the Apocalypse gave to the church of Sardis, “Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain, which are ready to die... Have in mind, therefore, in what manner thou hast received and heard; and observe, and do penance" (Apo 3:2-3). This is the time, in other words, to pick up the heavy weapons of prayer and suffering and learn to do without the fast disappearing visible helps of the Church.
+
In 1801, during the spiritual chaos following the French Revolution, many Catholics refused to avail themselves of the ministry of apostate priests who had taken the oath to the revolutionary regime. Finding themselves bereft of Mass and the Sacraments, a group of them wrote for spiritual direction to a [url=https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=176[/url] a Missionary of St. Joseph and a professor of theology in Lyon who had remained faithful to his Ordination. His reply has come down to us and is even more pertinent today than when it was first written. He tells his correspondents: Quote:"The Holy Eucharist had for you many joys and advantages when you were able to participate in this Sacrament of love, but now you are deprived of it for being defenders of truth and justice." He says they must not despair however, because,
Quote:"We are obedient in going to Communion, but in holding ourselves from the Sacrifice we are immolating ourselves... We sacrifice our own life as much as it is in us to do" and the sacrifice is continuous, "renewing itself every day, every time that we adore with submission the hand of God that drives us away from His altars... It is to be advantageously deprived of the Eucharist, to raise the standard of the Cross for the cause of Christ and the glory of the Church... Yes, I have no fear in saying it. When the storm of the malice of men roars against truth and justice, it is more advantageous to the faithful to suffer for Christ than to participate in His Body by Communion. I seem to hear the Savior saying to us, 'Repair by this humiliating deprivation that glorifies Me, all the Communions which dishonor Me.'"
Regarding the loss of sacramental Confession Fr. Demaris wrote,
Quote:"Removed from the resources of the sanctuary and deprived of all exercise of the Priesthood, there remains no mediator for us save Jesus Christ. It is to Him we must go for our needs. Before His supreme Majesty we must bluntly tear the veil off our consciences and in search of the good and bad we have done, thank Him for His graces, confess our sins and ask pardon and to show us the direction of His Holy Will, having in our hearts the sincere desire to confess to His minister whenever we are able to do so. There, my children, is what I call confessing to God! In such a confession well made, God himself will absolve us.... Anything which attaches to God is holy. When we suffer for the truth, our sufferings are those of Jesus Christ, who honors us then with a special character of resemblance to Him with His Cross. This grace is the greatest happiness that could possibly happen to a mortal in this life.
"It is thus in all painful situations that deprive us of the Sacraments. The carrying of the Cross like a Christian is the source of the remission of our sins, just as it was for the sins of the whole human race when it was once carried by Jesus Christ.... What the world does to drive us away from God only brings us closer... We are able now to repair those faults which came from too great a trust in absolution and not examining one's weaknesses thoroughly enough. Obliged to wail now before God, the faithful soul considers all its deformities... Let this confession to God be for you a short daily practice, but fervent... The first fruit that you will draw from it apart from the remission of your sins, will be to learn to know yourself and to know God, and the second will be to be ever ready to present yourself to a priest if you are able, enriched in character by the mercy of the Lord. "
As for being deprived of the Last Sacraments at the moment of death, Fr. Demaris wrote,
Quote:"Console yourselves, my children, in the trust you have in God. This tender Father will pour on you His graces, His blessings and His mercies in these awful moments that you fear, in more abundance than if you were being assisted by His ministers, of whom you have been deprived only because you wouldn't abandon Him. The abandonment and forsakenness that we fear for ourselves resembles that of the Savior on the Cross when He said to His Father, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' ... Your pains and abandonment lead you to your glorious destiny in ending your life like Jesus ended His!"
Bearing all this in mind, there are many Catholic practices left to the laity which cannot be taken away from us:
+ First and foremost there is the daily recitation of the Rosary, the "layman's breviary," which is essentially a compendium of the Divine Office, the official prayer of the Church and on which, together with the Angelus we can structure our day.
+ We can pray the Chaplet of Mercy as a means of keeping us in union with the eternal Mass in heaven where the Son constantly offers Himself to the Father in the Blessed Trinity for our salvation. We can always make spiritual Communions.
+ There is an abundance of sacramentals to be used with faith. Beginning with the Scapular of Mt. Carmel, the holy habit by which the fervent Catholic is universally identified, there are the Miraculous Medal and the Saint Benedict Medal, besides many other scapulars and medals, not to mention relics of the saints.
+ Besides the Bible, in which for centuries God was pre-incarnate and in which He still resides in His Word, there are countless good Catholic books and lives of the saints. Collect them, read them, study them, lend them to others!
+ And let's not forget the dogged, daily practice of virtue, forgiving all offenses real or imagined, trying always to overcome evil with good, loving our enemies and doing good to those who hate us. There are the corporal and spiritual works of mercy to be performed, especially counseling the doubtful and teaching the ignorant of all ages in these dark days, helping one another both materially and spiritually, "teaching and admonishing one another" as St. Paul advised the early Christians (Col. 3:16).
Whatever means we make use of, we must pray without ceasing, whether saying the approved prayers of the Church, making the Stations of the Cross or meditating on the Gospels. Above all other practices we should cultivate the awareness of the divine Indwelling in our own souls as we would in church before a sanctuary lamp. St. Paul asks, "Know you not that you are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwells in you? ... For the temple of God is holy, which you are" (1 Cor. 3;16-17). Only unrepented mortal sin can remove God's presence from the souls of the baptized.
The spiritual master Fr. Edward Leen pointed out that, "The material temple of God does not worship the God in whose honor it is built," but "the spiritual temple can and does. It is its prerogative to do so.... It is to be noted that there is no question here of a merely metaphorical or figurative presence. It is one which is real and substantial." And then he goes on to say something which many of us may find surprising:
Quote:"The Holy Ghost is present in the soul in grace in a manner which bears an analogy to, but is much superior to, that in which the Incarnate God is present under the sacred species.... It was to make this wonder possible for us that Jesus lived, labored, suffered and died... If the soul in grace cultivates a close attention to God within it and labors to draw ever closer to Him by perfecting its worship of love and service, it gradually undergoes a transforming process. It becomes more and more like to the God it loves, and becoming like Him, begins to have a foretaste of that bliss enjoyed by God himself and those to whom He stands revealed in the Beatific Vision."
In other words, loss of the sacraments need not stand in the way of our becoming saints.
Nothing happens without the will of God, whose divine Son told us, "The very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Matt. 10:30), but Fr. Demaris nevertheless warned his charges, "Don't be surprised at the great number who quit! Truth wins, no matter how small the number of those who love and remain attached to God."
So I'll close with the same words with which he ended his long letter:
Quote:"God watches over us, our hope is justified.It tells us that either the persecution stops or the persecution will be our crown. In the alternative of one or the other, I see the accomplishment of our destiny. Let God's will be done, since in whatever manner He delivers us, His eternal mercies pour into us."
[Emphasis The Catacombs]
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| Pope Pius X: Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 07:22 AM - Forum: Encyclicals
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Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum
Encyclical of Pope Pius X On the Immaculate Conception- 1904
To the Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, and other Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with the Apostolic See.
Venerable Brethren, Health and the Apostolic Blessing.
An interval of a few months will again bring round that most happy day on which, fifty years ago, Our Predecessor Pius IX., Pontiff of holy memory, surrounded by a noble crown of Cardinals and Bishops, pronounced and promulgated with the authority of the infallible magisterium as a truth revealed by God that the Most Blessed Virgin Mary in the first instant of her conception was free from all stain of original sin. All the world knows the feelings with which the faithful of all the nations of the earth received this proclamation and the manifestations of public satisfaction and joy which greeted it, for truly there has not been in the memory of man any more universal or more harmonious expression of sentiment shown towards the august Mother of God or the Vicar of Jesus Christ.
2. And, Venerable Brethren, why should we not hope to-day after the lapse of half a century, when we renew the memory of the Immaculate Virgin, that an echo of that holy joy will be awakened in our minds, and that those magnificent scenes of a distant day, of faith and of love towards the august Mother of God, will be repeated? Of all this We are, indeed, rendered ardently desirous by the devotion, united with supreme gratitude for benefits received, which We have always cherished towards the Blessed Virgin; and We have a sure pledge of the fulfillment of Our desires in the fervor of all Catholics, ready and willing as they are to multiply their testimonies of love and reverence for the great Mother of God. But We must not omit to say that this desire of Ours is especially stimulated by a sort of secret instinct which leads Us to regard as not far distant the fulfillment of those great hopes to which, certainly not rashly, the solemn promulgation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception opened the minds of Pius, Our predecessor, and of all the Bishops of the universe.
3. Many, it is true, lament the fact that until now these hopes have been unfulfilled, and are prone to repeat the words of Jeremias: “We looked for peace and no good came; for a time of healing, and beheld fear” (Jer. viii., 15). But all such will be certainly rebuked as “men of little faith,” who make no effort to penetrate the works of God or to estimate them in the light of truth. For who can number the secret gifts of grace which God has bestowed upon His Church through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin throughout this period? And even overlooking these gifts, what is to be said of the Vatican Council so opportunely convoked; or of the dogma of Papal Infallibility so suitably proclaimed to meet the errors that were about to arise; or, finally, of that new and unprecedented fervor with which the faithful of all classes and of every nation have long been flocking to venerate in person the Vicar of Christ? Surely the Providence of God has shown itself admirable in Our two predecessors, Pius and Leo, who ruled the Church in most turbulent times with such great holiness through a length of Pontificate conceded to no other before them. Then, again, no sooner had Pius IX. proclaimed as a dogma of Catholic faith the exemption of Mary from the original stain, than the Virgin herself began in Lourdes those wonderful manifestations, followed by the vast and magnificent movements which have produced those two temples dedicated to the Immaculate Mother, where the prodigies which still continue to take place through her intercession furnish splendid arguments against the incredulity of our days.
4. Witnesses, then, as we are of all these great benefits which God has granted through the benign influence of the Virgin in those fifty years now about to be completed, why should we not believe that our salvation is nearer than we thought; all the more since we know from experience that, in the dispensation of Divine Providence, when evils reach their limit, deliverance is not far distant. “Her time is near at hand, and her days shall not be prolonged. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob and will choose one out of Israel” (Isaias xiv., 1). Wherefore the hope we cherish is not a vain one, that we, too, may before long repeat: “The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, the rod of the rulers. The whole earth is quiet and still, it is glad and hath rejoiced” (Ibid. 5, 7).
5. But the first and chief reason, Venerable Brethren, why the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception should excite a singular fervor in the souls of Christians lies for us in that restoration of all things in Christ which we have already set forth in Our first Encyclical letter. For can anyone fail to see that there is no surer or more direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ and obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons, that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God? For if to Mary it was truly said: “Blessed art thou who hast believed because in thee shall be fulfilled the things that have been told thee by the Lord” (Luke i., 45); or in other words, that she would conceive and bring forth the Son of God and if she did receive in her breast Him who is by nature Truth itself in order that “He, generated in a new order and with a new nativity, though invisible in Himself, might become visible in our flesh” (St. Leo the Great, Ser. 2, De Nativ. Dom.): the Son of God made man, being the “author and consummator of our faith”; it surely follows that His Mother most holy should be recognized as participating in the divine mysteries and as being in a manner the guardian of them, and that upon her as upon a foundation, the noblest after Christ, rises the edifice of the faith of all centuries.
6. How think otherwise? Could not God have given us, in another way than through the Virgin the Redeemer of the human race and the Founder of the Faith? But, since Divine Providence has been pleased that we should have the Man-God through Mary, who conceived Him by the Holy Ghost and bore Him in her breast, it only remains for us to receive Christ from the hands of Mary. Hence whenever the Scriptures speak prophetically of the grace which was to appear among us, the Redeemer of mankind is almost invariably presented to us as united with His mother. The Lamb that is to rule the world will be sent — but He will be sent from the rock of the desert; the flower will blossom, but it will blossom from the root of Jesse. Adam, the father of mankind, looked to Mary crushing the serpent’s head, and he dried the tears that the malediction had brought into his eyes. Noe thought of her when shut up in the ark of safety, and Abraham when prevented from the slaying of his son; Jacob at the sight of the ladder on which angels ascended and descended; Moses amazed at the sight of the bush which burned but was not consumed; David escorting the arc of God with dancing and psalmody; Elias as he looked at the little cloud that rose out of the sea. In fine, after Christ, we find in Mary the end of the law and the fulfillment of the figures and oracles.
7. And that through the Virgin, and through her more than through any other means, we have offered us a way of reaching the knowledge of Jesus Christ, cannot be doubted when it is remembered that with her alone of all others Jesus was for thirty years united, as a son is usually united with a mother, in the closest ties of intimacy and domestic life. Who could better than His Mother have an open knowledge of the admirable mysteries of the birth and childhood of Christ, and above all of the mystery of the Incarnation, which is the beginning and the foundation of faith? Mary not only preserved and meditated on the events of Bethlehem and the facts which took place in Jerusalem in the Temple of the Lord, but sharing as she did the thoughts and the secret wishes of Christ she may be said to have lived the very life of her Son. Hence nobody ever knew Christ so profoundly as she did, and nobody can ever be more competent as a guide and teacher of the knowledge of Christ.
8. Hence it follows, as We have already pointed out, that the Virgin is more powerful than all others as a means for uniting mankind with Christ. Hence too since, according to Christ Himself, “Now this is eternal life: That they may know thee the only truly God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent” (John xvii., 3), and since it is through Mary that we attain to the knowledge of Christ, through Mary also we most easily obtain that life of which Christ is the source and origin.
9. And if we set ourselves to consider how many and powerful are the causes by which this most holy Mother is filled with zeal to bestow on us these precious gifts, oh, how our hopes will be expanded!
10. For is not Mary the Mother of Christ? Then she is our Mother also. And we must in truth hold that Christ, the Word made Flesh, is also the Savior of mankind. He had a physical body like that of any other man: and again as Savior of the human family, he had a spiritual and mystical body, the society, namely, of those who believe in Christ. “We are many, but one sole body in Christ” (Rom. xii., 5). Now the Blessed Virgin did not conceive the Eternal Son of God merely in order that He might be made man taking His human nature from her, but also in order that by means of the nature assumed from her He might be the Redeemer of men. For which reason the Angel said to the Shepherds: “To-day there is born to you a Savior who is Christ the Lord” (Luke ii., 11). Wherefore in the same holy bosom of his most chaste Mother Christ took to Himself flesh, and united to Himself the spiritual body formed by those who were to believe in Him. Hence Mary, carrying the Savior within her, may be said to have also carried all those whose life was contained in the life of the Savior. Therefore all we who are united to Christ, and as the Apostle says are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Ephes. v., 30), have issued from the womb of Mary like a body united to its head. Hence, though in a spiritual and mystical fashion, we are all children of Mary, and she is Mother of us all. Mother, spiritually indeed, but truly Mother of the members of Christ, who are we (S. Aug. L. de S. Virginitate, c. 6).
11. If then the most Blessed Virgin is the Mother at once of God and men, who can doubt that she will work with all diligence to procure that Christ, Head of the Body of the Church (Coloss. i., 18), may transfuse His gifts into us, His members, and above all that of knowing Him and living through Him (I John iv., 9)?
12. Moreover it was not only the prerogative of the Most Holy Mother to have furnished the material of His flesh to the Only Son of God, Who was to be born with human members (S. Bede Ven. L. Iv. in Luc. xl.), of which material should be prepared the Victim for the salvation of men; but hers was also the office of tending and nourishing that Victim, and at the appointed time presenting Him for the sacrifice. Hence that uninterrupted community of life and labors of the Son and the Mother, so that of both might have been uttered the words of the Psalmist”My life is consumed in sorrow and my years in groans” (Ps xxx., 11). When the supreme hour of the Son came, beside the Cross of Jesus there stood Mary His Mother, not merely occupied in contemplating the cruel spectacle, but rejoicing that her Only Son was offered for the salvation of mankind, and so entirely participating in His Passion, that if it had been possible she would have gladly borne all the torments that her Son bore (S. Bonav. 1. Sent d. 48, ad Litt. dub. 4). And from this community of will and suffering between Christ and Mary she merited to become most worthily the Reparatrix of the lost world (Eadmeri Mon. De Excellentia Virg. Mariae, c. 9) and Dispensatrix of all the gifts that Our Savior purchased for us by His Death and by His Blood.
13. It cannot, of course, be denied that the dispensation of these treasures is the particular and peculiar right of Jesus Christ, for they are the exclusive fruit of His Death, who by His nature is the mediator between God and man. Nevertheless, by this companionship in sorrow and suffering already mentioned between the Mother and the Son, it has been allowed to the august Virgin to be the most powerful Mediatrix and advocate of the whole world with her Divine Son (Pius IX. Ineffabilis). The source, then, is Jesus Christ “of whose fullness we have all received” (John i., 16), “from whom the whole body, being compacted and fitly joined together by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in charity” (Ephesians iv., 16). But Mary, as St. Bernard justly remarks, is the channel (Serm. de temp on the Nativ. B. V. De Aquaeductu n. 4); or, if you will, the connecting portion the function of which is to join the body to the head and to transmit to the body the influences and volitions of the head — We mean the neck. Yes, says St. Bernardine of Sienna, “she is the neck of Our Head, by which He communicates to His mystical body all spiritual gifts” (Quadrag. de Evangel. aetern. Serm. x., a. 3, c. iii.).
14. We are then, it will be seen, very far from attributing to the Mother of God a productive power of grace — a power which belongs to God alone. Yet, since Mary carries it over all in holiness and union with Jesus Christ, and has been associated by Jesus Christ in the work of redemption, she merits for us “de congruo,” in the language of theologians, what Jesus Christ merits for us “de condigno,” and she is the supreme Minister of the distribution of graces. Jesus “sitteth on the right hand of the majesty on high” (Hebrews i. b.). Mary sitteth at the right hand of her Son — a refuge so secure and a help so trusty against all dangers that we have nothing to fear or to despair of under her guidance, her patronage, her protection.(Pius IX. in Bull Ineffabilis).
15. These principles laid down, and to return to our design, who will not see that we have with good reason claimed for Mary that — as the constant companion of Jesus from the house at Nazareth to the height of Calvary, as beyond all others initiated to the secrets of his Heart, and as the distributor, by right of her Motherhood, of the treasures of His merits,-she is, for all these reasons, a most sure and efficacious assistance to us for arriving at the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. Those, alas! furnish us by their conduct with a peremptory proof of it, who seduced by the wiles of the demon or deceived by false doctrines think they can do without the help of the Virgin. Hapless are they who neglect Mary under pretext of the honor to be paid to Jesus Christ! As if the Child could be found elsewhere than with the Mother!
16. Under these circumstances, Venerable Brethren, it is this end which all the solemnities that are everywhere being prepared in honor of the holy and Immaculate Conception of Mary should have in view. No homage is more agreeable to her, none is sweeter to her than that we should know and really love Jesus Christ. Let then crowds fill the churches — let solemn feasts be celebrated and public rejoicings be made: these are things eminently suited for enlivening our faith. But unless heart and will be added, they will all be empty forms, mere appearances of piety. At such a spectacle, the Virgin, borrowing the words of Jesus Christ, would address us with the just reproach: “This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me”(Matth. xv., 8).
17. For to be right and good, worship of the Mother of God ought to spring from the heart; acts of the body have here neither utility nor value if the acts of the soul have no part in them. Now these latter can only have one object, which is that we should fully carry out what the divine Son of Mary commands. For if true love alone has the power to unite the wills of men, it is of the first necessity that we should have one will with Mary to serve Jesus our Lord. What this most prudent Virgin said to the servants at the marriage feast of Cana she addresses also to us: “Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye” (John ii., 5).
Now here is the word of Jesus Christ: “If you would enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matt. xix., 17). Let them each one fully convince himself of this, that if his piety towards the Blessed Virgin does not hinder him from sinning, or does not move his will to amend an evil life, it is a piety deceptive and lying, wanting as it is in proper effect and its natural fruit.
18. If anyone desires a confirmation of this it may easily be found in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. For leaving aside tradition which, as well as Scripture, is a source of truth, how has this persuasion of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin appeared so conformed to the Catholic mind and feeling that it has been held as being one, and as it were inborn in the soul of the faithful? “We shrink from saying,” is the answer of Dionysius of Chartreux, “of this woman who was to crush the head of the serpent that had been crushed by him and that Mother of God that she had ever been a daughter of the Evil One” (Sent. d. 3, q. 1). No, to the Christian intelligence the idea is unthinkable that the flesh of Christ, holy, stainless, innocent, was formed in the womb of Mary of a flesh which had ever, if only for the briefest moment, contracted any stain. And why so, but because an infinite opposition separates God from sin? There certainly we have the origin of the conviction common to all Christians that Jesus Christ before, clothed in human nature, He cleansed us from our sins in His blood, accorded Mary the grace and special privilege of being preserved and exempted, from the first moment of her conception, from all stain of original sin.
19. If then God has such a horror of sin as to have willed to keep free the future Mother of His Son not only from stains which are voluntarily contracted but, by a special favor and in prevision of the merits of Jesus Christ, from that other stain of which the sad sign is transmitted to all us sons of Adam by a sort of hapless heritage: who can doubt that it is a duty for everyone who seeks by his homage to gain the heart of Mary to correct his vicious and depraved habits and to subdue the passions which incite him to evil?
20. Whoever moreover wishes, and no one ought not so to wish, that his devotion should be worthy of her and perfect, should go further and strive might and main to imitate her example. It is a divine law that those only attain everlasting happiness who have by such faithful following reproduced in themselves the form of the patience and sanctity of Jesus Christ: “for whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be made conformable to the image of His Son; that He might be the first-born amongst many brethren” (Romans viii., 29). But such generally is our infirmity that we are easily discouraged by the greatness of such an example: by the providence of God, however, another example is proposed to us, which is both as near to Christ as human nature allows, and more nearly accords with the weakness of our nature. And this is no other than the Mother of God. “Such was Mary,” very pertinently points out St. Ambrose, “that her life is an example for all.” And, therefore, he rightly concludes: “Have then before your eyes, as an image, the virginity and life of Mary from whom as from a mirror shines forth the brightness of chastity and the form of virtue” (De Virginib. L. ii., c. ii.)
21. Now if it becomes children not to omit the imitation of any of the virtues of this most Blessed Mother, we yet wish that the faithful apply themselves by preference to the principal virtues which are, as it were, the nerves and joints of the Christian life — we mean faith, hope, and charity towards God and our neighbor. Of these virtues the life of Mary bears in all its phases the brilliant character; but they attained their highest degree of splendor at the time when she stood by her dying Son. Jesus is nailed to the cross, and the malediction is hurled against Him that “He made Himself the Son of God” (John xix., 7). But she unceasingly recognized and adored the divinity in Him. She bore His dead body to the tomb, but never for a moment doubted that He would rise again. Then the love of God with which she burned made her a partaker in the sufferings of Christ and the associate in His passion; with him moreover, as if forgetful of her own sorrow, she prayed for the pardon of the executioners although they in their hate cried out: “His blood be upon us and upon our children” (Matth. xxvii., 25).
22. But lest it be thought that We have lost sight of Our subject, which is the Immaculate Conception, what great and effectual succor will be found in it for the preservation and right development of those same virtues. What truly is the point of departure of the enemies of religion for the sowing of the great and serious errors by which the faith of so many is shaken? They begin by denying that man has fallen by sin and been cast down from his former position. Hence they regard as mere fables original sin and the evils that were its consequence. Humanity vitiated in its source vitiated in its turn the whole race of man; and thus was evil introduced amongst men and the necessity for a Redeemer involved. All this rejected it is easy to understand that no place is left for Christ, for the Church, for grace or for anything that is above and beyond nature; in one word the whole edifice of faith is shaken from top to bottom. But let people believe and confess that the Virgin Mary has been from the first moment of her conception preserved from all stain; and it is straightway necessary that they should admit both original sin and the rehabilitation of the human race by Jesus Christ, the Gospel, and the Church and the law of suffering. By virtue of this Rationalism and Materialism is torn up by the roots and destroyed, and there remains to Christian wisdom the glory of having to guard and protect the truth. It is moreover a vice common to the enemies of the faith of our time especially that they repudiate and proclaim the necessity of repudiating all respect and obedience for the authority of the Church, and even of any human power, in the idea that it will thus be more easy to make an end of faith. Here we have the origin of Anarchism, than which nothing is more pernicious and pestilent to the order of things whether natural or supernatural. Now this plague, which is equally fatal to society at large and to Christianity, finds its ruin in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception by the obligation which it imposes of recognizing in the Church a power before which not only has the will to bow, but the intelligence to subject itself. It is from a subjection of the reason of this sort that Christian people sing thus the praise of the Mother of God: “Thou art all fair, O Mary, and the stain of original sin is not in thee.” (Mass of Immac. Concep.) And thus once again is justified what the Church attributes to this august Virgin that she has exterminated all heresies in the world.
23. And if, as the Apostle declares, faith is nothing else than the substance of things to be hoped for” (Hebr. xi. 1) everyone will easily allow that our faith is confirmed and our hope aroused and strengthened by the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. The Virgin was kept the more free from all stain of original sin because she was to be the Mother of Christ; and she was the Mother of Christ that the hope of everlasting happiness might be born again in our souls.
24. Leaving aside charity towards God, who can contemplate the Immaculate Virgin without feeling moved to fulfill that precept which Christ called peculiarly His own, namely that of loving one another as He loved us? “A great sign,” thus the Apostle St. John describes a vision divinely sent him, appears in the heavens: “A woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars upon her head” (Apoc. xii., 1). Everyone knows that this woman signified the Virgin Mary, the stainless one who brought forth our Head. The Apostle continues: “And, being with child, she cried travailing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered” (Apoc. xii., 2). John therefore saw the Most Holy Mother of God already in eternal happiness, yet travailing in a mysterious childbirth. What birth was it? Surely it was the birth of us who, still in exile, are yet to be generated to the perfect charity of God, and to eternal happiness. And the birth pains show the love and desire with which the Virgin from heaven above watches over us, and strives with unwearying prayer to bring about the fulfillment of the number of the elect.
25. This same charity we desire that all should earnestly endeavor to attain, taking special occasion from the extraordinary feasts in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. Oh how bitterly and fiercely is Jesus Christ now being persecuted, and the most holy religion which he founded! And how grave is the peril that threatens many of being drawn away by the errors that are afoot on all sides, to the abandonment of the faith! “Then let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall” (I Cor. x., 12). And let all, with humble prayer and entreaty, implore of God, through the intercession of Mary, that those who have abandoned the truth may repent. We know, indeed, from experience that such prayer, born of charity and relying on the Virgin, has never been vain. True, even in the future the strife against the Church will never cease, “for there must be also heresies, that they also who are reproved may be made manifest among you” (I Cor. xi., 19). But neither will the Virgin ever cease to succor us in our trials, however grave they be, and to carry on the fight fought by her since her conception, so that every day we may repeat: “To-day the head of the serpent of old was crushed by her” (Office Immac. Con., 11. Vespers, Magnif.).
26. And that heavenly graces may help Us more abundantly than usual during this year in which We pay her fuller honor, to attain the imitation of the Virgin, and that thus We may more easily secure Our object of restoring all things in Christ, We have determined, after the example of Our Predecessors at the beginning of their Pontificates, to grant to the Catholic world an extraordinary indulgence in the form of a Jubilee.
27. Wherefore, confiding in the mercy of Almighty God and in the authority of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, by virtue of that power of binding and loosing which, unworthy though We are, the Lord has given Us, We do concede and impart the most plenary indulgence of all their sins to the faithful, all and several of both sexes, dwelling in this Our beloved City, or coming into it, who from the first Sunday in Lent, that is from the 21st of February, to the second day of June, the solemnity of the Most Sacred Body of Christ, inclusively, shall three times visit one of the four Patriarchal basilicas, and there for some time pray God for the liberty and exaltation of the Catholic Church and this Apostolic See, for the extirpation of heresies and the conversion of all who are in error, for the concord of Christian Princes and the peace and unity of all the faithful, and according to Our intention; and who, within the said period, shall fast once, using only meager fare, excepting the days not included in the Lenten Indult; and, after confessing their sins, shall receive the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist; and to all others, wherever they be, dwelling outside this city, who, within the time above mentioned or during a space of three months, even not continuous, to be definitely appointed by the ordinaries according to the convenience of the faithful, but before the eighth day of December, shall three times visit the cathedral church, if there be one, or, if not, the parish church; or, in the absence of this, the principal church; and shall devoutly fulfill the other works above mentioned. And We do at the same time permit that this indulgence, which is to be gained only once, may be applied in suffrage for the souls which have passed from this life united in charity with God.
28. We do, moreover, concede that travelers by land or sea may gain the same indulgence immediately they return to their homes provided they perform the works already noted.
29. To confessors approved by their respective ordinaries We grant faculties for commuting the above works enjoined by Us for other works of piety, and this concession shall be applicable not only to regulars of both sexes but to all others who cannot perform the works prescribed, and We do grant faculties also to dispense from Communion children who have not yet been admitted to it.
30. Moreover to the faithful, all and several, the laity and the clergy both secular and regular of all orders and institutes, even those calling for special mention, We do grant permission and power, for this sole object, to select any priest regular or secular, among those actually approved (which faculty may also be used by nuns, novices and other women living in the cloister, provided the confessor they select be one approved for nuns) by whom, when they have confessed to him within the prescribed time with the intention of gaining the present jubilee and of fulfilling all the other works requisite for gaining it, they may on this sole occasion and only in the forum of conscience be absolved from all excommunication, suspension and every other ecclesiastical sentence and censure pronounced or inflicted for any cause by the law or by a judge, including those reserved to the ordinary and to Us or to the Apostolic See, even in cases reserved in a special manner to anybody whomsoever and to Us and to the Apostolic See; and they may also be absolved from all sin or excess, even those reserved to the ordinaries themselves and to Us and to the Apostolic See, on condition however that a salutary penance be enjoined together with the other prescriptions of the law, and in the case of heresy after the abjuration and retraction of error as is enjoined by the law; and the said priests may further commute to other pious and salutary works all vows even those taken under oath and reserved to the Apostolic See (except those of chastity, of religion, and of obligations which have been accepted by a third person); and with the said penitents, even regulars, in sacred orders such confessions may dispense from all secret irregularities contracted solely by violation of censures affecting the exercise of said orders and promotion to higher orders.
31. But We do not intend by the present Letters to dispense from any irregularities whatsoever, or from crime or defect, public or private, contracted in any manner through notoriety or other incapacity or inability; nor do We intend to derogate from the Constitution with its accompanying declaration, published by Benedict XIV, of happy memory, which begins with the words Sacramentum poenitentiae; nor is it Our intention that these present Letters may, or can, in any way avail those who, by Us and the Apostolic See, or by any ecclesiastical judge, have been by name excommunicated, suspended, interdicted or declared under other sentences or censures, or who have been publicly denounced, unless they do within the allotted time satisfy, or, when necessary, come to an arrangement with the parties concerned.
32. To all this We are pleased to add that We do concede and will that all retain during this time of Jubilee the privilege of gaining all other indulgences, not excepting plenary indulgences, which have been granted by Our Predecessors or by Ourself.
33. We close these letters, Venerable Brethren, by manifesting anew the great hope We earnestly cherish that through this extraordinary gift of Jubilee granted by Us under the auspices of the Immaculate Virgin, large numbers of those who are unhappily separated from Jesus Christ may return to Him, and that love of virtue and fervor of devotion may flourish anew among the Christian people. Fifty years ago, when Pius IX. proclaimed as an article of faith the Immaculate Conception of the most Blessed Mother of Christ, it seemed, as we have already said, as if an incredible wealth of grace were poured out upon the earth; and with the increase of confidence in the Virgin Mother of God, the old religious spirit of the people was everywhere greatly augmented. Is it forbidden us to hope for still greater things for the future? True, we are passing through disastrous times, when we may well make our own the lamentation of the Prophet: “There is no truth and no mercy and no knowledge of God on the earth. Blasphemy and lying and homicide and theft and adultery have inundated it” (Os. iv.,[1]-2). Yet in the midst of this deluge of evil, the Virgin Most Clement rises before our eyes like a rainbow, as the arbiter of peace between God and man: “I will set my bow in the clouds and it shall be the sign of a covenant between me and between the earth” (Gen. ix.,13). Let the storm rage and sky darken-not for that shall we be dismayed. “And the bow shall be in the clouds, and I shall see it and shall remember the everlasting covenant” (Ibid.16). “And there shall no more be waters of a flood to destroy all flesh” (Ibid.15.). Oh yes, if we trust as we should in Mary, now especially when we are about to celebrate, with more than usual fervor, her Immaculate Conception, we shall recognize in her that Virgin most powerful “who with virginal foot did crush the head of the serpent” (Off. Immac. Conc.).
34. In pledge of these graces, Venerable Brethren, We impart the Apostolic Benediction lovingly in the Lord to you and to your people.
Given at Rome in St. Peter’s on the second day of February, 1904, in the first year of Our Pontificate.
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| 1980 Angelus article: True Devotion to Mary and Total Consecration |
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Posted by: Stone - 12-10-2020, 06:48 AM - Forum: In Honor of Our Lady
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The Angelus -April 1980
True Devotion to Mary and Total Consecration
Members of the Society of St. Pius X, and their friends and benefactors, have a special incentive for interest in St. Louis Grignion de Montfort's True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and his Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary which brings about what is called a "Holy Slavery of Love." That special incentive is the fact that one of the most zealous promoters of True Devotion and Total Consecration was none other than St. Pius X himself, a devoted "Slave of Mary."
So ardent was the desire of this Marian Pope to encourage interest in Montfort's method of devotion to Our Lady that he gave a special apostolic blessing to all those who even merely read the Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and, at the same time, he declared:Quote: "We eagerly commend the Treatise on True Devotion." In addition to this, the Holy Father granted a plenary indulgence (on 24 December 1907), under the usual conditions, to be gained on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8th, and on the Feast of Saint Louis de Montfort, April 28, to those who recite the Montfort formula of consecration entitled "Consecration of Ourselves to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, by the Hands of Mary."
This plenary indulgence, which Leo XIII (also a "Slave of Mary") had granted for only seven years, was now granted "in perpetuum"—in perpetuity
What is also of particular significance, among other things, is the dependence of St. Pius X on the Marian doctrine of St. Louis de Montfort in writing the second Encyclical of his Pontificate, Ad Diem Ilium (2 February 1904), commemorating the Golden Jubilee of the proclamation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception by Pius IX, "a Pontiff of most holy memory," in 1854. And though the character of the Encyclical is obviously Marian throughout, and devotes considerable space to the doctrine of Mary, Mediatrix of All Graces, its chief purpose, as the Pope takes special care to point out, is "to restore all things in Christ" which was the theme of his first Encyclical, E Supremi Apostolatus (4 October 1903), as well as the chosen theme and motto of his entire Pontificate. As he explained it, "there is no surer nor easier way than Mary for uniting all persons with Christ." And this is precisely the doctrine of St. Louis de Montfort, as is evident already in the very title of his formula of Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary.
Another Pope—though not the only other one—who is known for his special love for St. Lous de Montfort, and the one who canonized him on 21 July 1947, is Pius XII, himself outstanding in devotion to Our Lady. He spoke of the Montfort True Devotion as "a shorter path to perfection." On the day after the canonization, he again addressed pilgrims and told them that the new Saint was "the guide who leads you to Mary, and, through Mary to Jesus." He then added that "all the Saints were undoubtedly great servants of Mary and they all lead souls to her; Grignion de Montfort is one of those Saints who worked more ardently and more efficaciously to make her loved and served."
But despite his great praise for the Saint and his True Devotion, Pius XII was careful not to give the impression that Montfort's was an exclusive kind of devotion that ruled out other forms of devotion to Mary. He stated that the form and practice of true and traditional devotion to Mary "may vary according to time, place, and personal inclination." He added that "the true and perfect devotion to the Blessed Virgin is not bound up with any modes in such a manner that one of them can claim a monopoly over the others." With this word of caution given first, the Holy Father then proceeded to say:
Quote:"We ardently hope that, in addition to the various manifestations of devotion to the Mother of God and of men, you will draw from the treasury of the writings and example of our Saint that which constitutes the basis of his Marian devotion: his firm conviction of the most powerful intercession of Mary, his resolute will to imitate as far as possible the virtues of the Virgin of virgins, and the vehement ardor of his love for her and for Jesus."
With recommendations such as those of St. Pius X and the saintly Pius XII, given by both word and example, what child of Mary can resist the desire and urge to read and study St. Louis de Montfort's Treatise on True Devotion, as well as other writings of his, and then follow through with the Total Consecration "to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom, by the hands of Mary"? The purpose of this article is precisely to encourage readers to give serious attention to Montfort's extraordinary devotion to the Blessed Virgin and to put into practice, as far as possible, what he recommends.
The little book entitled Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary was not given its title by Montfort himself. At his death in 1716, at the age of 43, he left the work in manuscript form, predicting that
Quote:"raging brutes will come in fury to tear with their diabolical teeth this little writing . . . , or at least to envelop it in silence of a coffer, in order that it may not appear."
In literal fulfillment of this prophecy, the manuscript was hidden away for 126 years, until 1842, when it was found "by accident" by a priest of the congregation founded by Montfort, that is, the "Missionaries of the Company of Mary" (Montfort Fathers), at the motherhouse of the congregation in western France. The title of True Devotion was given to the work by the first publishers.
As has been pointed out, even by priests of the Montfort Company of Mary, the title "True Devotion" can be misleading, as it may unwittingly give the impression to some that there are no other forms of "true" devotion to Our Lady except that of St. Louis de Montfort. However, it is a fact that Montfort's devotion to Mary is eminently true in itself and richly deserves the title given to it. Quite appropriately, Montfort explains in much detail—and this makes a good examination of self for anyone professing devotion to Mary!—the various forms of false devotion to Mary, while describing the characteristics and practices of true devotion to her. Furthermore, he does make what some might consider an extravagant claim that his form of devotion to Mary is not only perfect, but is even above all other forms. He writes:
Quote:"I loudly protest that, having read nearly all the books which profess to treat of devotion to Our Lady, and having conversed familiarly with the best and wisest of men of these latter times, I have never known nor heard of any practice of devotion toward her at all equal to the one which I now wish to unfold . . ."
The "Holy Slavery of Love" which is a consequence of Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary is, in itself, basically an ancient idea as Montfort himself observes. A number of the Fathers of the Church are said to have used the expressions "Slave of Mary" and "Slave of the Mother of God," as did also some of the Popes, and there were confraternities of "Holy Slavery" before the time of St. Louis de Montfort (1673-1716). But full credit must be given to Montfort for developing the notion of "Holy Slavery" in such detail and to such perfection, and for applying it, as he does, to Jesus and Mary as to an inseparable unit. Thus, though Montfort's devotion to Mary is not the only "true" kind of devotion to her, it is nevertheless a "perfect" form of devotion to her independently of any comparison with other forms.
The perfection of Montfort's form of devotion to Mary is due to the fact that it calls for a total giving of oneself, not just to Mary alone, but rather to Jesus, Whom Montfort loves to acknowledge as the "Incarnate Wisdom," through the hands of Mary. Thus, if one is a true "Slave of Mary," he is first and above all a "Slave of Jesus," being subject to Him as God and then to her as Mother of God. The very notion of "slavery" implies total subjection and subservience, but there is obviously nothing degrading or ignoble, nor could there possibly be, in the total subjection of "Holy Slavery" to Jesus and Mary. "Holy Slavery" logically follows upon Total Consecration, for such consecration implies and means "total surrender" and "total abandonment" to Jesus and Mary.
It must be admitted, and this was suggested by the words of Pius XII, quoted above, that other Saints and holy persons have taught and practiced the essence of Montfort's true and perfect devotion to Mary, inasmuch as they, too, have surrendered themselves totally into her hands, though they may not have expressed themselves as Montfort did nor adopted the "unequalled" practices of devotion to her of which he speaks.
St. Louis de Montfort ties this doctrine in with the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. He says:
Quote:"If Jesus Christ, the Head of men, is born in her . . . the members of this Head must also be born in her by a necessary consequence . . . The Head and members are born of the same Mother."
He explains that, as in the natural order a head cannot be born without the members, and vice versa, so also is this true in the supernatural order. Thus, then, by consenting to the Incarnation and thereupon physically conceiving Christ the Head through the power of the Holy Ghost, Mary by that very fact spiritually conceived all those who with Him form but one Mystical Body. This is also the teaching of St. Pius X in Ad Diem Illum. Montfort's explanation shows how justified Mary is in claiming our total surrender of ourselves to her and how logically should follow our Total Consecation to Jesus through Mary.
In addition to the foregoing, Montfort also brings in the Co-Redemption, that is, Mary's total union with the Divine Redeemer in the act of the Redemption. Just to take one example of this union, look at this beautiful description, in one of Montfort's numerous hymns (nearly all still only in French), of the total union of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary in the act of the Redemption:
Quote:"Their Hearts, united by strong and close ties, are offered both together to be two victims to hold back the chastisement which our sins merit."
It is, then, also because of Mary's unique share in the work of Redemption that she is entitled to claim us, the redeemed, as her own, just as her Divine Son, the Redeemer, does. It is therefore to them together that we should consecrate ourselves without reserve to them together as Redeemer and Co-Redemptrix.
The only logical conclusion from all the foregoing is that, as the Saint says, we should "call ourselves and make ourselves the loving slaves of the Most Holy Virgin, in order to be, by that very means, the more perfectly the slaves of Jesus."
The Total Consecration of ourselves to Jesus and Mary, which means making us their "loving slaves," obviously demands a careful preparation for such a decisive act, which is in reality a renewal of our baptismal vows whereby we rejected an "unholy slavery" to Satan. Montfort himself tells us, in his Treatise on True Devotion, how one should prepare for Total Consecration. He goes into great details, insisting that we should "enter into the spirit" of this act and not merely recite empty words or perform lifeless actions. It is true that all the details are not absolutely essential for a genuine Total Consecration nor are they obligatory, since the manner of preparation and the length of time to be given to it, as Montfort himself acknowledges, will depend upon each individual, yet a longer and more thorough preparation is highly recommended for the average person.
A booklet entitled "Preparation for Total Consecration According to St. Louis de Montfort" has been provided as an aid by the Montfort Fathers. Among other things this booklet outlines six suggested schedules of 33 days each, during which one can follow daily program of preparation. Thus, e. g., one schedule suggests beginning the 33-day preparation on April 28, Feast of St. Louis de Montfort, and concluding on May 30, with the Total Consecration taking place on May 31st, the day that Pius XII originally designated as the Feast of Mary, Queen of the Universe. Or, according to another suggested schedule, one could begin the preparation on July 13th and conclude on August 14th, with the Total Consecration taking place on August 15th, the Feast of Our Lady's Assumption.
Though this article has brought out a few of the salient features of the Montfort way of devotion to Our Lady, and of devotion to Jesus through Mary, nothing of what is written here can compare with the reading of the actual words of St. Louis de Montfort in his Treatise on True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. And we can do not better than to give the last word of St. Pius X, quoting once again his words cited at the beginning of this article: "We eagerly recommend the Treatise on True Devotion."
- This article was prepared by a Traditional Catholic Priest
[Emphasis - The Catacombs]
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