september 2005

$4.45

“Instaurare omnia in Christo”

A Journal of Roman Catholic Tradition

Soon to be beatified

charles de foucauld

Qui Pluribus

On Faith and Religion
(Pius IX, 1846)

W
E
N

Pope
Pius
IX
The Man and the Myth
Yves Chiron

Is the 19th century a blank century to you? Let the newest book from Angelus Press
connect the dots from the viewpoint of the longest pontificate in the history of the Church–
Blessed Pius IX.
Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti is one of the most interesting and complex individuals to
ever become Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. He was born in 1792, during
the French Revolution, lived through the Napoleonic conquests of Europe, and witnessed the
unification of both Italy and the Prussian Empire.
His pontificate included the proclamation of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception
and papal infallibility, the convocation of the First Vatican Council, the publication of the
Syllabus of Errors, the beginnings of Catholic Action, and the development of the foreign
missions.
If you want an insight into the many interesting facets of the relationship between the
Church and the world at the end of the 19th century, this book is for you. If you are interested
in the fight of the Church against the great movements of Modernity: liberalism, Freemasonry,
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mention of Pius IX brings nothing to mind, you need to read this book. Chapters include:
 The First Years  A Difficult Path to the Priesthood  From Tata Giovanni to
Chile  Bishop of Spoleto  Bishop and Cardinal of Imola  Sovereign Pontiff
 From Reform to Revolution  The Pope in Exile  Resistance and Renewal
 The Pope of the Immaculate Conception  Pius IX and Italy  The Pope of the
Syllabus  The Roman Question  The Vatican Council  The “Prisoner of the
Vatican”  Towards the Canonization.

The author, Yves Chiron, is a professor of history and a member of the Society of the
Ecclesiastical History of France. He has authored many works in his native French, including
biographies of Padre Pio and Paul VI, and is the author of the Angelus Press title St. Pius X:
Restorer of the Church.

327pp, softcover, 45 photographs and illustrations,
bibliography, index, STK# 8126 $24.95

W
NE

Satis Cognitum (On the Unity of the Church)
Pope Leo XIII

Just when everyone
thought Pope Pius IX would
compromise with the world,
he issued Qui Pluribus (Nov.
9, 1846)–a cannon shot fired
across the bow of modern
Europe which proved he was
anything but naive regarding
the dangers threatening the
Catholic Church. Pius IX alerted the world’s bishops to the
errors of the day: liberalism, Freemasonry, rationalism,
pantheism, naturalism, Protestantism, and Communism.
These forces, he said, were “linked in guilty fellowship,” to
wage a “fierce and terrible war” against the Church, divine
revelation, and society. Pius lumped Protestant “Bible
Societies” in with Freemasons and Communists, and
decried the hypocrisy of Protestantism, which, claiming
to venerate Sacred Scripture, falsely translated the Bible
and further mutated the Holy Word with “perverse and
erroneous interpretations...in conformity with his own
private judgment.” “As a result of this filthy medley of
errors...We see the following: morals deteriorated, Christ’s
most holy religion despised...the authority of the Church
attacked and reduced to base slavery...the sanctity of
marriage infringed, the rule of every government violently
shaken and many other losses....”
22pp, STK# 5312Q $3.25

eat als
r
g lic
c
e
cy Pop
n
e of
IX Quanta Cura & the
s
u
Syllabus of Errors
Pi
(Pius IX, 1864)

This encyclical letter of
Pope Pius IX was promulgated
in 1864, and the attached
Syllabus of Errors was
simultaneously issued by
the same great Pontiff to all
bishops so they would see “...
all the errors and pernicious
doctrines which Pius IX has
reprobated and condemned.” All-but-forgotten today, it
ignited a “firestorm” reaction when it was first issued.
The Syllabus is a catalog of 80 erroneous
propositions, a list of the most common errors of
modern thinking. Grouped under ten separate headings,
each proposition is cross-referenced to the specific
Papal document where the particular proposition was
discussed–and condemned as erroneous.
“Teach them that kingdoms rest upon the foundation
of the Catholic faith...and that nothing is so deadly,
nothing so certain to engender every ill...as for men to
believe that they stand in need of nothing else than the
free will which we received at birth.”
29pp, STK# 5314Q $3.45

“That they may be one–Ut unum sint” has been the rallying cry of Churchmen since Vatican II, and the explanation
for the promotion of an ecumenical agenda that places “unity” before everything. But what is the nature of the unity
for which the Lord prayed His heavenly Father on the way to Gethsemane? Indeed, most Catholics cannot answer
with precision what exactly the Church is, the conditions for belonging to it, or its necessity for salvation. If you want a
clear and concise explanation of these principles, Satis Cognitum is the place to begin. Written when popes said what
they meant and meant what they said, it is free from the ambiguities which are so characteristic of late 20th-century
explanations of these issues.
“Wherefore, in His divine wisdom, He ordained in His Church Unity of Faith; a virtue which is the first of those bonds
which unite man to God, and whence we receive the name of the faithful–‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism’” (Eph. 4:5).

48pp softcover, STK# 8131 $3.95

“Instaurare omnia in Christo—To restore all things in Christ.”
Motto of Pope St. Pius X

The

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PART 3 ARGUMENTS AGAINST REINCARNATION

RATHER THAN HELL: REINCARNATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Dr. Gyula A. Mago

A GRAIN OF WHEAT IN THE DESERT

Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Mark Fellows

CAPUCHIN FRIARS, MORGON, FRANCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
BOOK REVIEW:
In Tiers of Glory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Francis X. Altiere

Persons
Principles
Amintore Fanfani

It’s Not About
;
. .It’
. .s. About
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PART
.......1
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

ALL BORROWED ARMOR CHOKES US . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Dr. John Rao

ADVERTISING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
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QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Fr. Peter Scott

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2

d r .

Having examined the historical precedents of
belief in reincarnation (The Angelus, July 2005)
and the false ideas involved (The Angelus, August
2005), we conclude our study by looking at true
principles with St. Thomas Aquinas as our guide.
G y u l a

A .

M a g ó

rATHER THAN HELL:

REINCARNATI
REINCARNATI
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

3

FALSE REFUTATIONS
The materialist is not able to refute reincarnation. As an example, we
discuss Paul Edwards, the author of one of our sources, Reincarnation: A
Critical Examination.
Examination. Edwards served as professor of philosophy at various
Australian and American universities, but unfortunately his heroes are Voltaire
and Bertrand Russell, and he shares their biases. He denies the existence of
God, denies that humans have a spiritual soul, he denies the possibility of
miracles, and he makes no effort to hide his hatred of Christianity. This has
an unfortunate effect on his book Reincarnation: A Critical Examination.
Examination. He
tells entertaining stories about the advocates of reincarnation (and we use
his book as a source of some of these stories), but when it comes to refuting
reincarnation, his main argument is “reincarnation is impossible because
humans do not have a soul.” A good part of the book is filled with diatribes
against God, against the human soul and its immortality, against the Catholic
Church, against Catholic saints and against genuine miracles. The book
is as much against Christianity as it is against reincarnation, resulting in a
tangle of confusion. Because of his biases, Edwards is not capable of a critical
examination of reincarnation.
It should be noted that pantheism is not inseparable from the doctrine of
reincarnation: Spinoza, for example rejected it.1 And not all modern pagans
believe in reincarnation either. French esotericist René Guénon (1886-1951)
argued consistently against reincarnation in many of his books. He maintained
the correct conclusion: it is impossible for the same human soul to be born
more than once in a human body. This correct conclusion was supported by
a faulty reasoning, essentially a faulty understanding of the universe and of
human beings.2

“REINCARNATION IMPOSSIBLE”
SAYS THOMIST PHILOSOPHY
Advocates of reincarnation accept the existence of the human soul, so we
do not have to argue here that the human soul exists. The spiritual soul of
man is immaterial, permanent, self-identical through life, and immortal. If the
existence of the human soul is admitted, there are two main attempts to explain
the nature of man, and in particular, how the human body and human soul
coexist and cooperate.

1
2

Siwek, The Enigma of the Hereafter, p.135.
Joscelyn Godwin, “The Case Against Reincarnation,” Gnosis Magazine, No. 42, Winter 1997.

TION
ON
TION
ON

PART 3 OF 3 PARTS

ARGUMENTS AGAINST REINCARNATION

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

4
DUALISM (PLATO, DESCARTES)
According to the first one, usually associated with Plato and Descartes,
man is a spirit accidentally united to a body. This explanation is called
exaggerated spiritualism.3 The soul and body are two substances each
complete in itself, therefore this theory is also called dualism.4 Dualism
destroys the unity of man and makes the experience of unity an
unintelligible illusion. According to this theory, man is a soul using a body,
the human soul and the human body are related like captain and ship,
driver and car, rider and horse. The captain could guide another ship, the
driver could get into another car, the rider could climb on another horse.
This explanation is the perfect match for reincarnation, and in fact this is
the one reincarnationists always assume. But it brings into focus the greatest
weaknesses of the whole theory of reincarnation: if the soul is indeed a
complete substance merely using a body, what explains the complete
forgetting of everything between reincarnations? A driver of cars should be
unaffected by merely changing from one car to another.
Unfortunately for advocates of reincarnations, the accidental union
of body and soul they need so badly is not a workable solution because
the interaction of body and soul in case of an accidental union cannot be
explained. Mortimer Adler clarifies
the philosophical embarrassments consequent upon the Platonic and Cartesian view
of the human soul as identical in being with an angel–a purely spiritual substance
that does not need a body either for its existence or for its proper operation, which
is intuitive intellection. Why, then, is it united with a body to form a boat-andrower combination of two quite disparate and separable things? That problem
is as insoluble as the so-called mind-body problem that goes along with it. Also
insoluble is the problem of what differentiates one soul from another, considered
to be independent of the bodies with which they are united. That is why Jewish,
Christian, and Muslim theologians reject the transmigration of souls–a doctrine
cherished by contrary Far Eastern religions and also proposed as a myth in the
dialogues of Plato.5

AQUINAS

THE UNITY OF THE HUMAN BEING
(ST. THOMAS AQUINAS)
The alternative and viable theory, that of St. Thomas Aquinas (derived
from Aristotle), teaches that man is a composite of two substantial principles,
each incomplete in itself, the human body and human soul, which together
form a single substance, the human composite.6 This mode of union
between soul and body is perhaps one of the most subtle concepts in
Catholic philosophy. This union is very different from dualism: it is not an
accidental but an essential union. Each soul is united with one and only one
body, uniquely its own. In this union, the body (matter) is passive and in
itself wholly indeterminate, whereas the soul is active and the principle of
determination, the (specifying) form of the body.

ARISTOTLE

Matter, or material cause, is that out of which anything is made. Form, or
formal cause, is that into which a thing is made. It is the principle of determination
overcoming the indeterminateness of matter.7

This matter-and-form theory is called hylomorphism,8 in which matter
(prime matter) and form (substantial form) are related as potency and act,
and neither can be understood without the other.
3

Jacques Maritain, An Introduction to Philosophy (Sheed and Ward, 1955), p.176.
Ibid., p.176.
Mortimer Adler, The Angels and Us (Macmillan, 1982), pp.161-62.
6
Maritain, Introduction to Philosophy, p.176.
7
James Francis Barrett, This Creature, Man (Bruce, 1936), pp.274-75.
8
Maritain, op. cit., p.168.
4
5

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

5
In what follows, we shall give evidence that
contemporary philosophy is finally beginning to
consider the conclusions of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Since the time of Descartes, Scholastic
philosophy was isolated and ignored by all other
philosophers. Contemporary Western philosophy
divides into three broad traditions: the analytical
(primarily in English-speaking countries), the
continental (European) and the historical (which
includes Thomism). We shall concentrate on the
connection between body and soul, or in modern
parlance the philosophy of mind.
CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
Modern philosophy stubbornly investigated all
the wrong solutions to the mind-body problem, but
studiously ignored the explanation of St. Thomas
Aquinas. For example, the 597-page book The Self
and Its Brain by Popper and Eccles9 does claim to
have a detailed history of the mind-body problem
starting with the ancient Greeks. Well, between
Aristotle and the Renaissance there is nothing
at all, as if medieval philosophy and St. Thomas
Aquinas in particular have never existed. Popper
even asserts the following: “All thinkers of whom
we know enough to say anything definite on their
position, up to and including Descartes, were dualist
interactionists.”10 Since St. Thomas was definitely
not a dualist interactionist, is this assertion ignoring
St. Thomas, or does it represent ignorance of St.
Thomas?
Catholic, and therefore Thomist, textbooks
usually concentrate on the correct solution of St.
Thomas, and only a few of these devote any space to
surveying wrong solutions, such as Bittle,11 Maher,12
and Donceel.13
From among the vast number of secular sources
we use three: the 1967 Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The
Self and Its Brain by Karl Popper and John Eccles,
and Body and Mind by Keith Campbell,14 which
has an unusually detailed bibliography. Modern
philosophy considers two kinds of solutions.
Solutions of the first kind are versions of dualism,
i.e., the body and soul are complete substances,
and neither can be reduced to the other (also called
substance dualism): 1) Interactionism: body and soul
are complete substances which act upon each other.
2) Psychophysical parallelism: body and soul are
complete substances which do not act on each other.
9

Karl Popper and John Eccles, The Self and Its Brain (Springer International,
1977).
10
Ibid., p.152.
11
Celestine Bitte, The Whole Man: Psychology (Bruce, 1945), Chapter 21:
“The Human Person.”
12
Michael Maher, Psychology (Magi Books), Chapter 25: “Soul and Body.”
13
J. F. Donceel, Philosophical Anthropology (Sheed, Andrews and McMeel,
1967), Chapter 12: “Soul and Body.”

3) Epiphenomenalism: body and soul are complete
substances but causation goes only one way, from
body to mind.
Solutions of the second kind (for which they
have much more enthusiasm) are versions of
materialism (or physicalism). In these theories, only
the body is a substance; the soul is always reduced
to the body: 1) Behaviorism denies that the mind
is a thing. A famous advocate of this position was
Gilbert Ryle.15 2) Somewhat less radical is central
state materialism: mind is a thing, but it is not
spiritual. Also called identity theory: the central
nervous system is the mind. Also called propertydualism: the theory represents a dualism of the
physical properties and mental properties of the
body.
Although hundreds of books and untold
numbers of papers were written, the results
were very disappointing. According to an
honest evaluation from 1967: “The mind-body
problem remains a source of acute discomfort to
philosophers.”16
A NEW BEGINNING FOR THE
CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF MIND
In 2002, a turning point seems to have been
reached: Twelve young philosophers (eight British,
two Americans, one Belgian, and one Hungarian),
apparently most of them trained in the analytical
tradition, published a collection of papers under
the title Mind, Metaphysics and Value in the Thomistic
and Analytical Traditions.17 It can be considered a
turning point in the sense that St. Thomas is at last
acknowledged as having existed, and more than
that, he gets a sympathetic treatment as a source of
promising ideas for modern philosophy. According
to the editor, John Haldane:
The essays range widely across the fields of
metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind and
action, and theory of value, with most linking analytical
and Aristotelian-Thomistic ideas and some focusing on
Aquinas in particular.18

The following quote from David S. Oderberg,
author of “Hylomorphism and Individuation” is
typical of the whole tone of the collection: “Nothing
in philosophy approaches, in precision, refinement,
and fecundity, the philosophy of the School
(=Scholasticism of the Middle Ages). Philosophy
would do well to return to it.”19
14

Anchor Books, 1970.
The Concept of Mind (Barnes and Noble, 1949).
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. “Mind-Body Problem.”
17
John Haldane, Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical
Traditions (University of Notre Dame, 2002).
18
Ibid., p.x.
19
Ibid., p.125.
15
16

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

6
We shall only comment on the papers that are
relevant to the mind-body problem, avoiding details
of philosophy. Haldane wrote Chapter Four, “The
Breakdown of Contemporary Philosophy of Mind,”
which he starts by saying “Readers of Gilson’s
great work The Unity of Philosophical Experience
may recognize in my title a partial echo of that of
one of his chapters...‘The Breakdown of Modern
Philosophy.’20 Haldane states it bluntly:
The current situation in analytical philosophy is
untenable, and that space needs to be found for a range
of alternative approaches drawn from non-analytical
sources, particularly historical ones. The best way of
making that point, I think, is by looking at one area in
which current orthodoxies seem to be breaking down
and to be doing so without prospect of repair or, as yet,
of replacement.21

He has specific suggestions: “the insights of the
Thomists as to the real locus of immateriality may
help the contemporary philosopher of mind relocate
his efforts away from neo-Cartesianism.”22
Another paper of great interest is “Aquinas
and the Mind-Body Problem” by Richard Cross
of Oxford University. Cross lists the favorite
“solutions” of contemporary philosophy (substance
dualism, physicalism, and property dualism), then
states:

SOME DETAILS OF
THE THOMIST POSITION
Phillips, author of Modern Thomistic Philosophy
writes:
The doctrine of transmigration is, therefore, compatible
with Platonism (i.e., dualism), where the union of the
soul and body is looked on as accidental, but not with
Aristotelianism, in which the body derives its nature
from the soul, giving to it, in turn, individuality. 24

Angels, purely spiritual beings, differ from each
other in the amount of knowledge God infused into
them, therefore St. Thomas says every angel is a
different species. By contrast, all human souls belong
to the same species, and they are, at the beginning,
like clean slates, like wax tablets on which nothing
has been written (i.e., human beings are not born
with innate ideas). For example, every baby has to
learn anew, usually from some painful experience,
not to touch a hot stove.
What makes human souls different from one
another is their union with different bodies. The
human soul depends on the body for the acquisition
of its particular natural characteristics. Thus the
human soul is individuated by matter. Phillips
argues that the human soul cannot be united with
more than one body:
If it be true that soul and body really form one nature,
standing to one another in the relation of potentiality
to act, it will be impossible for a soul or act, which
is thus essentially related to one body, to become
essentially related to another, without parting with
something essential to it, and so, at least breaking its
actual continuity. In fact, it cannot so change essentially,
being a simple nature or form, and must therefore
continue to be related to one body, and one only.25

Aquinas was well aware that there are problems
with these three theories....Aquinas attempted to find a
solution to the mind-body problem which is different
from any of the positions outlined above, and which as
far as I can see clearly avoids the objections which I have
just raised against these three positions.23

Avoiding the technical details of these
philosophical papers, we merely repeat their overall
direction: Young representatives of the analytical
tradition in philosophy admit that they have reached
a dead-end, and as a result, now, at last, they are
willing to begin to look at St. Thomas Aquinas.
This is an unprecedented turning point
in philosophy which might lead to promising
developments. We draw only one conclusion from
it: contemporary analytic philosophers admit
(what St. Thomas and Thomists knew all along)
that dualism is not a workable explanation. But
dualism, postulating an accidental union between
body and soul, is the solution absolutely essential for
reincarnation.

20

Ibid., p.54.
Ibid., p.59.
22
Ibid., p.73.
23
Ibid., pp.36-37.
21

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

James Royce, author of Man and His Nature: A
Philosophical Psychology expresses the same as follows:
With this fuller appreciation of the manner in which
the individual human soul actuates matter to form this
man’s body, we should find little difficulty in refuting
the theory sometimes proposed that souls could lose
their personal identity and return to life on earth
in a different body. This is called metempsychosis,
transmigration of souls, or reincarnation. The very
notion of hylomorphism seems to rule out the possibility.
For if Napoleon’s soul were to return, any matter with
which it would substantially unite would by that very
fact be Napoleon’s body....
This individual cannot be somebody else, regardless
the change of material conditions. The senile psychotic
may not look, speak or act anything like himself at the
age of twenty, much less at birth. But he is the same

24

R. P. Phillips, Modern Thomistic Philosophy (The Newman Press, 1962),
p.314.
25
Ibid.

7
person. Even more preposterous is the theory that the
soul could return as the form of a dog or other animal,
for if the human soul actuated matter it could only be
the formal cause of a human being, not of any other
kind. If a lion eats Napoleon, his body becomes lion.
If Napoleon eats the lion, the lion becomes Napoleon.
But Napoleon’s soul retains its individual identity in
either case.26

An explanation of the distinction between
incarnate and discarnate (or disembodied) human
souls would shed light on this crucial matter. While
the human soul is incarnate, it is not conscious of
itself: there does not exist for man, here on earth, a
direct consciousness of the acts and of the existence
of the soul. My soul has never seen itself, has never
felt itself; it is the condition of the disembodied soul
alone to see and feel itself, to be directly conscious
of its own nature and existence:
At death, the soul enters a spirit-state which it did
not possess before, knowledge is communicated to the
separated soul mediated through the instrumentality
of higher spirits. Most importantly, it gains a clear
perception of its own self as a spirit, which it did not
possess in its earthy life; also a vision of the whole
material universe and an approximate knowledge of
the angelic nature in general. In a word, St. Thomas
constantly teaches that separation means the turning of
the human intellect towards higher things, whilst in the
state of union with the body it is turned toward lower
things.27

union with the body, the soul forgets what it knew
before....We are left with the conclusion that if the soul
had existed before the body, it would not be united to
the body of its own will.29

So in the beginning, God has put the soul into
the body, and that union between the soul and
body was for the good of the soul. But after their
separation, at the death of the human composite, the
human soul awakens to its spirit nature, and her life
will be a higher and happier life (we do not discuss
here sin and grace), so the only body it will be
happy to rejoin will be the same body, glorified after
the resurrection.30

“REINCARNATION IMPOSSIBLE”
SAYS DIVINE REVELATION
The Catholic Church teaches that the lifetime
of every human being ends with a judgment, which
makes reincarnation impossible. Four quotes from
St. Paul should completely settle the question for
Catholics:
As it is appointed unto men once to die, and after
this, the judgment. (Heb. 9:27)
Therefore every one of us shall render account to God
for himself. (Rom. 14:12)
For we must all be manifested before the judgment
seat of Christ, that every one may receive the proper
things of the body, according as he hath done, whether
it be good or evil. (II Cor. 5:10)

The great Benedictine Abbot, Dom Anscar
Vonier continues:
I am afraid that people who talk so glibly of a second,
third, and for that matter of a hundredth existence, have
never thought of the tremendously changed conditions
that prevail after death. Death is necessarily the total
extinction of all our sensitive life....The soul in the
state of separation can only have intellect and will, two
powers of extreme immateriality and simplicity. Its
survival is anything but a continuation of our present
mode of existence. The simplicity and immateriality of
power, which are the conditions of the disembodied soul,
render useless any speculations about a third or forth
existence; a spirit remains a spirit forever.28

St. Thomas Aquinas himself argues that a soul
would not willingly enter any human body (which is
exactly what advocates of reincarnation imagine):
On the other hand, the hypothesis that souls are
united to bodies neither by violence nor by nature but by
free choice is likewise impossible. For no one voluntarily
enters into a state worse than the previous one, unless he
is deceived. But the separate soul enjoys a higher state
of existence than when united to the body; especially
according to the Platonists, who say that through its

26

James E. Royce, Man and His Nature: A Philosophical Psychology (McGraw
Hill, 1961), pp.334-35.
27
Vonier, The Collected Works of Abbot Vonier, Volume III: The Soul and the
Spiritual Life (Newman Press, 1912), p.53.

Revenge is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. (Rom.
12:19)

We also quote from the Catholic Catechism of
Cardinal Gasparri (Kennedy, 1932), which describes
what Catholics call the Particular Judgment (answers
to Questions 235 and 236, on p.59):
Immediately after death the soul stands before the
tribunal of Christ, to face the particular judgment....At
the particular judgment, the soul will be judged about
every single thing–its thoughts, words, deeds, and
omissions. The sentence then passed on the soul will be
ratified at the General Judgment, when it will be made
publicly manifest.

Since every lifetime ends with a judgment, the
soul that was judged is not available for another
incarnation.
There is no divine revelation about the preexistence of souls, but none is really necessary.
By the pre-existence of the soul only this is to be
understood: after God creates the soul, it is not
immediately united with matter, but lives for a while
28

Ibid., pp.122-23.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, Bk. II: “Creation,” Chapter
83, 17.
30
Vonier, The Soul and the Spiritual Life, p.54.
29

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

8
without any union with matter. But such a preexistence of the soul would not make reincarnation
possible. Every soul being judged right after death
makes sure that the soul received by some body,
even if it pre-existed, could not have had a previous
life in another body.
But even the idea of the pre-existence of souls
has been ruled out when the Church condemned the
idea of the soul pre-existing. Origen, the eminent
writer of the second and third centuries, held that
human souls were created long before they were
infused into bodies and existed by themselves in
a separated state. The Church (in particular, Pope
Vigilius in 543) condemned this: “If anyone says or
holds that the souls of men pre-existed...and sent
down into bodies for the sake of punishment, let him
be anathema.”31 This is eminently reasonable, since
the soul is naturally made for an existence together
with the body, and if it existed before its union
with the body it would do so in a state of frustration
unable to fulfill its natural function; without the
body it would not have acquired any knowledge in
the pre-existing state.
This is the unchangeable teaching of the
Catholic Church. Paul Siwek gives a long survey
of Church Fathers who strongly condemned the
doctrine of reincarnation as a “fable” (St. Gregory of
Nyssa) or “the dream of stupid people” (St. Gregory
Nazianzen).32 After the Fathers, reincarnation
disappears from Catholic theology as being
irrelevant.
Advocates of reincarnation often deliberately
misquote Holy Scripture claiming support for
reincarnation. Their favorite is to claim that St. John
the Baptist was the reincarnation of the prophet
Elias. The short answer is that Elias has not yet died,
but he was taken up to heaven (IV Kgs. 2:1-13); he
still lives in his original body, so his reincarnation is
out of the question. But we shall discuss this in more
detail. The passage in which Our Lord is speaking
about the role of St. John the Baptist is as follows:
“For all the prophets and the law prophesied until
John: And if you will receive it, he is Elias that is to
come” (Mt. 11:13-14). The words of Christ calling
St. John the Baptist “Elias” should be understood
in the figurative sense of the word: the spirit which
animated him and the power which was manifested
in his sermons were an exact replica of the spirit
and power which Elias had. The comments of the
Haydock Bible says the same in more details:
He is Elias, &c. Not in person but in spirit. John is here
styled Elias, not in the same manner as those who taught

31
32

Denzinger, The Sources of Catholic Dogma (B. Herder, 1957), 203.
Siwek, The Enigma of the Hereafter, pp.9-18.

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

the transmigration of souls; but the meaning is, that the
precursor came in the spirit and virtue of Elias and had
the same fullness of the Holy Ghost. The Baptist is not
undeservedly styled Elias, both for the austerity of his
life, and for his sufferings. Elias upbraided Achab and
Jezabel for their impieties, and was obliged to flee. John
blamed the unlawful marriage of Herod and Herodias,
and died for his virtue.

Furthermore, the Angel said, most explicitly,
to Zachary about John to be born: “And he [St.
John the Baptist] shall go before him [Our Lord
Jesus Christ] in the spirit and power of Elias” (Lk.
1:17). And when the priests and Levites asked St.
John the Baptist: “Art thou Elias?” and he said I am
not ( Jn. 1: 21). So the claims and explanations of
reincarnationists do not stand up to scrutiny.
And Divine Revelation gives the true answers
to questions that the doctrine of reincarnation
poses and pretends to answer but in fact is unable
to answer. These include: one human life is too
short to reach perfection and human lifetimes give
very unequal chances to human beings for reaching
perfection. Reincarnation pretends to answer these
in the order of nature, by endlessly repeating
lifetimes, and hoping that by merely repeating life
enough times perfection will somehow be reached.
The Christian Revelation is definite about
human beings having only a single lifetime in which
to fulfill their destinies. But reaching perfection lies
with what Christianity calls the supernatural, which
has a precise definition, as Fr. Martindale explains:
It does not only mean what outstrips the ordinary
powers of human nature. There is no vague association
here with the mysterious or even the miraculous; still
less with the magical, the visionary, or the ghostly. Our
doctrine has to do with the free gift, offered by God
to man, and by man freely appropriated, of a way of
being–not of acting, or thinking, or feeling–higher than
what is co-natural to him.
...there is offered to man the chance of living a superhuman (super-natural) life. It is not merely a lofty and
moral life, not an unselfish life only, not just a devout,
sinless, prayerful life; it is nothing into which, by any
process of purification and inspiration, human life can
be raised or developed within its natural functioning and
out of its natural resources or possibilities....33

This super-human or super-natural life is the
result of the above mentioned free gift of God,
called the (sanctifying) grace of God which amounts
to an intrinsic elevation of human nature, or in the
words of St. Peter, being made “partakers of the
divine nature” (II Pet. 1:4).

33

C. C. Martindale, “The Supernatural,” in God and the Supernatural by D’Arcy,
Cuthbert, Dawson, Martindale and Watkins (Sheed and Ward, 1954), p.7.

9
saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint
always has them wide open. The Buddhist saint has a
sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and
sealed with sleep. The medieval saint’s body is wasted
to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive....
The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness
inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness
outwards.35

...[T]he super-naturalized man is not two persons, nor a
different sort of person, but himself, living his own life,
yet in vital union with an essentially higher one.34

The best summary of this doctrine can be found
in the Mass:
O God, Who in a wonderful manner created and
ennobled human nature and still more wonderfully
renewed it; grant that, by the mystery of this water and
wine, we may be made partakers of His Divinity who has
condescended to become partaker of our humanity.

Once more, then: God intends to give to all men
who will accept it the free gift of a super-natural
life, with eternal consequences to themselves both
if it be accepted and if it be rejected. Man can fail if
he rejects the supernatural life offered by God. But
if accepted, the grace of God perfects and elevates
the human soul, and solves all the problems that
reincarnationists like to pose.

CONCLUSION
No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian
saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a
Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but
perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist
34
35

Ibid., p.20.
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Image Book, 1959), pp.130-31.

REFERENCES
Adler, Mortimer. The Angels and Us. Macmillan, 1982.
Adler, Mortimer. Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity
of Truth. Macmillan, 1990.
Aquinas, St. Thomas. Summa Contra Gentiles. Book Two: Creation. Image,
1955.
Arendzen, J.P. Platform Replies. The Newman Bookshop, 1948.
Arendzen, J.P. What Becomes of the Dead? Sheed and Ward, 1951.
Barker, A. Trevor, (transcriber and compiler). The Mahatma Letters to A.P.
Sinnett from the Mahatmas M. (Morya) and K. H. (Koot Hoomi). Arranged
and edited in chronological sequence by Vicente Hao Chin, Jr. The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, 1998.
Barrett, James Francis. This Creature, Man. Bruce, 1936.
Besant, Annie. The Ancient Wisdom. London: Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1897.
Bittle, Celestine. The Whole Man: Psychology. Bruce, 1945.
Blau, J.L. “Cabala.” Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. II. Macmillan, 1967.
Blavatsky, H.P. Collected Writings. The Theosophical Publishing House,
1950-91.
Blavatsky, H.P. Studies in Occultism. Theosophical University Press, [no
date].
Blavatsky, H.P. The Key to Theosophy. The Theosophical Publishing House,
[no date].
Blavatsky, H.P. The Secret Doctrine. The Theosophical Publishing House,
[no date].
Brodrick, James, S.J. Saint Francis Xavier. Image Book, 1957.
Cahill, Rev. E. Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement. M. H. Gill
and Son, 1929.

This quote illustrates, using a Buddhist as an
example, that Buddhism, Hinduism, and Occultism
can be described as “worshipping the god within.”
Instead of Occultism, we could have emphasized
Theosophy, because according to H. P. Blavatsky,
“no one can be a true Occultist without being a
true Theosophist; otherwise he is simply a black
magician....” The “god within” is always around: The
Edgar Cayce Companion: A Comprehensive Treatise of
the Edgar Cayce Readings devotes a whole chapter to
“Attuning to the God Within.”
The words of Chesterton are very fitting: “Of all
horrible religions the most horrible is the worship
of the god within. That Jones shall worship the god
within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones
shall worship Jones.”36 And, most importantly, these
horrible religions do not have any eschatology; they
never consider the Last Things: Death, Judgment,
36

Ibid., p.76.

Campbell, Keith. Body and Mind. Anchor Books, 1970.
Chesterton, Gilbert K. Autobiography. Sheed and Ward, 1936.
Chesterton, Gilbert K. “The Dagger with Wings” in The Incredulity of Father
Brown. Penguin, 1975.
Chesterton, Gilbert K. The Everlasting Man. Hodder and Stoughton, 1925.
Chesterton, Gilbert K. Orthodoxy. Image Book, 1959.
Coppens, Charles. Moral Principles and Medical Practice. Benziger Brothers, 1897.
Dante, Alighieri, The Paradiso (a verse rendering by John Ciardi). Mentor
Book, 1979.
Davis, Henry. Moral and Pastoral Theology, Vol.II. Sheed and Ward, 1949.
Dawson, Christopher. Enquiries into Religion and Culture. Sheed & Ward,
1933.
Dawson, Christopher. Progress and Religion. Sheed & Ward, 1938.
Denzinger. The Sources of Catholic Dogma. B. Herder, 1957.
Donceel, J. F. Philosophical Anthropology. Sheed, Andrews and McNeel,
1967.
Dreyfus, Hubert L. What Computers Can’t Do: The Limits of Artificial Intelligence. Harper, 1979.
Ducasse, Curt. A Critical Examination of the Belief in a Life After Death.
Charles C. Thomas, 1961.
Edwards, Paul. Reincarnation: A Critical Examination. Prometheus Books,
1996.
Frejer, Ernest. The Edgar Cayce Companion: A Comprehensive Treatise of
the Edgar Cayce Readings. A.R.E. Press, 1995.
Garrigou-Lagrange, Reginald. Life Everlasting. Herder, 1952.
Gilson, Etienne. Reason and Revelation in the Middle Ages. Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1950.
Godwin, Joscelyn. “The Case Against Reincarnation,” Gnosis Magazine,
No.42, Winter 1997.

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

(continued on p.10)

10
Hell, and Heaven. There is a very good reason for
having no eschatology: the demons know that if you
begin to think about eschatology, they have lost you.
So they want to distract you, which is admirably
accomplished with the fiction of reincarnation.
Reincarnation cannot possibly be reconciled
with or integrated into Christianity, because true
Christianity is based in Divine Revelation and
therefore is unchangeable. Both of the explanations
of reincarnation–based on Karma (Hinduism) or on
spirit evolution (Theosophy)–are constrained to the
realm of nature only. Reincarnation is a doctrine
about the unredeemed human soul, about the
nightmare of his infinite wanderings or about vague
hopes for some natural evolution of it.
In the pantheistic world of reincarnation there is
no room for God, no room for the supernatural, no
room for Redemption, forgiveness and divine grace,
which are the only sources of true spirit evolution.
The main purpose of demons is to extinguish
divine grace wherever it can be found. They really
do not want your spirit to evolve, they only want
you to be with them in hell. So reincarnation with
its purely natural explanations is most congenial to
the demons. And the demons want to keep it that
way: that is why Hinduism and occultism are shot
through and through with the demonic.

According to the fiction of reincarnation, death
is something inconsequential, it merely leads to
the next life. So if you do not like your life, just
get on with the next one (and thus believers in
reincarnation tend to take suicide lightly). After
this life comes another, and then another, and yet
another, ad infinitum. How is it all going to end? It
should end well because in the process you will,
somehow, become a god anyway.
This extraordinarily loose thinking, widespread
in our age, has the result of sweeping masses of
people into the arms of demons. These people
waste their lives not recognizing that this life is
our one and only chance to prove whether we
want to be found friends of God or not. And that
is what is going to be determined at the judgment
reincarnationists hope to evade.

Dr. Gyula Mago was born in 1938 in Hungary and brought up Catholic. He
lived under Communist rule for 20 years. Dr. Mago obtained his Ph.D. from
Cambridge University, England, in 1970, and was a professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (1970-99). He presently
lives in retirement in Durham, North Carolina, and assists at the Latin Mass at
Holy Redeemer Catholic Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.

(continued from p.9)
Haldane, John. Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical
Traditions. University of Notre Dame, 2002.
Hall, Manly P. The Secret Teachings of All Ages: An Encyclopedic Outline of
Masonic, Hermetic, Quabbalistic and Rosicrucian Symbolical Philosophy.
Jeremy Tarcher/Penguin, 2003.
Head, Joseph and S.L. Cranston. Reincarnation: An East-West Anthology. A
Quest Book, 1968.
Humphreys, Christmas. Buddhism. Penguin Books, 1951.
Johnson, K. Paul. “Afterlife Visions of a Sleeping Prophet,” Gnosis Magazine,
No.42, Winter 1997.
Jonsson, Inge. “Emanuel Swedenborg,” Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.8,
Macmillan, 1967. pp.48-51.
Jung, Karl. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Harvest Books, 1933.
Kardec, Allen. Heaven and Hell, or Divine Justice Vindicated in the Plurality
of Existences. Trubner, 1878.
La Rochelle, S.A. and C. T. Fink. Handbook of Medical Ethics. The Newman
Bookshop, 1944.
Maher, Michael. “Metempsychosis,” Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol.X, 1911,
p.234.
Maher, Michael. Psychology. Magi Books, 1982.
Marie, Jean-Pierre. “Yoga and Zen: Philosophies of Despair,” Apropos, Advent
1993, No.15.
Maritain, Jacques. An Introduction to Philosophy. Sheed and Ward, 1955.
Martindale, C. C. “Paganism,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol.XI, 1911,
p.388.
Martindale, C. C. Theosophy. Catholic Truth Society, London. (Also on the
Internet.)
Martindale, C. C. “The Supernatural” in God and the Supernatural by D’Arcy,
Cuthbert, Dawson, Martindale and Watkins. Sheed and Ward, 1954.
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

Merton, Thomas. Mystics and Zen Masters. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1967.
Merton, Thomas. The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton. A New Direction
Book, 1975.
Merton, Thomas. Zen and the Birds of Appetite. A New Direction Book,
1968.
Phillips, R. P. Modern Thomistic Philosophy. The Newman Press, 1962.
Popper, Karl and John Eccles. The Self and Its Brain. Springer International,
1977.
Ricciotti, Giuseppe. Julian the Apostate. Bruce, 1959.
Robo, Etienne. Saint Joan: The Woman and the Saint. Catholic Book Club,
1959.
Royce, James E. Man and His Nature: A Philosophical Psychology. McGraw
Hill, 1961.
Ryle, Gilbert. The Concept of Mind. Barnes and Noble, 1949.
Shaffer, Jerome. “Mind-Body Problem,” Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol.5.
Macmillan, 1967, pp. 336-346.
Siwek, Paul. The Enigma of the Hereafter: The Reincarnation of Souls. Philosophical Library, 1952.
Stevenson, Ian. Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, 2nd ed. University
Press of Virginia, 1974.
Sugrue, Thomas. There Is A River: The Story of Edgar Cayce. Henry Holt &
Co., 1945.
Vonier, Anscar. The Angels. Neumann Press, 1928.
Vonier, Anscar. The Collected Works of Abbot Vonier: Volume Three: The Soul
and the Spiritual Life. Newman Press, 1912.
Weber, N. A. “Swedenborgians,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol.XIV, 1911,
p.355.

11
M a r k

F e l l o w s

A Grain
of Wheat
In The
Desert
C
HARLES DE
FOUCAULD

(1858-1916)

Orphan, prodigal, spendthrift, agnostic, soldier,
debauchee, map maker, explorer, writer, Trappist Monk,
hermit, inspiration for religious communities, victim of an
assassin’s bullet. All apply to one life–that of Charles de
Foucauld, scheduled to be beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on
November 15, 2005.
The life of Pere de Foucauld–or Brother Charles, or
Charles of Jesus, as he is variously known–manifests the hand
of grace following a prodigal soul, patiently waiting for that
soul to turn around, enveloping it, then guiding that soul to
God by the love infused into it.

12

Travails
His early life made him an unlikely candidate
for beatification. Born Viscount Charles Eugene de
Foucauld on September 15, 1858, in Strasbourg, he
had an illustrious Catholic lineage: his ancestors were
crusaders, friends of royalty, and proxies of kings.
By the time Charles was born, his lineage had fallen
on hard times. His father Edouard liked to drink and
overeat, and succumbed to a depression so severe he
began raving, unable to recognize his family.
Edouard Foucauld’s degeneration caused his own
father (Charles’s grandfather) to die of grief. Then
Charles’s mother died during a miscarriage at age 34.
Edouard died several months later. Then Edouard’s
mother, entrusted with the care of Charles and his
sister Mimi, died of a heart attack. Charles was six.
His maternal grandfather, Colonel Morlet,
became the guardian of Charles and Mimi. Then the
Prussians crushed the French army and took over the
country, claiming Strasbourg as their own. Bereft of
his family and his homeland, Charles’s single passion
was to kill Prussians, something he was in no position
to do. Overweight, hypersensitive, and given to
outbursts of rage, he was a devastated young man who
was now pampered by his maternal grandparents, no
doubt out of pity for his plight.
Charles’s grandfather enrolled him in a Jesuit
boarding school in Paris. There were many rules and
much rigor, too much for Charles, who rebelled and
declared himself a “free-thinker.” His disgust with
theology and the Mass turned into boredom. He was
never an atheist, but for years he was a determined
agnostic.
He was also mismatched at Saint-Cyr Military
Academy, a barracks school even more rigorous
than the Jesuits. Charles’s passion for killing
Prussians could not sustain him through the physical
requirements of military training. He was chubby
and slothful, in poor contrast to his fellow would-be
officers. Yet his grades put him near the top of his
class.
Then in 1878 Colonel Morlet died, leaving
Charles a large inheritance. Around the same time he
received a large delayed inheritance from his parents'
estate. He was 20.
Charles immediately indulged himself in all the
pleasures of the flesh. His second year at Saint-Cyr
was a disaster; he finished near the bottom of his
class. He spent most of his time eating imported
delicacies, smoking imported Havana cigars, drinking
champagne, and entertaining young ladies and other
"friends." He became known to his classmate as “Fat
Foucauld,” or simply “Le Porc” (the Pig). “I’m doing
what my father did,” Charles said. “I’m eating.”
He managed to graduate from Saint Cyr (last in
his class), and was assigned as a cavalry officer. He
continued his life of debauchery, and was eventually
placed under house arrest, and put on inactive status.
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

He languished in his decadence, “with the vague
disquiet that comes from a bad conscience that,
although fast asleep, is not quite dead.”

Africa
When Charles heard that his regiment
was headed for Algeria to put down a jihad, he
unaccountably straightened up, and was allowed to
join his regiment in Tunisia. To the surprise of all,
Charles not only withstood the sweltering heat and
poor conditions, he proved himself a leader. His
commanding officer wrote of him:
Cheerfully putting up with the harshest trials,
constantly risking his life, scrupulously looking after
his men, he won the admiration of the regiment’s
experts....

But when the battle campaigns were over, Charles
found ordinary camp life unbearable. He resigned
from the army and, resolving to explore Morocco,
began learning Arabic and Hebrew. His family
appointed a legal conservator over his finances, and
threatened to cut off his funding. Charles went ahead
with his plans. He hired as a guide a former rabbi
with a thirst for gold that turned him toward alchemy.
Charles disguised himself as a poor rabbi and the two
went into the desert.
With a sextant and notepaper, Charles began
analyzing the entire country, something the French
had not been able to do, as Morocco was barred to
Christians. While staying at Jewish homes, Charles
learned that Morocco longed for the prosperity of
French-controlled Algiers. The sultan was bleeding
Moroccans white with taxes, and doing nothing to
stop bands of murderers and robbers from victimizing
farmers, the wealthy, and the innocent.
Charles discovered the lawlessness was general.
Overwhelming greed is the rule everywhere. Lying
and thieving in all forms. Banditry, armed attacks
are considered honorable actions…even among the
Jews, who fulfill scrupulously their duties before God
and make up for it by their treatment of men.…They
talked to me frankly, as a brother, boasting of criminal
activities, confiding to me their basest sentiments.

Even though he hired an armed guard to travel
with him, he had numerous brushes with death.
Had the roaming thieves and murderers known he
was a French spy they would have cut his throat
immediately (not that disguising himself as a Jew
warded off many dangers).
Through it all, Charles doggedly mapped the
country, traveling through endless plains, forests of
palm trees, mountain passes with snow-capped peaks
towering over his head, and vast deserts of ever
changing sand dunes, dotted with mysterious, life
giving oases. At night he looked up at the immense
blackness, poked through by millions of stars.

13
Sometimes he thought he was being followed, and
turned quickly. He could see nothing.
In the end he mapped out 1700 miles, wrote down
thousands of observations, drafted 135 drawings and
20 maps. He returned to Paris a hero, and lashed
everything together into a book that was eagerly
received and widely praised; among the honors given
him was the Gold Medal of the French Geographic
Society. When things were back to normal, however,
Charles was bored once more; but this time he knew
it was not boredom–it was despair.

Conversion
Islam had attracted him, a consequence perhaps
of the love he felt for Africa and African peoples.
He still declared himself a free thinker, but his long
exposure to beautiful, silent, harsh Creation seems to
have started his road to conversion. He read a book
(by Bossuet) his cousin, Marie de Bondy, had given
him for his First Communion, and the words leapt
off the page at him. Marie had introduced Charles
to religion, and prayed for him all these years. He
concluded: “Since she possesses such an intelligent
soul, the religion in which she so firmly believes
cannot be the madness I think it.”
He began visiting Catholic churches to pray:
“God, if you exist, make yourself known to me.”
One of the churches was St. Augustine’s. The parish
priest was Marie’s confessor, Fr. Henri Huvelin.
Early on the morning of October 30, 1886, Charles
resolved to visit Fr. Huvelin. He found him in the
confessional. He told Fr. Huvelin he did not come to
make a confession because he didn’t have the Faith.
When questioned, Charles admitted that he was born
and raised a Catholic, and once believed. Fr. Huvelin
told him: “What is missing now, in order for you
to believe, is a pure heart. Go down on your knees,
make your confession to God, and you will believe.”
Charles protested, but Fr. Huvelin insisted
he confess. Charles did so. A good while later he
received absolution and felt its cleansing effects.
“Have you eaten?” Huvelin asked him. Charles
said no. “Receive Communion.” It was an order.
Afterwards, Charles didn’t just believe, he knew: “As
soon as I believed there was a God, I understood I
could do nothing else but live for him, my religious
vocation dates from the same moment as my faith.”
The conversion of Charles de Foucauld seemed
instantaneous, and his faith seemed to grow for the
rest of his life. His main difficulty was finding the
proper outlet for it. He wisely asked Fr. Huvelin to be
his confessor and spiritual advisor, and the holy priest
agreed, something he would at times regret over the
years. Like many, he came to believe Charles was a
saint. Like most saints, Charles’s personality was left
intact. This caused numerous problems, the majority
of the problems afflicting Charles more than others.

He was best suited to be a hermit, but at times he
longed for human contact, particularly with his family.
Yet he was always moving away from them to follow
God. As he explored Africa, so would he explore his
new religion: basically alone, unearthing mines of
spiritual treasure.
“He makes of religion his love,” Fr. Huvelin told
Charles’s family. He was a temperamental lover in
that he seemed to careen from states of profound
inner mysticism to profound anguish at his lack of
growth in the spiritual life. In the beginning this arose
out of pride, and his waning attachment to Islam. Fr.
Huvelin wisely exhorted Charles to simply live “in
imitation of Christ." Another counsel made a deep
impression on Charles: “Jesus has so taken the last
place that no one will ever be able to wrest it from
him."

Journeys
So it was that two years after his conversion
Charles set off for the Holy Land, “to put myself
at the foot of the cross.” From Jerusalem he went
to the noisy Arab city of Bethlehem, and, finally,
to Nazareth. There he realized that to truly imitate
Christ he would have to be obedient and obscure:
Throughout his life, he (Christ) descended: by becoming
flesh, by becoming an obedient little child, by becoming
poor, abandoned, exiled, persecuted, tortured, by always
putting himself in the last place.

Charles returned to Paris, and with the help of
Fr. Huvelin and four spiritual retreats (he couldn’t
make up his mind) entered the Trappist monastery of
Our Lady of the Snows. He completed his novitiate
in six months. The former rebel was now a model of
obedience. His superior commented:
This fine young man has cast off everything. I have
never seen such detachment and, along with that,
overwhelming modesty. He can boast of having made
me weep and feel my lowliness.

Stopping in Paris long enough to say good-bye
forever to his family, and to give his worldly goods to
his sister Mimi, Charles set sail for Our Lady of the
Sacred Heart, an impoverished, remote priory in the
Syrian wilderness, where he was known as Brother
Marie Alberic. Charles felt great peace–for a time. His
fasting and scourging made him ill; even his Superior
noted Charles had “a somewhat excessive love of
bodily mortification,” and admonished him to lighten
up.
His Superior also wrote a letter to Charles’s
former Trappist superior:
Brother Alberic is still the little saint you know…he
always sets an example, often makes us joyful, and
sometimes frightens us. Keep praying hard for him. His
perfection is too great to be lasting.

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

14

The test came when Charles
discovered his Superiors wanted him
to become a priest and, eventually, the
Superior of their Order. He was mortified:
the priesthood was too high, too exalted a
vocation for him. But he obeyed– barely.
Secretly he was drafting a Rule for his own
Order, based on the Rule of St. Benedict,
but more severe. Most likely any neophyte
that came within Charles’s orbit at that
time would have either died or fled into the
night.
In 1896 Charles was sent to Rome to
study for the priesthood. His new Abbot,
Dom Wyart, soon realized that Charles's
present vocation was not the priesthood.
It was a difficult decision to allow this
promising, saintly man, to leave their
Order. As for Charles, he remained silent,
willing to accept Dom Wyart’s decision,
convinced that he would have to become
a priest out of obedience. The Abbot
declared:
You are free, my son. You can follow the
particular vocation that seems good to you.
After prayer, study, and reflection, the fathers
recognize in you a special vocation outside
the rule. May God guide your footsteps.

The footsteps headed towards
Nazareth. Charles became a gardener and
handyman for the Poor Clares. He lived
in a tool shed perhaps seven feet square.
He spent much of his time in the chapel
before the Blessed Sacrament. He ate one
meal a day, consisting of bread and water.
When he slept, which was seldom, a stone
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre visits the tomb of Charles
de Foucauld which was within the bounds of the
Apostolic Delegation of French-speaking Africa (1954).

The first hermitage at Tamanrasset (1905).

was his pillow. He was ecstatic. The Abbess remarked: “He leads
a life more angelic than human.” Although his ideal was to be
“a humble, obscure workman of Nazareth," he was spectacularly
incompetent at any sort of manual labor: a Sister remarked
that Charles “was incapable of planting a head of lettuce.” The
Abbess and all the Poor Clares began praying that Charles would
reconsider the priesthood. Their prayers were heard, and Charles
became determined to become a priest–a priest that is, without
a parish, a monastery, or a mission: a roaming priest who could
begin his own Order.
He returned to France, but was turned down for the
priesthood by the Archbishop of Paris, who considered Charles a
spiritual gadfly who wouldn’t stay put. Charles traveled to Rome
in order to discuss matters with the Pope: not just the priesthood,
but the Order Charles wanted to start. The closest he came to Leo
XIII, however, was a general audience. Then he was shunted off
to Vatican bureaucrats, and a dead end.
He returned to Our Lady of the Snows, and was happily taken
back. His Superior prepared him for the priesthood. On June
10, 1901, Charles celebrated his first Mass, in the presence of his
sister Mimi. He was authorized to be a “free priest,” and to live
alone. Fr. de Foucauld immediately resolved to leave for Africa, to

G. Tairraz

The hermitage/fort in front of
which Fr. de Foucauld was killed.
The tent-chapel where Fr. de
Foucauld celebrated Mass when
he was travelling in the desert.

5).

live in poverty and obscurity, helping the poor
and converting Muslims. He intended to go
to Morocco, because “There are regions there
where souls, deprived of the means of salvation
fall into hell in droves.”
But Fr. de Foucauld was barred from
entering Morocco, so he lived for a time in
the Sahara desert near the Moroccan border,
dreaming of setting up his own religious
fraternity. Members would have to “be ready to
have head cut off, be ready to die of starvation,
and to obey him in spite of his worthlessness."
He spent the rest of his life shuttling
between Beni-Abbes and Tamanrasset (in
southern Algeria), redeeming slaves, feeding
the hungry, teaching, evangelizing, and being
absorbed in contemplation. In 1908 he visited

France at the request of his family. While there, the Bishop
of Viziers (the diocese Fr. de Foucauld was loosely attached
to) approved statutes for his fraternity: “The Union of
Brothers and Sisters of the Sacred Heart–a pious union for
the evangelization of the colonies.”
Fr. de Foucauld’s method of evangelization was not to
argue with the Muslims, whom many of the White Fathers
considered impossible to convert. He lived among the
poorest as an obviously devout Christian, feeding, caring,
and praying for them, and letting this example speak for
itself. He sought "to see Jesus in every human being; to see

a soul to be saved in every soul; to see a child of the heavenly
Father in every man; to be charitable, peaceful, humble and
courageous…."

He called himself a “universal brother,” a term that has
been misused by contemporary communities claiming his
spiritual legacy. They and others say that Fr. de Foucauld
did not try to convert Africans, that he saw no need for
it, that he simply sought to share their poverty as a fellow
human being.
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

16
This is naturalism, of course. It seems that many
of the religious communities allegedly inspired by
Fr. de Foucauld have little knowledge of him, and of
what he was trying to do in Africa, for Fr. de Foucauld
made plain the intentions of his religious fraternity:
they were to be
an avant-garde troop ready to work in the fields of
Morocco, who, at the foot of the Sacred Host and in
the name of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, will dig the first
furrow in which the preaching missionaries will then be
thrown as soon as possible.

“Welfare and hospitality,” he said, “the example
of the evangelical virtues, above all the prayers and
holiness of all those who serve, and still more the
great number of Masses and tabernacles, will begin
the work of conversion.”
He wrote from Africa to his friend, Henry de
Castries:
May Jesus reign in these places where His past reign
is so uncertain! As to the possibility of His reign to
come, my faith is unshakable: He shed His Blood for
all men. His grace is powerful enough to enlighten all
men. “What is impossible with men is possible for God”;
He commanded His disciples to go out to all men: “Go
throughout the whole world preaching the Gospel to
every creature”; and Saint Paul added: “charity hopes
for all things”… I hope, therefore, with my whole heart
for these Muslims, for these Arabs, for these infidels of
every race.…

Death
In 1914, the Great War began in Europe. As
Germany sought to penetrate French borders, German
arms were supplied to tribal chieftains in the French
colonies in Africa, and they began an insurrection.
Most of the colonial French Army had been pulled
back to France, and small outposts like Tamanrasset
had little or no military support. Fr. Foucauld was
urged to leave, but he would not.
On December 1, 1916, he was pulled from his
prayers by a band of rezzou who intended to kidnap
him and ransom him for Muslim prisoners. They
lashed his arms behind his back at the elbows. They
beat him, forced him to his knees, and demanded
he pledge allegiance to Allah. He said no word and
shook not. His lips moved silently, in prayer, or
repeating a meditation found in one of his notebooks:
To be as poor and small as was Jesus. Silently, secretly,
obscurely, like him. Passing unknown on the earth like a
traveler in the night, disarmed and silent before injustice,
like him, the Divine Lamb, I shall endure being shorn
and sacrificed without resisting, without speaking, and
the hour come, I shall imitate him in his way of the Cross
and his death.

His captors tore his clothes and threatened him
with death. There was confusion and rifle fire, and Fr.
de Foucauld slowly fell onto his side, a bullet through
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

his head. They buried him in a ditch and pillaged
the mission, desecrating the Blessed Sacrament, and
strewing De Foucauld’s writings about as they looked
for treasure.
Just before Christmas a small French regiment
came to Tamanrasset. One of the notebooks they
recovered was entitled, “Live as if I were to die
a martyr today.” They put a cross over his grave,
but did not disturb it. The following year the body
was exhumed in order to move it to higher ground.
The hands were still behind the back, the body in a
kneeling position. General Laperrine wrote Charles’s
family: “Your brother was as if mummified, and he
could still be recognized. The transfer of his remains
has been a most emotional experience.“
In 1927 the cause of beatification for Fr. Charles
de Foucauld began. In recent years he has been
hailed as a forerunner of Vatican II, and his colonial
ties and zeal to convert the Muslims are not noted.
De Foucauld himself thought his efforts might “take
centuries” to bear fruit. He may best be likened to a
grain of wheat that falls on the desert sand and dies, a
death which God uses to work miracles. A friend said
of him, “He died as the guest, hostage, and ransom of
the Muslim.” For us he has left his life and this prayer
of abandonment:
Father, I abandon myself into Your hands;
do with me what You will.
Whatever You do I thank You.
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only Your will be done in me,
as in all Your creatures,
I ask no more than this, my Lord.
Into Your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to You, O Lord,
with all the love of my heart,
for I love You, my God, and so need to give myself-to surrender myself into Your hands,
without reserve and with total confidence,
for You are my Father.
Mark Fellows is a traditional Catholic author whose writings have been published
in previous editions of The Angelus and in Catholic Family News. His book,
Fatima in Twilight, is available from Angelus Press. Price: $19.17.

Sources
Antier, Jean Jacques. Charles de Foucauld. San Francisco: Ignatius Press,
1999.
Brother Bruno of Jesus. “A Son of the Church: The Spirit of Father de Foucauld.” The Catholic Counter-Reformation in the Twenty-First Century,
February, 2005.
Catholic World News Report Online Edition, and numerous Charles de Foucauld web sites.

Traditional
Religious
Orders
17

CAPUCHIN FRIARS

MORGON, FRANCE

Solemn Perpetual Profession

S

t. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) founded the Order of the Friars Minor (literally, the Little Brothers).
After his death (and ever since), there have been many reforms separating the Order into different
groups. In 1897, Pope Leo XIII regrouped the Friars Minor into three branches:
1) The Order of Friars Minor of the Leonine Union, 2) the Order of Friars Minor Conventual, 3) the
Order of Friars Minor Capuchin.
The Conventuals and the Capuchins had already been in existence, but the Friars Minor of the
Leonine Union were brought together from smaller groups; they are also called quite simply “The Order
of Friars Minor,” “Observants” or “Franciscans.” All three Orders are truly Franciscan; they all follow
the Rule of St. Francis. They differ only in their constitutions with slight differences in their habits; for
instance, the Capuchins are bearded while the others must be clean-shaven.
The Capuchins are the strictest observants of the Franciscan Rule, while the Conventuals are the most
relaxed. The Observants, or the Franciscans, are in between, but perhaps closer to the Capuchins. The
Capuchins are hermit preachers with a mixed vocation, leading at the same time a contemplative and
apostolic life. The Capuchins were started in 1525 in Italy by Blessed Matthew of Basci in an attempt to
return to the pure spirit of St. Francis. Even the Capuchin habit is closer to the original. The name comes
from the Italian cappuccino (“little hood”): the children made fun of the new friars’ hoods, which were not

18

First Blessing

little but big in comparison with the other Franciscans’. (Cappuccino
coffee, coincidentally, gets its name from its color, which is supposed to
be like the Capuchin habit also.)

The Spirit of St. Francis
St. Francis’s ideal was to follow and imitate Christ, poor and
crucified: poor in His birth in the stable, poor in His ignominious
death on the Cross, poor in the Blessed Sacrament under the humble
appearance of bread and wine.
The first Capuchins wanted to live as close as possible to this ideal
by a life of prayer and penance in poverty, chastity and obedience,
according to a strict interpretation of St. Francis’s Rule. The Capuchin
Constitutions have remained the same since 1525 undergoing only very
minor modifications such as in 1909 when the General Chapter set
the Constitutions in order, tying up loose ends and correcting abuses
which had crept in. These revised Constitutions (revised, not new) were
approved by Pope St. Pius X. In 1925, they were adapted to the revised
Code of Canon Law. These adaptations and revisions, however were
nothing like the sweeping changes made in 1968.
The Second Vatican Council called upon the religious Orders
to revise their constitutions “conveniently” each according to the
“original spirit of the institute.” In no way did the Council ask for a
new constitution. However, what happened in 1968 was nothing short
of a revolution. The Capuchins changed their constitutions completely,
changing their whole way of life and even their conception of
themselves. Many tried to resist but were obliged to leave and found

new groups, but they were no longer Capuchins.

Capuchin Saints
For almost five centuries, this Franciscan reform has furnished
the Church with a beautiful phalanx of saints. Forty-seven Capuchins
have been raised to the honor of the altars. Some better known
Capuchin saints are: St. Felix Cantalice (+1587); St. Lawrence of
Brindisi (+1619); St. Fidel of Sigmaringen (+1622); St. Crispin of
Viterbo (+1750); Bl. Diego-Jose of Cadiz (+1801); St. Conrad of
Parzham (+1894); St. Leopold Mandic of Castelnuovo (+1942).
The most famous Capuchin saint is certainly Padre Pio (+1968), the
stigmatized Italian priest. It is said that he was afflicted by all the
changes in the Order and in the Church, and that he asked God to
take him out of this valley of tears, which is the world.
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

The Community
at Morgon
The community at Morgon was
founded by the late Father Eugene de
Villeurbanne (1904-90) who was a very
active member of the Order before the
Second Vatican Council. A Capuchin
from the Province of Lyons, he was a great
preacher of missions and retreats, and a
former missionary in Central Africa. He
wanted to always remain faithful to the
habit that he received at his clothing, to
the Rule that he vowed at his profession,
and to the Mass that he celebrated at
his ordination. After the Council, he
received permission from his superiors to
live outside the community as a hermit.
When young men started coming to him
who had no desire to join the modern
Capuchins, but wanted to become real
Capuchins like him, Father Eugene saw
it as a sign of God that he should begin a
novitiate to keep alive the true Capuchin
and Franciscan spirit. This was how their
community started.
The Friary today is located at Morgon
in Beaujolais, a little over 30 miles north
of Lyons, in the Rhone (France). A new
novitiate (see interview) will be opened at
the end of 2005 at Castelnau d’Arbieu, in
the Gers.

St. Francis Convent

19

Hiking

Fr. Eugene
Their Way of Life
Their way of life is mainly contemplative,
but their priests also go out into the world to
preach missions and retreats in addition to hearing
confessions. A large part of the day is taken up with
the recitation in common of the Divine Office. They
retire for sleep at 8:30pm, then rise at 1:00am for
Matins and Lauds and return to bed after Matins and
Lauds, which lasts between a half-hour to an hour.
They next get up at 4:25pm for mental prayer (a
meditation on the Passion), which makes for a total
of seven hours of sleep, even though it is interrupted.
Not all the friars do this; those studying for the
priesthood, the lay brothers for the time of their
novitiate and the three years of simple vows, as well
as the priests who have a heavy charge like teaching
or getting ready to preach a mission or retreat, are
not obliged to follow this program in its full rigor.
The friars who do generally have a siesta in the early
afternoon.
They have two hours a day of mental prayer, one
in the morning and another in the evening. Beyond
this, there is the rest of the Office (Prime being recited
at 6:20am) and the Mass at 6:40am. During their

thanksgiving after Mass (which lasts about twenty
minutes), another Mass is celebrated. They leave the
choir after the Pater. There is also the Rosary, Stations
of the Cross, private devotions and spiritual reading.
Every morning, for half an hour at 5:45am, they read
the Bible.
The Capuchins have three “Lents” or period of
fasting between All Saints’ Day and Easter. The first
is from All Saints’ Day to Christmas. The second is
from Epiphany (or, rather, the day after, the seventh
of January) for forty days (there is no fasting on
Sundays). This Lent is called the Benedetta (the Blessed
Lent) because St. Francis promised great blessings if it
was kept. Then, of course, there is also the Great Lent
of the Church. In addition, the Capuchins fast every
Friday.
The fast consists of a very light breakfast (at
7:40) and supper, but the midday meal is a full meal.
During the rest of the year (and every Sunday), they
have three meals a day. The friars who find it too hard
to fast for six days of the week do it every second day.
They abstain from meat every Wednesday, Friday
and Saturday; but they eat meat at the midday meal
on other days. They have wine with every meal, with
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

20

Refectory
the exception of breakfast when strong coffee takes its
place.
After breakfast, everybody retires into his cell,
or a common room heated in winter, for an hour
of reading or studies. The rest of the morning,
until 11:35am (when Sext and None are recited) is
occupied by intellectual work by the clerical brothers,
in preparation for apostolic work, and manual work
for the lay brothers.
The midday meal is preceded by the Chapter
of Faults (where the community members publicly
confess the faults against the rule of the house). At the
end of the meal, all clear the table and after grace,
while reciting the Miserere, they visit the Blessed
Sacrament, followed by prayers for their benefactors.
This finishes while the priest who is hebdomadarian
(i.e., the priest who leads the liturgical functions and
says the Conventual Mass for the week) washes the
dishes helped by the acolytes. The others go for a
walk in a common recreation in the vicinity of the
convent.
Someone rings the bell for the end of the
recreation at 1:30pm for the Great Silence, which
may be one of a siesta, (at any rate a free time) until
Vespers at 2:00pm followed by the Rosary.
After this, everyone takes up their work again,
unless it is Thursday, when they go for a long walk.
At 5:00pm, spiritual reading or devotions are done.
Compline is recited at 5:30pm and is followed by the
evening mental prayer, of which the ringing of the
bell for supper (at 6:45pm) marks the end.
A recreation follows the meal until the “Great
Pardon” at 7:45pm. Usually, everyone is asleep by
8:30pm.
Grand Silence is always kept from 8:00pm in the
evening until after the office of Terce (9:00am) the
following morning. Silence is also kept in the early
afternoon for an hour or so. During the day, if they
have to speak, the novices and those who have made
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

Working the garden
simple vows talk to each other kneeling, so as to
prohibit “chatting” and to make them say only what
needs to be said. After the midday and evening meal,
there is a community recreation. The community
spirit is a very important aspect of the Franciscan life.

How Does One Become a Friar?
First of all, one enters as a postulant: the
postulant wears lay clothes but lives in the
community. The period of postulancy is one to six
months for a cleric (a candidate for the priesthood)
and six months for a lay-friar (who, however, does
wear the habit).
The second step is the novitiate, which lasts from
a year to a year and a half. At this point, the habit,
with the hood, is worn. The novice does manual labor
and studies Franciscan spirituality and the religious
life. The novitiate allows the Capuchins to judge if
the subject is capable of combining the observances
of the Capuchin life with the studies necessary, and to
progress in the virtues necessary for the religious and
priestly life.
The third step is the profession of simple vows
of poverty, chastity and obedience, which are
binding for three years. The lay brothers continue
studying Franciscan spirituality, the religious life and
the catechism, while the clerics study philosophy
following St. Thomas Aquinas.
The fourth step is the profession of solemn vows,
which are binding for life. It is at this stage that the
cleric starts theology. Usually, perpetual profession
and the first of the major orders takes place during the
second year of theology, and the priesthood received
at the end of the third year. During the year following
the ordination to the priesthood, the young priests
preach at the convent but do not hear confessions,
continuing their formation in a final year of studies

WEEKDAY SCHEDULE

Community Recreation

21

12:55 AM First rising, Matins (up to 1 hour)
4:25 AM

Second rising

4:45 AM

Lauds and meditation

5:45 AM

Scripture reading

6:25 AM

The Angelus, Prime and the
Conventual Mass (of the community)

7:20 AM

Thanksgiving after Mass,
followed by breakfast

8:00 AM

Study

9:00 AM

Terce, followed by
the end of “Great Silence”

9:15 AM

Classes, study or work

11:40 AM Sext and None
NOON

The Angelus, Lunch, prayers in choir,
dishes, and recreation

1:30 PM

Grand Silence, followed by Rest
(siesta, or small quiet jobs)

2:00 PM

Vespers followed by Rosary

2:40 PM

Work or study (on Thursday, a walk;
on Friday, choir and liturgy practice;
on Saturday, cleaning the convent)

5:00 PM

Personal devotions (on Friday,
and certain feastdays, Low Mass)

5:30 PM

Compline, prayers, and meditation
(on Friday, Stations of the Cross)

6:45 PM

Dinner, dishes, recreation

7:45 PM

The Angelus, the “Great Pardon,”
Lights out (Grand Silence)

Studying

before taking up progressively the different occupations of the
holy ministry.
What is the difference between the priests and the lay
brothers?
The lay brothers (lay friars) have a more contemplative
life than the priests because their life is more hidden and
withdrawn. Confided to them is certain manual labor (the
garden, kitchen, reparations, laundry, shoemaking, sewing,
etc.) or the responsibilities within the interior of the convent
(sickroom, porter, secretary, sacristy). On some occasions they
even show themselves as builders.
These jobs of an obscure aspect are in actual fact the
atmosphere of Nazareth, so favorable to the spirit of humility
and sacrifice. The lay brothers participate at the same
community exercises as the clerical brothers, have the same
prayer time in the choir, and have the same voice at the
chapter.
Like St. Francis, they are considered as the priests’ best
helpers in the apostolate, their “hidden, latent forces,” who
by their life completely hidden in God obtain the grace which
can save souls. They thus make it a duty and an honor to
support the priests by the unsuspected merit of their life of
abnegation, prayer, work and humility.
The priests are, of course, involved with their ministry
and are often away from the friary. However, “often” does not
mean “always”: it is the priests who instruct the novices and
young religious in catechism, who give spiritual conferences
and who preach the monthly retreat to the community. They
also look after the library and teach philosophy and theology
to the clerical brothers.
The ministry of the Capuchin priests is exercised mainly
in the confessional and from the pulpit. Their specialty
in the past was the preaching of parish missions, spiritual
exercises of two to three weeks during which two or three
priests evangelized a parish. At the present time, they often
regret having to turn down invitations to preach sermons,
conferences, retreats, and recollections.
In fact, the Capuchin Fathers have several important
ministries: three monthly meetings for their fraternities and
closed retreats for their Third Order members, sacramental
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

22
assistance at hospitals for the sick, especially in an old
folks’ home; chaplaincy for their Poor Clare Sisters,
Girl Guides and traditional Catholic schools within
their region. Exterior activities adding to a timetable
already very well occupied at the monastery include
confessions and spiritual direction, correspondence,
spirituality and scholastic courses for the novices and
the student brothers.

Clerics, or Students
for the Priesthood
The clerical friar begins as a postulant for two
months. Then, as was stated above, he is a novice for
a year and wears the habit. During this year, he does
manual labor like helping in the kitchen, cleaning
and gardening, attends classes and reads books on
Franciscan spirituality, the religious life and Christian
doctrine.
Then, he makes simple vows for three years
and begins philosophy. After three years, he makes
his profession of solemn vows for life and begins
theology. He is ordained to minor orders during
philosophy and to major orders during theology.
After three years of theology, he is ordained a priest,
but continues studying pastoral theology and sacred
eloquence (learning how to preach) for another year.
Thus, in all, there are two months as a postulant,
a year as a novice, three years of simple vows and
philosophy, then the solemn vows and four years of
theology, the third year of which he is ordained to the
priesthood.
The priests and clerics wear the clerical tonsure
or “crown,” i.e., the circle of hair; the lay friars wear
close-cropped hair completely.
The clerical students also study Church history,
the history of the Order, and the Fathers and Doctors
of the Church. They also teach Latin, but it is better if
one can learn even a little before one enters.

Conditions of Entry
1) First of all, of course, the elementary conditions
required by Canon Law for all aspirants to
the religious life. A high school diploma, at
minimum, is required from American aspirants.
2) The aspirant must be at least 16, and no more that
35.
3) The aspirant must be a Catholic, faithful to the
Church and the Holy Father.
4) The aspirant must have good health and sound
judgment.
5) The aspirant must be well decided to live
according to the Gospel, following St. Francis.
6) The aspirant must be a friend of peace and
concord.

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

The Capuchins advise very strongly anyone who
wishes to enter that you should try and learn French
before you go. A part-time course, or even better,
a full-time course in French makes things easier for
both parties. Latin, after all, is helpful, but French is
almost indispensable. The Capuchins urge those who
need to study French to not worry about time, for
time is nothing. Some friars went to college and took
full-time courses in French and Latin for the express
purpose of entering the friary.

A Final Word
The Capuchin life is not easy. It is hard, but it is
not impossible. One of the Popes described their life
as “una vita disparata”–a disparate life. “Disparate,”
however, is not “desperate”! “Disparate” means
completely unlike, not the same, utterly different,
or even “at odds.” When Our Lord first called St.
Francis, He said to him by inspiration, “Francis, leave
now the worldly and vain pleasures for the things
of the spirit; prefer what is bitter to what is sweet;
despise yourself if you want to know Me. Once you
have changed, you will understand the truth of My
words, even if the order of things seem upside-down.”
Another time, shortly before his stigmatization
(in 1224, two years before his death) by which God
set His seal on the Rule, some dissatisfied friars came
to him to complain that the Rule was too hard. This
Rule was the second that St. Francis had drawn up;
the Pope had deemed that his first rule was a bit
harsh. (The second rule is the one that we follow
today.) When these friars came to complain about the
second revised Rule, a voice was heard from heaven,
Christ Himself, saying, “Francis, let them understand
that it was I who inspired you this rule. If they cannot
follow it, let them leave the Order. I know how fragile
human nature is: let them know how much I want to
help those who embrace this Rule.”
In the footsteps of St. Francis, passionate lover
of Jesus Crucified, loyally attached to Lady Poverty
as to their traditional observances of contemplation
and penance, given to the ministry of preaching, the
Capuchins work for the restoration of the Reign of
our Lord Jesus Christ in joy and peace, simplicity and
fraternal charity.
May the most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary
deign to arouse in our youth ardent and self
sacrificing souls, who come to consecrate themselves
in service within the modest Capuchin religious
family, for more than ever, “the harvest is abundant, but
the workers are few.”
For information:
Rev. Father Guardian
Couvent Saint François
Morgon
F-69910 Villie-Morgon
France

THE CAPUCHINS’ NEW
NOVITIATE IN GASCONY:

23

AN INTERVIEW
WITH FR. JOHN
Why was there a need for a
second Capuchin monastery?

Our community, founded more than 30 years
ago by the Rev. Fr. Eugene de Villeurbanne, has
grown slowly but surely, and the present buildings
at Morgon (Department of the Rhone) cannot
accommodate more than 20 friars. Moreover, the
number of priests having increased from four to
eight since the year 2000, we were in a position to
envisage a new foundation without detriment to
our religious life and ministry.

How many of you will there
be at the new foundation?

That will depend on the number of postulants
and the perseverance of their vocations, because
this convent is going to be a novitiate. In
principle, there will be a “permanent crew” of
two Fathers and one professed Brother, and the
variable number of novices and postulants that
Providence shall wish to entrust to us. At present,
the first part of 2005, there are seven in the
novitiate at Morgon, and other young people have
expressed interest in our Franciscan ideal.
Our venerated Fr. Eugene had taught us,
from his Capuchin experience, that when our
predecessors wanted to found a monastery
elsewhere, they made sure that they would find
enough benefactors to facilitate their undertaking.
Indeed, we are a mendicant order, living from
the charity of the faithful. The people of Gers
invited us repeatedly to found something there,
as they had already given several vocations to
Tradition (among whom is counted our Superior,
Rev. Fr. Anthony de Fleurance), and still have to
drive long distances to be able to assist at Mass
on Sundays. They offered us an abandoned
stone farm house with a little interior courtyard
reminiscent of a cloister. The offer seemed
providential to us, and we gladly accepted these
walls within which St. Francis would not have

blushed to invite Lady Poverty. Fr. Roch said at the time:
“It is as beautiful as it is in ruins.”

Where are you located?

In the north of the Gers Department, near Highway
N21 which links Agen to Tarbes, between Fleurance and
Lectoure, a hot springs and way station on the route to St.
James of Compostella. We are also an hour and a half by
road from Lourdes. A train stop is just about a mile from
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

24
the convent, and puts us about five hours from Paris
on the TGV. The hamlet of Aurenque counts but a
few houses, enabling us to profit from the peaceful
silence of the countryside, so propitious to the
recollected atmosphere of a novitiate. Thus we have
the advantages of the country, and also those of the
city, being situated a few miles from Fleurance, where
we can procure necessities and construction materials.

Are your renovations fairly extensive?

Yes, since this old farm had been abandoned for
40 years (a symbolic coincidence: since the years of
the Council). The roof had caved in and trees were
sprouting up in the rubble. It has been necessary to
re-do everything from top to bottom. The first major
work began during the summer of 2002, and we were
greatly assisted by the loan of a truck nicknamed
Calypso and a Caterpillar tractor. Fr. Pivert and his St.
John Bosco Society boys came to lend a hand. Other
volunteers came, too, from all over France in relays to
help the small detachment of Capuchins on site, thus
enabling a substantial part of the work to be done
without excessive expenditures.

How do things stand now?

Following the principle of “God served first,” we
organized the operations in two stages: the first, now
completed, included the chapel and the monks’ choir;
the second, the conventual rooms of the monastery.
We had to face other priorities: repairing the roofs,
installing a parking lot, the monks’ cells and guests’
lodging, as well as a plumbing system.
Currently, we have completed the library and
have made much progress on the refectory, kitchen,
laundry and the bathrooms on the first floor. Now
[at the time of this interview–Ed.] months away from
the scheduled inauguration, we have yet to start on
the walls and ceilings of the ten remaining cells,
the bathrooms on the second floor, laying tile, and
whitewashing the walls.

Do you think that everything
will be ready for the inauguration?

It will have to be, at least in essentials, since
September 17th has been scheduled for the arrival of
Bishop de Galarreta. As for final touches and other
projects, we shall continue working with the help of
the novices and, of course, any volunteers that might
show up. A few less urgent projects remain, which can
be postponed without detriment to the good order
of the novitiate: the furnishing of a guest house, the
cellar, and a workshop–all things that can be done in
God’s good time.

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

You seem to attribute
quite a lot to Providence!

Yes, not to forget our good St. Anthony. From the
start, following the example of Padre Pio and his great
hospital, we have established the rule not to borrow.
And, despite the inevitable trials and tribulations,
sometimes even thanks to them, help in the form
of workers, material or money has always arrived
in the nick of time, like the check that was sent as a
thanksgiving to St. Philomena, which reached us just
as we were about to be overdrawn at the bank.
Divine Providence makes use of men, and we
must thank all those priests, monks and nuns who
offered us all the furnishings for the chapel and the
choir; the benefactors who procured for us windows,
benches, statues, and so many other welcome things
that it would be too lengthy to list; and our neighbors
who out of sympathy gave us a little tractor, trees to
plant, and tons of building stone.

Have you any other material needs?

Yes, for example, small tables for the cells,
appliances for an institutional kitchen (fridge, stove,
oven). We also need to acquire a sufficient library
for the novitiate. Besides works on sacred Scripture,
spirituality and lives of saints, we are looking for
doctrinal works: writings of the Popes, the Fathers and
Doctors, theologians, as well as certain collections:
dictionaries of theology and spirituality, the Ami du
Clergé. We are also interested in conferences on tape.

What would you like to say
in conclusion to the faithful of Tradition?

First of all, I would like to thank once again one
and all who have helped us or will help us in this
beautiful undertaking at Aurenque, whether by their
prayers and sacrifices, by their time or their alms.
“Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of
these my least brethren, you did it to me” (Mt. 25:40).
May all these benefactions made with the spirit of
faith be repaid to them a hundred fold, that is, in the
choicest supernatural graces.
Then, I would like to remind them that the
construction site of Aurenque, even if it should last
several more years, will eventually be finished; may
they then persevere in their prayers for our religious
vocations, for the decadent society in which we live,
the pleasures of modern life, and the liberal spirit
are all-pervasive, and constitute so many obstacles
that impede souls chosen by the good God from
consecrating themselves to His service or from
persevering unto death in this ideal of love united to
sacrifice, in a life that is humble, poor, and chaste.
Let us not restore only chapels, priories, and
convents, but let us restore all things in our Lord Jesus
Christ.

BOOK

25

REVIEW

TITLE: In Tiers of Glory: The Organic
Development of Catholic Church Architecture
AUTHORS: Michael S. Rose
PUBLISHER: Aquinas Publishing Ltd.
DISTRIBUTED: Angelus Press. Price: $29.95
REVIEWER: Francis X. Altiere
SUMMARY: In Tiers of Glory is the perfect
primer for those who would like to know about
church architecture. With 11 chapters and a handy
appendix, Michael Rose covers each architectural
period in history with plenty of information and
pictures. From Old Testament precedents to the
restoration of traditional forms of architecture
today, this book fills in many of the blanks too often
present with such a topic.
As he washes his hands before consecrating the
sacred host, the priest repeats the words of King David
and makes them his own: “I have loved, O Lord, the
beauty of Thy house and the place where Thy glory
dwelleth.” In a memorable passage, the late Professor
John Senior explained,
Western Civilization is the Mass and the paraphernalia
which protect and facilitate it. All architecture, art, political
and social forms, economics, the way people live and feel and
think, music, literature—all these things when they are right,
are ways of fostering and protecting the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass. To enact a sacrifice, there must be an altar, an altar has
to have a roof over it in case it rains; to reserve the Blessed
Sacrament, we build a little House of Gold and over it a Tower
of Ivory with a bell and a garden round about it.1

If the state of Christian architecture is so intimately
associated with the sacred liturgy, we should not be
surprised to have entered a period in which the fate of
ecclesiastical building is in question during these days
of post-Vatican II liturgical anarchy. To be sure, it is not
merely a case of post hoc ergo propter hoc 2: Le Corbusier’s
iconic modernist chapel at Ronchamp, for example,
was built in 1956. But, as Michael S. Rose notes,
“new theories of architecture, theology, and liturgy

(inspired by both Protestantism and Agnosticism)
increasingly affected the Catholic Church through
the course of the 20th century,” and the relationship
between theology, liturgy, and architecture cannot
be discounted. Though not intended primarily as
a polemical work, Rose’s valuable new book In
Tiers of Glory: The Organic Development of Catholic
Church Architecture Through the Ages outlines the
standards of sound Christian architecture and
points out the modernist errors that have marred
ecclesiastical buildings in the last 50 years. Mr. Rose
convincingly argues that differences in style—whether
late antique basilican, Byzantine, Romanesque,
Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, or the various “neos”
of the 18th and 19th centuries—are ultimately of
less importance than the underlying coherence of
architectural principles that have typified Catholic
churches through the ages. Only in the 20th century,
and at an accelerated rate after the Second Vatican
Council, have these principles been neglected.
Mr. Rose, who holds degrees in architecture
and fine arts from the University of Cincinnati and
Brown respectively, is no stranger to the fray. He
has already penned two other books lamenting
the crisis in church architecture, and his articles
criticizing, inter alia, the “Jubilee Church” in Rome
and the proposed modernist chapel for Ave Maria
University pull no punches. In Tiers of Glory does not
hesitate to couch a rather bold—though as it turns out
undeniable—assertion in its rather innocuous prose:
for over 1500 years Catholic churches organically
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

Lessay Abbey, France

26

Brompton
Oratory, London
Oakland Cathedral, California (proposed design).

Design proposal for Ukranian
Catholic Church in New Jersey.

reflected changing architectural taste, always in
subordination to the needs of the liturgy and Catholic
devotion, but in the past half century there has been
a rupture with this tradition. In Tiers of Glory is neither
a theoretical treatise nor even a detailed history,
although in reading through the brief sections on
each of the major phases of ecclesiastical style (the
average chapter is only eight or so pages long), one
may occasionally want a deeper explanation. To
compare Italian and Iberian baroque in the space of a
few sentences—and scarcely to mention the variations
of Eastern European baroque—would be inexcusable
in a larger study. Here, however, the author is
constrained by the nature of his project. As it is, Mr.
Rose does succeed in a small space in explaining,
among other things, how the bulky Romanesque
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

churches of the Carolingian period turned into the
light-flooded Gothic shrines of the 13th century and
why various revivalist schemes of the 19th century do
not always reflect the originality of their antecedents.
In each chapter Mr. Rose summarizes the particular
genius of each of the principal phases of Christian
architecture; thus, for example, the churches of the
Renaissance are marked by “simplicity, order, and
harmony,” whilst the Gothic is marked by a “vigorous
verticality.” Mr. Rose’s book can best be described
as a didactic historical and artistic survey. That is,
his explanation of the harmonious development of
church architecture is ultimately ordered to inviting
the inevitable question on the part of the reader: why
are modern churches so ugly and how can we recover
a sense of the sacred?

St. Nikolas Church, Prague

Sao Sebastiao Cathedral,
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In Tiers of Glory manages to evaluate not only the
physical “evidence” of Catholic churches of the last 18
centuries, but also provides contextualizing historical
sketches admirable for their clarity and brevity, and
draws as well on wide-ranging sources—such as the
Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and the testimony of
the 12th-century Abbot Suger. The reader will also be
introduced to some of the most important Catholic
architects of all time—giants like Brunelleschi and
Borromini.
A few words are in order about the arrangement
and appearance of the book itself. In Tiers of Glory is a
luxuriously illustrated durable softcover. The book’s
11 chapters cover topics from the Old Testament
antecedents of Catholic architecture to the presentday revival of sacred architecture; in each chapter
the reader will find illustrative color photographs and
drawings—although he may wish that the penultimate
chapter, on what Rose calls “Breaking with the Past,”
had remained blank! Marginal notes summarize the
most important points, and an expansive glossary
of terms ensures that the lay reader will not confuse
his pilasters and his buttresses. By the author’s
own account, In Tiers of Glory does not “intend to
consider the nuances and theories of many venerable
architecture historians of ages past and present.”
Even though an informed reader will want to know,
for example, what Rose makes of Pugin’s medievalist
ideology or Wittkower’s theory of the relation
between music and Renaissance architecture, the
book is more valuable as an introduction to the genius
of traditional architecture for those who may feel deep
down that there is something wrong with modern
churches but cannot articulate what it is exactly.
In Tiers of Glory is more than just an attractive
introduction to sacred architecture; it is, in a sense, a

27

rallying cry. The author rallies theoretical, anecdotal,
and photographic examples to validate the underlying
thesis of the work:
No successful architect can be…ignorant of the Church’s
historical patrimony. Continuity demands that a successful
church design cannot spring from the whims of man or the
fashion of the day. A successful Catholic church building is
a work of art that acknowledges the previous greatness of
the Church’s architectural patrimony: it refers to the past,
serves the present, and informs the future.

The most encouraging section of In Tiers of Glory
is the final chapter (“The Wisdom of Hindsight”),
on the revival of traditional architecture in our own
day. Here Mr. Rose highlights some of the most
promising architectural “traditionalists” (his term) of
today. Although he is careful to note the symbiosis, or
rather parasitism, between architectural and liturgical
modernism, and bemoans early aberrations in the
Liturgical Movement, Mr. Rose does not offer specific
critiques of the liturgical reform carried out after
the Council. If the New Mass, however, is, as even
the Holy Father has admitted, a “banal on-the-spot
product,” then the vulgarity of the churches it has
inspired ought not to surprise us. It is possible that
specific criticisms would be out of place in a survey
like In Tiers of Glory and indeed the absence of such
a critique does not undermine the value of what is a
beautiful, considerate and yet accessible book.
Francis Altiere is currently an M.Phil. candidate in architectural history at the
University of Cambridge. He received his bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard University in 2004. This article was commissioned by Angelus Press.
1
2

Restoration of Christian Culture, pp.15-16.
Literally, “after which, therefore because of which.” A kind of logical fallacy which asserts that because an effect is after a cause in time, the effect
is necessarily because of the prior cause.
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

28

Persons
Principl

It’s Not About
It’s About

A CATECHISM
OF CATHOLIC
SOCIAL
TEACHING

Part I

With this installment, The
Angelus begins a serialization of
the book Catechism of Catholic
Social Teaching by Amintore
Fanfani (translated by Fr. Henry
J. Yannone, The Newman Press,
1960), which will run monthly
until its conclusion. Fanfani was
Prime Minister of Italy and a
professor of Economic History
at the Catholic University of
Milan from 1933 to 1955.
He is the author of countless
articles and books on
economics, including
Catholicism, Protestantism, and
Capitalism available from
Angelus Press. Price: $14.95.
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

Heading One: Man and Society
I. Origin, Nature and Rights of Man
II. Origin, Nature, Ends and Types of Society
III. Necessity, Origin, End of Authority and Obedience
Required By It

Heading Two: The Family Society
IV. The Family Society

Heading Three: The State and the Citizen
V. Nature, Ends and Powers of the State
VI. The Citizen in Public Life

Heading Four: The Church
and Its Relations with the State
VII. Nature, Ends and Powers of the Church
VIII. Relations between Church and State
Heading Five: The Economic Order
IX. Aspects and Causes of the Present Economic
Disorder
X. Remedies which Further Aggravate the
Contemporary Economic Disorder
XI. The Church and the Reorganization of the
Economic Life
XII. Natural Characteristics of the Economic Order
XIII. Counsels of the Church for the Reforming of
Institutions and Practices in the Economic Field

Heading Six: International Society
XIV. The Human Society
XV. International Organization and Peace

ns;
ples

e

29

A m i n t o r e

For a better understanding of the contents of this
small summa of papal social teachings it is necessary
to recall certain truths taught by the Catholic Church.
These truths, which Catholics readily accept, must be
at least hypothetically presupposed by all others if a
proper understanding of this book is to be attained by
them.
These are the postulates:
1) The existence of a Supreme Being, Creator of
all things, who directly and indirectly ordained and
does ordain them.
2) All created things have, of necessity, the glory
of God as their proper end. Living and intelligent
creatures (men) attain it by knowing, loving and
serving God in this life and sharing His happiness
in the next. Non-intelligent living creatures (animals
and plants) and inanimate creatures (elements and
composites) attain it by a) passively obeying the laws
of creation; b) testifying by their existence to the
power of their Creator; c) serving as means to the
living intelligent creatures.
3) The knowledge of the existence of God and of
some laws (natural laws) given by Him is attainable
by reason; since his creation, man has possessed such
knowledge in sufficient degree.
4) A deeper knowledge of God is obtained
through revelation, by which the essence and the
attributes of God and divine positive laws were made
known. God Himself disclosed such truths to Adam
in Paradise and then to the patriarchs and Moses;
later, through special messengers–the Prophets, Jesus
Christ, His Son, and the Apostles–revelation came
first to the Jews and then to the whole of humanity.
5) Man was endowed by God with a multiplicity
of preternatural and natural gifts. But in punishment
for his disobedience to a divine command, he was
deprived by God of the preternatural gifts of physical
immortality and lost full control over his faculties.
In a state of degradation as the result of a weakened
will and a consequent loosening of his inordinate

F a n f a n i

tendencies, man awaited for thousands of years the
coming of a Mediator who would restore him to his
Creator’s friendship.
6) God the Father permitted His Son, Jesus
Christ, to assume human flesh and come into the
world (around the middle of the eighth century of
Rome), a) to complete the revelation of the essence,
attributes, and laws of God; b) to redeem man from
sin, through His sacrifice on the Cross; c) to announce
and prepare the coming of the Holy Spirit; d) to
sanctify man by the institution of the sacraments and
the Church.
7) Jesus Christ preached a particular type of
doctrine, essentially contained in the books of the
New Testament, which completed and sublimated the
natural law and the divine positive laws of the Old
Testament.
8) Jesus Christ instituted the Church to administer
the sacraments, to propagate and preserve His
doctrine and to lead all men to heaven.
9) Jesus Christ gave the Church a head in the
person of Peter and his lawful successors, and
endowed them with the faculty of guiding it in an
infallible way and of moderating all its activities.
10) Christians must acknowledge revelation and
its custodians; they must conform their entire lives
to revealed truths and keep their activities within the
limits indicated by such truths.
11) The Church, the pope, the hierarchy, have
no particular political or economic program of their
own to propose. It is their right and duty, however, to
point out and warn the people against certain political
and economic activities which hinder man from
achieving his ultimate end because contrary to moral
and religious principles.
It is in view of this that the Church and the popes
must also concern themselves with political and
social questions. And, insofar as they do it to
safeguard religion and morals, Catholics have the
obligation to accept, observe and defend the Church’s
teachings.
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

30
D r .

J o h n

C .

R a o

All
Borrowed
Armor
Chokes
Us
Catholics study history so that we
might better guide our own lives
by learning from those who came
before us; in this sense, history
teaches us humility and prudence.
Dr. Rao’s article gives us an insight
into some of the associations of
Catholic Action from relatively
recent history. Let Catholics take
lessons from their forefathers in the
Faith in order to hasten the Social
Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

31

The Problem: Catholic Life
Under 19th-Century
Liberal Governments
One of the greatest mistakes of our arrogant
age is to think that the past has little to teach it.
We Catholics should know better, and formulate
our practical daily judgments with a respect for
the lessons of our whole, rich, historical tradition.
Problems connected with the defense of Catholicism
in the political realm are no exception, and in this
particular regard, the experience of the 19th-century
Catholic revival should be of special interest to
faithful observers with eyes to see.
Many 19th-century believers, their consciousness
raised by the troubles of the French Revolution and
Napoleonic Wars (1789-1815), were outraged by the
absence of Catholic influence over political and
social life. They realized that believers had not been
permitted to speak and act as real Catholics already
for decades before the revolutionary disruptions
in France. This silencing of the Catholic voice had
not only prevented them from living as faithful
Christians. Worse still, it had created an atmosphere
in which it was difficult for believers to discover what
the teachings of the Church that affected them as
individuals and social beings actually were in the first
place.

Early 19th Century:
Problems with Relying
on Sacred Monarchies
Sadly, the most powerful of the contemporary
culprits muzzling the Catholic voice were the selfproclaimed friends and protectors of Christendom:
legitimist “sacred monarchies.” In 1815, these had
formed a “Holy Alliance,” supposedly to fight the
revolutionary demons of the Continent on behalf
of Christianity itself. But this familiar “sacred
union” controlled rather than protected Catholicism,
subordinating spiritual concerns to secular ones. Its
chains were strongest where Protestants or Orthodox
were the legitimate sacred monarchs, as in Prussia
and Russia. Nevertheless, they were often equally
observable under Catholic rulers as well, whose goals
were frequently inspired by the very Enlightenment
that had helped to foment the French Revolution.
Moreover, clerical political activity under “friendly”
sacred monarchies had led to an unseemly service
of two masters, with the secular superior getting
better attention than the spiritual, and a consequent
secularization of the Church’s own personnel.
Realization of these unhappy truths caused
19th-century Catholics to pay greater attention to
a definition of the distinct character and primary
responsibilities of political and religious authorities
alike. They did not do so for the sake of encouraging
“separation” of Church and State. Such a separation,

given the joint spiritual-physical nature of the beings
ruled over by each, was deemed to be a theoretical
and practical impossibility anyway. Rather, they were
eager to determine exactly how a necessary Catholic
influence could be exercised without either impairing
the State’s just prerogatives or the Church’s own
supernatural mission.

Emergence of Catholic Lay
Action–Some Successes
Many thinkers, clerics prominent among them,
began to argue that the traditional dilemma might be
resolved by seeking protection for religion from the
political and social action of the mass of the Catholic
laity. The laity, by definition, had different selfinterested concerns than the clergy. As a mass force,
it was neither an integral part of the government,
nor directly moved by the more suspicious personal
aims of its secular rulers. Action by mobilized lay
pressure groups would keep the clergy’s hands clean
of everything but the dogmatic and spiritual guidance
which its charism justly involved. That guidance
could then itself be improved through cooperative
clerical initiatives stimulating better teaching on
the part of priests and bishops. Should clerical and
lay associations operate as planned, true Catholic
doctrine would have an impact on society in a proper
fashion. At the very least, clerical politicians would
be repressed, and lay activists who were tempted to
engage in dubious battles with the government for
tainted self-interested reasons would not compromise
the prestige and mission of the Teaching Church as
such.
Germany’s role in encouraging this call to the
formation of Catholic associations dedicated to
“Catholic Action” was seminal. It began in various
lay/clerical “circles,” such as that of Princess Adele
Amalie Gallitsyn in Münster already in the 1770’s, and
others in Bonn, Landshut, Mainz, Munich and Vienna
by the next century. France and Belgium played
an important part in the birth of the movement as
well, starting with the Abbé Félicité de Lamennais’s
Congregation of St. Peter and the Belgian Catholic
Union in the 1820’s. Countless other clerical and lay
societies were added, ranging from the communities
of Dom Prosper Guéranger to Pauline Jaricot’s
Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and Frédéric
Ozanam’s Conferences of St. Vincent de Paul.
Catholic Action’s potential political clout was
soon obvious. France witnessed it in the form of a
determined resistance to regulations hindering the
establishment of new religious congregations and
their use in a school system opened to Catholic
guidance. In Germany, it was manifested by
activist transformation of instances of governmental
repression into major causes célèbres. The most famous
of these was stirred by the publication of Joseph
Görres’s Athanasius (1838), and Karl Ernst Jarcke’s
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

32
numerous articles in the Historisch-politische Blätter.
It underlined the significance of the imprisonment
of Archbishop Clemens August von Droste zu
Vischering (1773-1845) of Cologne for his insistence
upon application of canonical marriage regulations
in legitimist Prussia. Such unfamiliar political
outspokenness evoked Gallican and Febronian
outrage, and led to embittered demands for a return
to humble acceptance of the religious policies of the
sacred monarchies.

Middle 19th Century:
Cooperation with Liberals
By now, many activists had begun to believe that
legitimist “friends” could do the cause of Catholic
liberty no discernible good. Perhaps friendship with
groups promising the creation of free, responsive
institutions might succeed in breaking the chains on
a salutary Catholic Action? An opportunity to form
just such an alliance with liberals was offered through
the 1830 Revolution in Belgium. This was followed by
the contemplation of possible ententes cordiales with a
variety of liberal, democratic, and nationalist forces in
Italy, France, and Germany, culminating in the heady
hopes engendered by the Revolutions of 1848.
Certainly the movement to promote the formation
of properly motivated Catholic associations, lay
and clerical, did gain further steam in those nations
adopting liberal or democratic political institutions
in the latter 19th century. A glance at the situation in
Germany during and after the Revolution of March,
1848, is instructive in this regard. March brought with
it the establishment in Mainz of the Pius Association
for Religious Freedom, named after the new Roman
Pontiff, Pius IX. Five months later, there were several
hundred branches of this Piusverein. Their first general
meeting took place in Mainz on October 1st, at which
time a universal German Catholic Association was
created. This then held 17 Catholic Conferences in
the years between 1850-70, giving birth to many more
subsidiary organizations, including charitable ones
modeled on Ozanam’s Conferences of St. Vincent de
Paul, Adolf Kolping’s workingmens’ aid association,
an aesthetic institute promoting the mysticalartistic ideas of the Nazarenes, the Görres Society,
dedicated to scholarly and educational activity, and
committees for the Defense of the Papal States and
the founding of a Catholic University. The clergy
also took advantage of revolutionary chain-rattling to
liberate their teaching mission from rigid state control.
Ground-breaking episcopal conferences were held at
Würzburg from October 22-November 16, 1848, and
in Vienna by the spring of 1849. Both the Austrian
Concordat of 1855 and the 1867 regularization of
meetings of the German bishops at Fulda and Freising
testify to an ever growing recognition of the need
for an episcopal independence and cooperation

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

guaranteeing effective Catholic teaching regarding
political as well as other matters.

Disappointments and Successes
Unfortunately, however, the proponents of
liberal constitutional government also proved to be
false friends. The “freedom” that they were willing
to grant to Catholics to defend their “rights” turned
out to have an Enlightenment-shaped definition
involving certain conditions which were impossible
for the faithful both to accept and to fulfill. Activists
began to realize that liberal constitutionalism was
designed to ensure the victory of an anti-Catholic
faction using the word “freedom” to whitewash and
justify its continuation of an even more effective state
repression in new, hypocritical ways. Crises were
already visible in the liberal governments functioning
in France and Belgium in the 1830’s and 40’s. These
multiplied and intensified throughout Europe in the
second half of the 19th century, affecting Italy, the
German countries, the Netherlands, and then Belgium
and France anew. Sometimes they focused on a single
issue, especially that of education. Very frequently,
however, the crisis was a universal one, striking
not only at education but at the existence of the
religious orders engaged in it, the ability of Church
authorities to control their dioceses and parishes, the
general freedom of association, and the very right
of individual Catholics to speak out on any political
matter whatsoever: in short, to use the German term,
due to a full-scale Kulturkampf or “culture war.”
Catholic reaction to such measures was often very
impressive. Lay Catholics were particularly incensed
over school issues, which directly touched the average
family. “They are not going to have it, the beautiful
souls of children,” Flemish peasants sang (Kalyvas,
p.62). “The generosity and ardor of the Catholics
surpassed everything imaginable,” one observer of
the Belgian scene reported. “Almost every Catholic
meeting which I attended at that time,” a witness of
Austrian passion noted, “was a fiery furnace for the
souls, from which a torrent of sparks and flames of
holy enthusiasm was generated; a powerful forge,
in which the armaments were hardened for a battle
for the Cross which now threatened from all sides”
(Ibid., pp.97-98). The liberal-fomented “School Wars”
were seen by Catholics as the first step towards the
complete destruction of the Church. If secularists
succeeded in destroying Catholic education, one
activist noted, “the church will then be a building with
four walls, whose interior, as the liberals count on,
will become emptier with every decade” (Ibid., p.62).
Catholic lay associations were often called upon
by self-conscious teaching hierarchies to fight the
good fight in these battles. Thus, Belgian prelates
summoned the laity to three seminal organizing
congresses in Mâlines in 1863, 1864, and 1867,
culminating in the formation of a Fédération des Cercles
Catholiques in 1868. After collective appeals for repeal

33
of nefarious educational laws were ignored, the
organized hierarchy and laity moved on to stronger
action–teachers by resigning their positions in public
schools, parents by refusing to send their children
to them, and priests by denying the sacraments to
anyone who failed to toe the designated line. A
private Catholic school system was planned, and
a campaign launched to pay for it. By 1880, this
network was in place and had managed to garner the
majority of Belgian students. Its creation provoked
still more anticlerical legislation. Committees of
resistance of all kinds were then formed, with the
Catholic press publicizing a petition signed by 317,000
against the repressive educational legislation.
After similar episcopal action, Dutch Catholics
also focused on the building up of a primary school
network. One ought to note that their organizational
vigor was matched, if not surpassed, by pious
Calvinists. Abraham Kuyper’s league against school
reform, and his newspaper, De Standaard, joined with
Catholics in a massive petition movement demanding
repeal of the Netherland’s detested 1878 decrees on
secular education. At a time when the entire Dutch
electorate was limited to around 100,000 voters,
Kuyper’s petition collected 305,000 signatures; its
Catholic counterpart an additional 164,000 names.
Popular reaction to the cultural wars in Austria
came with demonstrations in favor of the Venerable
Bishop Franz Rudigier of Linz, imprisoned in 1869
for his vociferous opposition to the changes of the
newly liberal government of the Empire. Various
lay organizations came into being at this moment,
with Karl von Vogelsang’s newspaper, Das Vaterland,
drawing up a complex battle strategy for the future,
economically, socially, and politically.
Perhaps most impressive was the organizational
fever initially excited by the Kulturkampf in the
German Empire, leading to the formation of the
Katholische Frauenbund, Katholische Mütterverein,
Katholische Kaufmännische Vereinigung, and a large
number of youth, student, and teacher groups.
Growth in the Catholic Press was enormous, the
Kölnische Volkszeitung and the Berlin Germania being
the giants of the media. Most famous of all the
associations formed after 1870 was the Volksverein für
das Katholische Deutschland (1890), whose stronghold
was the Rhineland, and whose secretaries, Franz Hitze
and August Pieper, presided over a vast membership
undertaking all manner of tasks on behalf of the
Catholic population.

Middle 19th Century: Alliance
with Conservative Parties
Catholic associations seeking not just to overturn
anticlerical legislation but also to replace it with
Church-friendly laws often first approached existing
“conservative parties” to serve as their agents. Such
parties would be offered what were in essence
contracts. The network of active Catholic associations

would do much of the propaganda and legwork for
the election of conservative deputies to parliament,
with the proviso that these, when winning office,
would follow Catholic bidding on state matters
touching upon religion.
Results rarely matched expectations.
Conservatives were too inclined to negotiate with
immovable enemies of the Catholic cause. Gradually,
Catholic activists came to loathe conservatives as
“doubtful friends,” people who were happy to have
the support of a religious electorate, but only to twist
that backing to serve their own narrow purposes. It
thus became clear, as the Italian activist Ruggiero
Bonghi said in 1879, that this “exchange between
Catholics and Conservatives is a great error and is
very suspect” (Ibid., p.225); that “Catholic feeling
is not necessarily conservative, and conservative
feeling is not necessarily Catholic” (Ibid.). Catholics
were not alone in this bitterness, either. The Dutch
Calvinist leader and fellow-traveler Kuyper insisted
that the battle being fought by all religious people
was also “against conservatism; not conservatism
of a specific brand but against conservatism of
every description” (Ibid.). Although in many places
they called themselves Rightists, conservatives
were soon understood to be merely “liberals who
had been mugged.” Conservatives were men who
shared with liberals the same basic Enlightenment
principles, especially with regard to the concept of
economic freedom, but who had simply become
more cautious about their implementation in most
other realms. Hence the activist temptation to move
from contractual agreements to the establishment of
consciously Catholic parties of their own. (See, also,
Ibid., pp.258-259).
Perhaps the first clear instance of such a venture
was the “Committee for the Defense of Religious
Freedom,” promoted by Charles de Montalembert
and Louis Veuillot’s Parisian daily newspaper,
L’Univers. This elected 144 representatives to the
French Parliament in the 1840’s. Another example of
early political development was the “Catholic Club,”
composed of various prelates, clerics and laymen,
which was formed at the German revolutionary
Frankfurt Assembly of 1848. A third initiative was
the Prussian “Catholic Faction,” founded in 1851
by August Reichensperger, his brother Peter, and
Hermann von Malinckrodt for the purpose of
defending the freedoms enshrined in the religious
clauses of their Kingdom’s Constitution and protected
until the cultural war 20 years later.
After 1870, these rather loosely organized factions
began to tighten up. Catholics from Prussia formed
the Center Party, which also functioned in the new,
democratically elected, imperial Reichstag. The
increasing severity of the Kulturkampf legislation from
1872 onwards made the party’s fortune, since the
devastation of the Catholic hierarchy and priesthood
during these very difficult years necessitated what
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

34
amounted to a temporary assumption of church
guidance by the active laity.
Belgium, in 1884, saw the formation of the
Union Nationale pour le Redressement des Griefs as a
temporary “war machine against liberalism” and
its secularist educational laws. Although this still
desired to work with conservatives, it nevertheless
aimed to “absolutely prevent the return to power
of an autonomous Right, which would not take into
account, as it did [not] in the past, the demands
of the Catholic world.” The electoral campaign
“was animated, enthusiastic, marked by religious
mysticism,” and helped enormously by the various
Catholic associations. Results were spectacular. June,
1884, saw a triumph over the Liberals which was
“more a massacre than a defeat,” and the hated laws
were repealed (See Ibid., p.191).
In the Netherlands, Kuyper formed the
Antirevolutionary Party, its Declaration of Principles
proclaiming consistent resistance to the world of
1789. Catholics, under the guidance of Fr. Hermann
Shaepman, were by that time also building a “war
machine” of their own out of a federation of local
groupings. Despite enormous disagreements and even
hatreds, an Unio Mystica of Catholics and Protestants
was proclaimed by Kuyper in 1888 (Ibid., p.194).
Both denominations coordinated their support for
candidates. The Conservative Party broke up under
the pressure, and, just as in Belgium, the Liberals
were soundly trounced. Calvinists and Catholics then
continued to share power, ensuring their separate,
autonomous free development, though the “party”
formed by the latter remained an amorphous entity
until some years into the next century.
As early as 1868 the Austrian newspaper Das
Vaterland had called for an “anti-liberal confederation
of all those who ‘suffered from the financial and
material consequences of the recently adopted
system’” (Ibid., p.200). A coalition was indeed formed
in 1887, holding a convention the following year
whose importance was grasped by Karl Lueger
the head of the Vienna democrats. Das Vaterland
promoted Lueger’s leadership of the coalition,
and suggested the name Christian Social Party to
designate it. In 1890, the parliamentary leader of the
traditional conservatives, Alois Liechtenstein, “grew
weary of his lack of tactical success” and joined the
Christian Socials. By 1897 a permanent central party
bureaucracy was firmly established (Ibid., p.202).

Problems with
Conservative Parties
Troubles, however, did not cease. Parties often
had troubled relations with the complex network of
active Catholic lay and clerical associations, which
they viewed as competitors for ultimate direction of
the Catholic movement. Much more significantly,
however, Catholic associations expressed the
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

concerns of an ever greater assortment of social
groups with divergent interests and agendas,
especially economic ones. This complicated the life
of a Catholic party enormously, forcing it to take
stands regarding given positions which might satisfy
one element of its clientele but horrify another. As
Joseph Edmund Jörg noted, “any attempt to construct
a detailed political program would be injurious and
perhaps fatal to the Party” (Ibid., p.236). Bismarck
claimed that “there are not two souls in the Center
but seven ideological tendencies which portray all
the colours of the political rainbow from the most
extreme right to the radical left” (Ibid., p.237). Hence,
raising the banner of the Church in Danger was the
only means of assuring internal unity. It became ever
more difficult to hoist that flag when the Kulturkampf
in Germany eventually eased, and the more each
internal group demanded doctrinal confirmation of its
principles from Rome.
Parties also showed a propensity to easy
acceptance of new “false friends.” Once they had
found some way through their initial difficulties and
begun to function more smoothly in a given nation,
they all too frequently valued their institutional
survival more than the purposes for which they were
created. When working in a liberal constitutional
system, they tended to treat the rules of that system,
hostile though they might be, as givens, accepting
limitations upon and modification of Catholic
expectations. If laboring in a more democratic
environment, they began to praise the will of “The
People,” no matter how rabidly nationalistic, racist,
Marxist, libertine, or fraudulently manipulated
this could be. Criticism might be met by insisting
that everything the “religious party” accepted and
promoted was ipso facto, Catholic; as though its claim
to be the “Catholic Party” protected it from error
in its political defense of Christianity; as though an
idea or policy which was notoriously secular and bad
could become sacred and good through its magic
wand. Victories by opposing parties might then bring
down upon Catholics a persecution for supporting
positions that really had nothing to do with their Faith
at all, but only partisan self-interest.
That parties, Catholic and non-Catholic, were
indeed succumbing to such temptations was clear.
The Center Party defined religious truth ever more
broadly in order to win elections. “Confessional
party leaders such as Julius Bachem were repeatedly
attacked for setting aside the Catholic basis of the
most important organization of German Catholicism
in order to substitute a so-called non-denominational
Christian basis as the party’s guiding philosophy”
(Ibid., p.248). “Catholics must appeal to the ideas on
which modern society is based in order to vindicate
their belief,” Etienne Lamy, one of the French
Catholic democratic leaders, argued in 1896 (Ibid.,
p.232). An Austrian Christian Social spokesman put it

35
most succinctly a bit later: “In politics the only thing
that counted was success” (Ibid.).
Many laymen were dangerously insistent upon
their role as religious leaders. Archbishop Victor
Dechamps complained to the pope of two prominent
and politically active lay Belgian Catholics, both
“fervent and good soldiers,” but problematic since
they “want to command within the Church” (Ibid.,
p.40). Italian lay activists often ended up “giving
directives to bishops, provoking frequent complaint”
(Ibid.). Le Temps in 1881 labeled the French activist
Albert de Mun “a lay bishop who undertakes…a
political campaign, and who finds nothing better
than to address the authentic bishop like a master”
(Ibid., p.45). One priest bitterly criticized the special
pretensions of journalists, noting their claim to a right
to resolve doctrinal disputes. “Is not that a stunning
victory for laicism?” (Ibid., p.46), he wondered.
Worse still, organizations sometimes moved from
liberal constitutionalism and democratic politics
to calls for internal Church reform on their bases.
Austrian prelates, for example, were told that they
“must cease to act autocratically” (Ibid., p.40) or face
the consequences of the wrath of a more conscious
democratic populace.
Another problem for Catholic parties came from
the hierarchy’s dislike of participation of the lower
clergy in their affairs. Special circumstances were
one thing, bishops reiterated; a general permission
for clerical involvement, however, was quite another
matter. The bishops’ chief grievance–that political
activity took priests away from their primary
spiritual responsibilities, and also gave them a
power base enabling them to speak to their clerical
superiors as equals or even inferiors–was more than
understandable. The Bishop of Trier was not alone
in lamenting, in 1873, that his subordinate clergy was
simultaneously guilty of absenteeism and monitoring
his own behavior for political correctness (Ibid.).
Complaints on the part of the hierarchy regarding
lay and clerical activism were rejected by many
in the Catholic Movement as a sign of the high
clergy’s tradition of timidity, outright cowardice,
or hypocritical protection of its own unacceptable
political position. There are, indeed, a number of
cases where all these accusations appear to be valid,
perhaps most clearly in Austria-Hungary (Ibid.,
pp.91, 98, 179). Still, practical examples of episcopal
failure should not blind us to the fact that the general
critique of the Catholic Movement by the late 19th
century was the same as that which its founders itself
had made of the earlier Catholic political position!
Sacred monarchies of the past had bent religious
concerns to parochial secular considerations. Clergy
had played too great a role within them, sullying their
spiritual mission along the way. Now, out of an initial
desire to fight precisely such corruption, the sacred
political party had emerged, twisting Catholic goals
to the divinized requirements of anticlerical liberal
constitutions, willful peoples, and the charismatic

party leaders and journalists interpreting the “true
meaning” of their desires, sometimes claiming to be
the voice of the Holy Spirit in doing so. The Divine
Right of the past had not just reappeared; it had
resurfaced compounded, with laymen and secularized
clerics claiming to protect a twisted understanding of
human freedom and progress along with their own
political advantage and a corrupted Catholic Faith.
What was Rome’s reaction to this ferment?
Discussion of Roman relations with Austria, Germany,
Belgium, and France would offer nuanced answers to
that question. All should be looked at to understand
Vatican policy accurately. For my purposes at the
moment, however, it is sufficient to bring up the Holy
See’s attitude towards the above developments in the
context of a more detailed examination of the Italian
Catholic Action experience.

Early to Late 19th Century:
Lay Action in Italy
–Successes and Difficulties
Italy’s introduction to lay-clerical associations
began with Brunone Lanteri’s early 19th-century
revival of pre-revolutionary amicizie cattoliche. Many
Catholic newspapers aided this work from the
1820’s onwards, the most influential of which was La
Civiltà Cattolica, which began publication in 1850.
The creation of an extensive network of Catholic
associations was seen by most of these journals
to be the only means of making the wishes of the
“real country” known in the unnatural situation
established by the proclamation of the Kingdom
of Italy in 1861. This was due to the fact that that
Kingdom’s liberal constitution limited the number
of people who could vote to a miniscule percentage
of the population, based upon property ownership
and wealth, and insisted that its representatives act
only in an “enlightened” manner. Where Catholic
deputies had been validly elected, as in 1857, in what
was then the Kingdom of Sardinia, they had been
excluded as unacceptable because they were Catholic
and therefore unenlightened. “When we took part
in elections and in many places won a victory,” an
exasperated Catholic witness noted, “we called down
upon ourselves all manner of vexations, and our work
went up in smoke” (Invernizzi, p.22). The real, longlasting backdrop for the famous non expedit, the papal
prohibition of Catholic participation in the political
life of the Kingdom on the national, as opposed to
local level, was not aggression against the Temporal
Power. It was the recognition that participation under
current conditions would be a sham. Hence, it was
better to stand apart, and, as the Osservatore Romano
noted in 1880, prepare for real participation in the
future by temporary abstention from the existing
fraudulent system.
This temporary abstention presupposed serious
work outside of legal, constitutional national politics.
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

36
It was to the end of laboring effectively as a kind of
parallel government that the vast bulk of Catholic
organizations and local parish committees came to be
coordinated by the Opera dei Congressi e dei Comitati
Cattolici, founded in 1874 and given its definitive
name in 1881. The Opera met in regular congresses
and aided the work of local groups through five
permanent sections established in 1884: Organization
and Catholic Action, Christian Social Economy,
Instruction and Education, Press, and Christian Art.
The second section, headed at the end of the reign of
Leo XIII by Giuseppe Toniolo, founder of the Unione
Cattolica per gli Studi Sociali, was especially active.
By the late 1890’s, however, Opera leaders were
seriously divided over future initiatives. One group
insisted upon continuing business as usual, neither
compromising with the existing liberal authorities
nor opposing them in politics directly, lest the
socialists pick up the pieces in a bitter national
political campaign. Another faction, which came to
be known as the clerico-moderates, wished to take
advantage of certain liberal invitations to form a
broad “conservative party” which could then confront
the common danger of socialist extremism. Catholic
abstention from national politics would thus end, and
leaders who had been prepared during that abstention
could move forward to exercise direct influence over
Italian political life. Yet a third force, many-headed
in character, considered business-as-usual as no
longer opportune, but viewed the clerico-moderate
position as a sell-out to the anti-Catholic conservatism
of the “liberals who had been mugged.” One of this
third force’s constituent elements wished boldly to
declare liberal economic policies to be materialist and
immoral. Some proponents longed for the creation
of a distinctly popular Catholic political party. They
presumed that such a party would also have a broad
appeal beyond the immediate camp of the believers,
to open-minded socialists in particular, and would
therefore have to operate with significant freedom
from the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Priests, Don Romolo
Murri prominent among them, played a role within its
ranks. Friction among these contesting components of
the Opera was stirred by brutal government repression
of both socialist and Catholic organizations in the
midst of the riotous years of the 1890’s, as well as
by the failure of the dominant proponents of the
business-as-usual approach to make more of an issue
of injustices that they, too, abhorred.

Early 20th Century:
Papal Interventions
At this point, the Papacy became deeply
involved. Papal intervention was a two step affair.
It began on January 18th, 1901, with Leo XIII’s
publication of the encyclical letter Graves de Communi,
which rejected the creation of a distinctly Catholic
Italian democratic party. If the words “Christian
Democracy” were employed at all, he insisted,
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

they could only legitimately be used to indicate “a
beneficent Christian action in favor of the people,”
not a commitment of the Church to democratic
politics. Moreover, as the first of its two words
emphasized, “Christian Democracy” could only exist
with reference to a grounding in the Christian Faith;
cooperation with those of democratic spirit who were
materialist socialists was thereby excluded. Even what
today would be called a “preferential option for the
poor” was dismissed as objectionable by the Pope,
since a true concept of “the People” had to include
all social classes, coordinated into one harmonious
whole.
A second intervention came in the aftermath of
the XIX Congress of the Opera in Bologna (November
10-13, 1903). Romolo Murri, with a certain support
from Giovanni Grosoli, President of the organization,
had gained the edge over the older faction eager to
continue abstention from national politics in Bologna.
An imprudent circular from Grosoli then argued that
“old questions,” presumably including the issue of
the Temporal Power, no longer mattered that much
to contemporary Catholics, who were thus freed to
confront more serious matters. Although personally
content to let the Temporal Power issue die, the new
pontiff, Pius X, was disturbed by what he considered
to be the Opera’s lay-clerical insubordination, and
dissolved it on July 28, 1904. Only Section II, dealing
with Social Economy, was maintained, in order to
emphasize the fact that “beneficent action in favor of
the people” was still approved.
The Italian Catholic Movement was then entirely
restructured on June 11, 1905, with the publication of
an encyclical letter, II Fermo Proposito. Section II of the
Opera became the Unione Economico-Sociale dei Cattolici
Italiani. An Unione Popolare tra i Cattolici d’Italia was
established on the model of the Volksverein, along
with an Unione Elettorale Cattolica Italiana, designed to
prepare Catholics for gradual active participation in
national political life. In practice, with the hopes for a
Catholic party squelched and the “business as usual”
position abandoned, Rome had opted for the clericomoderate line. The Unione Elettorale gradually pursued
the kind of contractual agreement with conservatives
utilized in other countries. Its great chance to put
this plan into effective operation came with the
introduction of universal male suffrage in the next
decade, increasing the impact of the pro-Catholic
vote and resulting in the famous “Pact” of 1911 of the
President of the Unione, Vincenzo Ottorino Gentiloni
with the conservative elements of the liberal party
guided by Giovanni Giolitti.

Early to Middle 20th Century:
Cooperation with Democracy
Romolo Murri, disturbed by this development,
moved on to build a Lega Democratica Italiana, open
to direct cooperation with socialists in a way that
seemed to indicate democracy’s superiority to the

37
Faith as a guide to political life. Such an impression
was confirmed by Murri’s calls for an internal
democratization of the Church. He was formally
expelled from the Catholic Movement and eventually
excommunicated. Nevertheless, Christian Democrats
still quietly remained within the official camp, hoping
one day to be able to build a mass party that could
address itself outside as well as inside Catholic circles,
and continue to allow a joint lay-clerical political
activity. Don Luigi Sturzo emerged as the leader of
what became the Italian Popular Party, and, after its
demise under Mussolini, the Christian Democratic
Party of Alcide de Gasperi. This latter formation,
sometimes criticized by the Papacy and sometimes
prodded by it, would then go on to preside over the
most successful secularization of Italian life in the
peninsula’s history.

Conclusions
1) Difficulty of Lay Action
Surely, by this point, the problems facing Catholic
Action must be clear. But what can we possibly
conclude from all their complexity? Three things, as
far as I can determine, the first of which is that it has
proven to be very hard to deal with the revolutionary
policies emerging from the Enlightenment and the
monarchies, liberal constitutional governments,
and democracies that implement them. These have
changed daily life more radically than anything
since the beginning of history. It took the Catholic
world 700 years to come to terms with the barbarian
invasions and begin successfully to jell the German
tribes together with Graeco-Roman civilization. It
should come as no surprise that it has taken more
than 250 years to deal with political and social
predicaments posed by a still more powerful invader.
2) No Clear Solution
A second lesson is that it will never be possible for
the Church and for Catholics to discover an infallible
system for dealing with the political and social realm.
It has been part of the modern error to presume that
some foolproof mechanism can be discovered through
which the difficulty of discovering and doing the
right thing in each and every new situation might be
avoided; to dispense men, in effect, from the labor
of living. It cannot. No constitution and no political
system is free from manipulation by the noonday
devils; no individual from the work required to avoid
their seductive appeal. Prudent experimentation,
guided by the unchangeable moral teaching of the
Church, seems as though it must always be the order
of the day in times of crisis and change. It was a good
thing for the 19th century to have undertaken that
experimentation; it would be equally judicious for
21st century Catholics to learn from its dilemmas in
their own activities.

3) Beware of Systems...
Thirdly, this flexibility regarding systems
dictates that when Catholics participate directly in
politics, they do so as free men who understand
that the systems within which they work are not
their Savior, that they will tempt them to abandon a
Social Teaching which inevitably disturbs venal selfinterest, and that, unfortunately, they have regularly
found Catholics easy targets for worshipping at
their shrines and twisting their own Faith in order to
do so. Flexibility also dictates that when Catholics
judge participation in an existing political system
to be a sham, they conscientiously organize their
abstention from it in a positive way, so as to prepare
themselves to handle national and international affairs
responsibly in the future.
...Even in the USA
Allow me to end with a special warning to
Catholics in America. The United States is a
vulnerable nation, subject to the vagaries of human
action and human history, just as any other polity
in the long record of the human race. It is no more
divine than any other nation or any other system. It
has had an historical beginning and it will also have
an historical end. Everything written above applies
to the present situation of Catholics in the United
States even more than elsewhere in contemporary
life, precisely because the forces tempting Catholics
to believe in its divinity and benign character are
immensely powerful and growing ever stronger.

“Seek Ye First the
Kingdom of Heaven”
No nation and no system can be our Mother.
Only the Church is our mother, and, as Louis
Veuillot said, Catholic Truth alone can guide us to
safe political action in the flux of changing historical
conditions:
The right tactic for us is to be visibly and always what
we are, nothing more, nothing less. We defend a citadel
which cannot be taken except when the garrison itself
brings in the enemy. Combatting with our own arms,
we only receive minor wounds. All borrowed armor
troubles us and often chokes us.
Dr. John Rao is an Associate Professor of History at St. John’s University in
New York City; D.Phil. from Oxford University (UK); author of Americanism
and the Collapse of the Church and Removing the Blindfold (Remnant Press,
1999). Subtitles added by H.E. Bishop Richard Williamson.

Bibliography
Jedin, H. and Dolan, J., eds. History of the Church. Vols. VII, VIII, IX:
Crossroad, 1981.
Invernizzi, M. Il movimento cattolico in Italia. Mimep-Docete, 1995.
Kalyvas, S.N. The Rise of Christian Democracy in Europe. Cornell, 1966.
Mayeur, J.M., ed. Histoire du christianisme. Vols. X, XI: Desclée,
1995/1997.
Veuillot, Louis. Mélanges. Oeuvres completes, iii series, 1933.
THE ANGELUS • September 2005

ADVERTISING
38

E d

The accompanying cartoon symbolizes the
modern institution of advertising. A mannequin is the
commercial measure of a man or woman. It isn’t the
esthetic measure found in the fine arts, nor the moral or
virtuous measure found in the saints. The mannequin
is what a commercial clothier thinks of a potential
customer. The mannequin is what the clothes seller
wants his customer to look like (or imagine she looks
like) so that she will fit (or think she fits) the clothes he
has in stock. That is the task that advertising sets out
to accomplish: to make the person fit the goods. Thus,
in the cartoon the advertiser (symbolized by the artist)
remodels the person to resemble the mannequin.
In every age the artists, poets, dramatists, and
actors have been called upon by the leaders of their
society to popularize or put across in intelligible and
understandable form the ideals upon which the society
operated. The active ideal of our society has been
for some time now individual self-aggrandizement,
commonly called bettering oneself, and technically called
free enterprise. The leaders of our society, the men who
buy and sell things, naturally find this ideal to their
liking and employ the genius of our artists, poets, and
dramatists to see that the ideal is not permitted to die.
The medium they use is called advertising.
Any institution designed to form popular habits
and tastes is either the mouthpiece for a
religion or a philosophy. If the appeal
is to reason, then it is a philosophic
movement; if the appeal is to faith,
then it is a religious movement.
Advertising obviously doesn’t
appeal to reason. There are
no arguments over the
philosophic validity of
an ad. You either believe
advertisements or you
don’t. Advertising has a
mystical appeal–it sings the
praises of the new god Matter.
The apostles of this new
religion are by far the most
vigorous, and the most hungry
for converts, of any in our
time. If a citizen were to suffer
the same physical treatment at
the hands of another citizen as
all of us suffer psychologically at
the hands of the advertisers, the
act would be punished as criminal.
Upon entering a street car or bus,
or, if we are so imprudent as to turn
on our radio or open a newspaper
or magazine, we are suddenly
knocked to the ground, a pretty

W i l l o c k

girl rumples our hair and sings crooningly in our ear
while a comedian grabs our feet and tickles them; then
a sly pickpocket reaches into our wallet and extracts
the amount of cash prescribed by the nefarious gang
who hires him. Should we develop a defense for this
type of assault, the enemy attempts a flank movement.
Little Junior pipes up at breakfast that he will not eat
any other cereal but a certain anemic sawdust creation
with a virile name. The method used in this case is
bribery and blackmail. Once you get Junior well in
hand (in the right places), you discover to your horror
that the next-door neighbor is also a convert to the new
mysticism. Your wife mentions that washing dishes has
become somewhat of a trial, the spy from next door
(not necessarily a member of the party but a follower of
the party line) begins to expound about the wonderful
new combination ironer and dish-washer now available
at the corner swindlers’ for only one thousand dollars
and ninety-eight cents.
Objectively this is a laughing matter; in reality it
is to weep. It is no laughing matter to have the entire
artistic genius of the nation urging the people to
become solicitous about what they wear and what they
eat, when one happens to be dedicated to promoting
the ideals and principles of a Man Who said, “Be not
solicitous.” Using soap is not being solicitous, but using
Gleemo, which employs one thousand people to make
it and two thousand people to wrap it in cellophane,
paint pictures about it, write dramatic skits for it,
abstract phrases from the Book of Wisdom to describe
it, ship it from coast to coast, sell it,
re-sell it, and re-re-sell it...that is
being solicitous. The same goes
for all the things we wear or put
inside us.
What to do about it?
There is more than a hint in
the teachings of the Apostles
of another age. One of
them, Matthew, carefully
transcribing the words
of His Master, wrote:
“Therefore I say to you,
do not be anxious for your
life, what you shall eat; nor yet
for your body, what you shall
put on.” The sentence preceding
this one reads; “You cannot serve
God and mammon.” The great
concern of advertising for what
we eat and put on is an effect, not
a cause. The cause is a mystical
worship of mammon.

F R .

p e t e r

The Editor wishes to follow up the July 2005 Q&A with an
apology and an historical note. He apologizes for printing the
abridged text of the Prayer Against Satan and the Rebellious
Angels whereas Fr. Scott referred to the complete text, which is
still available.✱ Because it may interest the reader, the Editor
has dedicated this month’s Q&A to an explanation (published in
1955) of where this prayer came from and why.
In his note on the tragedy of modern times as the
work of Satan, Fr. Dominico Pechenino (cf. La Settimana
del Clero, March 30, 1947) writes:
I don’t remember the exact year. It was a little after 1890.
One morning the great Pontiff Leo XIII, who had become
the admiration of the whole civil world and the fury of
international Masonry, had celebrated Holy Mass and was
assisting at another Mass for his thanksgiving, as usual. At the
Tract of the Mass, the Pope could be seen energetically lifting
his head, and then fixing his gaze intensely on something
above the head of the celebrant. He watched fixedly, without
batting an eyelash, but with a sense of terror and marvel,
changing color and expression. Something strange and great
was happening in him. Finally, as though returning to himself,
making a light but energetic motion of the hand, he got up.
He could be seen heading towards his private study. His
attendants followed him anxiously and with haste.
“Holy Father!” they said submissively, “do you not feel
well? Do you need anything?”
“Nothing, nothing!” he answered. And he closed himself
inside his office.
After a half an hour he called the Secretary of the Sacred
Congregation for Rites and, handing him a piece of paper, he
enjoined him to have it published and to see that it reached all
the Ordinaries in the world. What did it contain? The prayer
that we recite at the end of Mass with the people, with the
supplication to Mary and the fiery invocation to the prince
of the heavenly hosts, St. Michael: Sancte Michael Archangele,
defende nos in proelio... begging God to cast him into hell.

The author does not indicate the source of this
story. Nevertheless in this passage there must be
something of truth, but also something not altogether
accurate: the precept that the prayer should be recited
seems to correspond to the truth, as does the fact that
the command was communicated in an unusual manner
(in fact the document appeared in the Acta Sanctae Sedis
and the prayer was composed in unusual circumstances,
as is clear from the testimony below of Cardinal Nasalli
Rocca). There is, however, an inaccurate aspect to this
testimony, since without any doubt the prayer was
composed and sent to all Ordinaries in the year 1886,
and not after 1890. Perhaps Fr. Pechenino’s date refers
to the elaboration of the Exorcism Against Satan and
the Apostate Angels, which was composed by Leo XIII
and published by a decree of the Sacred Congregation
for the Propagation of the Faith by a decree of May 18,
1890.
Here is the testimony of Cardinal I.B. Nasalli
Rocca. In his pastoral letter for Lent, Bologna, 1946
(“God, Man, and the Devil”) he wrote:

R .

39

s c o t t

The most wise Pontiff Leo XIII himself, a superior
intelligence and certainly not a mean or petty spirit, wrote that
fine and powerful prayer....And that phrase “who wander [i.e.,
roam, prowl, etc.] the world” has an historical explanation,
often related to us by the most faithful private secretary of
the great pontiff who was next to him through virtually all
his pontificate, Msgr. Rinaldo Angeli. Leo did in fact have
visions of the infernal spirits who were proliferating over
the eternal City, and from that experience, which the Pope
confided in the prelate and certainly in others with all due
reserve, came the prayer that is said in the whole Church.
He himself recited that prayer (we heard it many times in
the Vatican basilica) with a forceful and powerful voice that
resonated in an unforgettable way in the general silence under
the vaults of the greatest temple of Christianity. Not only
that, but he wrote in his own hand a special exorcism that
can be found in the Rituale Romanum (ed. 1954, tit.XII, c.III)
under the title Exorcismus in Satanam et Angelos Apostaticos. He
recommended to bishops and priests that they recite these
exorcisms frequently for their dioceses and parishes, the
priests receiving the faculty to do so from their Ordinaries.
First of all, he himself recited them very frequently during the
day. A prelate close to the pontiff told how even during his
walks in the Vatican gardens he used to take a little book from
his pocket, worn with use, and repeated his exorcism with
fervid piety and lively devotion. The little book is now in the
possession of a noble Roman family, whom we know well.

Pope Leo XIII composed the prayer and exorcism
in calamitous times; the group that goes by the name
of Masonry was daily setting in motion its plan
of triumph by laying the Church low. During the
upheavals at Florence in 1378 St. Catherine of Siena
wrote, lamenting that her prospects for martyrdom had
vanished:
This desire was blessed and painful: it was blessed
because of the union with the truth; and it was painful
because of the pain the heart felt at the offense to God,
and at the multitude of demons overshadowing the whole
city, darkening the eye of the intelligence of creatures.
(Epistolario de S. Caterina da Siene, edit. P. Misciatelli,
Vol.IV, p.241)

And before St. Catherine, and indeed with authority
of the word received from God, St. Peter had said (I
Pet. 5:8): “Be sober and watch: because your adversary
the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom
he may devour.” St. Paul wrote in his Epistle to the
Ephesians (6:12): “For our wrestling is not against flesh
and blood; but against principalities and powers, against
the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the
spirits of wickedness in high places.” Most importantly
the Lord Jesus called the devil “a murderer from the
beginning” ( Jn. 8:44) and the “father of lies” (ibid.).
Researched and translated exclusively for Angelus Press. Taken from
Ephemerides Liturgicae (1955), pp.58-59, n.9.
✱ Copies of the complete Exorcism Prayer are available in pads of
100 for $5 plus $2 for postage from Catholic Treasures, 135 W.
Foothill Blvd., Suite A, Monrovia, CA (626) 359-4893.

THE ANGELUS • September 2005

So you really want to know the Faith?
The Catechism of the Council of Trent (aka The Roman Catechism)
Rev. John A. McHugh, O.P. and Charles J. Callan, O.P.

Ordered by the Council of Trent, compiled under St. Charles Borromeo, published by order of St. Pius V, recognized as the
most authoritative Catholic catechism. Leo XIII recommended two books–the Summa and this Catechism–for all seminarians!
This is the only officially promulgated catechism of the Catholic Church. Referred to as the Roman Catechism, it was
composed by order of the Council of Trent under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Edited by St. Charles Borromeo. Published
by decree of Pope St. Pius V. Prescribed by Pope St. Pius X to be used by all priests in instructing the faithful. Recommended
by Pope Leo XIII for all seminarians. Universally recognized as the most authoritative Catholic catechism in the Church. Pope
Clement XIII said it contains a clear explanation of all that is necessary for salvation and useful for the faithful, and that no other
catechism can be compared to it. Covers the basic knowledge of the Faith by detailed explanations of the Ten Commandments,
Sacraments, and each word of the Apostles’ Creed and the Our Father. Includes over five pages, for example, on just the word
“Amen” at the end of the Our Father. Easy to read. Cardinal Ratzinger called this “the most important Catholic catechism.” The
most exact English translation available anywhere today.
604pp, foil-stamped sewn hardcover, index, STK# 7087✱ $39.95

Catechism of the Summa Theologica
Fr. R.P. Pegues, O.P.

Pope Benedict XV enthusiastically endorsed this book which aims to put the heart of St.Thomas Aquinas’s Summa
Theologica into the hands of the laity. In familiar Q&A catechism format, but the answers are from the Angelic Doctor
himself. Cross-referenced to the Summa for those wishing to study further.
Rare is the book that comes with a pope’s endorsement; let Benedict XV explain why in his own words: “It was fitting that
the singular wisdom of the Holy Doctor should be made accessible not only to the clergy but to the faithful in general.”
The Pope added that this book, compiled by esteemed Dominican Fr. Thomas Pegues, “aptly accommodates the riches
of the great genius to understanding of the less instructed [and] briefly and succinctly expounds the doctrine.” He called
Pegues’s knowledge of Aquinas “masterly.” Fr. Pegues takes two classic works–Summa and the catechism–and blends
them into one of the most remarkable catechetical titles of the 20th century!
315pp, hardcover, STK# 5906✱ $17.95

Everyman’s Theology

Fr. Leo von Rudloff, O.S.B.

We have never seen a book that compresses so much sound doctrine into so brief and readable a book. Amazing. A
complete treatise on all the dogmatic truths of our religion that can be fully digested over the course of few evenings. With
matchless clarity and concision, Fr. Leo von Rudloff, OSB, explains every doctrine from Creation to the Last Judgment,
omitting nothing of importance:
Gifts of the Holy Spirit ● Mortal and Venial Sin ● Revelation and Faith ● Teaching Office of the Church ● Infallibility
● Ordinary and Extraordinary Magisterium ● Sources of Faith ● God: Nature and Attributes ● Divine Will ● Economy of
Creation ● Angels ● Sin of Adam ● Mother of the Redeemer ● Redemptive Act ● God the Sanctifier, the Holy Spirit ●
Christ and the Holy Spirit ● Holy Spirit in Man ● Grace ● Good Works ● Virtues ● Four Marks of the Church ● Church
Militant, Suffering and Triumphant ● Communion of Saints ● Baptism ● Penance ● Holy Orders ● Matrimony ● Extreme
Unction ● Indulgences ● Relics ● Death and Particular Judgment ● Eternal Death: Hell ● Eternal Life: Heaven ●
Purgatory ● General Judgment ● Anti-Christ ● Principal Doctrines with Their Degrees of Certitude ● Classic Proofs for the
Existence of God ● St. Paul’s Hymn of Praise ● Remarks on the History of Dogma ● Study Outline ● Bibliography ● Index.
192pp, gold-embossed hardcover, index STK# 7096✱ $21.95

All three regularly $79.85.

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Dressing with Dignity
Mrs. Colleen Hammond

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C HAP TE R S I N C LU D E:

In this ground-breaking book, Colleen Hammond
challenges today’s indecent, demeaning fashions and
provides you with the information you need to protect
yourself and your loved ones from the onslaught of
tasteless, immodest clothing. She explains that there is a
difference between dressing attractively and dressing to
attract. Colleen shares real-life examples of how women
can accentuate the grace and beauty of their femininity, and
she shows that “modest” definitely does not mean “frumpy.”
Given the circulation it deserves, Dressing with Dignity
has the potential to rout the fashion world’s penchant for
giving women little choice of chic yet modest attire–a world
which till now has literally treated generations of women
with disgrace. The author’s refreshing insights will help you
adopt a dignified and feminine approach to dressing and
conquer the problem of indecent fashions.
138pp, color softcover, STK# 8069✱ $10.00

● Out of Eden
● A Return to Reverence
and Respect
● Corruption of Fashions
● Designs against
Modesty–and Catholic
Response
● Return to Femininity
● Outfit Guidelines

● What’s Next
Appendices:
● Websites
● Quotes from Scripture,
Saints, Popes, Private
Revelation
● Notification Regarding
Men’s Dress Worn by
Women, by Cardinal Siri

The author is a former cable network anchor, image consultant,
actress, model and beauty queen, who abandoned it all to be a
stay-at-home mother. She is also an award-winning writer, radio
and television talk show host and speaker, who is widely sought
after because of her lively, interactive style and fresh approach
to living out the Catholic Faith in daily life.

Parents, Children and the Facts of Life

The Valiant Woman:
Conferences for Women

Fr. Henry V. Sattler

To Parents, sex education means primarily
Msgr. Landriot, Archbishop of Rheims
the training of boys and girls to be pure and
The most valiant of all women is
innocent, and eventually to enter marriage
the Blessed Virgin Mary. Although
with a noble and holy purpose. Fr. Sattler
this virtue is most manifest as a gift of
has written this book to help parents fulfill
the Holy Ghost, it is also manifest in
this extremely important duty. Applying the
the daily trials of the soldier of Christ
traditional Catholic principles to very practical
who conquers inordinate self-love with
questions, he explains what parents should tell
God’s grace.
their children, when and how they should tell
The valiant (strong) woman does
it, what psychological and moral dangers they
not have to be a St. Joan of Arc,
must avoid, and what questions they should
but she must rule well her home in
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proper Catholic approach to teaching children
This book is an extended version of
the “facts of life.” In these days of classroom
discourses delivered to married women. Each address begins with a theme
“sex education” and classroom “chastity education,” this classic Catholic
drawn from the final verses of the similitudes of Solomon. Landriot then
handbook, which was first published in 1953, but which is absolutely up-toexplains the moral of the passage with a practical brilliance that could
date even today, is urgently needed now, probably more so than at any other
only come from a confessor whose heart was well seasoned in discerning
time in the history of the Church. This book sold over 750,000 copies and,
the particular characteristics and maternal predispositions of the feminine
despite the lapse of time, still reads as though written today!
soul. What emerges is an achievable ideal for every truly Catholic woman.
271pp, softcover, index, STK 8138Q $12.50
Not one page fails to demonstrate what grace, what beauty, and what joy
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a
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E dit n de d Michael Davies.
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Cranmer’s Godly Order is a classic...
revised and expanded by Mr. Davies
during his final years. Drawing upon
the best of Catholic and Protestant
scholarship and on primary sources,
Davies traces the steps by which the
ancient Catholic Mass became the Lord’s
Supper in the Church of England. And
these steps were changes–as Popes
and Reformers alike were at pains to
stress. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of
Canterbury under Henry VIII and Edward
VI and architect of the new liturgy, was
a master of the theology of the Mass,
and hated it. The parallels between the
Anglican liturgy and the New Mass of
the 1960s will be uncomfortably obvious!
This book forms volume one of Davies’s Liturgical Revolution series with
volumes two and three due out by the end of 2005. Nowhere will you find a
more thorough example of the axiom “Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi est”–“As
you pray, so will you believe.”
372pp, sewn, illustrated, index, special appendices,
chronological table, STK# 3069Q $29.95

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“To remain indifferent to good fortune or
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Includes: l Propers in Latin and English for every day of the liturgical year (temporal
cycle and sanctoral cycle) l Assorted Propers and Hymns from non-Roman rites
(Byzantine, Chaldean, Maronite, Mozarabic, Ambrosian, etc.) l Lives of the Saints l
History of feastdays l Propers of Sunday Vespers l Propers of First and Second Vespers
for Feast Days l Thorough commentary on all of this in addition to introductions to
each season of the liturgical year l Appropriate morning and evening prayers for each
season l The best ways to hear Mass during each season l The best dispositions of soul
for receiving Holy Communion in each liturgical season l History of the various feast days
l Lives of the Saints l and much, much more!
Over 7,000pp, 15 beautiful 5" x 7" hardcover volumes, STK# 8143, $100.00

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2005-2006 Society of
Saint Pius X Chapel
& Priory Directory:
US and International

Includes every SSPX
chapel in the world and
SSPX and affiliated
schools in the USA.
Priories are listed as well.
Also includes:
 Driver’s prayer
 Regulations on the
Eucharistic fast.
61pp, softcover,
STK# 8124Q $3.95

The Chapel Veil

The New Rosary

Is the chapel veil extinct? No!
This booklet gives the reasons,
based on Holy Scripture & the
Church Fathers, why two college
ladies still wear the chapel veil in the
presence of our Lord.
In two essays, the chapel veil
is shown as a symbol which
helps the faithful understand the
vocation and identity of woman, both
in the order of creation and in the
New Covenant sacrifice of the
Holy Eucharist.

In 1972, Annibale Bugnini
proposed to rearrange the
Rosary. Pope Paul VI responded
to this ridiculous proposal through
the Vatican Secretary of State:
“[T]he faithful would conclude that
‘the Pope has changed the Rosary,
and the psychological effect would
be disastrous....Any change in it
cannot but lessen the confidence
of the simple and the poor.”
And yet, in 2002, Pope John
Paul II changed the Rosary. Why?

Elizabeth Black and Emily Griswold

23pp, softcover,
STK# 8135Q $3.25

Christopher Ferrara

40pp, softcover,
STK 8137Q $7.00

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